During the planning of our first child, my partner and I spent about eight months developing and deepening our relationship with each other and ourselves, observing our behaviours, patterns and any expectations we had around how things should be or look in our lives, each other, and us as parents. From the conception, throughout the pregnancy and birth we both felt it important to make it all about connection; a willingness to feel what was needed rather than being outcome-driven by any expectations we may have had. The connection and willingness to listen to and honour my body was not something that happened overnight: it was a forever unfolding and development of myself and how I was in life. This supported me more than anything I could get from Google or books. With the birth of our child came a whole new download of ideals, beliefs and expectations of how things should be. Observing these as they came up, seeing them for what they were and not something I had felt or was impulsed by, allowed me to let them go and be more in the flow of life. Things still got done but there was a ‘being’ rather than ...