On Freedom and Fear Part 2

I have a beautiful story for you today.

A story of a birthing person who ended up with exactly the birth she DIDN’T want.

When I met her she told me repeatedly how much she hated hospitals and would not be able to let herself surrender enough to birth in a hospital.

At every visit she reiterated how much she did not want to birth in a hospital.

Well, if you and I have worked together, you know that I tell my clients that if they have strong feelings about birthing at the hospital, they are often more likely to be given the opportunity to face those feelings. 

By needing to birth at a hospital.

As we worked together throughout her pregnancy, she confided that she had a lot of fear about the pain of labor. 

Like A LOT. 

So much so that when we had a session together to work on releasing this fear…

 we had to stop because she started vomiting!

It really surprised me that she was so afraid of birth because she strikes me as so grounded and centered.
Someone who would embrace the challenge of labor and birth. 

Instead she rose to the challenge of facing her fear of the pain…

By the time she hit her safe date of 37 weeks, she felt totally ready to surrender to whatever sensations her birth might bring. 

She felt free from the fear of pain!! 

Excited to meet her baby!!

And at the very next appointment, we discovered baby had flipped to a breech position.

Oh boy, this brought up a whole new set of challenges… and she met them with grace. 

She did acupuncture, chiropractic, spinning babies, we tried abdominal massage, we tried so many ways to encourage baby to flip back down. We also scheduled an external version at the hospital.

She was having contractions for 24 hours or more before her version, but told herself they were just her uterus trying to help turn the baby. She relaxed through them and thanked her body for doing its best to help. When she arrived at the hospital for the version, she was already 8cm dilated!

The thing she had feared her entire pregnancy became…. Something she hardly noticed. She had no fear of the pain, and in fact almost didn’t notice the pain because she just didn’t think it was her birthing time yet!

What a testimony to the power of our minds.

When we let go of what we THINK is going to happen, things just HAPPEN. 

She had her baby at the hospital, surgically no less, after over 24 hours of what she didn’t even think was labor and do you know what happened?? 

She overcame her fear of hospitals along the way. 

Magic. 

Could this have been the plan all along? A plan for her to see her own strength? To overcome her fears? 

Maybe. What I know is that she is happy. Happy to have experienced labor, and happy to have her babe in her arms. What a beautiful testimony to the freedom we can have from fear, even through what might seem the worst possible circumstances.

What fears have you been holding on to that might be ready to fall away?