Ep 164: How to Process Fear and Doubt During Birth

Rebroadcast of episode 126
Birth has a way of transforming us.  Bringing forth new life requires us to dig deep, to find a part of ourselves that is bigger than ourselves, that you may not even know you have, that asks you to surrender and turn inward and trust.  

This episode is loosely based on a Pathways to Family Wellness Article - titled The Treasure Box.  Where a midwife discusses with a client how transformative birth can be.

Dr. Shannon and Doula Rachael share their own birth stories and how they tapped into their mental reserves during birth, and they share advice from clients and patients.  Some call it the treasure box, this beautiful gift we’re given that shows us how strong and capable we truly are.  Others call it the pain cave, this mental place we go to when things are hard, when we want to stop, when we want to give up.  Whatever you call it, you do have it, and during pregnancy it can be helpful to reflect on your thoughts, fears, emotions, and feelings surrounding birth. 

Resources mentioned:

Transformed by Birth

Episode 103: Processing the emotions of pregnancy and birth

Episode 89: Ultramarathons and birth 

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• 13:23 (Cont.) Ep 164: How to Process Fear and Doubt During Birth

Transcript

Dr. Shannon (00:01.996)
Welcome to the Aligned Birth podcast. This podcast is devoted to talking about all things prenatal, pregnancy, postpartum, transitioning into motherhood. You've got two hosts of the show. I'm one of them, Dr. Shannon Dula-Rachel is here as well. So you have both hosts today. And I don't really know how I wanna intro this episode. I'm kind of struggling with it today because we...

we had an idea for it and then now it's like, it's ebbing and flowing and growing and it's beautiful and amazing. And so I'm like, it's gonna talk about so many good things with birth. So we're gonna talk about a mental birth cave and where to go in your brain when things get tough and talk about the pain cave. And we're gonna talk about fear and doubt in pregnancy and going into labor and birth. And then we're gonna talk about the treasure box and another way to think of it, how you can access.

this treasure deep within you to push past things that you think that you can't do. I don't know how I want to intro this show. So we're talking about a lot of things today. How it started was we were, it was a Pathways to Family Wellness article. I'm going to go through that in a minute about what that is, but it's an article called The Treasure Box and now we're just going to elaborate on this and share some of our thoughts and feelings with it. So.

Hopefully you stick around because you don't know what we're going to talk about today. Welcome Rachel. I don't know what to say.

Rachael Hutchins (01:31.122)
Hi Dr. Shannon, it's okay. It is, when it ebbs and flows and is organically changing in front of you as we are recording, you do what you do and it's fine.

Dr. Shannon (01:44.169)
Yeah, this is our third episode that we've recorded today because we do them in batches. And it's just funny how the episodes we've recorded, they've all been about similar topics. Sometimes that doesn't happen, but it is just really good. Yeah, there've been threads. And so I'm glad that we saved this one for last because I think it's really good. So again, this one is...

Rachael Hutchins (01:59.918)
There's been like some threads that have, have. Mm-hmm, yeah.

Dr. Shannon (02:09.64)
very loosely based where the idea came from, from a Pathways to Family Wellness article. So that's a chiropractic-based magazine published by the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association, ICPA. They are an organization that hosts perinatal and pediatric chiropractic training. So they have certification programs, diplomat programs. We've had several chiropractors on who have...

who teach the courses. This is where Webster technique comes from as far as that prenatal chiropractic care training certification classes. We've had Dr. Pam on, Dr. Martin Rosen, Dr. Daniel Drabin. They're all associated with ICPA. So it's a wonderful organization. They put out a quarterly magazine and it's one of my favorite magazines. In fact, this magazine I think played a huge role in me becoming a chiropractor because my chiropractor, Dr. Pam Mollistone gave me the magazine and I read

one article in there and it shifted my mindset and it kind of it just wanted I wanted to search out more and it was about a book that was written called Molecules of Emotion and then I read and read that book and then I quit my job and went back to school so this magazine has the potential to change your life now um but just I just really love this magazine I love the articles that are in it I love to hand it out to mom so but Rachel and I like to sit down every once in a while

and go through and discuss some of the articles because they're so good. So we've done this before. I don't even remember the ones that we've talked about. Childbirth education, prenatal chiropractic care and childbirth education, hospital based classes versus independent childbirth classes, like lots of good articles. But this one today is called the Treasure Box. So do you wanna tell us a little bit about what the Treasure Box is?

