Bloggy Moms Writers Workshop #1 A Quote that moves you...

"Birthing is the most profound initiation to spiritulality a woman can have" 

~Robin Lim

I chose this quote because of I think it is so true.  Its one of the quotes I have on the main page of my Doula website.  Birth can be such a deeply spiritual experience if you allow it.  There is nothing more empowering and deeply moving than the feeling experienced during and just after the birth of your child.  For me these feelings were even stronger and more intense when I let my labor and birth progress on its own with no medical augmentation or intervention.  

With my first daughter labor was scary and stressful because I had no control, and I hate having no control!  I also believe my feelings about my birth were deeply affected by the different medications I was given during my labor to speed things up.  I was only in labor of 9 hours total, from the time my water broke until I delivered, so there was really no need to "speed things up" in my case.  I didn't know that then nor did I know that I should have been in control and that the choices were mine to make, or that there were choices!  

With my second daughter I was much more prepared and had a new philosophy on how I wanted my birth.  I change hospitals and care providers to help facilitate this.  I was not in a rush to have my daughter but was scheduled to be induced for medical reasons at 39 weeks.  I was ecstatic when my labor began on its own the night before my induction.  I labored at home for 2 hours, completely alone except for my sleeping 3 year old daughter.  I felt nothing but pure calm once my contractions began.  (I had felt this same feeling of overwhelming calm with my first labor but it disappeared once I was admitted to the hospital.)  When my girls father arrived to drive me to the hospital his energy effected my calm but once I was there and assured everything was progressing perfectly, and quite quickly, my feeling of calm returned.  I was already 8 cm dilated and in the transition phase of labor!  Just 43 minutes after I arrived at the hospital I gave birth to my beautiful second daughter with no medications, augmentations or interventions.  The entire process was calm, empowering and beautiful.  

My feeling were so intense and I truly have never felt so amazingly close to God as after my younger daughters birth.  I was truly amazed that God had made me so wonderfully that I could have grown such an amazing, perfect, tiny person.  That I could have had such a perfect birth experience.  It was more than I had ever thought possible and the feelings were almost overwhelming but filled me with an indescribable joy!  My birth experiences are what led me to become a doula and become passionate about helping women have the experience they are hoping for so they to can feel the deeply spiritual beauty of birth.