Transcript: Childbirth Preparation Methods: Sacred Pregnancy
Preggie Pals
Childbirth Preparation Methods: Sacred Pregnancy
[00:00:00]
Please be advised, this transcription was performed from a company independent of New Mommy Media, LLC. As such, translation was required which may alter the accuracy of the transcription.
[Theme Music]
LINDA GOLDSMITH: There are many methods of childbirth education that you may be investigating. Most women are familiar with some type of hypnosis base class or Lamaze or Bradley or birthing from within. I’m Linda Goldsmith the owner of Pregnancy Sanctuary and today we’re going to be discussing sacred pregnancy classes. You may not have heard of those. These classes bring back the age old tradition of women sitting with one another during pregnancy and birth, getting empowered, witnessing each other’s process and being there for one another during an incredibly powerful rite of passage becoming mothers. This is Preggie Pals episode 102.
[Theme Music/Intro]
ANNIE LAIRD: Welcome to Preggie Pals broadcasting from the birth education centre of San Diego. Preggie Pals is your weekly online on the go support group for expecting parents and those hoping to become pregnant. I’m your host Annie Laird. Thanks to all of our loyal listeners who’ve joined the Preggie Pals club. Our members get special episodes, bonus content plus giveaways and special discounts. See our website for more information. Another way for you to stay connected is by downloading our free Preggie Pals app and this is available both on the Android market place and the iTunes market place.
Samantha, she’s our brand new producer, is now going to give us some more information about our virtual panellist program that you can participate in no matter where you are in the United States.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Thanks Annie. So if you don’t live in San Diego but you’d like to be a panellist on our show, you can still participate through our virtual panellist program. Just like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter using #preggiepalsvp. We’ll post questions throughout the week prior to our taping and we’d love for you to comment so we can incorporate your thoughts in to our episode. You can also submit your questions directly to our experts. Learn more about our VP program through the community section on our website www.preggiepals.com.
ANNIE LAIRD: Great. Well let’s just get started with our panellist introductions I’m Annie. I’m 35, government contractor, labour doula occasionally and podcast host and I do some production on the side and blog and I do a lot of stuff so. Don’t have a due date for once. Got three girls, they’re all my babies, my school age daughter and my toddler and my infant. I know it’s that what you call, Samantha is that what you call baby under the age of one an infant?
SAMANTHA EKLUND: You know I still call her a baby.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Even though she’s going to be 18 months. But I know she’s a toddler age. I don’t want to say it.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Have another.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Yeah right.
ANNIE LAIRD: So I got three kids. I don’t have a due date that we know off so…
SAMANTHA EKLUND: So I’m Samantha. I’m 22. I’m a barista by morning, a producer by weekend. I do not have a due date even though I wish that I did. I have one little girl. Her name was Olivia. She’s going to be 18 months and the pistol that she is. She was an unexpected caesarean and I’m hoping for a VBAC next time around.
ANNIE LAIRD: Olivia. That’s a really popular baby name.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: You know…
ANNIE LAIRD: Did you expect that was a popular…
SAMANTHA EKLUND: You know what, I hadn’t heard it a whole lot me and Kyle really like it alright we’ll go with it.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: And it seems like, like three or four months after she was born, this list came out. I was like oh got to go and check the list. And it was number three. And I was like you’re kidding me. You’re kidding me. So I’m hoping, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that she’s not going to be like one of four Olivia’s in her elementary school classes.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah. Yeah, probably.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: [Cross Talk]
ANNIE LAIRD: Well you know what I think parents were the only ones that really want a unique name for our child.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Right.
ANNIE LAIRD: I think our kids are really happy to fit in.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Yeah definitely. I agree.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah. So…
SAMANTHA EKLUND: It’s just a little bit of a bummer for me but…
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: She likes it, it’s worth it.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: It’s a beautiful name.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Thank you.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah. I like it too.
[Theme Music]
ANNIE LAIRD: Today on Preggie Pals we’re going to be going over and reviewing a news article. We do this occasionally on Preggie Pals. We review apps or we take a look at what’s going on in the news. So this one is somewhat recently here. Water births may not be safe for baby doctor’s warned. So this is the new joint guidelines from the American Academy of Paediatrics so the AAP and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, ACOG, Obviously very popular with business of being born they shoulder a lot.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Yes.
ANNIE LAIRD: And lot of celebrities. And Giselle she had a couple of water births…
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Right.
ANNIE LAIRD: You know so yeah what do you think about this Samantha?
SAMANTHA EKLUND: I think it’s really interesting. I’m sharing this with some friends and family and you know I find it really interesting that ACOG can come out with this statement that water births can be unsafe. If I’m remembering correctly it’s because of the risk of getting infection is what they’re concerned with.
ANNIE LAIRD: Okay.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: But it’s regular practice in the hospitals when the woman is on labour, and when a woman is giving birth to do vaginal checks every hour.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: And to put fetal monitors…
ANNIE LAIRD: Internally.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Internally.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: And it’s just, it’s amazing it’s almost a little bit contradictory to me…
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: That they do these things without worrying so much about water births are a concern. And I’m also wondering there’s a local hospital around that has tubs, so I’m wondering because of this official statement, if those are going to be no more or…
ANNIE LAIRD: I hope not.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: How about it’s going to work?
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah. I mean that the other concern that they had is that the yeah they did mention infections but there’ve been a few report of cases the baby is drowning ever after aspirating. I mean how did we all survive? You know…
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Right.
ANNIE LAIRD: In the water, in the amniotic fluid environment for nine months. That seems kind of like…
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Right. I’m wondering if those cases were you know babies that have come out have been able to inhale, take their first breath…
ANNIE LAIRD: And then go back on.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: And somehow were drowned unfortunately.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: And put back under the water. I’m wondering maybe if that’s the case. I’m not really sure.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah I mean every water births that I have seen, and Linda our expert she’s a labour doula as well so I know you’ve seen plenty of water births and you…
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah.
ANNIE LAIRD: Did you have a water birth with your third?
LINDA GOLDSMITH: With my third I did labour in the water.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LIONDA GOLDSMITH: The plan is to have a water birth but I ended up having, it was a VBA 2C. And so he was the first one coming through. Andy had a [inaudible 00:06:20] hand. Andy had not in the car that he was holding so there was a lot trying to come through on that first time passage. So after about an hour and a half, buoyancy wasn’t working so well so we got use gravity.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: So I didn’t actually have the baby in the water but I can speak to I think what the article is talking about are the new guideline which is a lot of times the baby comes out in a [inaudible 00:06:40] and a lot of times when mom will have water between the breast. And so that’s kind of when the baby snuggle down so that’s where some of the danger can be.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: So you got to really you know hold that baby up and…
ANNIE LAIRD: Get out of the water. Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Or just take some of the water out.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: You know get rid of some of the water. And sometimes you can do that if there’s a drain…
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: But if there’s not, it’s not that easy.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: But anyway it’s just yeah holding that baby up and being sure it’s out of the water in the cleavage.
ANNIE LAIRD: Right. Yeah. Yeah I’ve seen that video once and the mom had the baby like swimming underneath and it made me so uncomfortable of just watching this and seeing the baby underneath the water and I think it was a Russian…
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Oh yes.
ANNIE LAIRD: Hospital or something like that and it was a clear sided tub and the baby was just swimming in there and I just like want to just reach into the television and pull the baby up of the water because I was it made me feel so uncomfortable just like [inaudible] reaction. Every other doula in the room was like oh that was so beautiful and I’m like that made me feel so uncomfortable like I hate how everybody loved this video and I was the only one that hated it because just because it made me feel uncomfortable. But I think it’s human and that’s how we’re designed.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Yeah and we breathe oxygen.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah. You know what I wonder if some of the of these recommendations can maybe come from that. Maybe these groups are not comfortable with it because they just don’t see it. I don’t know.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Right it could be.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah. You know I guess it’s kind of sad to me just because I think there I always want to woman to have options you know.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Yeah.
