Healing Birth: Recent Episodes
Diana Forsell Tayan
This is a place where we explore healing from birth trauma.
We share our stories, learn from each other's experiences, and critique the systems in place, with the goal in mind to make it better for all of us.
But most of all, if you get one thing from this show, I want you to know that you are not alone.
Christina’s first experience with pregnancy and birth was not what she had imagined, due to her son being diagnosed with a rare birth defect early in the pregnancy. You can (and should!) listen to that story in Part one of this series.
When her first son was around 18 months old, Christina discovered she was pregnant again—and she knew immediately that this birth would be a redemptive, sovereign experience.
France can be a challenging place to have a baby at home, and many people mistakenly believe that home birth is illegal. But Christina connected with the right people and gained the knowledge she needed to navigate the French system, ensuring she wouldn’t face any obstacles to birthing at home.
She welcomed her second son at home, with just her partner present, and experienced a blissful postpartum.
Christina would like to be a resource for other mothers who have had a baby diagnosed with gastroschisis, or otherwise connect with her story. You can find her on Instagram @natureofbirth
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto
Christina was 25 and living abroad in France when she fell in love, and unexpectedly became pregnant.
She had spent years before this pregnancy immersing herself in homebirth and freebirth stories, always dreaming of giving birth at home.
But those dreams were abruptly upended at her 12-week ultrasound, when her baby was diagnosed with gastroschisis—a rare birth defect in which the intestines develop outside the abdomen through a hole in the abdominal wall. The diagnosis meant her baby would need surgery immediately after birth and that Christina’s pregnancy would be closely monitored by medical professionals.
Despite all of this, Christina manages to hold on to the spiritual sanctity of the experience of pregnancy, and skillfully advocate for herself and her son.
This is only part one of her story. Tune in next week for part two!
Find Christina on Instagram @natureofbirth
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto
Kayleigh’s first two births took place in a hospital, but her third—at a birth center with midwives—was a turning point. The contrast in care, both during pregnancy and birth, sparked a passion for natural childbirth and ultimately led her to become a childbirth educator.
Six years later, when she became pregnant with her fourth baby, Kayleigh knew exactly what she wanted: a peaceful home birth, surrounded by her husband and older children.
Find Kayleigh at www.kindacrunchykayleigh.com
And on Instagram @kindacrunchykayleigh
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto
With six births across nearly every setting—from hospital to birth center, homebirth to freebirth—Sarah brings a rare depth of experience to this conversation. She shares her powerful stories and the hard-earned wisdom each birth offered, painting a grounded portrait of what it means to birth on your own terms.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto
Jackie had been planning a home birth for her first baby, but at 35 weeks, she received the shocking diagnosis of a placental abruption. This led to an emergency cesarean, a NICU stay, and years of processing why it had happened to her.
(You can listen to Jackie’s full first birth story in her initial appearance on this podcast, here.)
After enough time had passed, Jackie felt the desire for another child, found the courage to get pregnant again, and planned for another home birth. This time, she got it.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto
Ceiba’s labor with her first child began after an orgasm (oxytocin, much?). The only midwife in her small Mexican town was called, but she happened to be away for the night. Feeling no fear, Ceiba birthed her baby—who arrived feet first—in under an hour, describing the experience as ecstatic.
This birth left her in an expanded state of consciousness for a week.
Follow Ceiba @uteroamor
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto
It wasn’t until her early forties that Leslie finally found the true love of her life. On their first date, she received a message in spirit that a baby wanted to come through. And sure enough, as soon as they both felt a “yes,” she became pregnant. This time, Leslie didn’t hire a midwife—instead, she gave birth at home with only her partner for support.
It was the birth experience she had always dreamed of.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto
There were complications during Caroline’s first pregnancy and birth, which left her with the story that her body was broken. (You can listen to that full story from Caroline’s first appearance on the podcast here.)
After a little over a year of deep healing work — including a life-changing plant medicine ceremony — Caroline consciously conceived her second baby, leaning into trust so fully that she never even took a pregnancy test.
Although she considered freebirthing her second baby, Caroline ultimately chose to hire a traditional midwife to attend her at home. She set firm boundaries where they were needed, stepped fully into the role of sole authority over her birth experience, and emerged from this second birth with the wounds of her first finally healed.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto
Hollis was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of two, leading to a lifetime of doctor visits and deeply ingrained messages that her body was chronically broken. Because of this history and diagnosis, when she found out she was pregnant, her first response was tears—she knew she would be fighting an uphill battle for the natural birth she desired.
Even though her condition was well managed, no midwife in town would take her as a client, leaving her with only two options: receive no care at all, or be treated by a high-risk obstetrician. This is where her battle began.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto
Jesse shares the heroic story of her first birth experience—a three-day labor supported by a traditional midwife and her husband. We discuss how she stayed mentally strong throughout the intense journey, and reflect on how differently things might have unfolded had she been in a hospital setting.
First-time mothers who choose trust over fear inspire me, and Jesse is no exception!
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto
Julia attempted a freebirth at home for her second baby, but came close to losing her son due to a rare birthing complication that no one could have predicted.
In the aftermath, as she processed the trauma of the experience, she reached out to me to share her story and the new perspective she gained about the freebirth movement.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto
Alyssa is the oldest of six children and grew up with the unique privilege of witnessing her mother give birth at home to her five younger siblings.
Naturally, choosing a home birth for her first baby seemed like the obvious decision. She selected a local birth center and midwife. However, like many first-time mothers, as Alyssa approached 42 weeks, the pressure to induce labor began to mount. During her 41st week, her midwife performed several interventions to induce labor, including breaking her water, which put her on a tight timeline. She now had 24 hours to deliver the baby or face a transfer to the hospital. The transfer occurred, and the birth ended in a cesarean and a NICU stay. Alyssa didn’t get to hold her baby until his eighth day of life.
It was a traumatic experience, but both she and her son eventually healed.
Around 15 months postpartum, Alyssa became pregnant again. By this time, she had been researching VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean) and was determined not to give birth in a hospital again. Immersed in positive birth stories, she went on to have a completely different, redemptive second birth experience.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto
Kyrie shares the heartbreaking yet ultimately courageous story of navigating her first pregnancy and the birth of her child while in an abusive marriage. She also endured hyperemesis so severe that she required hospitalization, as well as a shocking misdiagnosis that her child had a brain abnormality— via an ultrasound that was later found to be inaccurate.
Kyrie explains that it was her overwhelming love for her newborn son that gave her the strength and courage to leave the abusive situation and build a better life for both of them.
Today, Kyrie is an entrepreneur, speaker, author, and podcast host who is passionate about empowering other women facing the challenges of business ownership, motherhood, and personal growth.
Follow Kyrie @theconfidentmomprenuer
Kyrie’s Podcast The Confident Momprenuer
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto
After two relatively routine hospital births, Shiloa’s third baby was discovered to be breech late in her pregnancy. Her care providers presented her with no option other than a c-section, which came as a huge shock. The surgical birth left her feeling traumatized.
As a birth worker herself, Shiloa was also attending births during this time and had developed an unshakable trust in the birth process. She learned that some midwives were comfortable supporting breech births at home, viewing it as a variation of normal rather than an emergency requiring surgery.
For her fourth pregnancy, Shiloa planned a home birth with a midwife. Once again, the baby was found to be breech toward the end of the pregnancy. However, she didn’t let the combination of a VBAC and the breech label shake her trust in the birth process. In fact, she had a strong sense that this baby was meant to be born breech for a reason.
