The dashing Sarah Dakin with her son Liam (9). She is also mother to Tristan (11) and Xavier (4). Sarah was uncertain about becoming a mother because she has an adult brother with Autism and knowing it has a genetic component was concerned of passing it along. Once the decided to go ahead she says she knew the very moment they conceived. Sure enough, two weeks later she had a positive pregnancy test. She'd planned a home birth but ultimately transferred to hospital, and she said that something about the transition allowed her to dilate and she was able to push him out without intervention just moments after her arrival. Sarah's second birth was also a planned home birth and was her only delivery with the use of an epidural. She says that it's her only birth that she didn't feel that sense of accomplishment with. Sarah equated it running a marathon and someone offering you a ride part way to the finish line. After attempted home births and hospital transfers with her first two, she just anticipated that her third would be born in hospital. She had a very supportive doula who was able to help her labor more effectively and says that her midwife played bad cop and said they could absolutely go to the hospital and wait two hours to get settled, two hours for her epidural and then attempt to push her baby out or she could focus and get him out in 15 minutes at home. She chose to get him out at home and was able to successfully push him out very quickly. Breastfeeding was always painful for Sarah, while she nursed her first two until around 2 years old it was always uncomfortable for her. It wasn't until Xavier that she learned her blood vessels were constricting causing pain. She'd been managing it with compresses and such but found a course of blood thinners made it go away entirely. She had hoped to allow him to nurse at least as long as her older two but he went on a nursing strike at 10.5 months and she could never get him back to breast.
As the mother of three boys Sarah wants them to have a healthy reference for the female form rather than that which is portrayed in pornography and magazines. She also recalled an experience in Japan where it's tradition to go with your entire family and friends to mineral pools. The pools are divided for men and women and there you will see generations from a brand new baby and postpartum mom up through great grandmothers. How fortunate, she thought, for those little girls to grow up around all stages of womanly bodies without the shame and secrecy that is prevalent in other cultures.