ANNIE LAIRD: And have the birth that they want and obviously you know be as safe as possible but you know if there’s you know if there’s benefit for pain management or that it’s an easier birth in the water well then why not be able to have the choice.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: But I hope that this doesn’t discourage women.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah. Yeah.
[Theme Music]
ANNIE LAIRD: Today on Preggie Pals we’re continuing our series on childbirth education methods. Joining us today in our studio as our expert is Linda Goldsmith. She’s a labour doula. She’s the owner of pregnancy sanctuary. Linda welcome to the show and thanks for joining us.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Thank you so much for having me.
ANNIE LAIRD: As you know, those of you who have listened to Preggie Pals, we have different series and so a lot of series that we did for different types of childbirth education was done early in the year last year. And so I was pitching this to the owner of new mommy media and so it’s interesting because I’m like hey let’s get Linda in here. She’s local and she can talk about sacred pregnancy classes and she’s like sacred what like…
LINDA GOLDSMITH: It’s new.
ANNIE LAIRD: Exactly! And so maybe just to start it off because maybe a lot of our listeners don’t know what sacred pregnancy is.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah.
ANNIE LAIRD: So if you are in an elevator with someone and you have like 30 seconds to say like what sacred pregnancy I mean what did you say to them?
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Well sacred pregnancy is more of a movement. It’s more of an overall life philosophy but I would say the biggest thing is it’s just its sitting down with other pregnant women in a circle. So the husbands aren’t at the class. They come to one out of the eight classes.
ANNIE LAIRD: Oh okay.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Its women for women. Its women, the age old tradition of women circling with other women and all the benefit knowledge we get from that and to I don’t know encourage the faith on our own wisdom and to acknowledge it. To me that’s that has lots to do with empowerment. But we’ll get more into that as we go.
ANNIE LAIRD: That’s so neat you know the time to sit down with other ladies. You know I think sometimes I know in my pregnancies I made a conscious decision not to watch I don’t even know if one every minute or a baby’s story or any of those are but they’re very fear based and there’s just so much scary stuff out there in the media. To just be able to turn that off, and be just with a group of women face to face.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Well it goes deeper than that because unlike traditional childbirth education classes, we do not talk about dilation or cervix or womb. None of that comes up. It’s all topics, connection, sacred space, fear, forgiveness, honouring, romance, so our topics are totally different than the typical childbirth education class.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: After you take the initial eight classes series, there is a four class series you can do later on the pregnancy. And it is it touches a little bit more on that stuff but still not a thing like a traditional childbirth class. So for that reason I always recommend that these are great classes for second and third time moms. I’m a big proponent of on the first baby you know you needed the class to figure out how to get that baby out.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: I really think it’s important to know how the female body works and…
ANNIE LAIRD: It can be embarrassing too to go into the hospital and be like your baby like okay so your 4cm dilated and then you’re like di what?
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Right. What’s dilated?
ANNIE LAIRD: What’s dilation? Yeah. Babies coming out of where? I don’t know.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Exactly.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: And you have to know that stuff and I really think it’s important for the mother and the father to take those classes together or the partners. But then you’re on baby number two, nobody wants to take the classes the second time. Maybe take like a one day refresher.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: But they really don’t want to sit through classes again and so but the women really need other women. They really-really need each other because our society is you know when travel happen back like on the forties, nobody lives near their families anymore. Very rarely do we have our cousin and our aunts and our grandmas and our moms to sit in circle with you know so and even our communities. I live in a great, great neighbourhood of Encinitas California but we don’t sit in circle you know. I mean we’re there for each other, we hug each other but it’s not the same as it used to be. So you have to create these circles. And when you’re with other women who are in the same position that you are meaning pregnant, expecting a baby, probably a second or third baby, there’s just a lot be glint from other women. It’s very; I can’t underestimate the value that you get from other people. So I don’t even say I teach these classes. I just facilitate. The women come, this is our speaking, I’m holding a speaking doll, you have a speaking doll and when you speak when you’re done you pass and you say you know I’m Linda I have spoken. And the person that receives it says, has to say you know you have been heard. So nobody is interrupting you. You really get a chance to talk. And the classes are two hours long but frankly they could be five hours long. Well they have to get back to their toddler most of the time.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: So we do had to have an end but it’s hard sometimes and I don’t like cutting people off but there is a sisterhood that happens over and over again which is, is a bond that is usually not broken after the babies arrived. It’s usually you create this bond with these people and another unique thing for sacred pregnancy, a couple of things. One is that it doesn’t matter how far long you are. You can have a gal six weeks along and thirty-six weeks along on the same class. So you don’t have to be a certain amount of the way just dating and I really like that because women can gain you know things from other people. You can celebrate when somebody goes off to have their baby and then they came back with their baby and…
ANNIE LAIRD: Does it ever happened in there one that you facilitated where they didn’t make it all the way through because they joined kind of later?
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Well our friend Miss Cherry.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Yeah she was at the circles and she just…
ANNIE LAIRD: She just had her baby.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Yeah just had her baby 4/4/14.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: So yeah that definitely happens but that’s okay and you don’t because we’re not covering the curriculum exactly, it’s okay if you don’t make it through all the classes. I mean it’s better if you do because we cover amazing topics. But if you don’t, it’s not like oh no now I’m never going to know how to nurse my baby.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: You know like in other classes.
ANNIE LAIRD: We didn’t get to the breastfeeding portion
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: So that’s really nice. But I think another big thing that separates it from the other childbirth classes in addition to just being for women that you can come at any point in your gestation is that a lot of childbirth techniques, which I’m a fan of all of them, they kind of thought labour and birth as rite of passage. And sacred pregnancy really promotes pregnancy as a rite of passage. So we’re celebrating the rite of passage of pregnancy together instead of just waiting for the day that that’s all going to go down.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: So I don’t see that on other techniques so much. We are really honouring the pregnancy. So it’s wonderful.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah. How big are the classes? I mean can you have like up to like twenty women or something like that or do you try to keep it on a certain size?
LINDA GOLDSMITH: It would be a great problem to have twenty women that I would have to turn away. But no I mean optimally about group dynamics is anywhere from six to twelve. But I can’t even imagine twelve. Honestly I feel more comfortable with about five to eight because otherwise you’re not going to your, it is going to be too tight. I mean you really have to expand the classes because when you have the talking stick…
ANNIE LAIRD: Or doll or whatever you have.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah the talking doll yeah really women really do want to talk when they have a sacred safe space to do it.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: And so when they start talking it can be for ten minutes and if you got eight women and that’s eighty minutes right there we haven’t even done the art projects or we haven’t done the you know the other things that we’re going to do in the class.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: So I think five to eight is really good. That will be my preference.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah. Samantha did you take any kind of childbirth education, you and Kyle?
SAMANTHA EKLUND: So you know I took the one that way I was going to be delivering. It was [inaudible 00:16:12] hospital and they were like I was like alright they’re teaching the class there I guess that’s the one I’m going to take. I mean I was 21 when I found out I was pregnant so I kind of took the same approach to everything like they’re all kind of the same and so just take it. And you know the teacher was great. She was really friendly. She was really nice. And it thought me what I needed to know.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: But it was again it didn’t honour the sacredness of pregnancy. It was you didn’t start the class until you were like 32 weeks pregnant.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah I took a hospital childbirth class, I took the one that is the shortest.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Like the weekend.
