by MotherWit | Apr 12, 2017 | Parenting, Sleep
There are times our physiology simply does not support our philosophy. We see it all the time in birth and parenting. You may have very much wanted a birth with timely pain management, only to have delivered too quickly before receiving it. Perhaps you wanted with all your heart to breastfeed your baby exclusively, only to find that no matter what steps you took or professionals you saw for help, your baby needed supplementation. This can also happen when it comes to your hopes of happily tending to all of your baby’s needs on your own.
In over two decades of supporting birth and families, I know with certainty that parenting decisions are made from a place of love and concern.
Parents’ hearts get full of sadness and self-doubt when they can’t tend to their babies how they want. They often blame themselves (no matter what you tell them) and are worried they are causing irreparable damage to their child’s future (they aren’t).
The scientific literature pertaining to infant sleep points to the physiological and psychological importance of tending to Baby’s needs around the clock, and most parents feel up for that challenge. It is normal for toddlers to wake up with needs to connect at night too. Without even sharing this literature, parents are intuitively drawn to snuggle and love on their little ones, and usually feel out of sorts when they are not able to be with or comfort their child happily when they call out. Those cries are meant to tug our heartstrings, and they do so with great efficacy.
But what happens if you reach a dangerous level of sleep deprivation and those cries turn into unpleasant feeling triggers for you? To put it into perspective, we do expect new parents to be very tired. Before developing circadian rhythms, babies up to three or four months often awaken at all hours around the clock, and this is normal. Tending to them lovingly regulates their vital signs and their emotions. It is lovely work for most people, as challenging as it is. Most children have a biological need to receive some night parenting well into their early childhood, though the intensity of it lessens over time when conditions that nourish development are optimal for the family.
From an evolutionary perspective, new families were, before we started to live in such social isolation, nurtured and tended to by “the tribe” without worry of financial, home, and community contributions for a while (because hello, tending to a precious new citizen is honoured and highly valued work). But now? Most of us are left to fend for ourselves from the get go, leaving us shattered by exhaustion. It is not that a baby’s needs are abnormal, it is the condition within which we are expected to meet them that is highly challenging.
Today’s parents are often fuelled by anxiety about the very real concerns of hearth, home, and sustenance. Without the need (NOT a luxury) to be tended to gently themselves in the early days, weeks, months, and even years of early parenthood fulfilled, exhaustion can potentially become a serious problem for the whole family. Friends will often chant “sleep when the baby sleeps”. But as a mother of four and a long time family supporter, I know this is not always possible when you’re at home alone with Baby and nervous about what will happen if you withdraw your attention for a while. Or, there are other children to tend to as well. Or you are back at work within a few weeks of giving birth.
In a state of chronic sleep deprivation, our physical and mental health can suffer greatly, as well as create unsafe conditions for parenting. This is a real symptom of modern parenting. The needs of Baby wear more and more upon us and we can potentially get desperate, thinking the advice we receive to alter Baby’s level of outward demands is the only key to the “way out”. For some parents, this will be the truth, and honouring parent choice with empathy is essential to providing true support.
But what if we took a deeper look? Babies are sensitive little souls. Any wise old grannie, never mind a PhD in Child Psychology, will tell you that our stress affects our little ones. The need to be tended to not just automatically, but nurtured intentionally by an emotionally present parent, is important to little ones for optimal development. Demanding much? Indeed! They don’t call parenting the hardest job in the world for nothing. There is nothing that brings forth all our impatience and frustration at kids’ high demands as feeling overwhelmed ourselves. So what if, instead of seeing the baby as a problem or judging parenting approaches, as a society we could simply take more compassionate care of parents? What if we shifted our views around wanting to alter babies as seen through a societal lens forged by physical and emotional depletion? What if we could experience greater enjoyment and peace at the privilege of shaping the architecture of a brain and the empathy of a little heart if we were physically and emotionally nourished ourselves?
