Welcome to the Spring 2026 issue.
Conscious Choices
A Special Edition on Parenting
When preparing for birth, the emphasis has been all about our future choices: Should I birth in a hospital, or at home? Should I take pain medication or birth naturally? Should I elect for a C-section if something happens, or find an OB that supports my body?
Questions tend to arise: What if my baby is breech? What if I have placenta previa? What if the birth is too painful? What if my doctor says he won’t honor my choices? Each of our numerous questions hinge on a concern for a future outcome: What will happen if I choose this or that? How will I be treated? What are the risks or benefits of this choice? How will it affect me or my baby?
Thankfully, a fundamental shift is happening in our approach to birth that rises above the chaos. Parents are choosing not to depend on this stressful orientation to the future. They are realizing that no one’s “educated” guesses can actually predict how our birth will unfold. Instead, they are awakening to another approach.
There are a plethora of choices that exist in the here and now, oriented to the present moment, designed to empower us:
“Right now, I can breathe into my body, and learn to soften my pelvis.” “Right now, I can connect with my baby and feel her mood, her thoughts, her love, and attune to what she needs.” “In this moment, I can explore and find the ideal positions and movements that help my body open to the flow and activity of my baby’s birth.”
Parents can practice together, and take up this new form of consciousness into their birth setting, where in each moment, they can align with one another.
“Together, we can bring our breathing into sync, and move through the wave of this contraction with greater ease, stability and resolve.” “In the space between contractions, I can lean on my partner. I can let go of the previous intensity, and consciously soften into the present moment to rest and rejuvenate.”
Instead of a perpetual concern for the situation, choices, or circumstances that may or may not affect our future outcomes, we decide instead to take up the conscious choice – to bring our awareness to what we can do for ourselves. As soon as the conscious choice is felt for the first time, and as soon as we discover its power, we become indomitable parents for our children. We become light bearers for the future of our family’s possibilities. In each moment of the conscious choice, we raise the consciousness of our species.
Pathways Connect Resource Guide Topics