ANNIE LAIRD: I took like the weekend cram course. Yeah I wrote a blog about it on Preggie Pals. It’s kind of embarrassing to read now I’ll be like but you know how far you’ve come, you don’t know what you don’t know a lot. So that’s so interesting that you know sacred pregnancy is more of a focus sounds like on the second, third, fourth you know pregnant mom.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: The journey of the pregnancy. So most women they have two maybe three kids and so after you I think most of us, I’ll include myself, you make your mistakes on the first pregnancy in labour and birth a lot.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: And then you get to learn on your second. So there’s a lot of women on second or third are just craving everything they can get from this experience because the pregnancy is a rite of passage and it might be the last one.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: And so they really want, if you ask most women was your pregnancy experience is as rich as it could have been, most women will say no you know. And how they can be richer? Well connecting with other people, I mean that’s the answer for everything in life.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: How to be richer, by having a sincere authentic connection with other people especially ones going through the same ones. And a lot of the women that are in the second pregnancy circles, they’re working through the first birth story right. I mean there’s still oh here’s what I did, oh I can’t believe I didn’t take a longer course that thought me more or you know I can’t believe I didn’t have my husband with my feet every night or I really wish I would’ve you know blah blah blah. So those things are being processed…
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: In sacred pregnancy circles a lot.
SAMANTHA EKLUND:As someone who is suffering with some birth trauma and really unfortunate unexpected birth experience I would if I ever decided to take a second or third class, it sounds like that would really be interesting to be able to have some kind of almost like a therapy included inside of it.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah. And in one of the classes, they’re all, I mean the topics were all super important but I think one that you would probably resonate with would be mothers who fear and their forgiveness. So on the first baby the fear is usually fear of the unknown.
ANNIE LAIRD: Right.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: And on second baby it’s fear of the known. Right?
ANNIE LAIRD: Yes.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Okay. But on the forgiveness class you know that is forgiving past hurts. But a lot of the forgiveness that comes off is forgiving oneself, forgiving myself for not being good enough or not doing well enough for handling that wrong or whatever. And that could be very free.
ANNIE LAIRD: Right.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: And it frees up a lot of emotional space that can be filled with other yummy things that have to do with pregnancy in birth and labour. So…
SAMANTHA EKLUND: That’s fantastic.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah. But it’s self-therapy. It’s not, again I’m not teaching anything. It’s just…
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah the pregnant women are not lying on a couch on their left side.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Right.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: 45 degree angle with their feet on them.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah I know it’s not like that at all.
ANNIE LAIRD: It’s like that everybody is learning from each other.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah.
ANNIE LAIRD: That’s wonderful.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: And when you have that safe space to cry and release and say what your heart feels it can be very free.
ANNIE LAIRD: Great. When we come back we’re going to be discussing what you actually doing during your sacred pregnancy circles.
[Theme Music]
ANNIE LAIRD: Welcome back. Today we’re talking about sacred pregnancy childbirth classes. Linda Goldsmith is our expert. Now Linda you have all this cool things here at the table and obviously this is an audio podcast. We’ll talk a little bit about some of the stuff that you brought with you today. Now at a doula circle recently we did a candle collage. What’s the significance of doing a candle collage?
LINDA GOLDSMITH: So the first class of sacred pregnancy has to do with creating sacred space. And the purpose of sacred space is to really understand and honour the fact that what you’re doing, growing a child, is the most important thing on the planet. If there’s no people, nothing else matters right? So growing a human being is really important. In one of my circles right now there’s a surrogate I haven’t heard of the child she’s growing but she’s growing a child right.
So what you have to do is you have to set up a place in your home were everyday you check in, it’s a visual reminder, to check in and sit down, connect with the baby, take a moment and remember I’m divine, what I’m doing is vastly important, way more important than anything I did at work today. And so what we do is in the first class we do the altar candle and it’s a collage, it’s the things that are important to her that she puts on it. And then you take the altar candle home and create your sacred space. And it’s impetuous to create a sacred space.
So the candle in if itself has meaning but it’s really impetuous to create space in your home. And I’m a big fan of creating a just a little shelf by the side of your bed with your candle and a couple of other, you know chase keys up there especially maybe a statue of a pregnant woman. Because you have to sit down in your bed before you lay down on your bed. So if you just sit down in your bed and you’re facing your altar, you will take a couple of minutes to connect every day. And so that’s the purpose behind the candle…
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: It’s to create a sacred space so that every day you have connections with your baby.
ANNIE LAIRD: That’s beautiful especially when you already have that’s probably a toddler.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Right.
ANNIE LAIRD: It’s hard not to…
LINDA GOLDSMITH: [Cross Talk]
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: So that the altar really does help women to just pause every day. Even if it for just 30 seconds, pause touch your belly, say hi to your baby.
ANNIE LAIRD: Do women normally journal this part of this class? Is that another part of it that they do?
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah! Daily journaling is encouraged and you know if it happens once a week that’s okay too. But yeah journaling it’s self-discovery, self-growth, self-forgiveness so there’s a lot of that that goes on the journaling. And you don’t share the journaling unless you want to but yeah absolutely journaling.
ANNIE LAIRD: Not with other woman in class with, not with partner, not with anybody it’s just for you.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: No you can…
ANNIE LAIRD: Oh okay.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: If you want to. But I’m saying that’s not…
ANNIE LAIRD: Required.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Required a bit.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah we don’t say so what do you write on your diary?
ANNIE LAIRD: Now she’s going to read on page five of her journal…
LINDA GOLDSMITH: You’re right. Exactly!
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: No. No those are private thoughts but wonderful topics are brought up and you know discussed with the group and you may have obviously further reflection on it or as the week goes by, so like the week that we talk about food and body image.
ANNIE LAIRD: That sounds like my kind of topic right there.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Yes.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah.
ANNIE LAIRD: I’m all about the food.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: But it’s a very emotional topic. And one of the things that we do that I loved so much is you go around the room and you share your favourite food memory. And most of the time they are from our childhood. It’s something it don’t even have to be significant, it’s not like somebody made a two day meal and unveiled it. Very rarely is it thanksgiving dinner you know it’s not.
ANNIE LAIRDY: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: it’s something that some did it oh my grandma used to pour me the bowl of shredded oats and I really like it because we sat and talk and we got the cow for the milk or the milk from the cow or whatever.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: So it’s, so I really like that and then you move into body image and issues. That’s when the conversation really starts rolling. Women have a lot of energy around. Food and body image and then when you’re pregnant obviously that’s not an overweight body but then there’s cross overs all the time from lot of people in society.
ANNIE LAIRD: It’s hard here in the United States were it almost seems to be skinny equal’s value.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah totally.
ANNIE LAIRD: And so then in your pregnancy you’re not supposed to be skinny.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Right.
ANNIE LAIRD: So what is the value of that?
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Well in a lot of woman have shared with me in the circles that they love their pregnant body more than their non-pregnant body. You know they feel really proud of it. So they’re in the moment where they can really be kind to themselves.
ANNIE LAIRD: That’s awesome.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Authentically. But the trick is after you have the baby you still honour that body. So value that body for what it provided for you.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah. It grew that baby.
LINDGA GOLDSMITH: Yeah.
ANNIE LAIRD: Who’ve mention with a lot of our projects, how you incorporate paintings and art into your classes?
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Oh my gosh it’s so fun. It’s my favourite part. So we do many different things. In one of the classes you draw a mother wisdom card and these are just you know day to day...
