Ok Truth time. I have been ragingly mad at my own child.

I still remember the moment, we were in one of our epic struggles around naps, and I was trying to get him to quiet down, all the while thinking about how I was going to be late for my Mommy Meditation group- Oh the irony!

There are things you can control for during childbirth, and there are things you cannot. Rather than wasting your time trying to control things you can’t influence in the first place, stay on your mat. Stick to what you can actually control and then find ways to let go of the rest.

How is Labor like Valentines day? No this isn’t one of those horrible jokes. The childbirth process and the hallmark holiday are both centered around one key emotion that guides the whole process: Love.

Or more specifically for labor, the love hormone of Oxytocin.

Ask someone the first thought they associate with childbirth, and they usually say pain. This idea has been reinforced for years. Story after story mentions the pain, sometimes focusing on it almost exclusively. Certainly there can be pain during the labor process, but the key to this cornerstone of working with your labor is this: Your experience isn’t about the pain. It's about your mental attitude towards it.

As a doula I assisted at nearly 300 births before I stepped back from active practice. Certainly not all of these were unmedicated labors. In fact there were numerous labors I attended which made use of an epidural to help mom rest, relax, and ultimately release into the process of birth. I loved attending these births every bit as much as the natural ones. Every birth was truly magical. But I began to notice an occurrence in the immediate postpartum hour that seemed more common with the epidural and cesarean births. Shaking.