Expecting Kindness is a curriculum built upon more than 20 years of experience teaching childbirth education as well as attending over 600 births as a doula in the Pacific Northwest, in Washington State..  The mission for this project is primarily to serve as the curriculum in my proprietary childbirth education courses. If you are local to the PNW, I would love to see you in one of my classes. I currently offer classes both in person (for vaccinated clients) and simultaneously online (for unvaccinated, or anyone who finds online more convenient for any reason). Additionally, I intend this project to provide a comprehensive childbirth education experience to families who do not have access to a comprehensive class that will educate and instill confidence, as well as a profound respect for the beautiful work of labor and birth. Families can also use this course in addition to a hospital class, to fill in gaps.  It can be used to add detail and depth to a weekend crash course. It can be used in combination with other classes, like hypnobirthing, to help you better understand where and when to apply the skills you will learn.  It can be used as a refresher course for families who have perhaps taken a course to prepare for their first birth, but now have children and can not afford the time. Expecting Kindness will take nothing away from other sources, but will add context and some simplicity to the progression of labor to help both laboring persons and anyone who may be present and providing support.  

This curriculum also educates about the common interventions in childbirth today and how they all contribute to our obscene national rate of surgical birth, and how to avoid it whenever it is the healthiest option (which is almost all the time).  ACOG has recently released it's new, revised, timeline for births and when it is observed, it mirrors what birth activists have been saying for years.  It takes some education though, to be able to follow the new guidelines (arriving a the hospital or birth center in active labor, now considered to be approximately 5-6cm dilated) because labor can feel pretty challenging before we reach that milestone.  Knowing how to evaluate the labor by simply knowing how put a puzzle of external signs and symptoms together will help you to arrive at your desired birth location when the services provided there are actively needed , while avoiding the pitfalls of one intervention in early labor leading to another and another and ultimately, too often, laying a breadcrumb trail to the operating room. Even those planning a home birth will need to evaluate the labor progress in order to communicate effectively with their midwives to make sure they arrive at the appropriate time.

It is a workbook style course, offering you short "lectures", STRONGLY suggested supplemental reading, video's to watch, relaxation techniques, breathing for relaxation, physical support tools etc.  There are also assignments, such as journaling prompts, exercises to prepare for the work of labor, and writing a birth plan for example. I believe in birth plans, when they are reasonable, because any event of this magnitude requires at least a framework that your circle can refer to.  It allows the family to focus on comfort and care without constant interruptions and incessant questions from staff.  It provides a simple list of directives regarding any specific medical procedures or interventions, for mom or baby, that may be difficult to understand and/or make informed choice about while working though labor.

I hope you enjoy the course, whether in person with me (class activities and discussions are supplemental to the books content, and making connections and being with other families that are going through like experiences is very helpful), or independently in your living room. Based on feedback I’ve received, I can attest to the fact that families who have used it, very often have fewer interventions than they otherwise would have, they have expressed that they have felt empowered by birth, they felt well armed to ask questions and command respect and dignity from care providers, they have reported feeling confident in the face of having to make choices to accept interventions that became necessary, allowing them to accept even a surgical birth more easily because they knew and fully understood that it was the healthiest choice for mom or baby.  At it's core, Expecting Kindness is a call for a MUCH deeper reverence for the most creative force in our human experience, none of us would be here without birth; it is the first moment that a family first meets one another and it can be honored far and away more than it often is.  We deserve to be empowered through birth, we deserve to be treated with kindness, patience, to be understood, have thorough explanations of any risks or complications, as well as all risks and benefits to proposed treatments, we deserve to be asked permission to be touched. We deserve to feel the power of our bodies, to know that we are capable of far more than we realized.