ANNIE LAIRD: So you’re not saying like I’m drawing with the crayon.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: I’m sorry. There are from a deck of cards, a mother wisdom deck card. And then that card and the message that you picked for yourself, you incorporate that what you’re feeling about your pregnancy and that card and then you draw from there.
ANNIE LAIRD: So what would be an example of the type of card that you could draw then?
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Oh there’re so many wonderful cards. Here let me pull the book out so I can give you a good example. There are four different categories so there’s natural mother, animal mother, ancestral mother and divine mother. And if you draw say Mary unconditional love, and that shadow is judgement and then it goes into a big explanation of it all and you just sort of incorporate that into a painting. So you’re given an image of people are visual, you’re give a word and then from there you self-express.
ANNIE LAIRD: You know I think that’s so interesting you were mentioning about the fears and forgiveness and I mean what are the common fears that women do come to these circles with? You mention these are second time moms so it’s known fear.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Right.
ANNIE LAIRD: What types of topics are normally brought up?
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Well…
ANNIE LAIRD: What are the common things I mean they are fearing?
LINDA GOLDSMITH: I think the most common thing is you know birth is an ancient mystery and she alone holds the key to unlocking her birth but there’s a little bit of fear and I don’t know if I’m going to be able to solved this or unlock this mystery which of course we all do. But I think there’s some fear around that. There’s definitely well fear is not only something we feel but something that’s put upon us all the time by medical establishment on birth.
So it’s combating that sometimes its combating your fears down constantly and getting reassurance that I do feel like it’s safe to have a water birth and here’s the reasons why. I do think it’s safe to have a VBAC birth and here are the reasons why I’m a good candidate. You know so a lot of fears that come up, I don’t think we would have if the medical establishments wasn’t pushing a lot of fears on us. And then fear that you know, how am I going to do this, how am I going to have two kids and still have a romantic relationship with my husband.
We’re already fighting now about finances on one baby, how are we going to do this with two you know. And how are the decisions I’m making, am I making them out of fear or making them out of finances and how do I weigh through all that right? Maybe somebody is really wanting a home birth but they’re not contemplating the fact that the money is just something you have to prioritize.
If you want a home birth they’re four thousand dollars that kind of the end of the conversation. We can sit there and talk about what can we do trading, what going to do this, what going to do that, well prioritize it. How much do your purses cause, how much do your lunch cause? I mean you can decide what do you want to spend your money on. So fear about am I making good decisions really you know basically what I want or am I letting sort of society scare me too much to make decisions that aren’t good for me and my baby especially because maybe this is going to be my last pregnancy right?
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah. Well my midwife always says that a big part of birth itself before you go for kind of being pregnant to having a baby in your arms is surrender.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah. Oh yeah.
ANNIE LAIRD: So I think that in itself is also can induce some fear.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah.
ANNIE LAIRD: As well of like I want to control this. I wanted to be better than the last birth especially we’re talking second and third time moms but so how do you get what you want while surrendering. This is very scary. How would we talk a lot about fear so how do you incorporate the forgiveness statement to you classes?
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Well there’s one class in particular that covers, did you say forgiveness or fears?
ANNIE LAIRD: Forgiveness.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Forgiveness. Yeah.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: There are all kinds of different things we can do. Little ceremonies and rituals we can do for fear release. We all do them every day. Maybe we take a couple of deep breaths. But there’s again with the art and stuff, there are a lot of things that we do over and over again that I really like. So one is the spirit stick, we talk about that. Another one is self-expression and we talk about that. Just if you actually face your fear and talk about it, a lot of times that’s enough. If you just, I’m a big fan of the more I know the less I fear. I’m not an ignorant is bliss. I’m the opposite.
I want to know, I want to look at it, I want to feel uncomfortable and then I want to put it all back in the box and I’m going to put it over there. But I least I went through it so if I had to go through it again I feel like it’s not my first time visiting it. It was not as scary. So there’s self-expression that can be very helpful. Also a lot of very common thing is to write your fears down and then we take a community bowl and we all burn our fears. And we release them into the heavens because they’re not working for us anymore.
They don’t serve me anymore and I would like to release them. Another way we can do that is same thing, picking up a stone, holding on to it, putting your fear into it and then toss it into the ocean. Toss it into a pond or in a lake, tossing it just across the meadow and turning around and walking away from it. You don’t need that fear anymore. You’ve released it.
ANNIE LAIRD: Well thanks Linda for joining us today. For more information on Linda and her sacred pregnancy classes as well as information about any of our panellists, visit the episode page on our website. This conversation continues for members of our Preggie Pals club. After the show, Linda will be discussing the significance of a salt bowl ceremony and how it is created. To join our club, visit our website www.preggiepals.com.
[Theme Music]
JENNIFER DURBIN: Hi I’m Jennifer Durbin, the author or Pregnancy Tips for the Clueless Chick and the mother of two wonderful little boys. I’d love to share with you my tips for pampering yourself during your pregnancy. While you’re busy preparing for the arrival of your little one and all the craziness that will come with parenthood, don’t forget to take care of yourself and your partner. Having a baby is one of the most wonderful and difficult things in the world and every mother will tell you that a baby instantly becomes your number one priority. But for the sake of the baby and your sanity don’t forget to take care of yourself.
Whether you plan to get a prenatal massage or spend a day at the spa with your girl friend or even take a day off of work to do a whole lot of nothing, it’s important to schedule some time for yourself before things get crazy. You may want to plan a fun pre baby girls night out or date night were you’re not allowed to talk about the baby. Both are fun ways to celebrate you. It’s also fun to step outside of your box if you’re in a funk and wear something super trendy that you might not normally wear. If you’ve been cleared exercise during your pregnancy, find a local prenatal yoga or aqua aerobics class, this is not only a great way to exercise but also the perfect way to meet other pregnant women. And finally my favourite pamper yourself tip, make a list of all the pregnancy don’t that you’ve been dying to do, like eating sushi or having a glass of wine.
Then you can look forward to checking everything off of your list after the baby is born. While you’re planning for some much needed pampering don’t forget that your partner is on this wild ride with you. While you’re the one with all the aches and pains who cannot tie her own shoe, your partner has been there to listen to all of your woes and be a shoulder for you to cry on when your hormones were raging. Remember that time you spill grape juice on your brand new top and cried for two hours straight? So look for a special way that you can surprise him with his favourite dinner of a night out with the boys. For more great tips visit www.cluelesschick.com
[Theme Music]
ANNIE LAIRD: That wraps up our show for today. We appreciate you listening to Preggie Pals.
Don’t forget to check out our sister shows:
• Parent Savers for parents with newborns, infants and toddlers
• Twin Talks for parents of multiples.
• The Boob Group for moms who breastfeed their babies
Next week we’ll be continuing our series on hiring your care provider. Marla Hicks a licensed midwife will be on the show talking with us about how to hire your midwife.
This is Preggie Pals, your pregnancy your way.
[Disclaimer]
This has been a New Mommy Media production. Information and material contained in this episode are presented for educational purposes only. Statements and opinions expressed in this episode are not necessarily those of New Mommy Media and should not be considered facts. Though information in which areas are related to be accurate, it is not intended to replace or substitute for professional, Medical or advisor care and should not be used for diagnosing or treating health care problem or disease or prescribing any medications. If you have questions or concerns regarding your physical or mental health or the health of your baby, please seek assistance from a qualified health care provider.
SUNNY GAULT: New Mommy Media is expanding our line up of shows for new and expecting parents. If you have an idea for a new series or if you’re a business or organization interested in joining our network of shows through a co-branded podcast, visit www.NewMommyMedia.com .