Shiloa successfully birthed her breech, VBAC baby at home with her midwife, as planned. This empowering experience helped to heal the trauma from her previous birth.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto
Gina’s first pregnancy was with twins, which limited her options for care to a hospital birth. During this labor, she faced immense pressure to receive an epidural, undergo various interventions, and was even made to give birth on the operating table in the operating room “just in case.” Despite all of this and the atmosphere of fear surrounding twin births, she managed to deliver both babies naturally in the hospital, on that cold operating room table.
Her second pregnancy was with a singleton, so this time, a midwife could legally attend her birth at home, and Gina jumped at the chance. She found the perfect wise woman to walk alongside her during the pregnancy. This experience allowed her to heal some of the scars left by her previous, medicalized birth and to deeply reconnect with her Mexican heritage through cultural birth practices, such as using a rebozo, and having the maternal grandmother cut the umbilical cord.
Gina says that this birth experience deeply reconnected her to her lineage and inspired her to dive into learning more about the sacredness of pregnancy, birth, and postpartum.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto
Robyn describes her first birth as a ‘weird, numb experience.’ She was in the hospital, on an epidural, and slept through most of it.
However, a family car accident became a turning point for Robyn, prompting her to make holistic health changes for her family. As she began to explore ways to take charge of their healthcare more naturally, her perspective on birth shifted. By the time she was pregnant with her second child, she knew she would give birth at home, with a midwife. (In fact, the midwife she chose had been a former guest on this show!)
For her third birth, Robyn chose to give birth at home, unassisted.
In reflecting on her birth experiences, Robyn shared with me: ‘I want to address the idea that a midwife or doula will save you during labor or birth, or somehow prepare you better than you can prepare yourself for birth. Instead, birth should be viewed as an opportunity to fully surrender and trust yourself.’
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto
Over the course of having six babies, Kelly’s beliefs about birth, pregnancy, and sovereignty changed drastically. She went from thinking that women who birthed outside the hospital were irresponsible and dangerous, to free birthing her last baby at 42, with only her husband by her side.
Kelly shares her entire journey with us today in the hope of encouraging other women to recognize that they are perfectly designed for birth and motherhood.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto
Chandani was a doula working within the system when she became pregnant with her first baby. Witnessing the trauma and high cesarean rate in the hospital, she knew she didn’t want to give birth there and decided on a home birth.
Although she entered the pregnancy with extensive knowledge about birth and hired a midwife, her birth ultimately ended in a cesarean after her midwife transferred her during labor.
In the immediate aftermath, Chandani struggled to accept that this was her birth experience. However, as time passed, she began to reflect and realized that there had been red flags in her care, and her intuition had indeed been speaking to her. She also started examining other areas of her life where she wasn’t being true to herself. By the time she was pregnant with her second baby, she was fully ready to step into her power and birth in a new way.
Rather than hiring another medical midwife, Chandani chose a non-medical birth keeper who also became a friend. She emerged triumphant from that birth experience, feeling as though she could do anything.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto
Leisa Masters is a mother, an accomplished birthworker, and an experienced business manager. She has been supporting women through pregnancy, birth, and motherhood for over a decade.
Her own experience birthing her daughter in the Australian medical system became a classic cascade of interventions, ultimately leading to an unnecessary cesarean. However, being deeply committed to personal growth, Leisa chose not to simply blame the system. Instead, she realized that at a deeper level, her own people-pleasing tendencies had allowed the birth to unfold as it did.
In the years since that birth, Leisa has discovered a way to have revolutionary conversations with women, empowering them to own their birth experiences, their introduction to motherhood, and, by extension, their lives. As a sought-after voice in the global birth community, Leisa now helps other birthworkers recognize how to work with women in a truly life-changing way. She believes that women already possess all the wisdom they need inside them, and her role is to help them uncover that wisdom and build the confidence to trust in it.
Follow Leisa on Instagram @leisa.masters
Leisa’s Website
Join Leisa’s course Becoming a Birthworker
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto
India was 21, and dancing without a care in the world at a festival in Nepal when she suddenly felt her water break. That was the moment she realized she was pregnant—and about to have a baby!
What followed, in one of the most incredible birth stories I have ever heard, was a four-day labor, supported by her Rainbow Gathering community, in a remote village in Nepal.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto
Returning guest Tiffany shares her powerful third birth story—a precipitous freebirth. Alone with just her partner, Tiffany navigated this intense and transformative experience following a wild pregnancy.
Tiffany’s story also includes one of the coolest placenta births I’ve ever heard!
You can hear her first two birth stories, on her first appearance on the podcast, here.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto
Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) is a connective tissue disorder that presents differently in each individual. For Emily, it significantly affected her digestive system. During her first pregnancy, she struggled with severe hyperemesis, unable to keep any food down at all.
In this episode, Emily shares one of the most unique and challenging stories of pregnancy, birth, and postpartum I have ever encountered. Her journey is a powerful testament to the resilience of the mother-baby bond and her incredible strength.
Despite the hardships she faced, Emily has recovered and found joy in the small but profound moments of motherhood. She recalls the first time her baby smiled at her—a moment when her heart truly felt light for the first time.
Tune in to hear Emily's inspiring story of determination, love, and healing.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
After two hospital births—one of which was extremely traumatic—Laura decided to homebirth her third baby.
During her 20-week anatomy scan, a velamentous cord insertion was discovered. Laura’s main concern with this complication was the risk of intrauterine growth restriction. She chose to closely monitor her baby’s size through ultrasounds, and by 35 weeks, it was clear she was carrying a large, healthy baby. Feeling confident, Laura moved forward with her plan to give birth at home.
Her birth experience was fast, powerful, and profoundly healing.
We close this episode with Laura reflecting on the unexpected grief she felt for her older children’s birth experiences. She shares how she now recognizes the ripple effects of those births in their lives.
Listen to Laura’s first appearance on this podcast, where she shares her first two birth experiences, here.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto
I open season six of the podcast with the jaw-dropping story of a family who fled France after the authorities targeted them for freebirthing their baby.
Katie initially planned a homebirth for her first child, but during labor, her midwife transferred her to the hospital, where she was given no option but to have a cesarean section. When Katie became pregnant with her second child, her family had relocated from the United States to Paris, France, due to a job transfer. Because of her prior cesarean, no midwife in France was willing to attend her birth.
Faced with the prospect of another hospital experience as her only option, Katie chose to freebirth her baby. The birth was beautiful, but trouble arose when the family tried to obtain a birth certificate. Since there was no record of medical care during her pregnancy and no official attendant at the birth, the French authorities retaliated. After a series of bureaucratic encounters with government and medical officials, Katie learned that French Child Protective Services planned to remove her children from her care.
With emergency passports issued by the American embassy and all their belongings still in Paris, Katie and her family fled the country, eventually making it back to the United States.
Katie went on to have a third baby, another freebirth, which brought her healing, closure, and invaluable lessons. She is now planning to write a book about her extraordinary experience. You can follow her journey on Instagram at @thek80show.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto
Katie’s journey with birth has been one of both trauma and triumph. It begins with an excruciating, 3-day Pitocin induction, ending in a c-section, which left her devastated and later diagnosed with postpartum PTSD. She endured months of nightmares, flashbacks, and depression.
In contrast, Katie later experienced a second trimester loss, and says that her experience in the medical system managing the death of her baby was better than the previous live birth - because this time she had trauma-informed, deeply compassionate care providers.