This is a scenario I’ve encountered a lot: I get a call in the wee hours from a new mom or dad whose birth I’ve attended. They sounds shaky. In the background, I hear a baby yelling the roof down, and possibly the sound of an adult sobbing too. “The baby won’t stop crying. We just don’t know what to do.” These newborn parents are calling to be parented themselves in this moment. I get them to breathe first and foremost, to “put their oxygen mask on”, beam love and compassion at them, and then strategize from that decompressed place. Very often before I even get to feeding or soothing troubleshooting, I am informed that, “just talking to you has made us feel so much better.” I’m not magic. I’m just a reassuring voice in the night. While it is normal in our modern culture to night parent as newbies alone, in no way is this normal on an evolutionary level. Before I hang up the phone I ask the new parents if they can call upon a savvy Grandparent, Sibling, or Friend to come be with them for a couple of nights to provide opportunities for rest and reassurance.
When our physiology (exhaustion, edgy adrenals, challenged immune system, and high cortisol levels) does not support our philosophy (to tend to all our babies’ high demands with a reasonable calm and connectedness, for example), and family/friends are not available to help, it is time to shout out for what we at MotherWit Sleep Essentials call a Critical Sleep Intervention (CSI).
Instead of rushing in to try to fix what you think might be your broken kid or lacking parenting skills, a MotherWit Night Doula will make sure you get SLEEP. We do this in ways that honour your approach. If you will feel best having your baby brought to you when they are hungry so you can breastfeed, your doula will sit with you to reassure you and support you. It is often in these wee hours that our deepest fears are brought to light and dissipated in the compassionate listening your doula provides. When Parents and Baby/ies are fed and reassured, Doula takes over care, doing the diapers, wearing, soothing, whatever is needed to keep your baby happy. Even if baby is NOT particularly happy, your doula will provide loving support in case there are tears.
If you are happy having your baby bottle fed throughout most or all of the night so you can get a full restorative night’s sleep, or if your doctor has prescribed sleep medication for exhaustion and anxiety, perfect. Let your worry go, and all your baby’s needs will be cared for with love and attention. When you awaken, there will be coffee and breakfast.
Sleep is medicine.
Sometimes no matter what your want to do for your baby, your immediate need for sleep trumps everything. It is human. A Night Doula can fill that gap between your physiology and your philosophy. The good news is that we have seen even just one or two nights of intensive parent nurturing and good sleep shift the turbulent tides, bringing in fresh perspective and a new lease on life. As powerful a medicine sleep is, the far reaching healing in being loved and nurtured exactly as you are cannot be underestimated.
Sleep Well, Gentle Parents.
Love,
Lesley
by MotherWit | Mar 24, 2017 | Birth, Parenting, Sleep, Uncategorized
As a certified infant sleep educator, the more I develop my Sleep Essentials workshops and the more I talk about this work in my community, the more apparent it is that those who work in this field need to tread with exquisite care of the Parent Soul. Nobody is at the receiving end of unsolicited advice more than new parents, and this can erode confidence and lead to stress. Taking an encouraging and nurturing approach rather than one wrought with opinion and judgement keeps our minds open to what support parents are really yearning for.
Babies are primal. Nobody has told infants that the Industrial Revolution took place and radically shifted the way human beings sleep. They didn’t get the memo that independent sleep is something that is wanted of them because of the busy daytime work schedules of their parents and the fact that we don’t live and work tribally anymore. Babies seem to want more from us around the clock than often feels sustainable to give. This is their primal nature. It has been their way for longer than we can say.
Parents are modern. Most of us are enculturated to the relatively new 9-5 work schedule the world tends to revolve around now. We were raised that way. And, as culture does shape us biologically, it makes sense that parents need to fit their sleep into a 7-9 hour period sometime between the punch out and punch in, not to mention get a little space to breathe after their day job duties, whether they are working outside of the home or working in the home doing business or tending to children).
Families are tired. Oh, are they ever tired. As a mom of four children who glued themselves desperately to my body every time I tried to extricate my arms from our embrace, I know this well. There were times I lay in bed with a toddler clamouring for my breast for the 14th time that night, wondering if I should “Ferber-ize”, worrying about how I was going to face the day on no sleep. I wanted to run away from this insane feeling dynamic that appeared terribly broken, and clearly all my fault for creating such a clingy, dependent little person (cuz mom guilt).
So where does the proverbial ‘twain meet? In this wide gap between a primal baby’s and a modern parent’s needs, where does a sane solution lie to the very real problem of family exhaustion?
There are lots of people wanting to tell you. There are many approaches, counter approaches, studies and rebuttals, experts and proselytizers wanting to shape you with their two cents. How do we discern the correct approach for our unique families? How do we get our needs met and be great parents too? What is the “right” thing to do?