[00:33:10]
[END OF AUDIO]
Episode Transcript
Preggie Pals
Childbirth Preparation Methods: Sacred Pregnancy
[00:00:00]
Please be advised, this transcription was performed from a company independent of New Mommy Media, LLC. As such, translation was required which may alter the accuracy of the transcription.
[Theme Music]
LINDA GOLDSMITH: There are many methods of childbirth education that you may be investigating. Most women are familiar with some type of hypnosis base class or Lamaze or Bradley or birthing from within. I’m Linda Goldsmith the owner of Pregnancy Sanctuary and today we’re going to be discussing sacred pregnancy classes. You may not have heard of those. These classes bring back the age old tradition of women sitting with one another during pregnancy and birth, getting empowered, witnessing each other’s process and being there for one another during an incredibly powerful rite of passage becoming mothers. This is Preggie Pals episode 102.
[Theme Music/Intro]
ANNIE LAIRD: Welcome to Preggie Pals broadcasting from the birth education centre of San Diego. Preggie Pals is your weekly online on the go support group for expecting parents and those hoping to become pregnant. I’m your host Annie Laird. Thanks to all of our loyal listeners who’ve joined the Preggie Pals club. Our members get special episodes, bonus content plus giveaways and special discounts. See our website for more information. Another way for you to stay connected is by downloading our free Preggie Pals app and this is available both on the Android market place and the iTunes market place.
Samantha, she’s our brand new producer, is now going to give us some more information about our virtual panellist program that you can participate in no matter where you are in the United States.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Thanks Annie. So if you don’t live in San Diego but you’d like to be a panellist on our show, you can still participate through our virtual panellist program. Just like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter using #preggiepalsvp. We’ll post questions throughout the week prior to our taping and we’d love for you to comment so we can incorporate your thoughts in to our episode. You can also submit your questions directly to our experts. Learn more about our VP program through the community section on our website www.preggiepals.com.
ANNIE LAIRD: Great. Well let’s just get started with our panellist introductions I’m Annie. I’m 35, government contractor, labour doula occasionally and podcast host and I do some production on the side and blog and I do a lot of stuff so. Don’t have a due date for once. Got three girls, they’re all my babies, my school age daughter and my toddler and my infant. I know it’s that what you call, Samantha is that what you call baby under the age of one an infant?
SAMANTHA EKLUND: You know I still call her a baby.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Even though she’s going to be 18 months. But I know she’s a toddler age. I don’t want to say it.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Have another.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Yeah right.
ANNIE LAIRD: So I got three kids. I don’t have a due date that we know off so…
SAMANTHA EKLUND: So I’m Samantha. I’m 22. I’m a barista by morning, a producer by weekend. I do not have a due date even though I wish that I did. I have one little girl. Her name was Olivia. She’s going to be 18 months and the pistol that she is. She was an unexpected caesarean and I’m hoping for a VBAC next time around.
ANNIE LAIRD: Olivia. That’s a really popular baby name.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: You know…
ANNIE LAIRD: Did you expect that was a popular…
SAMANTHA EKLUND: You know what, I hadn’t heard it a whole lot me and Kyle really like it alright we’ll go with it.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: And it seems like, like three or four months after she was born, this list came out. I was like oh got to go and check the list. And it was number three. And I was like you’re kidding me. You’re kidding me. So I’m hoping, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that she’s not going to be like one of four Olivia’s in her elementary school classes.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah. Yeah, probably.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: [Cross Talk]
ANNIE LAIRD: Well you know what I think parents were the only ones that really want a unique name for our child.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Right.
ANNIE LAIRD: I think our kids are really happy to fit in.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Yeah definitely. I agree.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah. So…
SAMANTHA EKLUND: It’s just a little bit of a bummer for me but…
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: She likes it, it’s worth it.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: It’s a beautiful name.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Thank you.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah. I like it too.
[Theme Music]
ANNIE LAIRD: Today on Preggie Pals we’re going to be going over and reviewing a news article. We do this occasionally on Preggie Pals. We review apps or we take a look at what’s going on in the news. So this one is somewhat recently here. Water births may not be safe for baby doctor’s warned. So this is the new joint guidelines from the American Academy of Paediatrics so the AAP and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, ACOG, Obviously very popular with business of being born they shoulder a lot.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Yes.
ANNIE LAIRD: And lot of celebrities. And Giselle she had a couple of water births…
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Right.
ANNIE LAIRD: You know so yeah what do you think about this Samantha?
SAMANTHA EKLUND: I think it’s really interesting. I’m sharing this with some friends and family and you know I find it really interesting that ACOG can come out with this statement that water births can be unsafe. If I’m remembering correctly it’s because of the risk of getting infection is what they’re concerned with.
ANNIE LAIRD: Okay.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: But it’s regular practice in the hospitals when the woman is on labour, and when a woman is giving birth to do vaginal checks every hour.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: And to put fetal monitors…
ANNIE LAIRD: Internally.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Internally.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: And it’s just, it’s amazing it’s almost a little bit contradictory to me…
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: That they do these things without worrying so much about water births are a concern. And I’m also wondering there’s a local hospital around that has tubs, so I’m wondering because of this official statement, if those are going to be no more or…
ANNIE LAIRD: I hope not.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: How about it’s going to work?
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah. I mean that the other concern that they had is that the yeah they did mention infections but there’ve been a few report of cases the baby is drowning ever after aspirating. I mean how did we all survive? You know…
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Right.
ANNIE LAIRD: In the water, in the amniotic fluid environment for nine months. That seems kind of like…
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Right. I’m wondering if those cases were you know babies that have come out have been able to inhale, take their first breath…
ANNIE LAIRD: And then go back on.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: And somehow were drowned unfortunately.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: And put back under the water. I’m wondering maybe if that’s the case. I’m not really sure.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah I mean every water births that I have seen, and Linda our expert she’s a labour doula as well so I know you’ve seen plenty of water births and you…
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah.
ANNIE LAIRD: Did you have a water birth with your third?
LINDA GOLDSMITH: With my third I did labour in the water.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LIONDA GOLDSMITH: The plan is to have a water birth but I ended up having, it was a VBA 2C. And so he was the first one coming through. Andy had a [inaudible 00:06:20] hand. Andy had not in the car that he was holding so there was a lot trying to come through on that first time passage. So after about an hour and a half, buoyancy wasn’t working so well so we got use gravity.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: So I didn’t actually have the baby in the water but I can speak to I think what the article is talking about are the new guideline which is a lot of times the baby comes out in a [inaudible 00:06:40] and a lot of times when mom will have water between the breast. And so that’s kind of when the baby snuggle down so that’s where some of the danger can be.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: So you got to really you know hold that baby up and…
ANNIE LAIRD: Get out of the water. Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Or just take some of the water out.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: You know get rid of some of the water. And sometimes you can do that if there’s a drain…
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: But if there’s not, it’s not that easy.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: But anyway it’s just yeah holding that baby up and being sure it’s out of the water in the cleavage.
ANNIE LAIRD: Right. Yeah. Yeah I’ve seen that video once and the mom had the baby like swimming underneath and it made me so uncomfortable of just watching this and seeing the baby underneath the water and I think it was a Russian…
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Oh yes.
ANNIE LAIRD: Hospital or something like that and it was a clear sided tub and the baby was just swimming in there and I just like want to just reach into the television and pull the baby up of the water because I was it made me feel so uncomfortable just like [inaudible] reaction. Every other doula in the room was like oh that was so beautiful and I’m like that made me feel so uncomfortable like I hate how everybody loved this video and I was the only one that hated it because just because it made me feel uncomfortable. But I think it’s human and that’s how we’re designed.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Yeah and we breathe oxygen.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah. You know what I wonder if some of the of these recommendations can maybe come from that. Maybe these groups are not comfortable with it because they just don’t see it. I don’t know.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Right it could be.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah. You know I guess it’s kind of sad to me just because I think there I always want to woman to have options you know.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Yeah.
