The house seems empty. Eerily quiet after all the hustle of the hospital corridors. Now what? You think to yourself. What's first? This new little one is completely dependent on you for everything. In many ways, this landing zone is its own form of drop shock!

All. Night. Long. Feeding, then crying, then feeding then crying! It's easy to become concerned that maybe you're just not producing enough milk, and your new baby may very well starve. Cue deep feelings of failure (which are then exacerbated because you're exhausted from the birth process and now not sleeping all night!)

Then it happens! Baby is free, and they are turned toward you. You gaze down at this little . . . stranger. Your feelings may be foreign, platonic, numb. You expected to adore this beautiful combination of you and your partner, but instead, the little one with smooshed features and strange colors contorts their face as their cries expand their lungs.

Do you know what to expect when you arrive at the hospital to have your baby? Most hospital maternity wards (especially at larger facilities) are separated into several different areas. They have a triage space, a medical space, and birthing suites. And when you go into the OB unit to have your baby, often you will stop in at triage first.

But you can guarantee success in your birth space if you make a subtle shift in your focus . . .

When we feel the internal buildup of pressure, we often seek a way to relieve it (STERB: Short Term Energy Relieving Behaviors). The problem with STERBs is that they appear to work for a while, until they don't anymore. Then we seek out more of that behavior or even a new one in order to distract ourselves from the internal energy buildup.

C O M P A S S I O N Showing Compassion to Herself Compassion is such a misunderstood concept. If you look up the English meaning of this word, it lists it as a noun. A thing. As if we can hand it out or keep it for ourselves. But if you look at the etymology and roots of this word, you begin to understand it so much better and recognize how it can be so transformative for both us and others. Compassion stems from Latin and Greek Roots. Com - Coming near, close beside or toget

As children, we may have been given resources to know that these bodily sensations are actually our emotional responses to life. We may have been guided gently by caregivers teaching us the names of these different sensations, seeing us where we were, and showing us dignity and compassion. Or we may have had caregivers who were doing the best they could with what they had, but who were unable to guide us down a healthy emotional path.

Any experience that was not validated and handled healthily in the moment of occurrence can be stored as trauma in our amygdala. This causes a fight or flight response in our body (cortisol and stress release response) any time our bodies feel threatened in a similar way - thus fear, insomnia, anxiety, and panic!

But reality is: even small pregnancy changes can feel like big changes to us personally. And our body will remember whether we honored what it endured or whether we ignored what it was trying to tell us.

Each day our bodies speak to us - they tell us when we are sleepy, hungry, or have a need for the bathroom. They tell us with pain and discomfort that something needs adjusted or that there might be a problem worth looking into. They let us know when we are mentally fatigued and they carry the tension of our mental and emotional stressors in forms of muscle tightness (and maybe even stomach pains or headaches). OUR BODIES ARE ALWAYS TALKING!

But pregnancy is a HEAVY Physical experience! Your body is stretching and growing in ways it never has before. Your organs are being pushed aside to make room for your growing babe. Your body is demanding more caloric input as you are outputting hundreds of extra calories per day in the development of your "mini me."

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