My Birth Plan

Regardless of how your sweet baby enters the world, a birth plan is something that allows you to have more of a say during the entire process. This can be as elaborate or as minor as you wish to create, it just gives you the opportunity to be heard and guidelines and boundaries set for your wants and needs during labour, delivery and aftercare.

While having your first baby, you may not be too sure what you want to happen because it is a whole new experience. I thought I had it all planned out, with some very specific things and it was going to be my way or the highway. I learned very quickly, you can plan things all you want to the very last detail, but you also need to be flexible in some matters.

Labour doesn’t always go as we expected. I was dead set on having a natural birth with no epidural and expected this beautiful experience from start to finish. I ended up needing to be medically induced a week after my due date, labouring for over 36 hours, contractions lasting nearly 4 minutes long and the grand finale was an emergency C-Section. So as important as it is to have a birth plan to obtain what you would like to see happening during the labour and delivery process, you will need to have some flexibility in some matters and learn to adapt quickly as things don’t always go as planned. These babies have plans of their own a majority of the time.

That all being said, there are some things that I wanted to make very clear during my experience. These still stand this time around for Baby #2. Some things, to my husband and I, were non-negotiables. Here are a few examples:

• My husband is to be the one to cut the umbilical cord.
• My husband is to be the one to announce if it is a boy or a girl.
• A 3 minute cord clamping delay for baby. (This is for health benefits for baby.)
• While medical students are welcomed to be present during the labour and delivery or any other necessary procedures, they are not to administer any needles through the entire process to myself or baby. (While I respect we all need to learn, I have my limits.)
• Not interested in using a mirror to see the baby crown or come out.
• Baby’s medical exam and any necessary procedures are to be done with both or at least one parent present.

These are only a few things we have listed, but these are the things that have not waivered from my first pregnancy to this one. I went in depth for both as well with which medications we are comfortable with baby receiving versus ones we did not find necessary. I have specific guidelines as to how I would like certain situations, if they arise, to be handled. Treatments I would like to receive. If and when I would like to be offered medications such as an epidural or alternative forms of pain relief I prefer. Our baby will be breastfed so there are notes about if and when we find it necessary to supplement with formula. As much as I have grown adaptable to things changing on a whim, which is also mentioned throughout my birth plan, there are some things in which I prefer to see occur.

As women, we have the right to decide how we want things to happen to our bodies. While some things are out of our own control and emergencies happen, we can do what we can ahead of time to enlist the help and expectations we see fit. By having a birth plan in place, the doctors, nurses and midwives involved have been informed of your awareness and how you expect to be treated. You’re allowed to be picky, you’re allowed to say no and you are allowed to be informed every single step along the way. Do your own research and figure out what you would like to see in an ideal situation. And then adapt and roll with the punches are it all unfolds. Self awareness and self respect starts within you.

Melanie xoxox