Of all the books I’ve read in my life that inspired me, Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife is among the foremost.  I read this when I was newly pregnant, suffering from morning sickness and burrowed into my couch.  I was interested in natural childbirth, and had broached the topic with my OB-GYN, but wasn’t sold on the idea that I could do it.

I found this book by reading through the pamphlets and magazines my OB-GYN’s office sent me home with after my 8 week appointment.  This book was on their recommended list of reads, so I grabbed it from the library and promptly fell in love.

It’s the memoir of a pioneer in modern midwifery.  Peggy Vincent, the author, started out as an obstetrical nurse who jumped ship to midwifery because she disliked the medical profession’s widespread opinion that a normal birth is a posthumous diagnosis.

She believed, and still does, that all is normal until it’s not, and the fewer interventions the better (barring obvious complications, emergencies, breech babies, etc.).

She describes details about many of the births she was a part of, and reading all these stories about normal, everyday women who were able to bring their babies into the world naturally inspired the heck out of me.  These women were just like me, many of them first-time moms, and they were all able to do it.  This, of course, meant that I would be able to do it too.

The single-most encouraging thing I ever heard when I was pregnant, and I clung to this idea like a baby spider monkey, was something Peggy said.  I can’t convey it word-for-word, because I don’t have the book with me, but I’ll paraphrase.  She mused in her book,

“Of all the thousands of births I’ve been a part of, I’ve never had to take a mom to the hospital because of unmanageable pain.”

As a first-time mom with no idea what to expect from labor, this was immensely encouraging to me.  It gave me confidence that I could do natural childbirth, and truly confidence is half of that particular battle.  Knowing, in the midst of contractions, that you can do it, that your body is functioning perfectly, well, that’s the difference between being in labor and suffering.  But that’s just my opinion.

I can’t recommend this book highly enough.  Even if you don’t plan a natural childbirth, it’s just a lot of fun to read all these incredible birth stories and learn a little about the history of modern midwifery in the U.S.

I’ll be honest, I never really understood Birthing from Within.  I’d seen it recommended a million times over as the number-one-must-read-book-on-natural-childbirth, so it was actually the first one I checked out after I got my positive pregnancy test.

Then I opened it up and…I didn’t get it.  It was very focused on visualization of the birth.  My hopes for the birth, my vision of what it would feel like emotionally, that kind of thing.  It had activities in each chapter that required me to draw pictures of what I felt about birth and that is so not me it’s not even funny.

I was that kid in daycare who, during arts and crafts time, did the bare minimum creative output required so I could go back to reading books or pretending to be a horse running through the field (don’t laugh, it was actually a lot of fun, and since I didn’t have a real horse it was the best I could do).  I don’t really do drawing, my stick figures are so grotesque my four year old niece once remarked that she was proud of my good effort but that my drawing looked nothing like a human being.

For this book to expect me to express myself through drawing was laughable to begin with.  But then it took it a step further by asking me to sit and spend time contemplating what my hopes for the birth were, and imagine how I might feel.  How I visualized birth.

I’d never had a baby before, so for me to try to sit down and figure out how it might make me feel was completely unrealistic.  I have a fantastic imagination, but this was pushing it.  There’s no way I could have ever imagined reaching a point in my labor where time ceased to exist, where the gap between contractions would stretch for years, where I would cease to exist completely while the contraction hit me like a lightning strike.  I had no way of conceptualizing the incredible feeling of pushing Aidan’s head out, when it felt like I was literally giving birth to a planet.

As a childbirth newb, I was looking for boots-on-the-ground information about what labor would be like, what to expect, how to prepare.  This book was asking me to get in touch with the emotions surrounding birth, but I didn’t have any yet so I didn’t find it particularly helpful.

I discussed the book with one of my midwives once, and she nodded and said the book seemed most helpful to moms who had already had babies and were maybe recovering from a traumatic first birth experience.  This makes sense to me.  If my first birth had been traumatic, I could easily see wanting to sift through those emotions before embarking on my next labor adventure.

I’m sure y’all know this already, but I’ll state the obvious anyway: There are a lot of parenting books out there.  Like, billions.  If you have the misfortune of wandering into the parenting section of the bookstore, you’ll probably react the same way I did: Raise your hands in surrender and back away slowly.

So, I thought I’d share some of the books I’ve read recently.  Some of the best books I’ve ever read were recommendations from other people, so I thought I’d throw my opinionated hat into the ring too.

When I was preparing to bring Aidan into the world, I started searching out natural birthing resources.  Everyone raved about “The Business of Being Born“, so I watched that.  It didn’t really float my boat, seeing as how it was literally steeped in bias and near-dogma, so I thought I’d back the truck up and instead of looking into why I should do natural childbirth (because everyone’s got their own hang-ups about labor and the only hang-ups that really matter are your own) I’d look into how it works.

I’ve always loved learning, and I tend to cope better with things when I understand how they work, so I figured that would be a good place to start.  Away to the library I went, and I returned with The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Natural Childbirth.  I liked the title and figured I’d give it a shot.

I’m so glad I did.  This book was fabulous!  Don’t let the title fool you into thinking it’ll be formulaic and disingenuous, it’s well-written, it explains the whole process in an accessible way (even when you’ve got pregnancy hormones clouding your brain), and it steers pretty clear of trying to influence you about why you should labor naturally.

What I particularly enjoyed about this book was how it explained the role of hormones during labor.  Once I was able to grasp how labor worked, it really helped put into context the various coping methods I’d heard about.  It’s all well and good to hear about how important it is to stay relaxed during labor, but what made the difference for me was learning about how oxytocin (the hormone the makes your uterus contract) is counteracted by adrenaline (the hormone that’s released when you’re tense or afraid).

The end of the book was a little soft for me, all about the first moments with the baby and how special that time is (I kinda missed out on that, thanks to heavy bleeding and stitches, so maybe I’m just bitter?) but the first 3/4 of the book were immensely helpful.

I could see this book being helpful even if you aren’t planning a natural childbirth, especially if you’re the kind of person who feels more comfortable and confident when you’re well educated about what’s going to be happening.

So there’s my two cents.  More to come soon!