Katie finally has her healing birth, a VBAC, at a trauma informed hospital. She describes this experience as incredibly beautiful, and something she sources strength from even to this day.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Julia became pregnant in December of 2019, right before the world shut down. She spent that pregnancy isolated, alone, and made to go to her prenatal appointments without her partner.
Beginning at just 36 weeks, she was pressured to have a c-section, because her baby was breech. Deep down, Julia knew her baby was healthy, still growing, and perhaps still had time to turn. But after several weeks of unrelenting pressure from her doctor, she gave in and scheduled the cesarean.
After this experience, Julia immediately knew she wanted a natural, unmedicated VBAC. And after lots of research and listening to birth podcasts, she decided that home was the safest place for her to achieve it.
When she met her team of midwives, and delved into the world of Hypnobirthing, Julia discovered how beautiful and peaceful birth can be at home, rather than the medical emergency it often is in a hospital.
Her second baby was born at home, in the water, at just shy of 43 weeks.
Mentioned in this episode:
The Business of Being Born
Hypnobirthing: The Mongan Method by Marie Morgan
Birth photos by @skylightphototx
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Patience is a doula and birth keeper, and was quite familiar with birth when it was time to have her first baby. She chose to give birth in a midwife-run birth center, but her labor progressed so fast that they never made it inside, and the baby was born in the doorway!
When she became pregnant with her second baby, she wanted a more autonomous experience, and chose to birth at home with just her husband and a non-medical birth keeper for support.
Patience has an unshakable faith in the wisdom of the birth process which is inspiring and infectious. She attends home births and offers placenta encapsulation + art services in the Sonora, California area.
Follow Patience on Instagram @atouchofpatience_birth
Patience’s website: www.atouchofpatiencebirth.com
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Molly planned to give birth to her first baby at a birth center, but when she hit 41 weeks, she was bait and switched into a hospital induction. The Pitocin-induced birth was traumatic and excruciating, and ended with a week long NICU stay for her son.
In retrospect, Molly believes the induction, and the trauma to her and her son, was completely unnecessary.
It wasn’t until she began therapy at one year postpartum to address the scars of this first birth experience that she began to heal, and consider that she could give birth again without interventions and trauma.
Discovering Hynobabies, was also a complete game changer for her the second time around. The affirmations and hypnosis techniques helped her to address her fears and feel confident. She describes that birth experience, using Hynobabies, as pain free!
At the time of this recording, Molly is pregnant and planning a home birth with her third.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Molly planned to give birth to her first baby at a birth center, but when she hit 41 weeks, she was bait and switched into a hospital induction. The Pitocin-induced birth was traumatic and excruciating, and ended with a week long NICU stay for her son.
In retrospect, Molly believes the induction, and the trauma to her and her son, was completely unnecessary.
It wasn’t until she began therapy at one year postpartum to address the scars of this first birth experience that she began to heal, and consider that she could give birth again without interventions and trauma.
Discovering Hypnobabies, was also a complete game changer for her the second time around. The affirmations and hypnosis techniques helped her to address her fears and feel confident. She describes that birth experience, using Hynobabies, as pain free!
At the time of this recording, Molly is pregnant and planning a home birth with her third.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Molly planned to give birth to her first baby at a birth center, but when she hit 41 weeks, she was bait and switched into a hospital induction. The Pitocin-induced birth was traumatic and excruciating, and ended with a week long NICU stay for her son.
In retrospect, Molly believes the induction, and the trauma to her and her son, was completely unnecessary.
It wasn’t until she began therapy at one year postpartum to address the scars of this first birth experience that she began to heal, and consider that she could give birth again without interventions and trauma.
Discovering Hynobabies, was also a complete game changer for her the second time around. The affirmations and hypnosis techniques helped her to address her fears and feel confident. She describes that birth experience, using Hynobabies, as pain free!
At the time of this recording, Molly is pregnant and planning a home birth with her third.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Molly planned to give birth to her first baby at a birth center, but when she hit 41 weeks, she was bait and switched into a hospital induction. The Pitocin-induced birth was traumatic and excruciating, and ended with a week long NICU stay for her son.
In retrospect, Molly believes the induction, and the trauma to her and her son, was completely unnecessary.
It wasn’t until she began therapy at one year postpartum to address the scars of this first birth experience that she began to heal, and consider that she could give birth again without interventions and trauma.
Discovering Hynobabies, was also a complete game changer for her the second time around. The affirmations and hypnosis techniques helped her to address her fears and feel confident. She describes that birth experience, using Hynobabies, as pain free!
At the time of this recording, Molly is pregnant and planning a home birth with her third.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Lea is the content creator behind the popular Instagram account @trusting_life_, and host of the Wise Woman Diaries podcast.
In this conversation, we go deep. Lea shares candidly about how a ten-year preconception journey has been the path that led her to soul, and, paradoxically, into true trust in her body. She shares what inspired her to create both Trusting Life and Wise Woman Diaries, despite being a maiden and not having experienced motherhood yet.
We talk about the importance of story medicine, particularly for women. We are right now witnessing a shift from an old paradigm of experts and authority as knowledge and wisdom keepers, to a more egalitarian, aquarian moment in human history.
We also talk about the unique nature of social media, and how triggers are a window into who we are, our traumas, and are a reflection of our energy.
Follow Lea on Instagram @trusting_life_
Listen to Lea’s excellent podcast (If you like this one, you will like hers!): Wise Woman Diaries
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Alice was induced at the end of her first pregnancy, which ended with a forceps delivery and an episiotomy. The trauma and intensity of this experience profoundly affected both Alice and her baby, who was bruised and cut from the forceps. In the aftermath of this birth and postpartum time, Alice’s marriage ended - in part because of how difficult that first year was for them.
But Alice found love again, and had a second chance at birth. This time, she chose a home birth with a midwife, which is a completely free and underutilized option within the UK’s NHS system.
She had her second child peacefully, at home, with just her partner and the midwife.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
During Delainey’s third birth (her second freebirth), her baby experienced a true shoulder dystocia at his emergence - a complication that is almost never heard of in home or free births, and can be one of the few, rare, actual obstetric emergencies.
His head was out for eight whole minutes before the rest of his body was born, and Delainey could feel exactly where his shoulder was stuck. Impressively, she and her partner stayed very calm and, guided by their intuition and intimate connection, were able to safely get their son born.
This story is such a powerful example of how safety is an innate part of the birth process, but only when we don't interfere with it.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Emily, a former nurse of 13 years, shares the sweet story of the homebirth of her first born son.
Since entering that rite of passage, her heart and soul mission has become focused on using her cumulative life experiences to walk alongside women and their families as they too cross the threshold.
She helps to facilitate the deep inner work needed to prepare mothers for an empowering, physiological pregnancy, birth, & postpartum experience. She holds sacred space and advocates fiercely for the undisturbed, natural birth of their dreams.
Emily will be releasing a physiological homebirth course soon - follow her and stay tuned for an early bird discount!
Emily’s website: www.birthadvocate.me
Since we recorded this episode, Emily began her own beautiful podcast, Soul Evolution: Embodied Women’s Wisdom, Birth Stories, and More.
Find Emily on Instagram @birth.advocate
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
The medical system couldn’t offer Tiffany the kind of birth she wanted for her twin boys, so she fired her doctor, and planned to birth them at home.
Needless to say, this was a choice that took a great deal of courage, trust, and consciousness. All along the way, Tiffany was shown signs from the universe that she was on the right path, and was in alignment with what was right for her and her babies.
Her twin boys, Astro and Cosmo, were born at home, in the presence of family, on Halloween!
