Essential Oils: Suzie has several years of experience in learning how to use essential oils to support numerous conditions in pregnancy, birth and beyond. You can add a personalised blend ($10) to cart or on the day to continue using at home. The massage incorporates essential oils, none of which enhance induction. Suzie starts the massage by anointing certain points in the body using a certified organic blend (excluding Clary Sage etc). The Australian Certified Organic oils chosen are personalised to your physical and emotional needs discussed during the consult on the day. For example, if you feel fearful, Suzie will use oils to ground the body and help you feel spiritually connected and protected. Or if you are feeling physical pain, essential oils specifically beneficial for releasing pain are used in appropriate areas. Or if anxious or stressed, a relax blend is used on the spine to calm the nervous system.  

 

The Metamorphosis Massage Experience: 

Trust stands at the gateway to transformation. This experience is about getting the mind ready, as much as it is about the bodywork. A guided meditation takes you on a sensory journey, allowing you to drop into connection with your breath, your body and your babe. As you are guided to focus on each of the five senses, often there’s multiple benefits that Suzie doesn’t often explain, but that may or may not be felt on the subtle energy level. For example, the Third Eye in the centre of the forehead and slightly above your eyes, directly corresponds to your pituitary gland, which releases oxytocin. Oxytocin is the hormone of love and bonding. Metaphysically, this point is also about tuning into your inner vision. Through breath connection on the exhale, I encourage you to clear out everything that blocks your intuition from being in alignment with that of your babe’s. And to relax your breath into that space tends to enhance your sense of trust as you envisage or imagine however it is you wish to see your baby’s birth unfolding.

 

The meditation weaves in personalised positive affirmations to counter fears which we have discussed during the consult. Fear and anxiety shut down the flow of oxytocin in favour of cortisol, the stress hormone, and fear can therefore inhibit your body’s production of, e.g., prolactin, the breastfeeding hormone and oxytocin. The meditation invites you to surrender and trust in your body’s innate wisdom to unfold in its own perfect timing. Even if you have a pre-planned caesarean date, the meditation will be tailored to help you bring in a sense of trust and ready-ness, so the experience is optimal for you. It starts and finishes with guided breathwork to align Yin and Yang by connecting heart space to womb space. Further, this breathwork has the added benefit of physically freeing up the small of the back and loosens the Quadratus Lumbar (QL) or lower back area.

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The Metamorphosis Massage is balanced with pockets of quiet time to feel mentally rested and physically relaxed and ultimately you leave feeling ready to take the journey together. This is an experience that opens you into your birth space, so your body is feeling supple but strong, your mind is clear, focussed and positive, your spirit is connected to your higher guiding power and your soul feels connected to your babe’s.

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As the session comes to a close, the sacred smoke of Sage or the Australian indigenous Eucalyptus is used to clear the energetic body of anything that’s no longer necessary. And to place a seal of protection around your auric or energetic field to ward off evil. This acts to allow you to intuitively deflect negative thoughts from yourself and others, and actively feel empowered to give your heart a voice to express your needs and make decisions that ultimately feel right for you and your babe, moment to moment. 

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After your Metamorphosis Massage, if appropriate to your birth plan, Suzie will demonstrate a powerful cranio-sacral support technique, which her teacher advised: “do not do this until you are ready to go into labour”. This is a technique you can use at home on or beyond your due date or during active labour. Suzie personally used this move around midnight on the night entering her due date and had birthed by the next evening. Interestingly, an obstetrician-client recently nearly bowled her over in excitement when she returned for her first postnatal massage, saying she credits this move to not only activating her own labour, but she adopted it as her “main position” which she ongoingly used and credits to helping her have a four hour physiological labour. 

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Is there any woo-hoo stuff and is that for me? 

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This is a holistic journey towards helping you feel “birth ready”; it’s not about me. Tailoring this experience is so multi-faceted, it was difficult to encapsulate this experience with words. What one person’s ideal birth looks like is different to the next and I honour that. Hence why the free consult is really about expressing what you hope for your birth. Some women are deeply spiritual and want more of that, some are more functional and so want none of that. Generally speaking, if you don’t dig the woo-hoo stuff, it won’t happen because your mind is not open to it. But sometimes the ‘shamanic stuff’ just comes through without either of us planning it. If that’s the case, I trust our higher powers are working together to bring about the healing necessary and that it is, as a result, sometimes even better than you can imagine. So….it’s a good opportunity to practice what you would do in birth: just trust and surrender into the process.

