June Diane Raphael Quotes

I really feel like because I had my son so young, I didn't want everyone's help. I think people felt entitled to give advice, so I'm always very sensitive to moms and letting them feel their way out.

My son's birth was pretty life-shattering, in good ways and bad ways. I realized that I needed a doula because I'm not close to my mom, and I don't have a lot of people in New York.

I am not just pro-birth. I believe in supporting a woman during and after pregnancy.

Birth Matters... It matters because it is the way we all begin our lives outside of our source, our mother's bodies. It's the means from which we enter and feel our first impression of the wider world. For each mother, it is an event that shakes and shapes her to her innermost core. Women's perceptions about their bodies and their babies' capabilities will be deeply influenced by the care they receive around the time of birth.

[Postpartum] is a raw time when you need your friends and family to swoop in in a very real way.

"I can't believe you recently had a baby. How do you do it?" The baby starts to come down...and once that happens you can't-it comes out. Whether you let it or not, the baby comes out. So that's how I did it.

I just have a more holistic sense of what it means to be for life, knowing that life does not just begin at conception and end at birth, and that if I am going to discourage abortion, I had better be ready to adopt some babies and care for some mothers.

As a child, I lived with being punier than other boys in class. The only consolation was my parents' empathy - they encouraged constant trips to the local drugstore for chocolate milk shakes to fatten me up. The shakes made me happy, but still, all through grammar school, other kids shoved me around.

If we want to help pregnant women, let's make sure that each pregnancy is a wanted pregnancy.

How may child bearing women be most encouraged and supported in the time of childbearing?

Most new moms, and even experienced moms, have questions in the months after giving birth. Pregnancy books don't explain everything, and you may be caught off guard by some things that are happening both to you and to your baby in those first few months.

When you're a kid, you're just not equipped to deal with some of the stuff that life brings you. It's why you have parents. And then, when you don't, there better be somebody who fills in that gap, or you're going to be rudderless for a while.

When I had a baby, I was consumed with my body.

After River was born, I remember being in the bedroom by myself, overwhelmed because he wasn't latching well, and I yelled, 'Dave, I need help! Can you get in here?' Suddenly my husband, my mom, and my in-laws were all in the doorway. I just melted into tears. It really does take a village.

I went back to work about six weeks after I gave birth, which was crazy early, and experienced some pretty bad postpartum depression but didn't know it at the time.

I just believe pregnant women need a familiar face, someone who isn't related to them who they may have all this emotional past with, to be there, just for them, during the birth.

We know that fathers find asking for help harder than mothers.

I feel like doulas put the ball back in the mom's court. They trust you to normalize the high drama.

There's an identity crisis that happens when you give birth. I don't care how confident, how secure you are, how much help you have, how many kids you have. For me, it was major.

As a parent you walk around trying to be perfect, but you don't have to be perfect. That's the key. You just have to be faithful, and when I say faithful I mean you have to give your all.

He just wanted to hold her to him and tell her it would be okay, that she had survived and was beautiful.

Madame Lefoux acted as midwife. In her scientific way, she was unexpectedly adept at the job. When the infant finally appeared, she held it up for Alexia to see, rather proudly, as though she'd done all the hard work herself. 'Goodness,' said an exhausted Lady Maccon, 'are babies customarily that repulsive looking?

Growing up poor, I never missed out on anything. My parents did a beautiful job of not making me feel like I was lesser than any other kids.

I...have a woman in my arms who has suffered greatly and desperately needs to believe once again that she is beautiful.

Bringing a baby into the world is not like grilling enchiladas. It's a difficult thing.