Rachael Hutchins (03:42.522)
Mm-hmm.

Rachael Hutchins (03:48.292)
Mm-hmm.

Rachael Hutchins (03:57.182)
Well, I like this article about the way it described this place that you access or go in labor as the treasure box. I felt like it's a really, really poignant and beautiful way to describe it. But I will back up a little bit to this article has been on our list for a while. So a couple years ago for your vision board event, which I love.

Dr. Shannon (04:16.559)
Mm-hmm.

Rachael Hutchins (04:22.854)
I still have the board from like two years ago because I love it so much I've left it up and in the center is the cutout from this article. It's like a silhouette of a pregnant person and it's like a gold-orange color And that article really resonated with me. So did the image I'm a big fan of pathways magazine as well almost always devour every article of every issue it's

Dr. Shannon (04:27.905)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (04:45.804)
Mm-hmm.

Rachael Hutchins (04:49.166)
Content it's not like advertising. It's like actual like Content like helpful information. It's like reading a book I love it But then it's like a whole bunch of different perspectives on a lot of different topics and we tend to extract the ones that Are more birthy or chiropractic related? But they have all kinds of topics but um, so I was when you brought this back up as something for us to talk about I was like, oh yes I so want to talk about this

Dr. Shannon (04:52.649)
Oh yeah, it's full.

Dr. Shannon (05:05.3)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (05:14.5)
Because I remember in our little Excel file, yeah, we have a little Excel file that will, if we're searching for topics or something to come up with, we can revert back to it to see what have we talked about or whatever. And there's, I mean, it's a wealth of knowledge and it's really, really good. Yeah. And I was like, oh, we need to pick a Pathways article. Which one should we do? And I was looking at it, I was like, we'll do Treasure Box. I'm like, Rachel put this one there and she put it in there forever ago. So I could tell you were like, yay, finally.

Rachael Hutchins (05:23.658)
Yeah, we save it.

Mm-hmm, or when things pique our interest we put it in there so we can draw on it later

Rachael Hutchins (05:35.991)
Yeah.

Rachael Hutchins (05:40.666)
It's just waiting on its own time to come through. So I think this, this is an interesting one because it's something as like a first time birther I try to put myself back in those shoes and I think this would have felt very hard to access and hard to like lean into not having given birth but now having given birth twice. I'm like, yes, this makes sense.

Dr. Shannon (05:43.513)
So it's coming through.

Dr. Shannon (06:05.092)
Mm-hmm.

Rachael Hutchins (06:10.058)
lots of mamas and partners and families going through the birthing process. Like this is a very real thing that I work really hard to help people understand. So it's this very ambiguous thing that we're kind of like struggling to say what it is but it's like it's really overcoming the fear and doubt that is like ingrained in us through our society and culture about birth for the moment.

majority of us I feel like we're more fearful of birth until we learn about it, until we've witnessed it or experienced it or until we truly understand it a little bit better. The default is fear which is normal. Like to fear things you haven't gone through before, especially fear things that are inherently risky, that are going to change your life forever, that are something you've really wanted for a long time. Yeah, you know it's going to be painful.

Dr. Shannon (06:54.142)
Yeah.

Dr. Shannon (07:02.752)
that are going to be painful, right? Like...

Rachael Hutchins (07:08.302)
do you want to do this experience? You'd be like, yeah, but that makes me really nervous or fearful. So fear is normal. But like, what are we going to do with that fear and doubt? Are we going to stay fearful? We're going to continue to feed it with fearful things that make us feel more fearful. Or are we going to counter it with things that help us feel less fear? And this is what as a dual and people hire a dual, I feel like a bulk of what we do with them is in pregnancy and it's addressing.

Dr. Shannon (07:12.671)
Mm-hmm.

