When Everything Feels Bigger: Three Tools for Hope in Birth

If you want a physiological birth but feel overwhelmed by the vehement opinions on birth and accosted by the horror stories of the stranger in the grocery store, I’ve got 3 tools to help guide you.

1. Get curious about your why. Take ten minutes once a day for three days to ask yourself these questions: what do I expect from birth (sights, sounds, outcomes, location, interactions, roles)? Who or what shaped these ideas and does my life match that example? What do I want from and for my birth? The answers to those questions will help you uncover hidden fears and expectations, discover assumptions, and connect your heart, brain, and efforts to a unified preparation.

2. Seek guidance from other women. AI can give you a slew of resources, regurgitated adages, and quippy affirmations. It can even pull research, expert opinion, and guidelines together in a more concise template. But pregnancy, birth, & motherhood need real, experienced, PERSONAL discovery. This means you need to find an older mama, a grandma, an auntie down the road, a midwife or doula in your community who shares your values, can listen to your story, and speak LIFE. If you can’t do that, read Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth (Ina May Gaskin)¹ or listen to some positive birth stories on Spotify, YouTube, or IG. I’ve got a few in my playlist, but there are so many available now.

3. Embrace the why and worry. I know this sounds backwards, but your instincts as a mother are already kicking in. Those uncertainties and concerns about growing your child are training ground for raising that child in such a chaotic world. If you want a few quick fixes for a healthy birth, mama I’m sorry I don’t have any answers. Not because I lack the tools to guide you, but because birth is not broken. Your pregnancy is not broken. And YOU are not broken! If you understand your why and can articulate your values; if you can fill your mind and soul with real human connection and stories, then as concerns arise you can hold them with an open hand and assess where the question comes from and what you can learn from its answer. If you learn nothing, let it go and respond to the questions that do align with your why; pivot in the situations that impeach your values.

And remember mama, the wilderness is vast, but the paths have been carved by every child to have been born and the mothers that carried them. You will find many paths, you get to choose which one to follow.

Everything feels bigger in pregnancy - from what food you want for dinner to the way the toilet seat has been broken for three months but all of a sudden it’s a glaring hazard of safety and oh my gosh how can I take care of a tiny human if I can’t even keep my house in order — and before you know it everything is spiraling.

Take a breath, feel it expand your lungs, your belly, your back.

Mama, your world is expanding because that is the essence of motherhood. That is the wonderful and terrifying design of this season. Hormones rise, blood volume increases, emotional capacity deepens, purpose blossoms. And that baby expands your vision and the influence you have on the world. Motherhood is not limiting. It’s a frontier of love and impact.

So yes, everything is in fact bigger in pregnancy - from the weight of decisions to your bra and shoe size.