Willow’s Birth Story
My labour was supposed to be 3-5 hours long, "joyful, flowing, & relaxing” according to what I visualized. I read that now and laugh! It was none of those things.
Yoga has made the biggest impact on not just my pregnancy but my life in general. I can’t imagine how anyone gets through their day, pregnant or not, without it. My baby is very calm because I am. My labour was much calmer than most as well, I believe. I was told that not every woman can have complete, calm conversations at 7 centimetres dilated.
HypnoBirthing also had a huge impact on my pregnancy, labour and birth. It gave me more confidence in my beliefs and helped me to have a much more positive pregnancy in a world that is full of people trying to tell us to trust in the system and not our body. It helped to give me the confidence to fight for what I wanted in my child’s birth experience and to believe that I could do it no matter what everyone else around me was saying.
My two best friends, Chris (my fiancé) and Theresa, helped me through labour more than I could ever describe Instead of the peaceful home-birth, after 15 ½ hours, I agreed to go to the hospital. I was getting very tired and there were special circumstances, we later found out. Our baby was ‘on the phone’ as a doula friend put it. Her head was tilted in my pelvis and the umbilical cord was wrapped repeatedly around both ankles. My midwife, Stacey, gave me the confidence to keep pushing throughout the 4 hours when I would have given up. Doctor Clarke was amazed at my progress and Chris had to tell him that I love to prove people wrong. From the very beginning of the surges until my daughter was born was almost 30 hours.
In the end, I gave birth vaginally, with an episiotomy and a vacuum had to be used, 2 ½ weeks past my estimated due date, to a very beautiful baby girl. Willow Kathleen Belanger Mills was born October 11, 2007, weighing 7 pounds 1.2 ounces.
Kim, Chris & Willow Mills
Frankford, On
March 7, 2011
There was a lot of chaos in our life after Willow was born. We were lucky that my husband could take Parental Leave for the whole nine months but I can't even imagine the kind of stress we would have felt if he hadn't since we were stressed to the max even with him off.
We had a midwife, so we were lucky enough to have home-visits for the first while to be sure Willow was doing well and the breastfeeding was on track. I have yet to meet someone that had the identical situation to us (or even close), everyone's situation is different, but it was all so stressful. With sleep deprivation, afterall, everything just seems to fall apart. There was tension between me and my husband since he was doing everything for the three of us and the two dogs and three cats we had...and I seemed to be doing nothing but nursing non-stop. I know someone else might have had it even worse than us but wasn't it supposed to be lovely and joyful when you bring your newborn home?
People always seemed to be giving advice that didn't apply to us... "be sure your mom comes to stay with you." Um, I don't have one. "Sister, cousin..." Nope. No support, no help. Nobody seemed to understand. Even the ones who said they understood would then talk about their kids staying at Grandma and Grandpa's house for the weekend. Ugh.
Recently, I read about a Doula course and was shocked to find out that there was more than one type of Doula. Postpartum Doula. I had no idea. I didn't feel I needed another support person at the time of labour and delivery, already having my husband and midwife there but, wow, how amazing it would have been to have a someone AFTERWARDS to support and assist us! And wouldn't it be great to do this for someone else?!
I've heard, from people who have people over to 'help', that they are sometimes no help at all. News flash: It isn't a help to merely hold the baby when there is dishes piling up, beds to be made, sweeping or vacuuming to be done. And SLEEP... you can never have too much of it!!
So, my Postpartum Doula training begins this month and I am excited. Excited for the possibility of an occasional baby-fix adding to my Mom & Baby Yoga baby-fix, but also for the possibility of changing a new parents' situation, for the better.
Find out about Kim's upcoming Postpartum Doula services here: http://patchoulimoon.com/postpartum-doula-c897.php
Find out about Kim's Prenatal and Postnatal Yoga classes here: http://patchoulimoon.com/yogac468.php
Find out about just a few of Kim’s pre/post natal products here: http://patchoulimoon.com/shopnows302.php?cID=4