Rachael Hutchins (07:38.742)
how they learned about birth, perceptions of birth, overcoming fear, overcoming doubt, trying to help them see the potential of what can exist in the process of pregnancy and birth for what you can access to grow a baby, to go through pregnancy in a way that feels good, in a way that is honoring your body and honoring the process and, you know.

Dr. Shannon (07:40.145)
Mm-hmm.

fears and doubts.

Mm-hmm.

Rachael Hutchins (08:05.182)
leaning into the discomfort and leaning into the fear. So like there's so much potential like that I feel like we can gain from the process of pregnancy and how we approach that as well as birth. And I think all those things that we gain from the pro those processes last forever. Like if I go, it's so

Dr. Shannon (08:20.98)
This is why birth is so transformative. And it's the ripple effect, what we've talked about too. Because it's not just yes, bringing forth life, but this literally, your cells change, but it literally changes your brain. It changes your brain. It changes things about you. It's so transformative.

Rachael Hutchins (08:34.026)
Yep.

Rachael Hutchins (08:37.798)
And there's like, there's a spectrum of like potential, like of what birth can do for you. And I think when you kind of are more open to the massive potential, the easier it is to access. But even for those who have done the education, got the support team, really worked on the mindset, once you're in labor and going through the process,

Dr. Shannon (08:41.889)
Mm-hmm.

Rachael Hutchins (09:06.442)
It's still really hard. Like it's, you still have to do it and then you're in it.

Dr. Shannon (09:07.752)
You still have to do it. You can have everybody around you and have the support. You still have to do it.

Rachael Hutchins (09:14.942)
And then once you start feeling the sensations and maybe it's gone on for a while or whatever, like whatever has happened or is happening for you, even if it's normal and there's no like, like negative things happening, it's still a really hard event. And so when you're in it, that's when the doubt might come back and the fear might come back. And that's what this article and it was really short article. It was like an expert from a mid. Yeah. It was a midwife basically kind of giving, it's like she told a story, but it's like, it could have probably happened a hundred times over.

Dr. Shannon (09:22.997)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (09:34.584)
Oh yeah, is it written by a midwife? I think it is, right? Yeah.

Dr. Shannon (09:43.688)
Mm-hmm.

Rachael Hutchins (09:44.498)
you know, she probably does this a lot and it's, it's where you feel the, the uncertainty and the doubt and labor. And then the midwife is telling you, you can do it. Like you can get through this. Like you, you just got to go to your, to a place, to the treasure box, to the pain cave.

Dr. Shannon (09:56.773)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (10:01.848)
I'm gonna go to a place inside you. Uh-huh. Well, to the pancake. We're gonna talk about that in a minute. So the one, it starts off with quotes from her client and I resonate very deeply with this because the client says, I have serious doubts that I can do this, this being giving birth. When things get tough in my life, my habit is to change my mind and walk out.

Well, I won't be able to do that in the middle of the birth now, will I?" And she laughs nervously, like, there goes my escape plan. That's the crux of what this is. It's, you know you're going to have to do this hard thing. You can't escape it, right? So, how do you dig deep? How do you dig and find those reserves within you?

Rachael Hutchins (10:28.258)
Mm.

Rachael Hutchins (10:45.315)
Well...

Rachael Hutchins (10:50.162)
And one of the other quotes that also resonated with me would be like the answer to that is that one of the gifts of labor is that we have to do it. You don't get to walk out. You don't get to quit. You've signed up for this. You want this and we get to see what we really are capable of through this process. And that is a treasure. That's the treasure box that you will take with you the rest of your life. And that is like, you know, when you can.

Dr. Shannon (11:08.268)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (11:13.12)
That's the treasure box. Exactly.

Rachael Hutchins (11:19.03)
believe in that and be open to that and labor and understand like when you can kind of view it as this bigger picture with greater ripple effects you've got so much potential there that i just that's what i really i always want to just like help people access help people see the potential and sometimes you do and sometimes you don't you can't like can you can't help everyone see it but um

Dr. Shannon (11:33.742)
Mm-hmm.

Rachael Hutchins (11:47.69)
A lot of women go through this.

