Informed Choice: How to Assert Your Rights During Birth

If you have done any amount of digging into the birth-y blogosphere, you have probably come across the phrase “informed consent” in regard to interventions that may be offered to you during your pregnancy and birth experience. Informed consent is a bit of a buzzword right now, and for good reason. There are countless stories…

Sexuality in Birth: Making the Connection

There's a movement you may or may not have heard of in the natural birth community. It is a movement to educate women about the possibility of having a pleasurable, even orgasmic, childbirth experience. Does that sound crazy to you? Or maybe just plain weird? If you're freaked out, don't worry! I am not going…

How Can Birth Partners Prepare for Labor?

When I first became pregnant at a very wise (ha!) 22 years old, I had a major pet peeve. I absolutely could not stand hearing a father or other non-pregnant partner say, "We're pregnant." Whenever someone said to me and my husband, "Oh, you guys are pregnant?" I would jump in with a very adamant,…

Staying Positive When Google is Scary

How many times have you Googled, "Is (insert weird thing happening to your body) a pregnancy symptom?" only to be directed to a Mommy Board full of women telling each other everything from, "That's totally normal" to "I had that and almost died!" I know with my first baby especially, I spent hours on Google and…

One Doula’s Favorite Pregnancy Books

I love reading. Put me in a big bookstore with a good cup of coffee in my hand and I'll be happy forever. Even if you aren't a huge reader, pregnancy is an important time to learn all you can! Whether it be podcasts, conversations with your doula, audio books, or paper books, learn all…

5 Birth Affirmations for Your VBAC

If you've hung around my blog at all, you know I love birth affirmations. I love how changing your language can literally change your brain and shift your experiences. This is especially true for one of my favorite categories of people: moms pursuing a vaginal birth after a cesarean. After having my own experience with…

Baby Showers or Blessingways?

Most women are pretty familiar with the standard baby shower. Cupcakes, the clothes pin game, measuring mom's belly, gifts, ect. Baby showers are a wonderful way to come together and bless the expecting family with things they need, and show support for the pregnancy! I loved all of my baby showers, and so appreciate the…

Choosing a Provider for Your Pregnancy

Often, when I ask women how they chose their care provider for their pregnancy, I am met with a bit of confusion. "I'm just seeing the OB that I've seen for years" is a pretty common response. If they didn't already have an OB, they maybe just called up the office that their insurance covered,…

3 Easy DIYs For Your Third Trimester

The third trimester can be an exciting, but exhausting, time! It can be tempting to rush around doing all of the last minute things you want to get done before baby arrives. Combine that with the "nesting" urge, and many women find that they are over-doing it when they might actually benefit more from slowing…

Embrace Your Power in Birth: How to Believe in Your Body

When I talk to women about their feelings regarding birth, they initially fall into one of two camps. Either they will say something like, "It would be too hard for me to do without drugs," or if they have decided to pursue a drug-free labor, they may say things like, "I hope I am strong…