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Our Birth Story by Karen Mitchell, Expert Birth + Baby Educator

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In 1986  I became pregnant. I had always had an interest in psychology and why people do things and where they are coming from but when I had my first baby I really dug into that.  I was lucky enough to be very mindful and place a great deal of importance on the actual process from the nuts and bolts of what you're eating in a day to  how how your life looks spiritually and your relationship with nature.  I dug into every aspect of having a baby. I ended up finding  two women that did prenatal classes together and back in those days they were very long, eight nine weeks and you'd go once a week and they delved into everything you could possibly think of. I wanted to have a good experience  and I also had a little bit of a natural distrust and cynicism for institutions. I was not a person who really liked hospitals and I wanted to have a joyful independent experience that was empowering. I really thought about this little human coming into the world and what that might look like
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Recommended Reading for all parents

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  Ina Mae’s Guide to Childbirth - Ina Mae Gaskin The Complete Book of Prregnancy and Childbirth - Sheila Kitzinger The Baby Boos - Martha and William Sears Happiest Baby on the Block - Harvey Karp The Birth Partner - Penny Simkin Dr. Jack Newmans Guide to Breastfeeding The Womanly Arrt of Breastfeeding - La Leche League International Taking Charge of your Fertility - Toni Weshler Heart and Hands - Elizabeth Davis New Pregnancy and Childbirth - Miriam Stoppart The No Cry Sleep Solution - Elizabeth Pantley The Attachment Parenting Book - Martha Sears Birth Reborn - Michel Odent A Good Birth A Safe Birth - Roberta Scaer, Roberta Korte
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HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMENS DAY! This is the Haula Stone in Maui.  I took this picture in Lahaina when I visited Hawaii.  The stone which you can see looks like a low back chair dates back to the 14th Century.  It may have been a sacred place where the women of royalty came to birth.  It is said to have healing powers.  When I saw it the idea of sitting here and having the gentle waves come over the belly with contractions made perfect sense to me.   It makes me think of all the women who have come before me to become mothers and all of those who will come.  Mothering is a long haul!   The work of bringing the baby into the world and as the child grows to adulthood and on.  We are mothers until we pass ourselves.  The journey is long and has many peaks and valleys.  I am thinking today on Womens Day of all of the mothers who have loved and sacrificed and work to grow as a mother every day.   I am proud to be one of you.  
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"The worst things you can do at the baby shower"

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M y friend recently told me about this horrible  baby shower for this girl at work.  I was telling my daughter about it and I  said "that's it I didn't have a whole  chapter in my book about what not to do  to pregnant women, what the worst  kind of things you can do with the baby  shower. At this work shower they they had  nothing for the pregnant woman to drink. T hey'd gone out they bought all this  alcohol they didn't have a freaking  sparkling water or nothing for the  pregnant woman and that's just the start! They didn't have food she could eat they  had old deli sandwiches and she doesn't  eat the deli meat I mean  it was just like bad bad bad bad bad  bad and it makes people's lives harder  than they need to be this  expectation and that's what we do  because it's what is "fu n". I t doesn't  take much  to see that all those people bought  all of that stuff for themselves,  they didn't buy it to make her life  easi
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How to get newborn into a sleep schedule

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 HOW TO GET YOUR NEWBORN ON A SLEEP SCHEDULE Most babies will have one long spell of sleep and of course it's going to be your objective to get that in the night as quickly as you can . If you know they have a four or five hour crash after they've had a good feed that would be great if you managed to wangle that in the night and then maybe they just wake up for one more quick feed and you sleep for another two or three hours and that's how we survive in the early weeks with a newborn baby. By two weeks you want to ask does my baby know night and day, is baby up more in the day and sleeping more in the night? We don't know what your baby's going to come out and be like but that's certainly always going to be our objective, to get them into a sleep schedule. Now we don't want to do that by ignoring babies at night. We just want to make sure mom and dad are the ones that are setting babies scheduled. We are creatures that like schedules and so start your bedti
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