Dr. Shannon (11:47.924)
I know mm-hmm that fear and that doubt I Know in one of the other episodes that we had just recorded we talked a little bit about you mentioned you talk with clients and Try to find out what hard things they've done in their life Like, you know, maybe you've put in work and put in training for something a lot of times It's very easy to go to that physical aspect of things. Like did you train for something?

That was really difficult. That took a lot of time and intensity and energy that you were nervous about. You're afraid you hadn't done it before. Didn't know if you could do it. All of those type of things, you use that with your clients to then say, okay, how did you do it? Where did you go mentally? Because it's setting up our external...

Rachael Hutchins (12:33.571)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (12:41.348)
environment to help us feel safe and comfortable with birth and yes, it's going through the external environment of Childbirth education classes and creating that birth support team those things that are all kind of external to you But there is some internal work that you can do Beforehand maybe as well. I don't know. It's hard man Maybe you can't do it beforehand, but maybe what it is you look back in time and you say, okay This is when I did a hard thing

Rachael Hutchins (13:00.6)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (13:09.452)
How did I get through that? How did I do that? And I don't know, I know for me, I never thought of birth as like, like something to train for when I was pregnant or some like, I mean, I know it was a physical event, but I'm a runner. And so I guess looking back, I'm like, I don't think I ever equated any of like, where do I go in my brain when I'm running a marathon? Where do I go when I'm training and it's really hard and you gotta get that grit?

Rachael Hutchins (13:09.548)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (13:37.248)
you know, that mental grit, like where do I go? And I'm like, man, I kind of wish I had thought about that with birth. I think that would have been really cool to try to access it because you know what, another thing, I think that helps you be an active participant in it. It's not something that's happening to you anymore. It's like, okay, no, I am intentionally going to this place in my brain. I am intentionally focusing on what needs to be focused on. I'm a part of this. Maybe, I guess I'm kind of.

Rachael Hutchins (13:41.779)
Mm-hmm.

Rachael Hutchins (14:05.608)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (14:07.596)
I don't know, hashing out things in my brain now, kind of going back, but I never looked at it as that. And that would have been cool to look at those bursts as those things, where did I go in my brain? That would have been fun.

Rachael Hutchins (14:17.63)
Yeah, yeah. No, we do a lot of deep driving with our clients, birth, dual clients before labor, with an effort to learn about how they learned about birth, how they perceive birth. And then we adjust accordingly, like kind of how we're going to help them learn about how they can best prepare for birth, right? If if they had a lot of really positive stories about it coming up, and they've done some, some work around it, like, you know, you kind of know there's some

you don't you kind of work on different things but if they have a lot of fear around it or you know had some trauma or anything like that or have heard about trauma stories or you know we adjust and we address those things so we really try and help our clients think about things that they hadn't thought about as being impactful on their birth so it can be again how they learn about birth their own birth story um stories they've heard from friends or witnessed um any sort of education or videos or

movies they've seen. A lot of people like they'll be like, oh, I've only ever seen it in the movies. And we're like, okay, well, let's talk about that. Like, how does that make you feel? What does that mean? And how can we normalize birth for you? So we do spend a lot of time getting to know our clients and how they are where they are and engaging their fear around birth, right? Like if they have a lot of fear around birth, then we know we got a lot of work to do. Because really it's about pulling down that veil and peeling back the layers and really reducing fear around birth.

Dr. Shannon (15:24.142)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (15:36.928)
Mm-hmm.

Rachael Hutchins (15:46.198)
Like, birth has...

Dr. Shannon (15:46.56)
Mm-hmm. To what is it? What's the specific thing? Is it the fear of the pain? Is it fear of losing control? Is it, you know, and it's different for everybody.

Rachael Hutchins (15:49.854)
Yeah and, mm-hmm, yeah. And so that's usually very helpful for our clients. And then we go further with it. If we feel like we try and kind of extract those events in their life that we can draw the parallel on. And if it's fitness or training for a big physical event, that's usually the easiest.

Dr. Shannon (16:08.638)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (16:16.753)
Right.

