If you know me, you know I have a soft spot for HGTV. Growing up, my mom and I spent hours on the couch watching Love It or List It and Fixer Upper — bonding over our opinions, preferences, and plenty of snacks. During my second postpartum, I binged every episode of Renovation Aloha and more seasons of Property Brothers than I care to admit. So, this comparison — preparing for birth as building or restoring a home — has been brewing in my mind for quite some time.

Bear with me; the metaphor isn’t perfect. But I do think it offers a helpful way to frame something that, as a doula and educator, I’ve seen so many people struggle with. “Where do I even start?” is a question I’ve heard from nearly every person I’ve supported.

So let’s start — together — with a house.

Both preparing for birth and building a home require reflection, intentionality, and care. Both call for balancing practical needs with personal touches that make the experience uniquely yours. Like a home, the foundation of your birth experience begins with where you are and what you’re working with. From there, you can build a care team, choose your space, gather your tools, and, ultimately, infuse the process with the finishing touches that reflect who you are.

Taking Inventory: What Are You Working With?

Before you can build, you have to take stock of where you’re starting. Every home — and every pregnancy — has a story. 

What is the history of your body? What have you experienced in past pregnancies, if you’ve been pregnant before? Are there complications or risks in your current pregnancy that shape considerations of safety, monitoring, interventions, and other aspects of your approach?

Every pregnancy is different. A first-time pregnancy with no concerns for complications will feel and look different than a third pregnancy after a history of preeclampsia, a cesarean birth, or even other straightforward, complication-free births. 

Taking inventory of your unique starting point gives you a clearer sense what you might need in your care, focus, or support as you move forward.

Considering the View: What Defines This Pregnancy for You?

In every home, there’s a view — or focal point — that often shapes how the entire space is designed. If your home overlooks a lake, you might design large windows that bring the outside in, letting natural light and serenity flow into your main living spaces. If your home is in a place that’s often dark, rainy, or cloudy, you might focus more on interior lighting, finding creative ways to “create sun” and warmth from within, or even emphasize the beauty of the sight and sound of the rain.

What is the “view” of this pregnancy for you? What makes up this season of your life? What emotions, priorities, or intentions shape the way you see this experience? 

By reflecting on this view, you can better understand what aspects of this pregnancy feel most important to you. Is it a season of healing and introspection? Of joy and celebration? Of resilience and adaptability? Identifying your focal points will help you highlight the elements that matter most — whether that’s cultivating peace, prioritizing safety, embracing joy, or something else entirely.

Building Your Team: Who Will Help You Bring This Vision to Life?

When designing your home, you would carefully choose a team whose skills and approach align with your vision. A modern design might call for a contractor with expertise in clean lines and simplicity, while a historic renovation would require a preservationist’s eye. Imagine building a mid-century modern home — would you hire a construction crew that specializes in traditional Spanish styles? If your home had no fireplaces, would you call a chimney sweep?

This line of thinking is also true for pregnancy. Who do you want on your team? Who makes the most sense, considering what you want, or need?

Think about the type of birth experience you hope for and choose people whose expertise and philosophy align with your goals. Whether it’s an OB, MFM, midwife, doula, physical therapist, chiropractor — or likely some combination — your team should reflect the needs of your specific “project.”

Let’s break this down:

• OB-GYNs (Obstetrician-Gynecologists): OB-GYNs are medical doctors specializing in pregnancy, childbirth, and reproductive health. They are trained to manage both routine pregnancies and high-risk situations, and they can perform medical interventions like cesarean sections if needed.
• MFMs (Maternal-Fetal Medicine Specialists): MFMs are OB-GYNs with additional training in high-risk pregnancies. They focus on complex cases, offering advanced monitoring, diagnostic testing, and medical management. 
• Midwives: Midwives are healthcare professionals specializing in normal, low-risk pregnancies and births. They often take a holistic approach, emphasizing personalized care, emotional support, and low-intervention options. Midwives can be certified nurse-midwives (CNMs), certified professional midwives (CPMs), or other designations — and they typically support birth in hospitals, birth centers, or at home, depending on their training and credentials.
• Doulas: Unlike the clinical roles above, doulas are trained to provide nonmedical physical, emotional, and informational support during pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. While they do not provide medical care, their presence can be invaluable for comfort measures, advocacy, and continuous support that primary care providers may not be trained and/or able to provide.
• Specialists (e.g., physical therapists, chiropractors): These professionals bring targeted expertise to address specific needs. A pelvic floor physical therapist, for example, can help with pregnancy-related discomfort or recovery after birth, while a chiropractor trained in prenatal care might assist with alignment to promote comfort and optimal fetal positioning.

Each of these roles serves a distinct purpose, and combining their expertise can create a comprehensive and supportive care team tailored to your needs. Specialists often delve deeply into their specific areas of focus, offering care that complements your primary prenatal provider. For example, an OB might oversee your general pregnancy health, but a doula can focus on your comfort and advocacy during labor, while a pelvic PT ensures your body is prepared for the unique work of birth, and fully supported through recovery.

By intentionally assembling your team, you’re laying the groundwork for a birth experience that feels aligned with your hopes and supported by expertise. Consider your unique situation, your vision for birth, and the areas where you might need additional guidance — and build from there. This is your "project," and the team you create will help bring it to life.

