We are excited to introduce one of our incredible instructors, Carol Meadows, who teaches birth classes in Pueblo, Colorado. She is amazing, empathetic, smart, and we are sure will be a gift to your birth!
Enjoy learning more about her!
First, could you introduce yourself? Tell us a little bit about your own birth experiences and how they influenced your desire to teach birth classes in Pueblo, Colorado.
My name is Carol Meadows. I have spent most of my life living in the beautiful state of Colorado. However, I am not really an outdoor kind of person, so I don’t take advantage of what Colorado has to offer as I probably should. I do love to read, which helped me obtain the degrees I have in both history and political science. I am a mother of three, two girls and a boy.
My first birth experience was very much like many hospital birth experiences. I arrived at the hospital too early, but didn’t really want to go home. I went in wanting a natural birth, but was completely unprepared for one. I did take a four week class at the hospital, but it wasn’t enough to get me to where I needed to be mentally or physically.
While the staff was fantastic, I just didn’t have enough tools to get me through labor. I ended up with Fentanyl through an IV and as a result of the fiasco that that caused, I asked for an epidural. The anesthesiologist laughed when I asked if my legs were supposed to feel like they were falling asleep. No one mentioned that!
My second birth was almost 6 years later, I knew I had much more knowledge and was already better prepared but my husband and I took Birth Boot Camp online classes so we were on the same page and could work as a team. I experienced prodromal labor, which is labor that goes on for an extended period of time.
For me, this started and stopped over the course of three weeks. When it was go time it was three hours from, “This feels different,” to baby in arms. I had a completely intervention free birth mostly because we arrived at the hospital 20 minutes before she was born. There was no time to be monitored, I never got an IV, I never received a cervical check. It was so much different than the birth of my first daughter!
My third baby was born at home, in a birth tub in my living room. I also had prodromal labor with this baby, which started around 38 weeks. This birth started with my water breaking, which I had never experienced before! With the older two labor was well established before my water broke. It took a while to get contractions started, but once they did my little man was born less than four hours later.
It was the differences in my two hospital births that made me want to be an instructor. I knew that the knowledge and preparation that my husband and I had made a huge difference in the experiences. I want to share that with other couples so they have tools to help them achieve their natural birth goals too.
What first got you interested in the realm of birth?
The birth of my first daughter made me feel like there had to be a better way. It wasn’t a bad birth. It just left me feeling like there was more to birth than I had experienced. I read a lot of birth blogs such as Stand and Deliver, Birth Faith, MamaBirth, and Banned From Baby Showers. There are more, but those were most often updated. I trained as a doula, but realized that as much as I loved attending birth, it was not the right time in my life for that endeavor (maybe someday though!)
There are lots of different birth educator training programs out there. Why did you choose Birth Boot Camp?
When I decided that I couldn’t be a doula, I went back to school and finished my degrees. I was still really passionate about birth and knew I wanted birth to be a permanent part of my life. I toyed with the idea of becoming a midwife through one track or another, but it never stuck. I settled on being a childbirth educator. I was wishy washy over which class I wanted to teach, and had put the idea in a someday box anyway, and as it does, time passed.
As I previously said I was a diligent reader of Banned From Baby Showers, and had been following Donna since 2009. So when Donna announced that she had a childbirth education curriculum aimed at having a natural birth I thought “That is the one!” At the time I was neck deep in college classes, and didn’t meet the certification requirements.
My husband and I actually took Birth Boot Camp to make sure it was a good fit for me as a teacher, as well as to help my husband and I be the best team we could be for the birth of our second child. It turned out I adore the curriculum. I love that not only is it up to date in all of its materials, but that the information is evidence based.
I also love the fact that it is a standardized curriculum. The information I got from my class online, was the same information that a student taking a live class in Denver got. It doesn’t vary from teacher to teacher, and is comprehensive in a way that I don’t need to add anything that would better give my students a shot at the natural birth they desire.
What are you most excited about when it comes to teaching birth classes in Pueblo, Colorado?
I think the thing I am most excited about is to have my students take in the information I present and make it work for them in their pregnancy and birth situation.
In what ways did the Birth Boot Camp teacher training help prepare you for teaching actual classes?
The information presented to us in the training allowed me to feel confident that no matter who takes my class they will get a lot of useful information out of it. No labor and birth situation is going to look the same. The information is comprehensive enough, that no matter where you birth, or how you birth, the information will be helpful to you. Even after years of reading and training to be a doula, I still learned new information from the online class I took.
To close, tell us how you see natural childbirth education having a positive impact? Why does this work matter to you?
I see natural childbirth education having a positive impact on families in general. When you are confident in your knowledge, it shows. Even if things don’t end up the way a couple intended, they will know that they had the knowledge to make the best decisions possible for them. I think this confidence carries into parenting, and thus affects whole families.
This work matters to me because women matter. Their autonomy matters. Knowing that they have choices and options empowers them and their partners to do what is best and right for them.
Looking for a childbirth educator in Pueblo, Colorado? You can find Carol Meadows:
On her website at- www.MeadowMamaBirth.com
On Facebook at- https://www.facebook.com/meadowmamabirth/
Or via email at- [email protected]
