Episode 13: Facilitated Check-Ins as a Birth Preparation Practice

Today we're talking about checking in with ourselves. This is, honestly, a really important part of informed decision-making in the birth space.

Informed decision-making in the birth room includes checking in with yourself. But how? What does that even mean? Amidst weighing the facts and information, here is a tool to guide you through checking in with your intuition, using this mind, body, emotion, baby framework. I will lead you through a very brief guided check in. Practice this regularly so it comes easily when making decisions in the birth room.

So if you have a quiet few minutes - press play and check-in with your body, mind, emotions, and baby.

Please share this with anyone you think might find it helpful.

See you next week!

Full Transcript:

Hello, and welcome to episode 13 of the free weekly brave journey, birth preparation videos. This week is a little bit different because I am going to be sharing with you a video I recorded for a different purpose. So I had originally recorded this mind, body emotion and baby check-in as an introduction to a different video. And I've decided not to use it there. So I'm going to share it as a weekly free weekly video.

So in terms of these check-ins, I think regular check-ins, having a practice of regularly checking in with yourself really carefully, is essential just for all of our wellbeing, just generally. But in particular, when preparing for birth, a regular practice of checking with your mind, your body, your emotions and your baby to really see where you're at and how you're feeling amidst all the clutter of the lives that we often lead can be essential. That practice is essential so that when you get into the birth process, these check-ins come really intuitively. And so you can really check in through the, through the decision-making process, not only collecting knowledge and using your brain and really as much as you can when you're in labor to make decisions.

But also to really be able to check in with yourself to see where you're at and what the best decision feels like in that moment, taking into account knowledge, evidence, and your own intuition. But for me, I split it into this check-in. In the mind, body, emotion, and baby. So without further ado here is that video.

I believe that a regular practice of checking in with your body, checking in with your emotions, your mind, your baby, checking in with your birth partner, a regular practice of these checking ins will allow you a sense of clarity as you move through your birth journey.

I invite you to close your eyes. If that's available to you, sometimes it can make a person feel uncomfortable to close your eyes. So if that's true, you can just cast your gaze downward just to quiet the mind a little bit.

And check in with your body. Notice your feet. If they're grounded against the earth, or maybe they're not, maybe they're tucked up underneath you, but notice where they are. Notice your sits bones, your seat, where it's connected with wherever you may be sitting. Lower your shoulders away from your ears.

Allow them to drop it down your back and invite deep, steady breath. Release any tension in your jaw, in your hands, in your feet and in your toes. Check in with your breath. Notice your breath. And maybe lengthen each breath just a little bit longer, just a little bit deeper. Birthing people, it's always helpful to take deeper steadier breaths because the more oxygen that's in your body, the more oxygen that is in your baby's body. Birth partners, it's good for all of us to have more oxygen in our bodies.

Deep steady breath. And then we'll move to checking in with our mind. Notice what's been on your mind. So no judgment, kinda zoom out as if you're looking at a movie. What has been taking up a lot of mental space for you today? And notice what you've been thinking about. What's been taking up real estate, as they say in your mind, just notice.

And moving to check-in with your emotions. What emotions are present for you in this moment? And embrace complexity. It is quite normal to be feeling more than one thing at once. Especially during something as transformative as pregnancy and birth, you may have many feelings present, right? Or sometimes pregnant people just feel really tired.

That's okay, too. I guess that's not an emotion. That's a physical state, but just notice what emotions are present for you. What do you feel like. No judgment. Again, sometimes we feel such judgment for the emotions that are present within us. No judgment.

And then it's check, take a hand over your belly.

Place a hand over your belly and check in with your baby. Have you been feeling any wiggles yet? Are you far enough along in your pregnancy that you feel a baby moving? Send a little love to the little one growing in your belly. As you go through this, all the work you're putting in to preparing to meet them. Now, having checked in, if you feel ready and receptive, let's begin. 

Okay. Well, I hope that was helpful. And, um, I hope that it's perhaps an inspiration for you to continue a practice like this on the regular. I look forward to seeing you next week for your next Brave Journey, weekly free video. And if you'd like to see all the other videos I've put together, as you can tell, they're completely random.

Cause I do whatever I feel like with these weekly. Which is very different than the brave journey birth preparation program that I'm putting together, which is a carefully thought out and curated curriculum. Um, but these weekly videos are really fun for me because I can just talk about what I'm in the mood to talk about that week.

So if you want to find all these videos, they are at bravejourney.com. You can also sign up for my email list because I will send you just a weekly email with the link to whatever the video I've created for that week is. Thank you so much. I appreciate  you see you next week.