Envisioning the Space and Choosing The Tools

Every decision in building a home, from structural elements to small details, reflects your intentions for how the space will function and feel. Your choice of space — not just between a hospital, birth center, or home — but your choice of one specific hospital, one specific birth center, or birth at home with a specific home birth midwife — should reflect what feels right for you, based on your inventory, view, and care team. 

If you’re dreaming of a marble walk-in shower, you’re not going to buy a clawfoot tub and subway tile. In the same way, if you’re envisioning an intimate, low-intervention birth, your tools and environment should align with that vision. And if you’re looking for the highest degree of monitoring and access to the greatest degree of interventions, the most quickly, then your tools and environment should provide that.

Then, think about the tools you’ll need to create a supportive environment. Music, lighting, affirmations, aromatherapy, birth balls, comfort items, rituals — these are the details that set the tone for your experience. And they’re not only meaningful, but often functional, too.

Your Vision Is Within You

Many people feel uncertain when they’re asked what they want their birth to feel like. It’s not uncommon to draw a blank, especially when the idea feels abstract or the possibilities overwhelming. If that’s where you are, let’s normalize it: it’s okay not to know right away.

The truth is, your birth vision is in there. It might just need a little time and space to emerge.

Start by giving yourself permission to sit with the question without pressure. Ask yourself, “What do I want this experience to feel like?” and then let the answers come to you in their own time. It might not happen all at once or in a neat, linear way, and that’s perfectly fine. The process of reflection is just as important as the answers themselves.

When thoughts or feelings begin to surface—no matter how small or undefined they may seem—honor them. Write them down, tell them to someone you trust, or simply hold space for them. Over time, a clearer picture of what feels meaningful, supportive, or important to you will take shape.

There’s no “right” way to discover your vision, and there’s no rush. Trust that as you allow yourself to reflect, your hopes, values, and intentions will guide you. It’s all part of the journey of connecting with your own unique path.

Adding the Finishing Touches: Your Unique Story

Finally, the finishing touches. This is where your personality and uniqueness shine—things that no one else can replicate.

In a home, this might look like framing your grandmother’s handwritten recipe in the kitchen or painting a room in your favorite color that drenches every wall and piece of molding. It could be choosing a tile because its texture reminds you of the river stones behind your childhood home, where you played as a kid.

In birth, these finishing touches might be the affirmations you place on your walls, the scent of a candle that brings you calm, or a playlist of songs that hold deep meaning. They could be the photos you take, the clothes you wear, or the small rituals you create with your partner or care team.

These details may seem small, but they hold the power to make your birth experience uniquely yours. They tell your story in ways that no one else can.

Navigating the Unexpected

If you’ve ever watched a home renovation show on HGTV, you know the narrative well. The project begins with enthusiasm and clear plans, only to hit a major snag — uncovering asbestos, finding an unsupported foundation, receiving cabinets in the wrong color, or realizing a tub is too large to fit the space.

The truth is, life — like home renovations and certainly like pregnancies and births — doesn’t always unfold as intended, expected, planned, or preferred. Sometimes, despite all the preparation in the world, something hard happens.

There’s no easy way around this. There’s no universal solution or quick fix. These moments of frustration or heartache simply are. They are part of the messy reality of building a home, a birth vision — of life.

While we can’t snap our fingers and make things easy again, we can lean into the support of our care team, loved ones, and community. We can take one step, then another, moving through the hard space until, eventually, we find ourselves in a softer space again. Which we will.

Even when it seems like the plan has careened off the road — the story isn’t over. The home isn’t destroyed.

The Power of Adjustments

As your pregnancy and birth journey unfolds, you may find that you need to adjust something. Just as you might pivot your home design to address a surprise issue or better fit your evolving vision, your needs during pregnancy and birth may shift as well.

What supports your needs now may not be what best supports your needs later — and that’s okay. There’s no shame in changing your mind when your needs change. In fact, flexibility is one of the most powerful tools you can carry through this process.

And sometimes you don’t know you don’t like the sofa you thought you loved until you sit on it. Or see it on the rug. Or against the wall color. Once you realize the sofa doesn’t work for your space — what is the next logical step? Return it! Find the better fit.

Maybe the care team you started with no longer feels like the best fit, or the tools you thought you’d need aren’t what you find most comforting. Adjusting doesn’t mean you’ve failed or made a mistake. It means you’re listening to yourself, honoring what feels right in the moment, and doing what’s best for you and your baby.

And sometimes, there are things in your home — or your birth — that you can’t change. Maybe it’s a structural column that can’t be removed or a piece of history that is simply part of the space. What can you do? You might layer something meaningful in front of it, drawing attention to what you love instead of what you don’t. Or you could invest energy somewhere else, creating a corner or feature so special it helps balance or offset the element you wish could be different. In both homes and birth, it’s not always about erasing what you don’t love—it’s about creating beauty and connection around it.

In homes and in births, the ultimate goal isn’t perfection—it’s creating a space where you can feel safe, supported, and empowered, no matter how many twists and turns the journey takes. Trust yourself, your process, and your ability to adapt. This is your story, and you have the strength to shape it every step of the way.

The Journey of Reflection

Building your birth vision is a journey of reflection, intention, and creation. It starts with understanding where you’re beginning, gathering the right team and tools, and exploring what matters most to you. From there, you have the freedom to shape an experience that reflects your values, hopes, and individuality.

Take your time, trust the process, and allow yourself to create something that feels like home—a space where you feel supported, empowered, and deeply connected to the experience of bringing your baby into the world.

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