ANNIE LAIRD: And have the birth that they want and obviously you know be as safe as possible but you know if there’s you know if there’s benefit for pain management or that it’s an easier birth in the water well then why not be able to have the choice.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: But I hope that this doesn’t discourage women.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah. Yeah.
[Theme Music]
ANNIE LAIRD: Today on Preggie Pals we’re continuing our series on childbirth education methods. Joining us today in our studio as our expert is Linda Goldsmith. She’s a labour doula. She’s the owner of pregnancy sanctuary. Linda welcome to the show and thanks for joining us.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Thank you so much for having me.
ANNIE LAIRD: As you know, those of you who have listened to Preggie Pals, we have different series and so a lot of series that we did for different types of childbirth education was done early in the year last year. And so I was pitching this to the owner of new mommy media and so it’s interesting because I’m like hey let’s get Linda in here. She’s local and she can talk about sacred pregnancy classes and she’s like sacred what like…
LINDA GOLDSMITH: It’s new.
ANNIE LAIRD: Exactly! And so maybe just to start it off because maybe a lot of our listeners don’t know what sacred pregnancy is.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah.
ANNIE LAIRD: So if you are in an elevator with someone and you have like 30 seconds to say like what sacred pregnancy I mean what did you say to them?
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Well sacred pregnancy is more of a movement. It’s more of an overall life philosophy but I would say the biggest thing is it’s just its sitting down with other pregnant women in a circle. So the husbands aren’t at the class. They come to one out of the eight classes.
ANNIE LAIRD: Oh okay.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Its women for women. Its women, the age old tradition of women circling with other women and all the benefit knowledge we get from that and to I don’t know encourage the faith on our own wisdom and to acknowledge it. To me that’s that has lots to do with empowerment. But we’ll get more into that as we go.
ANNIE LAIRD: That’s so neat you know the time to sit down with other ladies. You know I think sometimes I know in my pregnancies I made a conscious decision not to watch I don’t even know if one every minute or a baby’s story or any of those are but they’re very fear based and there’s just so much scary stuff out there in the media. To just be able to turn that off, and be just with a group of women face to face.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Well it goes deeper than that because unlike traditional childbirth education classes, we do not talk about dilation or cervix or womb. None of that comes up. It’s all topics, connection, sacred space, fear, forgiveness, honouring, romance, so our topics are totally different than the typical childbirth education class.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: After you take the initial eight classes series, there is a four class series you can do later on the pregnancy. And it is it touches a little bit more on that stuff but still not a thing like a traditional childbirth class. So for that reason I always recommend that these are great classes for second and third time moms. I’m a big proponent of on the first baby you know you needed the class to figure out how to get that baby out.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: I really think it’s important to know how the female body works and…
ANNIE LAIRD: It can be embarrassing too to go into the hospital and be like your baby like okay so your 4cm dilated and then you’re like di what?
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Right. What’s dilated?
ANNIE LAIRD: What’s dilation? Yeah. Babies coming out of where? I don’t know.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Exactly.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: And you have to know that stuff and I really think it’s important for the mother and the father to take those classes together or the partners. But then you’re on baby number two, nobody wants to take the classes the second time. Maybe take like a one day refresher.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: But they really don’t want to sit through classes again and so but the women really need other women. They really-really need each other because our society is you know when travel happen back like on the forties, nobody lives near their families anymore. Very rarely do we have our cousin and our aunts and our grandmas and our moms to sit in circle with you know so and even our communities. I live in a great, great neighbourhood of Encinitas California but we don’t sit in circle you know. I mean we’re there for each other, we hug each other but it’s not the same as it used to be. So you have to create these circles. And when you’re with other women who are in the same position that you are meaning pregnant, expecting a baby, probably a second or third baby, there’s just a lot be glint from other women. It’s very; I can’t underestimate the value that you get from other people. So I don’t even say I teach these classes. I just facilitate. The women come, this is our speaking, I’m holding a speaking doll, you have a speaking doll and when you speak when you’re done you pass and you say you know I’m Linda I have spoken. And the person that receives it says, has to say you know you have been heard. So nobody is interrupting you. You really get a chance to talk. And the classes are two hours long but frankly they could be five hours long. Well they have to get back to their toddler most of the time.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: So we do had to have an end but it’s hard sometimes and I don’t like cutting people off but there is a sisterhood that happens over and over again which is, is a bond that is usually not broken after the babies arrived. It’s usually you create this bond with these people and another unique thing for sacred pregnancy, a couple of things. One is that it doesn’t matter how far long you are. You can have a gal six weeks along and thirty-six weeks along on the same class. So you don’t have to be a certain amount of the way just dating and I really like that because women can gain you know things from other people. You can celebrate when somebody goes off to have their baby and then they came back with their baby and…
ANNIE LAIRD: Does it ever happened in there one that you facilitated where they didn’t make it all the way through because they joined kind of later?
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Well our friend Miss Cherry.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Yeah she was at the circles and she just…
ANNIE LAIRD: She just had her baby.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Yeah just had her baby 4/4/14.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: So yeah that definitely happens but that’s okay and you don’t because we’re not covering the curriculum exactly, it’s okay if you don’t make it through all the classes. I mean it’s better if you do because we cover amazing topics. But if you don’t, it’s not like oh no now I’m never going to know how to nurse my baby.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: You know like in other classes.
ANNIE LAIRD: We didn’t get to the breastfeeding portion
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: So that’s really nice. But I think another big thing that separates it from the other childbirth classes in addition to just being for women that you can come at any point in your gestation is that a lot of childbirth techniques, which I’m a fan of all of them, they kind of thought labour and birth as rite of passage. And sacred pregnancy really promotes pregnancy as a rite of passage. So we’re celebrating the rite of passage of pregnancy together instead of just waiting for the day that that’s all going to go down.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: So I don’t see that on other techniques so much. We are really honouring the pregnancy. So it’s wonderful.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah. How big are the classes? I mean can you have like up to like twenty women or something like that or do you try to keep it on a certain size?
LINDA GOLDSMITH: It would be a great problem to have twenty women that I would have to turn away. But no I mean optimally about group dynamics is anywhere from six to twelve. But I can’t even imagine twelve. Honestly I feel more comfortable with about five to eight because otherwise you’re not going to your, it is going to be too tight. I mean you really have to expand the classes because when you have the talking stick…
ANNIE LAIRD: Or doll or whatever you have.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah the talking doll yeah really women really do want to talk when they have a sacred safe space to do it.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: And so when they start talking it can be for ten minutes and if you got eight women and that’s eighty minutes right there we haven’t even done the art projects or we haven’t done the you know the other things that we’re going to do in the class.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: So I think five to eight is really good. That will be my preference.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah. Samantha did you take any kind of childbirth education, you and Kyle?
SAMANTHA EKLUND: So you know I took the one that way I was going to be delivering. It was [inaudible 00:16:12] hospital and they were like I was like alright they’re teaching the class there I guess that’s the one I’m going to take. I mean I was 21 when I found out I was pregnant so I kind of took the same approach to everything like they’re all kind of the same and so just take it. And you know the teacher was great. She was really friendly. She was really nice. And it thought me what I needed to know.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: But it was again it didn’t honour the sacredness of pregnancy. It was you didn’t start the class until you were like 32 weeks pregnant.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah I took a hospital childbirth class, I took the one that is the shortest.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Like the weekend.