Let us look at different sleep approaches. There are classic sleep training methods, which are about conditioning a baby to stop crying out for their parents when it is time to sleep. While the intention is to fulfill a biological and psychological need for more family sleep, the approaches are rooted in Behavioural Psychology. It makes very logical sense. If your baby cries for you after a certain time, you know they aren’t hungry or wet, it may just be a cuddle or nipple “habit” that motivates the “calling out” behaviours. In which case, habits can be changed. Methods are implemented over time, generally involving some to a lot of crying from your baby in protest. But for a good many parents, the few nights of howling and distress (as much as they hate it), feel worth it for the sake of more sleep for everyone, more family harmony, and a sense of shaping good sleep “manners”. Of course that sounds appealing!
The shadow side of some sleep training approaches? They are often sold as something necessary and expected to do (or else Baby will be spoiled), mired more in cultural biases than scientific evidence, create more family stress than we anticipate, and according to some studies, have a low long term efficacy rate. Despite possible misgivings at letting their babies cry-it-out, parents will often resort to anything that might work, and sleep training is logical. Not a parent in the world can be blamed for wanting to try something that could work.
We have the Attachment Parenting approach, which is rooted in Developmental Psychology, and is all about heeding that natural call for connection babies have around the clock well into early childhood. Proponents refer to the difficult biological implications of the unmet distress in a rapidly growing little brain and advocate not allowing babies to cry it out as a means of learning sleep hygiene. When looking at the workings of a baby’s brain and their reasoning capabilities (or lack thereof), it also makes perfect sense why we would NOT want to discourage attachment and the tending to a baby’s cries rapidly in the night.
The shadow side of a fully baby-led attachment approach within a culture of social isolation? Babies will, left to their own devices, very often nurse or want cuddles multiple times throughout the night well into toddlerhood. While it may be developmentally normal and security building, if the family is chronically sleep deprived, this is a remarkable burden upon relationships and health which can ultimately detract from that security. “Our culture is messed up, not our babies.” may be true from a sleep evolution perspective, but it doesn’t solve the problem of meeting the family’s crucial need for more rest to function in today’s very real world.
With all the information out there, it feels damned if we do (have babies who don’t cry for us but who may be in cortisol driven “shut down” rather than “self-soothe” mode after nights of prolonged crying it out) and damned if we don’t (having babies who cry to be rocked, cuddled, and nursed multiple times at night when we have to work the next day, maybe ‘til well past the age of two, rendering everyone frustrated, exhausted, and edgy).
What the heck do we do?!
Firstly, education and preparation while still pregnant or in the early days of parenting is one of the best ways to get ready for the reality of an infant’s sleep needs. Dissonance occurs when our expectations don’t meet our reality. So understanding how Baby’s brain functions at different levels of development is very helpful, as well as things you can do to create wonderful sleep associations for Baby right from birth. Advice to take whatever information you like, leave the rest, and do what feels right for your family is an approach you might want to look for when seeking your educational resources. Making informed choices feels empowering, and that’s a good feeling for new parents.
In this wide gap between the needs of primal babies and modern parents, MotherWit Sleep Essentials stands with Empathy (this is one of the three “E”s of our GoToSleeep Principles). Why? Because it’s vulnerable there. We know with certainty that every parenting decision made in regards to sleep is and has always been done with the utmost care and concern. This will always be assumed. People who sleep train their kid aren’t harsh or callous any more than people who are nursing 10 times per night aren’t pushovers raising an adult who will still be in their bed until college. Parents fear being all those things and yet none of them are true. We know well that constant battle between the heart and mind and witness it as an expression of your tender parental love. We have been there too.
So how can we help? By not judging you, for starters. We take a compassionate look at the sleep needs of a family holistically, checking in on things like diet, stressors, routines, levels of self-care, emotional well being and the home layout. With this information and “making changes” coaching, we create customized strategies that promote better rest which include cool things like shaping neural pathways with multi-sensory input. By respecting and caring deeply about a baby’s primal needs AND the modern parent’s needs, we have learned that balance and flexibility are the keys to unlocking sleep potential.
MotherWit Sleep Essentials provides information on the science of infant sleep and support for the art of parenting.
Sleep well, Gentle Parents.
