I read Ina May ' s Guide to Childbirth and Natural Hospital Birth . And everybirth story i could get my hands on . I listened to the podcasts related to natural birth on Pregtastic and The Longest Shortest Time . I never did a Bradley Method class but they taught us the breathing technique along with Lamaze but that didnt cut it during labor in that Hands On Labor class we took at our hospital . It ' s similar to yoga breathing and I ' ve been doing yoga for years so that helped . Never even looked into Hypnobirthing until I was in labor . All the distractions all day with friends stopping by and phone calls and video chats helped but once that stopped I really needed to clear my mind of thoughts . I just searched YouTube and watchedlistened to the first 2 videos I found . It probably helped that I already knew how to meditate from years earlier but they were guided so anyone should be able to follow them . DH made fun of some of the video stuff and laughter is really great for opening you up , even though I kept telling him to shut up while I was laughing . Somebody posted a birth story last week and they said with every contraction they thought about waves and the ocean . The waves can get bigger and bigger but they are still part of the ocean . The contractions can get stronger and stronger but they are still a part of me . Something like that lol I thought about that a lot . I also just kept telling myself Ok the next one will be worse so just get through this one right now , its only less than a minute . You never know what ' s going to go through your mind and where it ' s going to come from so just take in all the info you can !