You have about 40 weeks to mentally wrap your head around giving birth. You'll read and watch birth stories unfold, take birthing classes, and write out your plan to share with your birth team. You'll be as ready as you possibly can be, but what happens when those contraction waves start flowing? What happens when reality hits and you realize that you are actually going to birth a baby?

While baking your baby as long as possible is advised, if you are at 40 weeks and just plain done, there's no harm in trying to coax that baby out!

More than 1/3rd of unplanned c-sections that occur in the United States are due to women “Failing to Progress” during their labor.   This statistic is upsetting.  If mothers were properly educated on labor, birth, and their rights during the entire process, the statistic would be drastically lower. A failure to progress generally means a failure to wait, a failure to allow the woman’s body to work, and a failure to let a woman own her body.

So you want to know when your baby will be joining you earthside.  You are either over the whole pregnant-thing, or you are just so excited and anxious that you are looking for clues.  The internet is full of crap-shoot ideas that will get your hopes up for weeks possibly!  Don’t read too much into any of it.  The truth is that your baby will come when he is ready.  We are not meant to pick our children’s birthdates, and we are all meant to grow our babies until they are ready to be born.

Another topic that most women tend to avoid talking about:  Lochia.  Hell, most women probably don’t even know the word! Lochia is the bleeding that takes place after giving birth. It doesn’t matter whether you have a medicated vaginal birth, a natural homebirth, or a c-section, you will experience this lovely stage of motherhood.

We have all heard about hospitals being flooded with birthing mothers on the days surrounding the full moon, but it may not be the moon that is sending these women into labor. Science seems to point to these instances as coincidence only, but don't worry, I've found something that science does say triggers some labors: the weather.

The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released a document yesterday that discusses the healthy laboring mother and how to help her have a successful birth.

Preparing for labor can be intimidating, but putting it off will leave you terrified in the moment. Take the time to be educated about your body and the birth you will experience.

Every woman handles stress and pain differently.  Do you yell? Curse? Cry? Sleep? Need a hug? Want to be alone?

Just as every woman is different, every labor is different.  I have been teaching Bradley Method Childbirth Education classes for over 5 years now, and no two couples share the same experience.  I actually love listening to just how different everyone’s story is.