ANNIE LAIRD: I took like the weekend cram course. Yeah I wrote a blog about it on Preggie Pals. It’s kind of embarrassing to read now I’ll be like but you know how far you’ve come, you don’t know what you don’t know a lot. So that’s so interesting that you know sacred pregnancy is more of a focus sounds like on the second, third, fourth you know pregnant mom.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: The journey of the pregnancy. So most women they have two maybe three kids and so after you I think most of us, I’ll include myself, you make your mistakes on the first pregnancy in labour and birth a lot.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: And then you get to learn on your second. So there’s a lot of women on second or third are just craving everything they can get from this experience because the pregnancy is a rite of passage and it might be the last one.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: And so they really want, if you ask most women was your pregnancy experience is as rich as it could have been, most women will say no you know. And how they can be richer? Well connecting with other people, I mean that’s the answer for everything in life.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: How to be richer, by having a sincere authentic connection with other people especially ones going through the same ones. And a lot of the women that are in the second pregnancy circles, they’re working through the first birth story right. I mean there’s still oh here’s what I did, oh I can’t believe I didn’t take a longer course that thought me more or you know I can’t believe I didn’t have my husband with my feet every night or I really wish I would’ve you know blah blah blah. So those things are being processed…
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: In sacred pregnancy circles a lot.
SAMANTHA EKLUND:As someone who is suffering with some birth trauma and really unfortunate unexpected birth experience I would if I ever decided to take a second or third class, it sounds like that would really be interesting to be able to have some kind of almost like a therapy included inside of it.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah. And in one of the classes, they’re all, I mean the topics were all super important but I think one that you would probably resonate with would be mothers who fear and their forgiveness. So on the first baby the fear is usually fear of the unknown.
ANNIE LAIRD: Right.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: And on second baby it’s fear of the known. Right?
ANNIE LAIRD: Yes.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Okay. But on the forgiveness class you know that is forgiving past hurts. But a lot of the forgiveness that comes off is forgiving oneself, forgiving myself for not being good enough or not doing well enough for handling that wrong or whatever. And that could be very free.
ANNIE LAIRD: Right.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: And it frees up a lot of emotional space that can be filled with other yummy things that have to do with pregnancy in birth and labour. So…
SAMANTHA EKLUND: That’s fantastic.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah. But it’s self-therapy. It’s not, again I’m not teaching anything. It’s just…
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah the pregnant women are not lying on a couch on their left side.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Right.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: 45 degree angle with their feet on them.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah I know it’s not like that at all.
ANNIE LAIRD: It’s like that everybody is learning from each other.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah.
ANNIE LAIRD: That’s wonderful.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: And when you have that safe space to cry and release and say what your heart feels it can be very free.
ANNIE LAIRD: Great. When we come back we’re going to be discussing what you actually doing during your sacred pregnancy circles.
[Theme Music]
ANNIE LAIRD: Welcome back. Today we’re talking about sacred pregnancy childbirth classes. Linda Goldsmith is our expert. Now Linda you have all this cool things here at the table and obviously this is an audio podcast. We’ll talk a little bit about some of the stuff that you brought with you today. Now at a doula circle recently we did a candle collage. What’s the significance of doing a candle collage?
LINDA GOLDSMITH: So the first class of sacred pregnancy has to do with creating sacred space. And the purpose of sacred space is to really understand and honour the fact that what you’re doing, growing a child, is the most important thing on the planet. If there’s no people, nothing else matters right? So growing a human being is really important. In one of my circles right now there’s a surrogate I haven’t heard of the child she’s growing but she’s growing a child right.
So what you have to do is you have to set up a place in your home were everyday you check in, it’s a visual reminder, to check in and sit down, connect with the baby, take a moment and remember I’m divine, what I’m doing is vastly important, way more important than anything I did at work today. And so what we do is in the first class we do the altar candle and it’s a collage, it’s the things that are important to her that she puts on it. And then you take the altar candle home and create your sacred space. And it’s impetuous to create a sacred space.
So the candle in if itself has meaning but it’s really impetuous to create space in your home. And I’m a big fan of creating a just a little shelf by the side of your bed with your candle and a couple of other, you know chase keys up there especially maybe a statue of a pregnant woman. Because you have to sit down in your bed before you lay down on your bed. So if you just sit down in your bed and you’re facing your altar, you will take a couple of minutes to connect every day. And so that’s the purpose behind the candle…
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: It’s to create a sacred space so that every day you have connections with your baby.
ANNIE LAIRD: That’s beautiful especially when you already have that’s probably a toddler.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Right.
ANNIE LAIRD: It’s hard not to…
LINDA GOLDSMITH: [Cross Talk]
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: So that the altar really does help women to just pause every day. Even if it for just 30 seconds, pause touch your belly, say hi to your baby.
ANNIE LAIRD: Do women normally journal this part of this class? Is that another part of it that they do?
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah! Daily journaling is encouraged and you know if it happens once a week that’s okay too. But yeah journaling it’s self-discovery, self-growth, self-forgiveness so there’s a lot of that that goes on the journaling. And you don’t share the journaling unless you want to but yeah absolutely journaling.
ANNIE LAIRD: Not with other woman in class with, not with partner, not with anybody it’s just for you.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: No you can…
ANNIE LAIRD: Oh okay.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: If you want to. But I’m saying that’s not…
ANNIE LAIRD: Required.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Required a bit.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah we don’t say so what do you write on your diary?
ANNIE LAIRD: Now she’s going to read on page five of her journal…
LINDA GOLDSMITH: You’re right. Exactly!
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: No. No those are private thoughts but wonderful topics are brought up and you know discussed with the group and you may have obviously further reflection on it or as the week goes by, so like the week that we talk about food and body image.
ANNIE LAIRD: That sounds like my kind of topic right there.
SAMANTHA EKLUND: Yes.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah.
ANNIE LAIRD: I’m all about the food.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: But it’s a very emotional topic. And one of the things that we do that I loved so much is you go around the room and you share your favourite food memory. And most of the time they are from our childhood. It’s something it don’t even have to be significant, it’s not like somebody made a two day meal and unveiled it. Very rarely is it thanksgiving dinner you know it’s not.
ANNIE LAIRDY: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: it’s something that some did it oh my grandma used to pour me the bowl of shredded oats and I really like it because we sat and talk and we got the cow for the milk or the milk from the cow or whatever.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: So it’s, so I really like that and then you move into body image and issues. That’s when the conversation really starts rolling. Women have a lot of energy around. Food and body image and then when you’re pregnant obviously that’s not an overweight body but then there’s cross overs all the time from lot of people in society.
ANNIE LAIRD: It’s hard here in the United States were it almost seems to be skinny equal’s value.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah totally.
ANNIE LAIRD: And so then in your pregnancy you’re not supposed to be skinny.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Right.
ANNIE LAIRD: So what is the value of that?
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Well in a lot of woman have shared with me in the circles that they love their pregnant body more than their non-pregnant body. You know they feel really proud of it. So they’re in the moment where they can really be kind to themselves.
ANNIE LAIRD: That’s awesome.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Authentically. But the trick is after you have the baby you still honour that body. So value that body for what it provided for you.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah. It grew that baby.
LINDGA GOLDSMITH: Yeah.
ANNIE LAIRD: Who’ve mention with a lot of our projects, how you incorporate paintings and art into your classes?
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Oh my gosh it’s so fun. It’s my favourite part. So we do many different things. In one of the classes you draw a mother wisdom card and these are just you know day to day...
