Let’s Talk About Water Birth: Fluid Pain Relief

My second daughter was born at home via water delivery. Today is her three-month birthday. Today I rejoice in her magical birth. I had planned a water birth at home from the very beginning. I knew that having a water birth would probably be the best thing for me to do, and I was very excited about it. I only wish that I had delivered my first in the same way, but being a young first time mother, it wasn’t something that I knew enough about. In the almost five years before becoming pregnant again, I had come across the … Continue reading

Let’s Talk About Dealing with Grief from Birth Loss

Having something other than your ideal birth can be a painful experience, especially if you truly desired to deliver naturally. Often, women who end up with an emergency c-section feel a sense of guilt, loss, and even failure. Or perhaps it wasn’t a cesarean that you or someone you know is grieving over, but an intervention that you desired to avoid. Sometimes opting for pain-relieving drugs can make a woman feel like she had less of a birth experience than she desired to. My first delivery went very well, and was a successful homebirth. I was very proud of myself, … Continue reading

The Let’s Talk Pregnancy Blog in the New Year

In closing my very first month as a Pregnancy Blogger, I am closing out a year as well. I would like to say thank you to those of you that have read my entries so far. I’m having a wonderful time writing about a topic that is very near and dear to me. I hope you all are enjoying reading as much as I am writing. Here is a look-back on December 2006 and a look forward to the things I will touch on in the New Year: I talked about a lot of things that relate to the first … Continue reading

Let’s Talk About the Week in Review

This week I touched on some intimate pregnancy issues, and some that may affect a woman in early stages of pregnancy. In Let’s Talk About Pregnancy Intuition 1, I suggested that we as women can sense pregnancy before we get that positive test result. This can be an amazing thing for a woman, especially if she has been trying to conceive. In Let’s Talk About Dreams During Pregnancy, I gave simple tips on how to use your dream journal as therapy. Sometimes our dreams can help us channel our feelings in a positive way. In Let’s Talk About Pregnancy Intuition … Continue reading

How a Transgender Couple Became Parents

When a couple is ready to become parents, they will do almost anything to make that happen. The desire to produce children who carry the parent’s DNA is strong. The Bowsers are a couple who wanted to have children and were able to produce two healthy sons that are biologically their own. The thing that makes this happy story a little different is that both parents happen to be transgender. Bianca and Nick Bowser were featured on 20/20. Their story is, in many ways, similar to thousands of other couples. They met. They fell in love. They eventually decided that … Continue reading

How to Mentally Take Control of Your Labor Pain

Have you ever wondered why a person will cringe at the thought of a vaccination, but will gladly let someone put a piercing gun to their lobes for a new pair of earrings? Some people hate going to the dentist, but have no problem putting on a pair of rollers blades and burning down the bike path like they have jets on their skates. Pain is relative, and our experience with pain has more to do with our understanding of it than the physical amount of it. Sometimes all we need to endure pain is a sense of purpose and … Continue reading

What If You Don’t Make It To The Hospital?

I think every pregnant woman thinks about the possibility of going through an emergency birth – having the baby before she arrives at the hospital, or before her doctor arrives at her house if she is having a home birth. Images of women giving birth in taxi cabs come to mind, or, if you’ve ever seen the show “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant,” images of women giving birth in their bathtubs. It sounds so scary, then again, why should it be? I often wonder why something so common and so natural is so frightening and mysterious to most of … Continue reading