Love,
Lesley
by MotherWit | Apr 28, 2016 | Uncategorized
It is 4 am. You have given birth recently, and are still in the process of recovering from that major event. Feeding your baby isn’t easy. You aren’t sure if you’re doing things right. Your baby just doesn’t seem to be like the books say. There is conflicting advice everywhere you turn. Getting enough to eat is challenging enough, never mind getting the endless laundry done.
You’re leaky, you’re emotions are all over the place, and you’re feeling just a bit overwhelmed.
There is help available! Have you ever heard of a “postpartum doula”? Don’t worry, most people haven’t! Many people associate the word “postpartum” with “depression”, but it actually simply refers to the period of a few weeks after the birth of your baby. And “doula”? What the heck is that? In a nutshell, postpartum doulas are women who, after your baby is born, come to your house and take care of you so you can relax and bond with your little one.
Tired? Kick back! Doulas will hang out with your baby so you can get some sleep. When you wake up, your dishes, or some other household task that is driving you nuts will be done. Hungry? They’ve got it! Doulas can bring you yummy meals or prepare snacks for you. Feeling disorganized? No worries! They can set up systems to ensure things flow more smoothly for you. Do you have older kids? Doulas love kids! Doulas can entertain them if you need time with Baby. Feeding challenges? They can help, and provide resources if necessary. Overwhelmed or have feelings about your birth? It is normal! Doulas can listen. REALLY well, and without judgement, acknowledging and supporting your feelings. Aches and pains? They have suggestions to promote healing, and can provide some holistic support and nurturing touch, honouring the beautiful job the exhausted new mama is doing.
Partners also benefit from the support of a postpartum doula. They are often expected to pick up all the daily slack while the new mother is busy with baby care and healing from birth. The care of a doula can also bring them relief, reducing stress and allowing them to take more time to rest and bond with their baby.
Do postpartum doulas ever do overnight work? You bet they do! The first few overnights at home with your new baby can be daunting, and doulas support your nighttime parenting needs until you feel confident.
Your baby was born months ago, but you feel like you never got settled. Can a postpartum doula help? Of course! Our services are not limited to newborns.
“Postpartum doulas are like your mom but without the baggage!” -MotherWit Postpartum Doula Millie Tresierra
Postpartum doulas don’t breeze in spouting “expertise”, adding more information to your already overloaded brain, though they do know when to call the experts in. Doulas make you some tea and ask you what you need in terms of information, comfort measures, and emotional support. They trust, even if you’re not feeling sure yourself, that you know what is best for you and your baby, supporting you to make empowered mothering choices.
The sight of your postpartum doula coming through the door bearing snacks, encouraging words, and a strong shoulder to lean on is a sigh of relief in your busy day.
Postpartum doulas are experienced in meeting the support needs of new families with knowledge, wisdom, and kindness.
Overwhelmed? We’ve got you.
Love,
Lesley Everest
www.MotherWit.ca
by MotherWit | Dec 30, 2015 | Uncategorized
In parenting as in life, everything is about perspective. It is our outlook combined with basic biological factors which make the soundtrack of our lives, helping us transition through the common adjustments the postpartum period requires.
Becoming a parent is perhaps one of the biggest shifts in life, one that requires major adaptation. Not only do we adjust physically as mothers to allow room for another human being to grow and develop inside us, but we prepare psychologically to become parents. We seek out education, and look to our families, friends and acquaintances for guidance and example.
But truly nothing can prepare us for the reality of early parenthood. Even the comprehensive and detailed courses that bring us information that is vital to new parenthood seem millennia away!
Awake late in the night, holding your fresh baby, much of what you learned seems out of reach.
Being at home with that new little being can be overwhelming for new parents. There is so much to know and we feel often inadequate and afraid that one simple decision is the only thing separating us from calamity. Our perspective is coloured by desperate love and inexperience.
The truth is that we have everything it takes. We always had it. We just have to trust it. But how?
There are four keys which MotherWit Postpartum Doulas use to help new parents develop strategies to balance life: NUTRITION, SUPPORT, LOVE and SLEEP.
- NUTRITION is paramount to keeping a sleep-deprived, adrenaline-pumping brain in check. Accepting healthy meals from family and friends is key. Postpartum Doulas also bring food according to your needs.
- SUPPORT refers to asking for help, calling on family and friends, asking questions, and seeking out respectful, non-judgemental resources.