ANNIE LAIRD: So you’re not saying like I’m drawing with the crayon.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: I’m sorry. There are from a deck of cards, a mother wisdom deck card. And then that card and the message that you picked for yourself, you incorporate that what you’re feeling about your pregnancy and that card and then you draw from there.
ANNIE LAIRD: So what would be an example of the type of card that you could draw then?
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Oh there’re so many wonderful cards. Here let me pull the book out so I can give you a good example. There are four different categories so there’s natural mother, animal mother, ancestral mother and divine mother. And if you draw say Mary unconditional love, and that shadow is judgement and then it goes into a big explanation of it all and you just sort of incorporate that into a painting. So you’re given an image of people are visual, you’re give a word and then from there you self-express.
ANNIE LAIRD: You know I think that’s so interesting you were mentioning about the fears and forgiveness and I mean what are the common fears that women do come to these circles with? You mention these are second time moms so it’s known fear.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Right.
ANNIE LAIRD: What types of topics are normally brought up?
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Well…
ANNIE LAIRD: What are the common things I mean they are fearing?
LINDA GOLDSMITH: I think the most common thing is you know birth is an ancient mystery and she alone holds the key to unlocking her birth but there’s a little bit of fear and I don’t know if I’m going to be able to solved this or unlock this mystery which of course we all do. But I think there’s some fear around that. There’s definitely well fear is not only something we feel but something that’s put upon us all the time by medical establishment on birth.
So it’s combating that sometimes its combating your fears down constantly and getting reassurance that I do feel like it’s safe to have a water birth and here’s the reasons why. I do think it’s safe to have a VBAC birth and here are the reasons why I’m a good candidate. You know so a lot of fears that come up, I don’t think we would have if the medical establishments wasn’t pushing a lot of fears on us. And then fear that you know, how am I going to do this, how am I going to have two kids and still have a romantic relationship with my husband.
We’re already fighting now about finances on one baby, how are we going to do this with two you know. And how are the decisions I’m making, am I making them out of fear or making them out of finances and how do I weigh through all that right? Maybe somebody is really wanting a home birth but they’re not contemplating the fact that the money is just something you have to prioritize.
If you want a home birth they’re four thousand dollars that kind of the end of the conversation. We can sit there and talk about what can we do trading, what going to do this, what going to do that, well prioritize it. How much do your purses cause, how much do your lunch cause? I mean you can decide what do you want to spend your money on. So fear about am I making good decisions really you know basically what I want or am I letting sort of society scare me too much to make decisions that aren’t good for me and my baby especially because maybe this is going to be my last pregnancy right?
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah. Well my midwife always says that a big part of birth itself before you go for kind of being pregnant to having a baby in your arms is surrender.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah. Oh yeah.
ANNIE LAIRD: So I think that in itself is also can induce some fear.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Yeah.
ANNIE LAIRD: As well of like I want to control this. I wanted to be better than the last birth especially we’re talking second and third time moms but so how do you get what you want while surrendering. This is very scary. How would we talk a lot about fear so how do you incorporate the forgiveness statement to you classes?
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Well there’s one class in particular that covers, did you say forgiveness or fears?
ANNIE LAIRD: Forgiveness.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: Forgiveness. Yeah.
ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.
LINDA GOLDSMITH: There are all kinds of different things we can do. Little ceremonies and rituals we can do for fear release. We all do them every day. Maybe we take a couple of deep breaths. But there’s again with the art and stuff, there are a lot of things that we do over and over again that I really like. So one is the spirit stick, we talk about that. Another one is self-expression and we talk about that. Just if you actually face your fear and talk about it, a lot of times that’s enough. If you just, I’m a big fan of the more I know the less I fear. I’m not an ignorant is bliss. I’m the opposite.
I want to know, I want to look at it, I want to feel uncomfortable and then I want to put it all back in the box and I’m going to put it over there. But I least I went through it so if I had to go through it again I feel like it’s not my first time visiting it. It was not as scary. So there’s self-expression that can be very helpful. Also a lot of very common thing is to write your fears down and then we take a community bowl and we all burn our fears. And we release them into the heavens because they’re not working for us anymore.
They don’t serve me anymore and I would like to release them. Another way we can do that is same thing, picking up a stone, holding on to it, putting your fear into it and then toss it into the ocean. Toss it into a pond or in a lake, tossing it just across the meadow and turning around and walking away from it. You don’t need that fear anymore. You’ve released it.
ANNIE LAIRD: Well thanks Linda for joining us today. For more information on Linda and her sacred pregnancy classes as well as information about any of our panellists, visit the episode page on our website. This conversation continues for members of our Preggie Pals club. After the show, Linda will be discussing the significance of a salt bowl ceremony and how it is created. To join our club, visit our website www.preggiepals.com.
[Theme Music]
JENNIFER DURBIN: Hi I’m Jennifer Durbin, the author or Pregnancy Tips for the Clueless Chick and the mother of two wonderful little boys. I’d love to share with you my tips for pampering yourself during your pregnancy. While you’re busy preparing for the arrival of your little one and all the craziness that will come with parenthood, don’t forget to take care of yourself and your partner. Having a baby is one of the most wonderful and difficult things in the world and every mother will tell you that a baby instantly becomes your number one priority. But for the sake of the baby and your sanity don’t forget to take care of yourself.
Whether you plan to get a prenatal massage or spend a day at the spa with your girl friend or even take a day off of work to do a whole lot of nothing, it’s important to schedule some time for yourself before things get crazy. You may want to plan a fun pre baby girls night out or date night were you’re not allowed to talk about the baby. Both are fun ways to celebrate you. It’s also fun to step outside of your box if you’re in a funk and wear something super trendy that you might not normally wear. If you’ve been cleared exercise during your pregnancy, find a local prenatal yoga or aqua aerobics class, this is not only a great way to exercise but also the perfect way to meet other pregnant women. And finally my favourite pamper yourself tip, make a list of all the pregnancy don’t that you’ve been dying to do, like eating sushi or having a glass of wine.
Then you can look forward to checking everything off of your list after the baby is born. While you’re planning for some much needed pampering don’t forget that your partner is on this wild ride with you. While you’re the one with all the aches and pains who cannot tie her own shoe, your partner has been there to listen to all of your woes and be a shoulder for you to cry on when your hormones were raging. Remember that time you spill grape juice on your brand new top and cried for two hours straight? So look for a special way that you can surprise him with his favourite dinner of a night out with the boys. For more great tips visit www.cluelesschick.com
[Theme Music]
ANNIE LAIRD: That wraps up our show for today. We appreciate you listening to Preggie Pals.
Don’t forget to check out our sister shows:
• Parent Savers for parents with newborns, infants and toddlers
• Twin Talks for parents of multiples.
• The Boob Group for moms who breastfeed their babies
Next week we’ll be continuing our series on hiring your care provider. Marla Hicks a licensed midwife will be on the show talking with us about how to hire your midwife.
This is Preggie Pals, your pregnancy your way.
[Disclaimer]
This has been a New Mommy Media production. Information and material contained in this episode are presented for educational purposes only. Statements and opinions expressed in this episode are not necessarily those of New Mommy Media and should not be considered facts. Though information in which areas are related to be accurate, it is not intended to replace or substitute for professional, Medical or advisor care and should not be used for diagnosing or treating health care problem or disease or prescribing any medications. If you have questions or concerns regarding your physical or mental health or the health of your baby, please seek assistance from a qualified health care provider.
SUNNY GAULT: New Mommy Media is expanding our line up of shows for new and expecting parents. If you have an idea for a new series or if you’re a business or organization interested in joining our network of shows through a co-branded podcast, visit www.NewMommyMedia.com .
[00:33:10]
[END OF AUDIO]