Rachael Hutchins (16:17.878)
We had a client recently who was a big cross fitter, big athlete, and we had a really wonderful conversation with her and we were able to say, okay, when it's a grueling workout and you're having to push past the point of comfort and you're really experiencing a lot of pain, which side note, we do a lot of things in our life that cause pain and discomfort and are supported and celebrated in those things such as.

long runs, marathons, obstacle course runs, crossfit competitions like ultra marathons, I can't even think of like all the big thing triathlons like there's like all kinds of things that put people push people to their absolute limit and they train for months leading up to they eat a specific diet.

Dr. Shannon (16:47.293)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (17:00.385)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (17:06.418)
Yeah, crawling to the finish line.

Rachael Hutchins (17:15.35)
they probably have to learn. Like I'm intimidated to do a triathlon because I have to learn like all the logistics of a triathlon, right? Like you gotta have a team. You gotta have people along the way like supporting you, carrying your stuff. We celebrate that. But for birth, when we try and draw that parallel, like you need all the same things. And you're also preparing for a pretty intense, painful, you know, pain or not, you can call it whatever you want.

Dr. Shannon (17:21.66)
Uh huh. Yeah, oh yeah. Yeah. You got transition zones? Oh yeah.

Dr. Shannon (17:37.401)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (17:41.85)
Mm-hmm.

Rachael Hutchins (17:44.334)
It's an intense event, like with some risk, right? So we do things voluntarily that put us in discomfort that we have to prepare for and have knowledge about. Birth is the same way. I'm trying to like draw that parallel. Tattooing is another thing. People tattoo their bodies, put themselves in pain for hours and that's like normal. You know, we're like, yeah. People are like, cool.

Dr. Shannon (17:46.41)
Yes.

Dr. Shannon (18:04.797)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (18:09.62)
And they get to show it off. Yeah, and they're like, oh, look at this. Yes.

Rachael Hutchins (18:13.468)
You do an unmedicated birth, people are like, are you crazy?

Dr. Shannon (18:16.22)
I know, what is that? Why wouldn't you just avoid the pain?

Rachael Hutchins (18:21.214)
Yeah, it's like, well, no, I wanted this. I signed up for it. And so supporting people along that way, but I digress. But the CrossFit workouts, like the grueling, like a million burpees, you're running miles, you're doing up down, like there's a whole bunch of stuff, right? You're putting yourself in a significant amount of discomfort. We asked her though, we're like, where do you go? Where do you go when you don't wanna go anymore? And she described it, she was like, I go to a dark place.

Dr. Shannon (18:24.256)
That's, yeah. I know, where are we going with this? I don't know.

Dr. Shannon (18:33.031)
Uh huh.

Dr. Shannon (18:47.411)
Mm-hmm.

Rachael Hutchins (18:50.454)
And that wasn't like a negative dark place. It was just like, almost like you got to tune out at the same time as tuning in. Like you're going to continue doing the things and you just got to get through that like next set of reps and then you take a break and you know, there's an end in sight, like, you know, it's coming. And so I love the way she described that. And that was very recently. And then you had a friend who described like, she was like running a hundred mile race or something and talked about.

Dr. Shannon (18:55.78)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (19:08.184)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (19:16.636)
Oh, I wish she was a friend. She's very famous. Courtney DeWalter. Yeah. No, she... Yes. She... The Pain Cave. Mm-hmm. And that's what she calls it. You can call it what you want. Oh, yeah. She's one of the most amazing women. Just ran UTMB. She won three of the Western States, everything. But she goes to the Pain Cave. She smiles. She's having fun while she's running. But it's...

Rachael Hutchins (19:19.158)
Very famous. Oh, you were just sharing her story. It was an interview of her on Instagram. And she talked about accessing the pain cave to be able to run, was it a hundred mile race?

Dr. Shannon (19:45.892)
She says it's a mental device she uses to persevere through grueling days and nights covering hundreds of miles of rough terrain to eventually and often come out a winner because she usually does. She always wins. But it's the pain cave.

Rachael Hutchins (19:56.45)
So like she's trained for that. She's prepared. She knows like it's, she knows that the reward is worth the effort and worth the pain and she's chosen to do this. And if birth is not the exact same, I don't know what is. Like you've chosen to do this, like you're giving birth, maybe on Medicaid or med, even if medicated, like there's still a place you have to go in order to finish the task. And so that, I just think that parallel is so cool. Cause I think the,

Dr. Shannon (20:03.563)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (20:10.343)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (20:19.16)
Mm-hmm.