If you love this podcast, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow us on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Cool Cats by Smith the Mister
Lindsey begins her motherhood journey with the experience of an ectopic pregnancy, which she - amazingly - resolved without taking medication or having surgery.
Despite her being told by medical professionals that it would hard for her to conceive again, she did, easily. Her first baby was born in a hospital, and this experience left her knowing that she would never give birth in a hospital again.
Her next baby was born at home, with a midwife.
Lindsey then began working as a midwife apprentice and quickly realized she was seeing many of the same interventions, interruptions, and violations at homebirths as happens in hospitals. She realized she wouldn’t want any of the midwives she was working with at her own birth. They were effectively bringing the hospital into the home.
Around this time, Lindsey’s third baby, in spirit form, was calling to her, but she knew she had to leave her apprenticeship to be in integrity with herself before this baby would come. She left the medical midwifery world and instead began supporting freebirths, and it was here she learned to trust birth again.
Her third baby was born at home with just her family present. It was just a normal Wednesday afternoon, except she gave birth in her bathtub! The mundane and sacred, intertwined.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Maiken always knew a hospital birth wasn’t for her. When she welcomed her first child, it was at home, with only her partner and a doula present, embracing the power of her body in an intimate, natural setting.
Her journey through pregnancy and birth wasn’t just life-changing—it was deeply healing. The experience reshaped how she saw herself, teaching her profound lessons about strength, letting go, and trust in her own body.
In this episode, we also explore the evolving birth culture in Norway, where birth care is free, but women are increasingly seeking alternatives to the standard hospital birth. Maiken sheds light on this growing movement and what it means for Norwegian women reclaiming their birth choices.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Tia’s first two birth experiences were hospital inductions. By the time she was pregnant with her third, she knew she wanted a more empowering and natural experience, so she hired a midwife, and planned a home birth.
But around twenty-one weeks into that pregnancy, Tia went into preterm labor. She was rushed to the hospital where she delivered not one, but two babies. Tragically, this was how she found out she had been carrying twin girls.
A couple months after this terrible loss, Tia was ready to be pregnant agin, and conceived. And she finally got to experience a beautiful, natural birth.
Her story is one of hope and healing. Tia wants other women who hear it to be encouraged and know that a beautiful birth experience is possible for everyone, even after such a huge loss.
Follow Tia on Instagram @thethrifty_homemaker
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Amber shares the vulnerable and intimate experience of getting pregnant, and giving birth, at fifteen years old. Her experience with what was ultimately a traumatic birth, and post-partum depression, was the catalyst that compelled her into the important work she does now to support other mothers.
She is now a board-certified lactation consultant, functional nutrition practitioner, and certified doula. Amber has spent nearly a decade supporting families, and views birth as a natural, mother-centered event that unfolds best when led by the mom herself.
Follow Amber @ambertheibclc
Amber’s website:
nourishedroots.co
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Step into paradise with me this week as my friend Taylor opens up about her deeply transformative journey from an unexpected cesarean with her first child, to the empowering experience of a homebirth on the beautiful island of Kauai with her second.
Taylor's story is one of resilience, healing, and the power of trusting your body.
Find Taylor on Instagram @mahina.risssing
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
During Carey’s first pregnancy, her baby was diagnosed with Intra Uterine Growth Restriction (a fairly subjective label that means the baby is thought to be small, and it is not known why). Because of this, she was subjected to multiple ultrasounds during the last few weeks of her pregnancy, and highly pressured to induce. Carey refused to be induced, and went into labor spontaneously.
The labor experience was colored by the fears of the medical staff, she was subjected to coached pushing, and a whole team of NICU doctors took and assessed her baby as soon as she was born. Her baby was perfectly healthy and did not need the NICU, but Carey was still robbed of those golden moments post-birth, and bonding between her and the baby was disrupted.
Although this kind of birth could have been someone else’s “great experience”, it left her with a lot of healing to do. She knew almost immediately that what had happened to her in the hospital was unnecessary and created trauma for her and her baby.
She said goodbye to the medical system, consciously conceived her second child, had a wild pregnancy, and a beautiful, healing, freebirth.
Be sure to check out the instagram page this week @healingbirth for some really incredible photos of this birth by @novitabirthstories
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
From the very beginning of her first pregnancy, Aeriel encountered discouragement and doubt from medical providers about her ability to birth naturally.
Unbelievably, she was even repeatedly encouraged to end her (unplanned, but wanted) pregnancy multiple times by the first doctor she saw. Reasonably shook by this, she sought other care and found a birth center mid-pregnancy.
Due to going to 42 weeks, she was transferred back to the same hospital that was affiliated with her first doctor to be induced. Aerial was absolutely set on having a natural birth, and despite being induced with Pitocin, and discouragement from the medical staff, she achieved it.
Find Aeriel’s blog at www.mamaunrehearsed.com
Aeriel’s on Instagram and Facebook @mamaunrehearsed
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
From the moment she knew she was pregnant, Hari felt an extraordinary, intuitive bond with her baby. Guided by this inner knowing, she knew she would freebirth—believing this was the path her baby's soul desired.
But at 34 weeks, things took an unexpected turn when Hari went into labor. Faced with the unforeseen, she chose to embrace trust over fear, staying true to her plan of giving birth at home, accompanied only by her partner. In a remarkable journey of intuition and courage, Hari allowed her baby's soul to lead the way.
follow Hari @Sacred_flute
Spirit Babies by Walter Makichen is the book you’ll hear Hari recommend in our conversation.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Midway through her pregnancy, Hope’s baby was diagnosed as growth restricted (IUGR), but despite concern from her doctors, Hope’s intuition was telling her the baby was okay.
Her baby was also breech at that point, and never did turn. She was recommended to have a planned cesarean at 37 weeks due to both the IUGR diagnosis and the breech positioning, but this never sat right with her. She kept asking questions to her care team that she felt were not adequately answered.
Amazingly, the hospital scheduled her for this cesarean at 37 weeks, after a planned ECV, without her knowledge or consent. A nurse accidentally tipped her off!
Around the same time, Hope found stories of other women who vaginally birthed breech babies. Now that she knew it was possible, the question was how to find the right support for her to do it at home. She was able to find a midwife trained with Breech without Borders.
Her baby was born perfectly healthy at 42 weeks after a ten hour labor. By listening to her instincts and birthing at home, she avoided what would have almost certainly been a NICU stay necessitated by having a cesarean at 37 weeks.
Her story is an amazing testament to how important and valid maternal intuition truly is.
Follow Hope @hope_jckson
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
At fifteen weeks into her first pregnancy, Caroline began experiencing kidney pain, and was eventually diagnosed with a swollen kidney. Fear started to take root as she saw different specialists, all with different opinions as to how to resolve it.
After a horrible experience with a nephrostomy bag (a bag to drain the kidney of pee that is attached to one’s back), Caroline consented to corrective surgery, at twenty two weeks pregnant, which then required a second follow up surgery.
Throughout her experiences with these medical procedures, ensuing complications, and fear for how they may impact the pregnancy, there was very little true informed consent from her care team.
Throughout this ordeal, she felt her trust in her body deteriorating.
Despite her kidney issues, and ultimately two surgeries, Caroline was able to have her planned-for home birth. After the baby was born, however, the midwife rushed her to transfer to the hospital for a reason Caroline now feels was not a true emergency.
Caroline says her journey included many tough lessons, among them to be very selective about who to let into the birth space and on her birth team. She is practicing forgiveness, both for self and others.
