Birth: the utmost vulnerable moment you’ve yet to experience in your lifetime. Whichever way the baby is delivered, you will explore a state of being that you will simply not be able to put into words. When spoken about afterwards, some try to explain it as painful, exhausting or sometimes even euphoric.

The nerves that you will experience before the baby’s arrival will be a plethora of emotions. Not only are you concerned for your child’s well being as well as your own, but you are also about to experience the body’s power in all its beauty.

Birth is beauty. It’s a moment in time where you are the bridge between heaven and earth.

Isn’t that absolutely wild?

You may have spent the last 39-42 weeks mustering the courage to meditate on the mantra mind over matter, but until you’re in the moment, no one truly knows the true beauty that birth itself can bring.

Now, with beauty comes blood, sweat and tears. There’s no sugar-coating the fact that whichever way your delivery progresses, the mind must play an integral part to keep the body at its natural ease; it (the mind) must trust in the body.

In nearly every instance of anxiety, acceptance tends to be the answer. Accept the things, the instances, that you are unable to control- birth being one (if not the most important) of them.

Breathe into the moment. The moment where your child descends and opens your body. The moment the scalpel slides along your abdomen. Breathe into acceptance- into the moment where your body becomes the vessel of new life.

In order to transform these anxious thoughts before delivery, consider how you define your feelings. Do you hold negative connotations to them? Do you see them holding back your power? How do your perceive your stress? Stress, simply put, does not have to be bad. Nerves can produce the power and strength you need; especially this power that you will find when it comes time to give birth.

You are strong enough. You are capable. You are worthy of this moment and you will transform your nerves into the empowering energy that will bring you through your infant’s delivery.

The mind is a mighty tool. Use it wisely and never doubt its (your) power.

Words by Mother Muse Julian Jamie

Images by Oonagh Bush for print No.10 of Mother Muse