Where did you even learn that?

We have a question for you.

What is your very first memory of birth?

Not your first pregnancy or the first birth book you read. Not the first childbirth class you took. But your very first memory of being introduced to the concept of birth.

Maybe it was a movie scene with a woman screaming in a hospital bed while everyone ran around in a panic. Maybe it was hearing your mom tell the story of your birth. Maybe it was a younger sibling being born. Maybe it was a story from a friend, aunt, or grandmother.

What did that memory start to teach you about birth?

Long before we ever get pregnant, we're already collecting stories about birth. We absorb them from our families, movies, television, social media, school, religion, and culture. By the time we become pregnant ourselves, many of us have spent decades building beliefs about birth without ever questioning where those beliefs came from.

And if left unchecked, we might confuse those beliefs with facts. 

Some of them may be true. Some of them may be helpful. Some of them may come from very real experiences. But it's worth asking whether the beliefs you're carrying into birth are actually your own, or if they were handed to you by someone else.

Most of us never stop to consider where our beliefs about birth actually came from. What beliefs do you have about birth? And who or what taught you that? 

The answers to those questions matter more than most people realize.Because the beliefs we carry about birth will absolutely shape how we show up in our own birth. 

They shape what we fear, what we trust, the types of questions we ask, the decisions we make, and what we believe is possible for us to experience. Part of any good preparation for your birth involves identifying, examining, and maybe even reshaping some of the beliefs that may not actually be true for you. 

This is one of our favorite topics we explore inside Birth Alchemy.

Before we talk about labor stages, comfort measures, interventions, or birth plans, we spend time looking at the beliefs and assumptions you're already bringing with you.

Not because we want you to think a certain way about birth, but because it's hard to make conscious decisions when you're operating from beliefs you didn't even realize you had.

So we'll leave you with a few questions to sit with:

What is your first memory of birth?

What did it teach you?

And is that belief still serving you today?

Always in your corner,

Kayla & Leslie