Follow Caroline @carolineofenstein
Find Caroline’s podcast at Naturally Caroline
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Holly is a certified Fertility Awareness Method Educator and Licensed Acupuncturist. Her passion for periods and fertility stem from a long history of personal cycle issues. At 22, she was told she would likely have a hard time getting pregnant due to a consistently erratic menstrual cycle, and amenorrhea due to severe anorexia.
A testament to the body’s innate ability to heal, it was during a passionate love affair in her thirties that she conceived her daughter, and had a beautiful, easy home birth.
One of the key components to her journey of healing was to uncover what was really going on with her body through charting her cycle. Implementing fertility awareness completely changed her life, and offered her a different relationship with her body. Now, she works with other women, helping them do the same.
Work with Holly www.rosebudwellness.com
Follow Holly on Instagram @rosebud_wellness
Find Holly’s Podcast The Fertile Womb
Check out Real Food for Pregnancy & Real Food for Fertility
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Lindsay is a mother of three, photographer, birth coach, and podcast host at Birth Like a Mammal™, a community that teaches parents and doulas how to give birth like a mammal. After over a decade of supporting families as a doula and working in birth advocacy, Lindsay founded Birth Like a Mammal™ in 2023. She feels deeply that most issues within our society and culture can be solved by birthing in alignment with mammalian biology.
In this episode, you’ll hear Lindsay discuss:
- How her background working with animals informed how she understands birth.
- Why she chose to freebirth her first baby, and hired a midwife for the next two.
- Her time working on Exposing the Silence Project, a photography project that documented and brought awareness to birth trauma and obstetric violence.
- All about her upcoming retreat, Hope for Healing. The retreat is for any woman who has been affected by birth trauma, and is looking for healing.
Follow Lindsay on Instagram @birthlikeamammal
Listen to the Birth Like a Mammal Podcast
Learn more about and register for the Hope for Healing Retreat
www.exposingthesilence.com
Birth Allowed Radio
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
During her first pregnancy, Amanda completely deferred to her medical team. The birth ended in coached pushing, a totally unnecessary episiotomy, and Pitocin. She describes herself as completely disconnected from the whole experience. And she left it knowing she would never do it that way again.
In her postpartum period, Amanda discovered freebirth story podcasts, and it completely changed how she thought about birth. With her next baby, she planned and had a home birth, but had to navigate a postpartum transfer due to a birth defect that had gone undetected during pregnancy. Having had a powerful, autonomous home birth helped her navigate the ensuing NICU stay with her power intact.
Very quickly postpartum, Amanda conceived her third baby. This birth happened so fast, the midwife didn’t make it. But it was exactly the experience she needed to once again step in her true maternal power!
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Tere shares the story of having a completely unexpected, euphoric, orgasmic birth with her very first baby!
Her second birth experience was not like the first, and presented with a unique challenge. But Tere says that both of her birth experiences taught her a lot about courage, surrender, and trust.
Follow Tere @cyclealchemist
www.teremariemartini.com
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Taylor always envisioned the day she would give birth, unlike other young girls who dream of their wedding day. But when she unexpectedly went into labor at just 24 weeks with her first baby, she had to set aside her long-held dreams for a more medicalized experience.
This is her bittersweet, yet ultimately beautiful, story of letting go.
Photo by @angenobles
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Lauren, an expat living in Brazil, planned a home birth with midwives for her first baby’s birth. Near the end of her birth process, the midwives decided her baby was likely too big be born at home, and transferred her to the local hospital, where the birth ended with an episiotomy. It was a violent intervention that left Lauren, and her husband, traumatized (also, spoiler alert: the baby was a perfectly normal size).
When she became pregnant with her second baby, she knew she would not allow the same thing to happen to her again. She found the right team of wise women to surround her, set very clear boundaries (including with her husband, who was still working through his fears), and mostly importantly of all, trusted herself.
That second birth experience was the “birth of her dreams.” And Lauren wants every woman who hears her story to know that it’s every woman’s birthright to experience a birth like hers.
If you don’t already follow @healingbirth on Instagram, be sure to this week to see photos of Lauren’s birth. They are exceptionally beautiful!
If you love this podcast, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow us on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Sandra shares the sweet story of the birth of her second baby, who came so fast, the midwife didn’t make it. Deep down, a free birth was what she wanted anyway, and she got it! While the birth was triumphant, her postpartum period was very challenging.
You’ll hear us discuss the importance of being held spiritually and emotionally during that tender time, and why we culturally seem to lack awareness around that.
Sandra wants other women to know that birth itself offers an incredible initiation into healing, if we are open to it.
You can follow Sandra @sandrablex
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow us on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Couple Marion and Banks share the sweet, intimate conception and birth story of their daughter. Banks was Marion’s sole support during the birth and shares what it was like to witness, hold space, and have a vital role during the experience.
I got to ask Banks some of the questions I have always wanted to hear from a conscious man about birth! Among other things, he speaks to:
- How witnessing his partner birth their baby at home, sovereignly, healed generational birth trauma from his family of origin
- How this birth experience changed their relationship
- What he would say to other fathers who have fear around childbirth
Follow Marion on Instagram @marion.hearth
Marion’s website: www.marionhearth.com
A Link to Marion’s course, Roots of Attachment
This is an intimate group container for future parents where Marion transmits 12 years of the embodied wisdom that inspired her towards freebirthing all 3 of her babies, going diaper free, having nourishing postpartums, and more.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Kaytlynn shares the beautiful and heartbreaking story of the birth, and death, at just a week old, of her first baby.
Still in the throes of grief, she quickly conceived again, and found a way to trust the process of life and birth once more.
Follow Katytlynn on Instagram @kaytlynn_marie
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: New Beginnings by Beau Walker
Alexa’s first birth was attended by a medically minded midwife at home, who rushed her through the third stage of labor. What happened during this part of the birth experience left her traumatized and affected the critical bonding period between Alexa and her baby. In the aftermath, she experienced post-partum anxiety (you will hear us discuss the connection between Pitocin and post-natal mood disorders).
Alexa says that “Birth trauma affects the motherhood journey so much.”
Five months postpartum she conceived again. That baby was born again at home, but with just her husband and son there. This was her healing birth.
In addition to being an author, Alexa leads writing workshops, host women’s circles, and offers workshops on freebirth as well as cloth diapering.
Alexa’s website is www.mamafreebirth.com. You can find her on Instagram is @mama.freebirth.
Find Alexa’s book Motherhood Disenchanted here.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow us on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Snowfall by Vendredi
Olivia shares the story of the conception and family birth of her fourth child, whose labor was just seven minutes long!
You can listen to Olivia’s first appearance on this podcast, from season one, here.
Follow Olivia on Instagram @discovermother
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Heather’s first baby was born via a traumatic cesarean after a grueling, two-day induction. She was told by the surgeon that her anatomy was such that she could never birth vaginally. That, plus the trauma of the induction experience, led her to choose an elective cesarean for her second baby, which at least offered her a degree of control.
Serendipitously, one day at work, Heather found birth podcasts (like this one!) where other women shared their stories of free birthing - taking back their power from a system that says we need their interventions, their drugs, and surgeries in order to give birth. A lightbulb clicked on for her. She consciously conceived her third baby, and birthed her at home.
In doing so, she birthed a new version of herself.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Mindy was a social worker, working in the labor and delivery ward of a hospital, when she became pregnant with her first child. She planned a home birth with a midwife with that first baby, but at 40 weeks and 4 days her midwife abandoned her care, leaving her with no other choice than to deliver at the hospital where she worked.