 

In ten years I’ve heard so many different birth plans and subsequent birth stories. Many women just want to go into spontaneous labour, understanding that at least four hours with the production of oxytocin and prolactin will help with bonding and breastfeeding (1), no matter the outcome. Many clients have a pre-planned caesarean date scheduled due to all-number of reasons. My role is non-judgemental as I help bring your desires to the surface for clarification, reflection, refining, commitment and affirming so you feel confident and empowered walking away from your experience, towards whatever birth pathway you’ve chosen. Needless to say, it’s personalised and the synergy created is part of the magic behind why it works. 

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Your ideal birth might be to – 

• go into spontaneous labour for a physiological birth, if possible, without any induction, natural or synthetic;

• go into spontaneous labour before a planned hospital induction (see Womb to World Natural Induction Support massage option)

• go by the guidance of your birth support team and see what happens on the day

• go into spontaneous labour before an intended caesarean (if not contra-indicated, see below)

• go into a planned caesarean 

 

So, whether you experience the induction massage (evolving since 2015) or birth ready massage (evolving since 2010), there’s a few things to know if you want optimal success: 

 

Why Should I?

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I’m one for honouring every baby has its own pre-destined birth date that can help act as a guide for emotional and personality development in coming years HERE (2), but after years of meeting hundreds of women with varying needs I understand us gorgeous complex creatures a lot more than my younger idealist self who mostly hung around homebirthers.

 

Ultimately, this is an uplifting experience designed to allow you to feel confident and relaxed going into the transformative journey ahead – whatever your chosen birth path. And feeling good going in is a good start!

 

When should I have a Metamorphosis Massage?

 

Any time after you finish work! Don’t come for this with a “To Do” list after you go home. “Massage with Suzie” should be the last thing on that list.

 

Generally, it’s the last massage if we’ve been working together throughout pregnancy, so anywhere from 38 or 39 weeks onwards depending on how you feel personally. A good tip: Once you leave here, you ideally will take time to earth yourself completely. Suzie often hears feedback from woman who say they drove to the nearby creek to just sit and connect on the earth afterwards. Or you are welcome to sit on the deck or outside near the Buddha in my front garden to allow some extra integration time to ground and feel into the Earth energy on offer. You are welcome to add a Bath Bliss experience to extend the time to self.

 

It is definitely optimal to float home (or be picked up) and aim for a long soak, a warm shower or a short nap to compound the benefits. One thing is for sure: you’ll sleep well that night. Giving hubby and smaller family members heads-up that you might sleep-in the next day. It’s good to practice refraining from excessive thinking in the coming days. The massage experience does tend to put you in a different zone because it puts you in touch with your breath and body in a way that many women haven’t felt before, so it’s beneficial to just keep surrendering thoughts, fears, temptations to do too much, and just really allow yourself to sink into the natural rhythms in your home-space over the coming days &/or weeks. Honouring rest. Slowing down the mind. Listening to the body. Please, I encourage you to switch off the phone before you walk in. Just trying saying “the outside world being no longer my concern for a brief window in my ‘one wild and precious life’.

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If you haven’t been receiving regular massages throughout your pregnancy, it’s preferable to book the Standard Womb Cocoon for New Clients first, preferably within the last month before due date, ideally. This helps to establish a connection and work on releasing the muscular tightness and tension, which often inhibits the body’s ready-ness and can be a task in itself. With those blocked layers of the physical barriers released, i.e. removing yourself from being stuck in the pain body, ideally you would then book a Birth Ready Massage as needed post 39 or 40 weeks but ideally closer to between 40 - 42 weeks.

 

A lot of women who just opt for a one-off Birth Ready Metamorphosis Massage wish they’d come earlier, as often one session is just not enough, both physically and psychologically. Having said that, if budget and time permits only one session, Suzie will make it work to enhance your mind-body to optimal ready-ness.