Sheila Gardom

In my work I see couples every day facing the challenge and joy of labor. They have reached the end of their nine-month journey and now stand at the pinnacle of all their hard work, ready to bring a new life into the world. Unfortunately, many of these birthing couples are ill prepared and must muddle their way through, trying to understand the process of birth.

When my husband and I stood facing this same life bringing process, we knew that we wanted to do it well. I had already read so many books and watched many birthing videos. I would joyfully share new information with my husband and explain how I wanted our birth to go. As prepared as I felt I was, I saw that for him it was much different. It was not a lack of love or willingness to be involved with the birth, he just didn’t feel prepared. I knew that if he was going to be my advocate and labor partner, we would have to find someone that could prepare us both for this great task.

That’s when we heard about the Bradley Method ^®. The Bradley Method ^® was much longer and costed more than other birthing classes; but we soon realized why. The classes were not about information, although there was plenty of that. Each class led us in practical things like nutrition, exercises and labor preparedness. I learned just as an athlete had to prepare her body for a sport, so too I had to physically prepare my body for the work of labor. My husband became very good at helping me make healthy eating choices and working through the exercises each night. We learned to work as a team, me doing the labor work while he coached me through the labor practices. We also learned how to be good consumers and how to make better choices when it came to where to labor, with whom to labor, and what decisions we would face once we were no longer two but three.

Since these early days, we have added four more babies into our family; for a total of five. Two of them my husband was the first one to touch and help them into my arms. We taught the Bradley Method ^® for a little over 7 years in the early days of our growing family. After a brief break, we are teaching once again. We would be excited and honored to speak to you about the Bradley Method ^® and the twelve weeks of classes. We know the excitement, the challenge, the joy of birthing and can help prepare you to achieve the birth of your choice.