Because she knew the nurses and staff so well, she was able to navigate that birth experience without trauma - but the betrayal and grief of her midwife abandoning her stayed. It was a deep, sister wound, possibly with echos from other lifetimes.
During her second pregnancy, she did a lot of work to heal the pain from that first experience. She had a beautiful, healing home birth with that baby, but credits both experiences as catalysts for the work she does now.
Mindy does amazing work helping other women reawaken their inner wisdom, access their power, and heal + elevate their legacy! Her website is https://effloresce.net/
Find Mindy on Instagram @effloresce_coaching
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Letting Go by Hotham
Brandy was raised on a farm, and witnessed plenty of animal births. But despite seeing first hand that mammalian birth works best when left undisturbed, when she was pregnant herself, she handed over all decision making and authority to an obstetrician, who ultimately convinced her to have an induction, which ended in a c-section.
She returned to that system again with her second baby and did achieve a VBAC in the hospital, but also experienced medical rape.
By the time she was pregnant with her third child, she felt confident enough to fire her doctor, and have her baby at home, which she did!
Her fourth pregnancy offered her an even deeper opportunity to trust herself, when she recognized some red flags with her midwife.
Brandy is now a holistic doula and birth keeper. You can find her on social media @wildandfreebirthwellness
Brandy’s website: www.wildandfreebirth.com
Brandy’s course: The Labor BluePrint
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Oceanic Space by Aryll
Kawena, an indigenous Brazilian, was traveling the world nomadically when she fell in love, and became pregnant. She knew that she would return home to her ancestral land to birth freely on her family’s farm. This is an especially radical act of reclamation in Brazil, where birth has been completely taken over by the medical industrial complex. Not only does Brazil have one of the highest c-section rates in the world, it is illegal there to birth alone.
Kawena roared her baby out at 43 weeks, her powerful voice echoing back to her across the canyon where generations of her family have lived. With her mother and aunt present, she says that this birth experience healed generations of birth trauma for her matrilineal lineage. Kawena also discovered that certain indigenous birth practices, long forgotten in her family, came to her quite naturally.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Letting Go by Hotham
During the delivery of her first child, Kayla’s care team believed that she experienced a shoulder dystocia, which led to violent, and rushed efforts to get her baby out as fast they could. This left Kayla with a fourth degree tear, a NICU stay for her baby, and lots of trauma to process in her postpartum time.
It wasn’t until she was considering having a second baby and was interviewing home birth midwives, that she realized the diagnosis of a dystocia in her first birth was probably inaccurate, and her baby simply needed a little more time to emerge.
Armed now with the knowledge that her body didn’t dysfunction in any way, Kayla chose to have a home birth with her second child, and had a beautiful, healing birth experience.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Take me Back by Strength to Last
Julie shares the sweet and beautiful story of finding love, experiencing pregnancy with ease, and having her baby at home, at the age of 41.
Follow Julie @eatingwithbabies
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Sky by Hotham
Tiffany, a former doula and fellow podcaster, shares the story of having her first baby at seventeen in a hospital, and her second birth experience, which ended in a home birth transfer.
Because she remained pregnant to 42 weeks, her midwife intervened in several ways to help induce labor, and in this episode you will hear exactly how those seemingly “harmless” and common induction interventions directly compromised her safety in labor.
Follow Tiffany @sacredwomb.birth
Tiffany has her own birth story podcast, and if you like this show, you will love hers too!
Birth and Rebirth Podcast
Here is the episode where I appeared on her show.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Bubbles by PALA
Julia grew up with a fear of giving birth, due to what she knew of birth within the medical paradigm. But by the time she was ready to become pregnant, she had the awakening, mostly from listening to podcasts (!), that there was a better way, more aligned with her values: Freebirth.
She spent her pregnancy traveling around the country with her husband in their RV, giving her fears to nature, and finally, settling in Montana in the dead of winter where she gave birth.
Follow Julia @bigmountainhomestead
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Take Me Back by Strength to Last
Liz shares the story of her wild pregnancy, birth, and the loss, of her daughter Arati.
Her experience is a deeply spiritual one where her daughter guided her toward all of the choices she made during her pregnancy. While the outcome is one none of us would wish for, Liz says that she would still choose a wild pregnancy and still choose freebirth.
In honor of Aarti’s first birthday, Liz is offering a giveaway. She is offering an "Energetic attunement for the womb & Spirit baby communication."
This session is designed for any woman who is pregnant, wishes to conceive, or has experienced loss. In it, we fine-tune the energetic field of their womb to erase any dissonant vibrations and increase the expanse of their luminous field. We also connect with the baby they wish to welcome or the baby who left too soon. It's a beautiful session exclusively thought of for this Special Giveaway.
Liz says that Arati brought her a mission, and she intends to fulfill it by assisting wombs thrive and anchor the Children of New Humanity.
Follow Liz on Instagram @spiritual.doula
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Together by Justhea
Amalia planned a home birth with her first baby. When she went into labor, despite many of hours of intense contractions, her body never dilated. They decided to transfer to the hospital, where she received all the things the hospital has to offer, ending, as it so often does, in a cesarean birth.
But this is not a story of defeat. Amalia mined this experience for gold, and in retrospect, she sees how much her birth experience taught her. We talk about how important it is that we really get to know what our subconscious beliefs are about birth and our bodies. And how those beliefs can shape our lived experiences.
Follow Amalia @amaliamarialee
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Sunset by Justhea
Hannah returns to the podcast to share the story of the freebirth of her third baby, which was a surprise breech birth!
All of Hannah’s birth experiences have included something that falls outside the scope of “normal.” Her stories are such a good example of why some women chose to freebirth. Had she been in the medical system, her birth outcomes would have looked very different.
You can listen to Hannah’s first appearance on this show, where she shares the story of her first and second birth experiences here:
Trusting Birth at 35 Weeks
Follow Hannah @theprimalpriestess
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Snowfall by Vendredi
Both of Ana’s first two births were traumatic in different ways. Her first ended in an emergency cesarean, after a long labor. Her second was a VBAC birth, but during the birth, her baby’s cord ripped, causing blood loss, and injury to both Ana and her baby.
Because of the intensity and trauma of her two previous births, when Ana became pregnant with her third, she chose to have an elective cesarean.
Of all her births, this one was the most peaceful, and in it, she found healing.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Support the show on Patreon! patreon.com/healingbirth
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Ocean Space by aryll
After a traumatic and disempowering hospital birth in 2020, which Ali compares to a prior sexual assault, Something deep shifted within her. She went from being a self-diagnosed hypochondriac who sought medical treatment for non-existing conditions, to a home-birthing, self-healing soul who has come to know the power of the mind and self-programming.
Ali reconditioned her views on birth, pregnancy, and life, and manifested her dream birth with her second baby. She believes that it is our birthright to experience life altering and blissful birth, which is our portal to a deeper connection to the Divine, to the life force that guides us, and to our lineage and children.
Follow Ali on Instagram @alibarn3tt
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Crushing by Reveille
Aimee, a labor and delivery nurse, shares the story of giving birth to her second child after one of the worst tragedies I can imagine: losing her husband in a car accident. Aimee says she was given divine grace to have exactly the birth she needed with that baby.
Aimee went on to remarry and give birth again, this third time, at home. In a surprise twist, that baby resented with a prolapsed cord, which was easily resolved!
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Take me back by Strength to Last
Abby spontaneously went into labor at 24 weeks, and on the ride to hospital, her baby was born into her best friend’s hands.
