Birth plan – a general outline or plan on how you wish to be cared for during the labor and delivery of your child. The key word here is general. In my humble opinion you cannot plan a birth. Even the day your child is born cannot be predicted unless of course you have a scheduled C-section delivery. And once you go into labor {at least the first time around} you really have no idea how your body will handle it. Some women labor for hours on end, and others have a baby in their arms 30 minutes after the whole process begins. Some women start out saying “no pain meds for me!” and end up screaming like the little girl from The Exorcist to “give me the meds!” later in the process. So, a birth plan can be a little misleading, and set you up for some minor or maybe major disappointments. Now, writing a ONE-PAGE {no novels allowed} outline fully knowing and understanding that it can {and probably will} change is a better way to think about this so-called birth plan.

• Try not to ABSOLUTELY rule things out. Keep an open mind, labor can change decisions you previously thought you were sure of. Oh, let’s use the example of an epidural. You want a natural, feels all the pain, kind of birth, which there is nothing wrong with, but wait until you start to get into the “my water broke, and now every contraction is making me want to ugly cry in the corner” phase. Don’t rule out pain management until you get to that point {in regards to hospital births, obviously}. You may decide it’s for you after all. I mentioned {pre-labor}, that I wanted to go as long as possible with no pain management, however, once my water broke, and I felt what I could only assume was every bone in my body being crushed, my tune immediately changed, so I politely asked for an epidural.

• Don’t count on pain management. Maybe have a back up plan if that doesn’t pan out. Labor can progress too quickly for it to be helpful OR you can have a condition that does not allow for an epidural or any other type of pain management. This happens. I KNOW! Because after I politely asked for my epidural, I was told that my platelets were too low, and that it was too risky for me to receive one. Then my labor progressed so quickly that it was too late in the process to get a little help intravenously. So I got all-natural. It hurt. I lived. The birth plan died. All was well in the end, and no bones were crushed.

• You won’t be walking in a labor wonderland. Don’t just throw things like a soaking tub, a balance ball and/or a mirror on your list and think they will be available to you. If you want things like this during your birth make sure you take advantage of the maternity tours hospitals/birth centers give, and ask if they will be able to provide them. If not, some of that stuff you can bring yourself, and a birth plans crisis can be averted.

• Don’t expect your doctor to really be one with your plan. By all means show them your plan, and ask them general questions. Just know that for most normal{hospital} births your obgyn will be there when it’s time to push, then they get baby and momma’s immediate needs taken care of, but before and after that, the lovely L&D nurses handle things. In other words, the people that will be spending the most time with you, and your birth plan needs, will be the nurses. That’s why I will stress again how important the hospital maternity tours are. Take advantage of these! It’s the one time, before you actually go in for the whirlwind of childbirth, that you can go ask questions.

• Speaking of whirlwind, labor can be a total whirlwind of craziness and emotions. Your body works so hard during this time, and while your birth plan may have been a totally great way for you to mentally prep for this moment, now that it is actually here you may have a change of heart and want the complete opposite of what you originally planned. Go with what you think will work best for you and do not feel bad about it if your plans change.

Now, with all this said, if you had a birth plan that went perfectly, and you got to check every box with an “X” of completion, good for you. That’s awesome. You are lucky, #blessed, whatever you like to call it. As for me and the advice I give to my first time mama friends, I will always stress that a birth plan may be good for the planner in you, but it most likely wont reflect how the actual day of your labor and delivery will go. So try to let go of your inner control freak, and go with the flow of how you are feeling in the moments of labor.

Good luck mamas!