3 Ways Birth Is Like Moving

Photograph by Jo Bourne

I joked several weeks ago that I was considering rebranding my doula and prenatal class business, Birth Takes a Village, to Moving Takes a Village.  This was because over the last few months I have helped move three separate friends into three separate apartments. This month, I’ve been moving myself. This is getting ridiculous!

I wish there was such thing as a moving-doula. Although the cleaning women we emergency hired from Urban Home and Lifestyles did play part of that role in my own move – thank God / Buddha / Ryan Smyth, or whichever god you personally pray to. So did a few of my good friends and, credit-where-it’s-due, my ex-boyfriend with whom my break-up with is what led to the move in the first place…  or was it vice-versa? It’s difficult to keep track of these things!

At any rate, all this moving got me thinking. Moving is alot like birth! 

Here are three ways moving is akin to birth:

1. It’s unpredictable and impossible plan completely

A vision for what you want in birth is important, but birth has its own agenda and somethings might not unfold exactly how you pictured it! Although I do maintain that in birth, women should insist upon their rights and philosophy being respected, but having your heart set on how long you expect things to take, which room you will end up birthing in, etc, are things you might not be able to plan for perfectly.

Same with moving. In my experience, moves often go a bit differently than the way you think they will. The sunny forecast will turn to a rainy day, your mattress will get soaked in transit and you’ll have to make an unexpected stop at a recycling depot (cough, speaking from direct experience!), and the details of the new place you end up moving to might be different than you expected.

You might hope to get the whole thing done in a few hours on a Friday, but 3 days later you could still find yourself packing up some final things from the storage locker (including piles of your friend’s belongings and her bicycle. This is a side note, and has nothing to do with birth. You know who you are, friend – COME GET YOUR BIKE!). But, just like birth, things sometimes take longer than you anticipate, and that’s okay, and really even is normal!

In any case,  you’ll at some point get your things where you need to and end up with a comfortable spot to sleep, or in the  case of birth, a newborn baby in the end. You just might be surprised by some of the fine details along the way.

Note: If you want some tips about birth plans, check out my birth plan category!

2. You will want/need to try a lot of positions during the process

One of the best things for labour is moving around and following your body through different positions as your body and baby work together through the process. This might have been the first thing that reminded me of what it’s like to give birth.

Envision trying to get your friend’s gigantic couch out her apartment door. You KNOW it must fit through the door because that’s the way it came in – the apartment wouldn’t have furniture in it that was too big to get out! Just like your body wouldn’t make a baby too big to push.

However, you will probably try 300 different positions in an attempt to GET said couch out that door. Just when things seem to be moving forward nicely, the armrest will be an inch short of making it around the corner and you’ll have to take a small break and try another angle.

Eventually, though, with a bit of perseverance, you will get the seemingly impossible feat accomplished and joyfully greet the couch on the other side of the door. Admittedly, every now and then in a baffling turn of events it will ACTUALLY seem like there is no way on earth the couch is fitting out the door and you may have to consider shoving it out through the patio door and over the balcony (again, speaking from recent experience), but just like cesarean births, this is generally unnecessary.

3. A good support team is invaluable

There are bound to be moments when you want to give up and exclaim, “I don’t want to do this anymore!”. You may burst right into tears in a moment of overwhelm during the intense and sometimes long journey, or because of the challenging physical part of the work and the emotions that come with big change. Although some moves (and births) proceed without a hitch, others have their moments of frustration and fatigue.

Having one or more emotionally stable, encouraging, and confident support people with you is the key to making the whole experience a bit easier.  They will offer ideas and suggestions of different techniques to try while attempting to maneuver the couch out the door (or baby out your vagina, whichever the case may be), pause to  give you a shoulder rub when it looks like you need it, and remind you everything you are experiencing is normal and that you WILL get through it.

<3