This is the truly miraculous story of how her baby, and Abby, survived.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Together by Justhea
Ashley’s first two babies were born in the hospital, and both experiences left her traumatized. By the time her third baby was conceived, Ashley had been through an awakening to many truths, among them, the truth about birth. That was a natural birth with a midwife, but still not without interventions that were harmful.
Finally, after serving as a doula for free birthing women completely outside of the medical system for some time, she became pregnant with her fourth and knew this was her turn to trust birth fully.
You can connect with Ashley, and learn about the farm she lives on at www.sacrednectarsanctuary.com
Ashley’s on Instagram @river_wolf_369
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Chill Night by Amine Maxwell & MICHAL
Maggie shares the story of having a natural birth in a birth center, after two unnecessary cesarean births. The experience led her to become a local ICAN volunteer, and to create an online course for other women desiring to VBAC.
You can find Maggie and her offerings on instagram @vbacroadmap
In this episode you’ll hear us talk about how ICAN helped us both along our journeys to VBAC. You can find your local ICAN chapter here: https://www.ican-online.org/
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Bubbles by Pala
Busy with graduate school, and pregnant with her first child, Christina carefully chose her birth team and planned a to have a home birth. But her birth experience took an unexpected turn when, deep into her labor, her midwife decided they needed to transfer. Her baby was born only fifteen minutes after arrival at the hospital, but not before the doctor, without consent and against her will, gave her an episiotomy. This incredible violation left her with PTSD for many months postpartum.
Christina found healing with EMDR therapy, sharing her story, and blogging about it. You can find a written version of her story below:
https://healthwellnesswoman.com/libbys-birth-story/
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Snow Fall by Vendredi
Emily shares the story of experiencing the rare event of a shoulder dystocia, while birthing her first baby at home, with a midwife. They were able to safely resolve the dystocia, and her baby was born, but as a precaution they visited the hospital after the birth. What followed was a series of events including encounters with good doctors, one very bad one, and CPS.
This experience initiated Emily into motherhood in an extremely powerful way. At times in the days immediately postpartum, she had to find a strength to protect herself and her daughter, that she didn’t know she had.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Letting Go by Hotham
After a traumatic first birth experience that ended in a cesarean, Amber knew she would never give birth in a hospital again. She quickly conceived again, found a midwife she loved, and had a completely different experience the second time.
In her words, this second birth not only showed her that she could do it, but that it was what she had always truly wanted.
Be sure to check out our instagram page this week, @healingbirth, to see photos of both births. I’ve never seen a better example of Amber’s pictures saying a thousand words!
If you love this podcast, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow us on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music is Cool Cats by Smith the Mister
A big story in a lot of little ways, the end of Sonja’s pregnancy was a rollercoaster of minor “complications” which led to her being induced at 42 weeks. The classic cascade of interventions ensued, ending in a very unwanted c-section.
One of the hardest things for Sonja to cope with in processing this experience, is that there was no external villain in her story, but on a level, she let it happen. We talk about how hard it is to come to terms with the role that we play in the traumas in our own lives.
If you love this podcast, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow us on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music by Jessica Villa
Anisa shares her story of having a midwife-assisted homebirth with her first baby, and a freebirth with her second. She says that birth can just keep getting better when we take back more of our autonomy, and especially when intentional preconception preparations for mind, body, and spirit are made.
Anisa Woodall is a holistically-minded Certified Nutritionist and natural mama of 2 adventurous boys living in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. Her life's purpose is to inspire and educate women to live, eat and move with intention and confidence so they can create the family of their dreams.
She is the host of The Resilient Fertility Podcast and serves women throughout their motherhood transition- for preconception care, pregnancy and postpartum planning- via 1:1 holistic nutrition coaching online and through her online course, Resilient Motherhood: A self-paced guide to preparing for conception and beyond
Check out Anisa’s Unlock Your Fertility Masterclass!
You can learn more and access FREE resources for your preconception journey at anisawoodall.com and follow @anisawoodallnutrition
If you love this podcast, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow us on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music by PALA
Yolande Norris-Clark is a leader in the freebirth, birth-freedom, self-healing, and health liberation movements. She is a spell-breaker, way-shower, whistle-blower, trailblazer, and beloved guide to women all over the world who are awakening to the possibility of giving birth in peace and power.
Her mission is to dispel the myth that birth is an ordeal from which women must be “delivered,” and to share the truth that birth is primarily a spiritual experience, designed to be transformational, transcendent, and ecstatic, and that this is possible for every mother and baby.
We go DEEP. In this episode, you’ll hear us discuss:
- Why are so many women today leaving their birth experiences traumatized
- Coping with fear in pregnancy
- How she had a blissful, painfree birth with her ninth baby
- Reflections on, and lessons from, her nine births
- Her approach to self healing, based on the work of Dr. Ryke Geerd Hamer
Buy her book Portal: The Art of Choosing Orgasmic, Painfree, Blissful Birth
Connect with all of Yolande’s work: www.yolandenorris-clark.com
You can find Yolande on Instagram @bauhauswife
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: What Did You Name Your Island by Aardverk
Brittany described herself as a “good country girl” when pregnant with her first child. Her wishes for that birth were to merely make it out alive with her baby, and she completely deferred to her private care obstetrician when it came to the birth experience.
Now, pregnant with her third baby, Brittany is free birthing, on a cattle station in the middle of the Australian outback, miles from anyone. That’s how deep her trust in in her ability to birth goes!
This is part two of two - if you haven’t heard part one yet, go back one episode in the feed to hear her first two birth stories.
Do you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! Email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.
You can find our new e-book, “Did I Really Need a C-Section?” on our website at www.healingbirth.net/shop
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: What Did You Name Your Island by Aardvark
Brittany describes herself as a “good country girl” when pregnant with her first child. Her wishes for her birth were to merely make it out alive with her baby, and she deferred to her private care obstetrician when it came to the birth experience.
In this part one, she shares her first two births within the Australian medical system, one with OB care, and the second time, with midwives.
These two stories set the stage for why she choose a completely different route with her third baby. Stay tuned next week for that story!
Do you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! Email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.
You can find our new e-book, “Did I Really Need a C-Section?” on our website at www.healingbirth.net/shop
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Crushing by Reveille
After a pregnancy loss, and a history with an eating disorder, Kelly was not in a relationship of full trust in her body when she gave birth to her first baby. She agreed to be induced when her obstetrician pressured her into it, feeling that, her baby was safer outside of her body.
Kelly went on have her next two babies at home. Both experiences showed her how trustworthy, indeed, perfectly designed, her body was to give birth.
Do you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! Email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.
You can find our new e-book, “Did I Really Need a C-Section?” on our website at www.healingbirth.net/shop
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Waiting by LNDO
In her former role as a newborn photographer, Laura had witnessed plenty of births before having her own. She intuitively felt that something about the experience, as it occurs for most women, was wrong.
When it came time for her to have her own first baby, she chose to have a wild pregnancy and free birth, deep in the Peruvian jungle with only her husband present.
Recorded at just four months postpartum, you will be be able to hear her joy and elation about her experience, as well as her huge passion for all things birth, babies, and motherhood.
You can follow Laura on Instagram @natural_lau
Do you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! Email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.
You can find our new e-book, “Did I Really Need a C-Section?” on our website at www.healingbirth.net/shop
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Take me Back by Strength to Last
Have you, or someone you know, conceived a baby during a time in your cycle that didn’t fall within the normal, ovulatory window? As someone who listens to a lot of birth stories, I’ve heard it happen many times. I always attributed those occurrences to the inherently mysterious nature of pregnancy and birth.
But what if there is another explanation?