Rachael Hutchins (20:25.75)
when we're talking, and I grew up playing sports, I've trained for some races, this is easy for me to access, so it's easy for me to talk about. I get it, not everyone draw, and you're a runner, you've ran for a long time, you run long distance, you can access this thought process as well. So I fully understand if you're listening and you're like, nope, not me, have no idea what you're talking about, I get it. But that's where we would encourage you to explore what in your life has been.

Dr. Shannon (20:38.131)
Mm-hmm.

Rachael Hutchins (20:55.662)
challenging that you've had to get through right and I think everyone has something they can draw on so encouraging you to think about what hard things have I overcome and how did I overcome them um and try to visualize like what you did to get through it and then know like birth has the potential like it's a gift

Dr. Shannon (20:58.304)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (21:10.736)
What tools did you use? Yeah, and try to extrapolate from those tools.

Rachael Hutchins (21:23.422)
if you can see it that way, if you can see the reward on the other side as worth it, as worth the time and worth the like energy you poured into and worth the intensity and the discomfort that comes with it. Like if you can see it as worth it, then you can get through it. But it's like sometimes we get so hung up on the unknown and the fear and the doubt that we can't see that A, this is something we wanted and B, like

Dr. Shannon (21:24.144)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (21:47.416)
Mm-hmm.

Rachael Hutchins (21:53.07)
there's the reward on the other side is great. And I think the reward is even greater when you can approach it in a meaningful way, when you can go through pregnancy, like learning about yourself and exploring your options and advocating for yourself and kind of working out some of these exercises and tools of advocacy and decision-making and education and support team and a lot of things that we talk about, especially when you can really lean in, then the reward I feel like is even potentially better or greater on the other side.

Dr. Shannon (21:56.128)
Mm-hmm.

Rachael Hutchins (22:21.334)
I don't know, I just think if you can see it, and I think when you're talking about the woman who ran a hundred miles, like willing to go to that dark place in order to get to the other side and that that's worth, I don't know, circling around the drain on it this a little bit, but just trying to like help people see the potential.

Dr. Shannon (22:33.068)
testing her limits. No. The correlations there, the parallels there, and it's not that you need to see birth as... I mean, it is an extreme physical event. So you want to put in the training for it. And you were kind of saying the same thing with the triathlon. I have a patient, he runs 100 mile races. He's just...

Rachael Hutchins (22:42.065)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (23:01.664)
did 100 mile race, he just won 100 mile race. And it puts in lots of time and effort. He has this team, he has this team with him too. So I think there's so much in this article and when you're talking about the pain cave or the mental birth cave or the treasure box. And I, that, I don't know, my brain's going a million miles a minute so I'm trying to like piece all the things together. But it's...

Rachael Hutchins (23:04.786)
Wow.

Dr. Shannon (23:30.188)
There's different ways to access it. Maybe you don't wanna look at it as the pain cape. Because in this article, it talks about the midwife says that there's a sign that you're almost there with birth and you're feeling like you literally can't go on one more minute. She goes, it's a sign that you're almost there. And it is then when you feel you have nothing left to draw from that you were given the key to open your treasure box.

Rachael Hutchins (23:58.067)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (23:58.332)
So maybe for you, that's a better way to look at it. Like if you, you know, if, I don't know why athletes sometimes we'd say it is like a dark place or it's the pain cave. I don't know where I go. I go one foot in front of the other. I don't know. I don't know where I go in extreme stuff. So it seems like maybe that athlete mind correlates it to something there, but wanting to give people another aspect of, it doesn't have to be like that. You could use the word treasure box. You could, you know, that gift, you know, that you get to.

Rachael Hutchins (24:24.878)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (24:27.856)
open and access and see of yourself. I do kind of want to mention that.

Rachael Hutchins (24:32.142)
At the point you feel like you can't go any further, recognizing that as a gift, like of saying this, you're almost there. You're almost at the end. When you start saying and feeling like I can't go on and labor, it's usually a sign that you're really close to the end. And I think giving that language around it, calling it a treasure box is like, okay, you're there, open it, go into it. Like receive that. And

Dr. Shannon (24:38.688)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (24:53.388)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (24:58.217)
Mm-hmm. Yes, receive the gift.

