Natalie and Corrinne
Our Calm Birth teachers share stories about teaching for their certification. Corrinne Kaleese, a teacher in Oregon, shared this with us, and we her story about Natalie gave us goosebumps… in the best way possible! We love how Natalie was able to use the techniques so profoundly in the postpartum, and how Corrinne practiced the meditations herself while attending Natalie’s birth as her doula. The applications of Calm Birth are so vast! With Corrinne and Natalie’s blessings, we share the story of their Calm Birth journey together, as told by Corrinne.
I met Natalie and Rick midway through their pregnancy with their first child. Natalie was connected to several pregnancy groups online but due to the pandemic was missing face-to-face interaction and support. She had clear goals for her birth and hoped that preparing prenatally and having a doula would help her to achieve them.
Now with the Calm Birth teacher training complete I had introduced the curriculum to my childbirth education classes; fusing the meditations and teaching strategies into my core content. Natalie and Rick, along with a handful of other families attended the class series online and practiced Womb Breathing, The Practice of Opening and The Practice of Giving and Receiving. Natalie had shared with me that at different points in her life she had accessed meditation and mindfulness strategies to help relieve stress and worry and find a calm, centered place within her. This related very much to her birth preparations as she had a few recurrent fears and worries that popped up even as she also felt well educated on the processes of normal labor. I encouraged her to hold her meditation practice and connect to her awareness and her baby in this way. She used Calm Birth meditations daily throughout most of her third trimester.
The day of Natalie’s birth arrived on the Winter Solstice. She contacted me after her water had broken and her provider suggested she make her way to the hospital. Her contractions hadn’t taken on a rhythm yet so we remained in contact and gave her time to settle in and rest. After a few hours went by Natalie was ready for me to join her; she shared some worry that she may have to get an induction because labor hadn’t kicked in yet. Her provider had encouraged her to have a dose of Methergine which she got before I arrived.
When I got to their birthing room both Rick and Natalie were asleep. I quietly came into the room and settled in to meditating; for a time using Complete Breathing and then transitioning into Giving and Receiving. Later, when Natalie woke up we talked about her worries and strategies she could try based on how she was feeling. I had a hunch that her baby was in a posterior position based on her back pain and contraction pattern.
Natalie’s midwife confirmed the posterior position and did a cervical check; she was at 4 cm. Natalie agreed to me trying some Spinning Babies techniques and we spent about an hour going through a bit of a circuit of different techniques and positions; all the while Natalie’s labor seemed to be picking up rapidly. While each contraction was intense work Natalie did a beautiful job of settling into calm and rest in between. As I worked with her body I practiced Giving and Receiving. I found that this practice brings me a great sense of calm and I am able to project that energy back to the birthing person.
Quite out of the blue Natalie had the urge to push and when her cervix was checked she was complete! She was deep in labor land, dreamy and very sleepy. She would laugh and smile at her husband and even commented “I feel so weird!” After 40 minutes of pushing her baby emerged, vigorous and healthy. Everyone was in awe of how fast her labor had progressed and at how psychedelic the experience had been for her.
After a brief hospital stay the family transitioned back home to their postpartum nest. The first few days were challenging with sleep deprivation and working out how to co-parent, be present and also sleep when the opportunity presented itself.
During my postpartum visits I tended the family in the many ways that are needed with food, TLC, birth processing, answering questions, etc. This however was the first time that I had utilized the Calm Parents meditations with a family and found them to be an excellent tool to support connection to baby and maternal wellness. Natalie had found herself in the “wired and tired” state and was really struggling with being able to sleep. We talked about how she may be able to use meditation to rest even when she couldn’t sleep. The Practice of Healing and Breath Feeding were two of my favorites as they so accurately reflected how this parent was feeling and what she needed to hear time and time again.
After about two weeks of using the meditations, physically healing, getting help from her family and finding a rhythm with her partner Natalie was feeling like a new person. Thankfully her husband had several weeks of paternity leave and Natalie felt at ease knowing that her support would be consistent.
The Calm Birth Practices have such wide reaching benefits and can be accessed as parents need them. In the case of Natalie, her birth unfolded in such a way that she really didn’t have time, or the need, to lean too heavily on the meditations as coping strategies. Her postpartum period however was the perfect time for her to settle in and rest with them. I think that especially during postpartum, when energy is fragile and raw and the family is rapidly adjusting, bringing in the calm, deeply grounded energy that comes from meditating helps me to be a more effective provider. As her doula it felt like a wonderful way to encourage ongoing support and care when my time with them was complete.