- LOVE speaks to laughter, joy, allowing worry to melt away from time to time and relishing this new experience. It means loving yourself, your partner, and your new family member. And throw in a cart-load of forgiveness. You may as well start now!
- SLEEP… ah sleep. I leave sleep for last because the lack of it is the wrench that can throw all of the above into chaos. When we are sleep-deprived our perspective can be very warped. If you have never been woken up every hour for days on end, suddenly have a tiny and extremely demanding life depending on you absolutely and completely, then new parenthood will feel like some sort of insane Amazing Race you can’t get out of! Days and nights melt into each other and seem endless.
Often family and friends can be a great support here. Having a set of arms to hold Baby as you nap can be a life-saver. But sometimes what is needed is a (nearly) full night’s sleep.
This is where overnight Doula support comes in.
A Doula, experienced in pregnancy, birth and postpartum care, is a great choice of person to care for you and your baby during the night hours, when things can seem even more overwhelming. Doula arrives as you are ready for bed and often spends a few moments making tea and discussing your concerns before tucking you into bed.
The Doula will take care of Baby’s needs as they arise, tending to changing, burping, and soothing. If your baby needs your breast, they are brought to you for feeding, the Doula providing hand-on support and company in those challenging wee hours. Doulas will also feed Baby with a bottle to help you get more sleep if this is your need. A Doula will, however, know when Baby needs that comfort only mama’s arms can provide. You don’t need to worry that your baby will be missing you. We can find the balance between as much sleep for you as possible, and ensuring Baby’s needs for connection with you are met.
Burping, diapering and rocking are generally taken care of so the new parents can get as much sleep as possible.
What is the result? It seems it is almost a miracle! Parents rise in the morning and coffee is brewing and ready. They often have time to shower before meeting Doula with a smile.
Our goal is for you to need us less, not more. Even one or two nights of restful sleep is often a turning point for many new parents. The brain is boosted with sleep, the over active adrenal glands take a break, and sweet relaxation takes over.
The many nights I have spent caring for new families in their cozy home are some of my most memorable moments as a Doula. It is perhaps the epitome of what it is to care for and nurture a new family into being. It is a sweet and gentle time, a time to move slowly and carefully. The world slows down, and in this moment space is created for your family to take its rightful place.
We no longer live in a world where “elders” are part of our cultural structure, but we can be sought out and utilized. Nothing is more comforting that sleeping soundly as the world is cared for by someone else. That is why Doulas do this work and carry this cultural tradition forward. It is important, valuable and often miraculous!
Love,
Millie Tresierra
Postpartum Doula
MotherWit Doula Care
www.MotherWit.ca
by MotherWit | Nov 2, 2015 | Uncategorized
According
to studies cited by PATTCh, an organization dedicated to the
Prevention and Treatment of Traumatic Childbirth (
www.pattch.org),
25 to 34 per cent of women report that their births were traumatic.
Everyone
comes to the path of childbirth with different values, needs, and
desires. There are no two pregnant women alike. As
radically different as “ideal” birth dreams are from woman
to woman, most agree that the experience of birth matters to them.
But
what if birth goes differently from what you had hoped?
As
a doula and childbirth educator for over 22 years, I have seen some
of the hopes and dreams women nurture during pregnancy dashed
violently against the rocks of surprise.
Here
are five ways to approach your birth day that will decrease the
possibility of not only disappointment, but of avoidable trauma.
They will also potentially increase your chances of
feeling like a rock star about your birth.
1)
Have Realistic Expectations
Upon
hearing women recount their birth stories, it is apparent that many
believe a labour that lasted 18 to 24 hours was long. In fact,
24 hours is normal for a first birth experience.
It
will serve you better to expect your labour to be on the longer and
harder side. This will inspire you to mobilize some techniques
to help you pace yourself. Patience is a key element in coping
with labour.
When
your expectations meet the reality of a normal labour, you will not
react with fear or concern. You will be more prone to remain
relaxed, which actually helps you to labour more efficiently. It
tends to be psychologically easier on women to discover they are more
advanced in their labour than they thought (providing they are in an
environment that feels safe to them).
If
you expect your body will open according to a formula that can be
dictated by an app, believing that times of contractions go according
to a dependable curve and can predict how close to full dilation and
delivery you are, you could potentially a) think you are WAY farther
along than you actually are, which is mojo crushing news to hear when
labour is intense, or b) birth in the car.