Rachael Hutchins (25:01.774)
receive it and I just think you got to visualize yourself being able to kind of trans like go leave this plane a little bit like leave this earth in a way obviously not literally but like only could I like try to talk about it if I hadn't gone through it I don't know but like I feel like it was another like an otherworldly event right

Dr. Shannon (25:12.594)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (25:23.868)
Mm-hmm.

Rachael Hutchins (25:31.262)
where I was like frozen in time where I didn't think I could do it but was doing it and was like not really like I had feelings that like thinking I couldn't do it but also like it wasn't like I was not gonna do it like I was doing it and I think the place I went to was like not thinking so and I that's where I feel like athlete athletes and like the pain cave or the dark place is sort of like the not thinking.

Dr. Shannon (25:47.248)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (25:54.133)
Hmm.

Rachael Hutchins (26:00.514)
like almost like tuning out. And I think that's important to talk about too, because if people think, oh, they've got to be visualizing or meditating or breathing or doing something specific, sometimes it's just saying or doing, like just letting your brain go off. And I think maybe that's what you're talking about when you're running, you're like, I don't go to a place, but you're also not, you're probably, it's like you're tuning out, you're just like, just gonna keep one foot in front of the other. And same thing with contractions and birth.

Dr. Shannon (26:00.875)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (26:14.86)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (26:21.782)
Yeah.

Dr. Shannon (26:26.46)
It's the breath. I think for me it's that yeah, it's like hearing that breath and connecting with it again. Yeah.

Rachael Hutchins (26:32.414)
and you find your thing like that you can hang on to but it's a book I want to tag in our notes is called transformed by birth and her it's a really long book I did it on audiobook but it is like all of this and she gives it all the words and all the evidence of like how birth can be so transformative and I just think this is just the tip of the iceberg and

Dr. Shannon (26:38.761)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (26:55.212)
Hmm. Oh yeah.

Rachael Hutchins (26:59.39)
I love the conversation. I always kind of want to talk more about it, but I just kind of think this is all about planting the seed and encouraging others to explore the potential, find the parallels in their life, you know, try to address the fear.

Dr. Shannon (27:13.508)
I think that's the key thing with this is if you do have that fear and that doubt going into birth, finding those parallels of when you did something really hard and what did you tap in there? Because maybe then that opens you up to looking and searching for other things. And I think one part of this too is I think your birth support team can play a huge role in helping that as well. You know?

and using the pieces parts that you gather from them as far as creating the helping to access that mental space that you need to go to. It helps you access it by, I don't know, providing information and, cause that information can help alleviate that fear. I don't know other ways.

Rachael Hutchins (27:38.901)
Mm-hmm.

Rachael Hutchins (27:59.358)
I think we can access it better and more easily when we are supported, when we feel safe, when we trust our provider and we're given time in labor, time and space to cope in the way we need to cope. So I think there are some factors there that support and this is where I think sometimes

Dr. Shannon (28:04.385)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (28:12.108)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (28:16.47)
Mm-hmm.

Rachael Hutchins (28:26.61)
interferes with this process and keeps us more in our thinking brain than our primitive brain and so it's harder to access. So when you kind of realize like again someone might hear us and be like yes I will go there yes I got it but then you get there and you don't realize all the factors that are sort of at play and how it makes it harder to access. I think because I've had one my first birth was unmedicated but in the hospital

Dr. Shannon (28:31.057)
Yes.

Dr. Shannon (28:42.952)
Everything's... mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (28:53.589)
Yes, sir.

Rachael Hutchins (28:56.386)
met a lot of my desires, it left me feeling more in my thinking brain than in my primitive brain whereas with my home birth, I do feel like I was better able to go to... I'm okay with calling it pain cave or dark place because I do think I like that and maybe I access my treasure box, whatever. I felt like it was more accessible because there was less distraction. It was really, it was more quiet.

Dr. Shannon (29:02.421)
Hmm.

Dr. Shannon (29:20.801)
Mm-hmm.

