A Mother is Born

A Mother is Born

As a young woman learning that I was expecting my first child, I was initially thrilled beyond belief.  For days I ran the words around in my mind that I was pregnant and still couldn’t grasp that it was a reality.  It was like after my engagement to be married, fiance sounded so foreign.  In the beginning I was just trying to digest the magnitude of these words.  After the reality began to sink in that I was going to be a mother, I dutifully went about the business of preparing for motherhood only I wasn’t really sure what that entailed.  We called family to inform them of our news, made an appointment with the OBGyn and I went to Babies R Us.  My first two purchases were the book, “What to expect when you are expecting” and the adorable “Mommy Bear”, it was a stuffed teddy bear that played sounds of the womb, presumably to comfort my new arrival when it was put to sleep in its crib.  The only stories I had ever heard about birth were the stories I had heard from my mother about my birth and the births of my two younger brothers.  My mother’s experience was typical of her generation and frightening to say the least.  I had grown up hearing how terrible childbirth was and believed that it was a horrible obstacle that must be endured by women before they could become mothers. 

My first appointment with my midwife was exciting as well as scary.  This was when reality hit that I was going to be required to make important decisions on matters that I knew nothing about.  I was facing an internal struggle because, I had been raised in the traditional medical model and had always proudly regarded myself as a “good patient” believing that this was best for my health however, I had also decided to become a chiropractor and at that time was in my second year of chiropractic college.  Since deciding to become a chiropractor, I had met people who had an entirely different paradigm from the one I had grown up with.  Most of the people I had met who already had children gave birth to their babies naturally, many of them had home births, a concept that was completely foreign to me.  I had learned enough at this point to know that a birth without unnecessary intervention was best for my baby but, didn’t know what that meant.  Most of all I feared that a natural birth would be something that would be too difficult for me to accomplish and the fear of failure haunted me.  Partly due to peer pressure, I felt that I should at least learn more about a natural birth so, during this first appointment, I told my midwife that I wanted to try to have a natural birth.  I am so thankful today that she gave me a copy of a newspaper article about an obstetrician named Dr. Bradley who started a natural childbirth method known as the Bradley Method.  I recalled that one of my fellow students mentioned the class as well and after reading the article, I was inspired and convinced to take the class. 

My husband and I signed up for the Bradley Class and began learning about things we had never even discussed.  We quickly learned that there was a lot to having a baby and realized the importance of making informed decisions.  Prior to this class, I had not realized how many decisions had to be made regarding this new life that my husband and I were responsible for and that despite what we had been led to believe there was more than one option and in many cases, the traditional options had risks associated with them that we never realized. 

I made the commitment that I would do everything possible to keep my pregnancy low risk so that I had the best possible chance of giving birth to my daughter naturally with as little intervention as possible. By the time I became pregnant, I had already been under wellness chiropractic care for years.  I continued with my regular adjustments throughout my entire pregnancy and as a result, discovered that I felt great, had lots of energy and didn’t experience many of the discomforts commonly associated with pregnancy.  I also adhered strictly to the recommendations of both my midwife and my Bradley instructor.  These instructions included recommendations for a healthy diet and regular exercise. 

As the pregnancy progressed and my belly grew, we began sharing with our family’s the decisions we were making regarding the birth of our baby.   The reaction of our family ranged from supportive to concerned with my mother being the most concerned.  She remembered all to well her experiences with childbirth and the prospect of her only daughter now following in her footsteps worried her. My mother resolved to be at the birth presumably to offer support. I am now convinced that at least subconsciously, my mother wanted to be there for me after the birth because she feared that I would be disappointed with the experience. 

The big day arrived and with it came all the anticipated excitement and perhaps a little chaos.  We had our bags packed for the birthing center, our call lists were ready and we had extra copies of our birth plan in hand.  We were very well prepared and because of all the preparation we had done throughout the pregnancy, we felt very comfortable in the care of the birth team we had assembled.  Everything went beautifully just as planned and our daughter was born naturally with no medications or unnecessary interventions.  Shortly after the birth of my daughter, I had a few moments alone with my mother when she tearfully shared with me that she was so happy to have been able to share in the birth of her grandchild and that she “had no idea that it could be like that”.  In this moment I was so moved by the beauty of the miracle that we had just experienced and by the realization that I would be shaped by it for the rest of my life. 

Becoming a mother is truly an opportunity to experience the awesome miracle of life.  In the moment of birth not only is a new life born, so is a mother who will care for that new life.  I was so moved and forever changed by my own experience that I wanted to become a chiropractor that cares for expectant mothers and their babies.  After graduating from Life University in 1998, I continued my training in this area and feel very blessed to have found my calling.  In my practice, I am able to combine my knowledge and experience in both pregnancy and chiropractic care to help other women on their paths to becoming mothers.