A
clock or an app can never tell you when your baby will arrive. You
will very likely know when it is time to take labour seriously
because your body will tell you.
2)
Prepare for the Unexpected
It
is a good idea to have some solid coping skills under your belt in
order to meet whatever labour throws at you with confidence.
You
may not end up with the natural birth you’d hoped for. You could give
birth too quickly to get that epidural you wanted. Or, you
unfortunately find your epidural doesn’t work quite the way you
thought it would. You may not have read the chapter in your birth
books on Cesarean, end up needing one, and experience more anxiety
than necessary because you didn’t have an idea of what to expect.
Take
good, unbiased, evidence-based prenatal classes that respect personal
choice and furnish you with simple labour coping techniques. Know
your options at your place of birth (including for your contingency
plans), because without clearly understanding what is available to
you and what your rights are, your options are limited.
Leaving
it all up to chance with an “it will be what it will be, the
experts will decide everything” attitude can deny you the
opportunity to truly own your experience. I have found this
approach to have a higher likelihood of leading to disappointment and
trauma.
Practice
your breathing and relaxation, which can be applied to any birth
situation, expected or not. Ensure your birth partner knows
some good massage techniques to help with comfort. Be open to
everything and attached to nothing. Stay centred.
3)
Find Your Centre
At
the end of the day, no matter how you end up at the big moment of
delivery, it is often the baby who decides how they need to come into
the world.
You
can indeed influence the quality of your birth experience with good
diet, good prenatal care, good prenatal education, and a positive
attitude which affirms that the normal birth process generally works
magnificently. But you cannot control the outcome. It is
ultimately a mystery.
What
you can do, is practice having some mastery over your responses to
what is going on inside you and around you. You can start now.
When something hurts or gets on your nerves, take a deep breath
and repeat to yourself “Nothing can disturb my peace,”
until you actually feel anchored to the changeless peace that rests
beneath every experience. Think of it like being the whole
ocean instead of just the waves.
This
way, you learn to discern that whatever is going on in your field of
experience is just one small part of any given moment, and it too
shall pass. Being centred helps you to refrain from jumping
down the rabbit hole of fear and tension in response to the
challenges labour provides. This will serve you as you work through
the sensations of your birth experience, as well as in difficult
parenting moments.
Your
ability to access this centre is the greatest tool to have when
contractions start coming on strong, or waves of anxiety threaten to
crash in on the day of your planned C-section.
Being
centred doesn’t mean you will behave with Zen like calm. It
just means that while you’re coping with labour in whatever way you
do (yelling being a perfectly valid way), you feel connected to a
source of inner strength and self-trust.
4)
Trust Yourself
Having
witnessed hundreds of births, I can tell you that in pregnancy,
birth, and motherhood, women often develop uncanny intuition when it
comes to their bodies and their babies. They may doubt it, as
intuition is not something we as a culture have a lot of practice
validating within ourselves, but it is there nonetheless.
As
a young pregnant woman, I was amazed at how intuitive I felt about my
needs for birth. I am glad I trusted them, as I sense my birth
experiences would have turned out differently had I not.
As
a mother of four, I rely a lot on my gut when it comes to making
parenting decisions, and you will too
As
you and your baby are a symbiotic unit, it isn’t a stretch of the
imagination to realize there is a deep connection between the two of
you, and can lend to your having insider information about what is
best for your situation.
5)
Get Support
Ensure
the people you have on your birth team know what you want, what your
greatest concerns are, and are prepared to stand by your wishes
whenever possible. They should take time to address your
questions and concerns, listen to you, explain your options, and
support your choices.
The
Cochrane Review, a well known medical journal states: “Continuous
support in labour increased the chance of a spontaneous vaginal
birth….and women were more satisfied.”
Support
can come in the form of a friend, a family member, or a professional
doula who is trained and experienced in providing information,
comfort measures, and empathetic guidance to women and their partners
throughout labour and delivery.
Having
felt supported, heard, understood, loved, and upheld as active
participants in their decision making process wherever possible is
what women report helped them feel good about their birth
experiences…even if they didn’t go as expected.
On
the day your little bundle of joy arrives, it is my greatest hope
that you feel like a rock star…no matter what! Because your
birth experience truly matters.
