Just a warning: This post and the ones following in this series will probably only be of interest to women that are pregnant or plan to have more children. A big sorry to the rest of you, but, hey! This is where I’m at right now!

Birth is one of those experiences where the more comfortable you feel, the better it goes. For several reasons, one of which is me wanting a water birth, I will be spending this labor and birth in our garage. It also gives me a place to labor and birth that is separate from the main part of the house, since the kids will be home. There has never been a car in our garage, but it’s still rather rough. I envisioned curtaining off an area to give some privacy, but wasn’t feeling very optimistic. But then my mom mentioned the words – Turkish tent. Suddenly, a whole new possibility dawned on me! I could create a birthing sukkah!

During Noah’s labor, one of my favorite visualizations was thinking of Mary birthing, possibly in a sukkah. As I rocked through contractions, the thought of her and so many other Hebrew women going before me was very comforting. By the way, if you’d like to read all of Noah’s birth story, you can find it here.

So, I plan to create a birthing sukkah in our garage. It will house a birthing pool, an exercise ball, a twin bed, table for supplies and a rocking chair. I plan to decorate it much like we would decorate a sukkah for the fall feasts. I plan to share our progress in setting it up every Tuesday here on the blog. Hopefully, those of you who are pregnant or hope to be soon can glean some ideas to help make your birthing experience more Hebrew.

Here are some pics of what we’re starting with.

As you can see, we already have a couple couches and chairs, but we also have a concrete floor and building supplies around the edges. We have a spigot at the back door, which will be used to fill the pool. I have just about finished removing everything that can be removed, except the motorcycle, which will be parked outside in the spring. The rest needs to be hidden. This is where the sukkah idea is so perfect! We are going to hang curtains to create the feel of a tent and privacy for me. Can you see my birthing pool in the pic?

Doug put eyescrews in the ceiling through the floorjoists so that we can string a line through and hang curtains from it. We will end up with a 12’ by 12’ sukkah in the middle of the garage.

Join me next Tuesday to see how our birthing sukkah is progressing! What have you done to make your labor and birth more comfortable and special?