Rachael Hutchins (29:24.31)
I was just more determined on being inward and it took a lot of intentional effort. But, um, again, that second time experience gives you new insight. Um, but I remember my midwife at my first birth was honestly, she was wonderful, but she was very loud. She had a very like loud, high pitched, high energy voice. Um, and like when the baby was born, she was like hooting and hollering and like, look at that.

Dr. Shannon (29:33.927)
Mm-hmm.

Rachael Hutchins (29:52.17)
You did she was so like she was cheering me on but she's like looky

Dr. Shannon (29:54.636)
She was just going with your energy, but your energy was high.

Rachael Hutchins (29:57.958)
But it was like really high, like really high and like a high pitched voice. And then I think that, you know, my home birth, which it was very different, more quiet, really, really quiet, which is what I wanted. Anyways. Um, but also, so understanding kind of what you're up against and kind of what it would take to access this in labor in a hospital setting.

Dr. Shannon (30:07.344)
Yeah. Uh huh. That's so fun.

Dr. Shannon (30:19.484)
Yes, because there's the physical aspect of your birth cave. And I think your birth support team plays a part in that. It's your birth location that plays a part in that. So that's going to be with your team. That could be it's your OB, your provider, your midwife. It's going to be hopefully the dual support, the chiropractic care, the education that you do, like all of those things. Then you've got the aspect of helping with the physical.

birth cave and creating that would be the physical things that you can do, things that you can have. But then there's a mental place that you need to go to as well and to address as well. Maybe that's something that's not really...

Rachael Hutchins (30:54.658)
Mm-hmm.

Rachael Hutchins (31:00.208)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (31:06.796)
talked a lot about, you know, in the birthing community. I don't know. Yeah.

Rachael Hutchins (31:13.086)
Yeah, and I think it should be. And I think, you know, I think it's because it's not this black and white thing that you can like teach somebody about a stage of labor or a comfort technique. But I think what we're doing here. Right. It sounds scary to a little bit, but I feel like what we're trying to talk here is just that openness to the idea and the potential and that it looks differently for everyone, but.

Dr. Shannon (31:22.856)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, at this point, you will go to the birth, the pain cave, and in your pain cave, you will have these. I know.

Dr. Shannon (31:39.681)
Mm-hmm.

Rachael Hutchins (31:40.29)
That's, I like it. And I think it might be hard cause it looks different for everyone. It's hard to teach. It's hard to articulate exactly what that looks like. And, but I like what we've, I like how we've drawn the parallels here. And I like how talking about understanding that it's not easily accessible unless you kind of are open to it and you sort of set yourself up to go there. And then knowing that when it's really, really hard and you don't want to keep going, that you do, you keep, you have to keep going. You don't have a choice. And so when you can see that as a gift,

Dr. Shannon (31:50.264)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (31:58.776)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (32:07.276)
Mm-hmm.

Rachael Hutchins (32:09.93)
and that when you get to the other side, you will be elated with yourself for what you overcame, whether it be medicated, unmedicated, belly birth, whatever, you'll be like, I brought forth a human. And in order to do that, I had to dig deeper than I've ever dug in my entire life. That is a gift. And so when it's happening, if you have someone that can remind you of that, of what you're about to, like you're,

you're stepping into the transformation, but it's hard to see when you're in it. But that's, and that's why I think this article is like the midwife reminding the birthing person, this is what you're going through. You and many other women have gone through this. You can't stop. You don't have a choice, but you can do it. You're almost there. Like that reminder is important. Yeah.

Dr. Shannon (32:44.212)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (32:52.272)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Shannon (33:00.796)
access the treasure box. Mm-hmm. Aw. Now, I think that sums it up. I don't know. I think that sums it up beautifully what we were trying to say and accomplish with our disjointed thoughts today.

Rachael Hutchins (33:14.574)
Thanks for following along our disjointed, but hopefully meaningful. It means a lot to me. I like this conversation and I appreciate your perspective on it.

Dr. Shannon (33:21.91)
That conversation. I know this might be one of my favorites. Yeah. Yeah, most definitely. Thanks so much, friend.

Rachael Hutchins (33:30.542)
Bye.