Baby mumma - our bombdiggity tool kit

Yawn it is morning and Boston is now SEVEN WEEKS OLD! Golly gosh how time flys when you are breast feeding, changing nappies and falling in love. In my last post I gave you the epic that was Bozzies birth and now I want to share some secrets (ahh not really secrets) about the tool kit we had.

I can only assume that like others I had pretty limited knowledge about birth before it was actually my turn to do it. After getting over the initial surprise that we were going to be parents and my body had another being inside of it, (a. the surprise will be explored in another blog b. still not really grasping that we are parents) I set about gathering information about pregnancy and birth.

I am not one for reading a TONN of information but what I came across started to form the knowledge base I eventually drew upon. Things I found useful were;

1. The Business of Being Born (2008) - This is a documentary that focuses on the current American medical system and how the majority of birth's are managed. Even though our Australian system is different this doco gives insight into how one intervention may create a cascade affect. It also highlights options other then a hospital birth and looks back at the history of birth in western society. It is downloadable online or you can watch snippets through youtube.
2. Your Best Birth, Author Ricky Lake - This book was the product of Ricky's experience making "The Business of Being Born". I found it gave a reasonably non biased information on what you can expect no matter what path you choose.
3. The Good Birth Companion: A Practical Guide to Having the Best Labour and Birth, Author Nicole Croft - This was my favourite book. Once again it took a middle ground view point delivered in short chunks of very practical and helpful information. It also contains a section dedicated to the first few weeks after birth which is vital. You can buy this one on amazon or through ebay, alternately try your local library (my source of books).
4. www.babycenter.com.au - As far as websites goes I found this one to have very helpful information about an extensive range of topics. They also have a pregnancy app which gives you little tidbits of information each day as your pregnancy progresses (perfect for baby brain). They also put out a book that has great chunks of information called Pregnancy; From conception to birth.

Apart from these all our information came first hand from experts in the field. Who are these amazing people you may ask, well here is my super wicked support team list.

My Boston belly at 30 weeks

• Murwillumbah Midwives
• A Li Acupuncture - the wonderfully talented acupuncturist Aurelia Everaarts
• Pure Bliss Yoga - pregnancy yoga with the joyful Lina
• Hypnobirthing - full of great stories and positive affirmations with Anthea Thomas
• Joey - my very special friend and midwife who listened to me and answered so many questions with total honesty.
• Birth's I have been a part of - A huge thank you must be extended to Georgie and Claudi who invited me to be part of their birthing experience and in turn shared an invaluable gift. Without seeing their two wonderful boys come into the world I would not have had a real life gague for my birth. 

That is all for this blog. I am aware that it is a wee bit on the boring side but I really wanted to share these resources with the mumma's to be out there. Stay tuned next time for some more creative writing all about hypnobirthing (it is not like stage hypnosis, and no I will not cluck like a chicken when you count to three).