Medical astrology has been in development for thousands of years, greatly predating our modern understanding of medical science. And through years of study it’s been discovered that women experience fertility during the phase of the moon under which they were born, that the sign the moon is in during the conception influences the sex of the baby, and that the placement of celestial bodies can impact the outcomes of a pregnancy and birth.
Whether you are currently trying to conceive a baby, or preventing conception, this episode contains truly mind blowing information that I believe is next-level body literacy.
Athena’s website: https://www.wildwillingwisdom.com/
Athena’s Substack & Podcast: https://wildwillingwisdom.substack.com/
Follow Athena on social media: @wildwillingwisdom
Do you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! Email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.
You can find our new e-book, “Did I Really Need a C-Section?” on our website at www.healingbirth.net/shop
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Afterlight by Jessie Villa & Strength to Last
Milena, the daughter of a licensed German midwife, grew up around babies, pregnancy, discussions about birth, and even attended births with her mom.
When it came time for her to give birth the first time, she chose a midwife assisted home birth. But the second time she became pregnant, she was strongly drawn towards having a wild pregnancy and to freebirth.
In addition to hearing her two birth stories, we talk about why there’s really no such thing as a “normal” labor pattern, and what it was like for her to choose to free birth as the daughter of a midwife.
Do you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! Email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.
You can find our new e-book, “Did I Really Need a C-Section?” on our website at www.healingbirth.net/shop
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Take Me Back by Strength to Last
Stephanie shares her two birth stories, both of which took place in a hospital staffed only by midwives, in rural Australia.
Her first birth experience cracked her intuition wide open, and she says that it initiated her into the person she was meant to be.
Her second birth was a different kind of initiation, which included a complication at the end. During both experiences, she felt very cared for and supported by the midwives.
We also discuss how much our relationships shift and change when we first become parents, and how the surrender that birth requires of us is the perfect initiation into the next phase of the unknown - parenthood!
Do you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! Email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.
You can find our new e-book, “Did I Really Need a C-Section?” on our website at www.healingbirth.net/shop
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Together by Justhea
Nina was dropped by her midwives at the end of her first pregnancy due to high blood pressure, and had to give birth to that baby in the hospital.
The second time she became pregnant, she decided not to engage with the medical system at all. Her blood pressure remained elevated during this pregnancy, but rather than immediately pathologize it based on the numbers alone, she decided to tune into how she felt, and trust her body.
Her healthy, perfect baby was born after a whirlwind fast labor, in her home, with just her husband present. She says that this birth experience helped to heal the stories that she had carried from adolescence that her body was “broken” or “wrong.”
She remembered that she is in fact, perfect.
(A friendly disclaimer that I am not a medical professional, and nothing that I share on this podcast should be taken as medical advice).
Do you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! Email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.
You can find our new e-book, “Did I Really Need a C-Section?” on our website at www.healingbirth.net/shop
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Letting Go by Hotham
After becoming pregnant through the intensely medically managed experience of IVF, Kelli planned to step away from that model of care, and birth her baby at home.
But after five weeks of exhausting on and off labor, she felt like something was wrong, and agreed to transfer her care to the local hospital. It was there that they discovered the reason for her confusing labor pattern was a previous, commonly performed, medical procedure to her cervix.
Despite how traumatic this experience was, Kelli says that it helped to facilitate generational healing, going back to her trauma from her own birth.
This story is such a great example of how often birth gives us, not always the birth we want, but the medicine that we need as we are initiated into motherhood.
Kelli Moore is the CEO and Co-Founder of Soulfire Productions, Host of the top-rated podcast: The Naked Mama, and Co-Host of the beloved relationships podcast, OK, Babe.
Follow Kelli @kellitmoore
https://kellimoore.co/
Do you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! Email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.
You can find our new e-book, “Did I Really Need a C-Section?” on our website at www.healingbirth.net/shop
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Chill Night by Amine Maxwell & MICHAL
With raw emotion and beautiful vulnerability, Mallory shares her three birth stories, and the life circumstances that shaped them. Her first two births took place in a hospital - one quite traumatic, and one not. Her third baby was born at home, with just her husband present.
She says that it was this birth that catalyzed her transformation from maiden to mother. And that she wants to share her powerful story not to fix the system or change anyone’s mind, but in service to other mothers.
I want to share the verse below in full, which she references during our conversation, because it is so beautiful - and does remind me of birth!
Isaiah 43:2
When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze.
Do you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! Email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.
You can find our new e-book, “Did I Really Need a C-Section?” on our website at www.healingbirth.net/shop
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Oceanic by Aryll
Clancey spent three and a half years calling in her second child.
Swimming in sacred fertile waters, speaking desires into the ethers, dreaming, ritual, ceremony, creating altars, writing letters, journalling, setting intentions, kinesiology, acupuncture, medical intuitive session, not trying, psychics, therapy, family constellations, womb work, chi ne tsang massage, herbs, and vaginal steaming. You name it, she did it. Often with pure hopeful intentions, sometimes tinged with desperation and sometimes with an agenda “that maybe this will be the thing”.
If you have been wanting to conceive a baby, and it’s taking longer that you feel it should, this episode is for you.
This is Clancey’s second time on this podcast. If you would like to hear the first part of her story, here is a link to Season 1, episode 12 which first aired in March of 2020.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5eovKK5sbMLyPFpNwahnTD?si=e75daf521fa24c71
You can follow Clancey on Instagram @womancraftway
Do you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! Email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.
You can find our new e-book, “Did I Really Need a C-Section?” on our website at www.healingbirth.net/shop
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Flow by Nomyn
Jodi is a postpartum registered nurse and lactation consultant who works at her local hospital. After two very medically managed, in-hospital births, one of her friends shared the concept of freebirth with her, and that there were women choosing a totally different way to walk through their pregnancies and birth their babies. At first, she thought this idea was crazy, but the seed was planted.
By the time Jodi was pregnant with her third, that seed had sprouted, due to the combination of what she was witnessing at work everyday, and listening to free birth and home birth podcasts (yay!). She chose a mostly wild pregnancy that allowed her to deepen her relationship with her intuition, be present with this baby, and cultivate peace.
She birthed that baby at home, completely in her power.
Do you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! Email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.
You can find our new e-book, “Did I Really Need a C-Section?” on our website at www.healingbirth.net/shop
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Free by KV
Kristen is a former nurse of 14 years, who spent most of her career in the NICU. She once believed that home birth should be illegal, and that doctors always knew best.
But in 2015, with the birth of her first son, she began to see things differently.
She is also one of the co-founders of Canadian Frontline Nurses. In that role, she has been a powerful, public voice advocating for medical freedom and true informed consent.
Follow Kristen @Kristen_Nagle
www.kristennagle.ca
Do you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! Email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.
You can find our new e-book, “Did I Really Need a C-Section?” on our website at www.healingbirth.net/shop
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Chill Night by Amine Maxwell & MICHAL
Neena’s first baby was breech at term, so she was given no other option but a planned cesarean. When she conceived again, she knew she wanted a VBAC, but even at her local “VBAC-friendly” practice, she was coerced, gaslit, and shamed, at nearly every interaction with them.
Neena’s story is an excellent example of how even a highly informed, confident, and, perhaps most importantly, perfectly healthy woman can end up with medical interventions and birth outcomes that are unnecessary and traumatic.
This is, though, ultimately, not a victim story, but a power story. There is power in how hard she fought. There is power in her healing journey. And so much power in the realizations she came to after this birth experience about herself.
This is part two of her story, be sure to listen to part one if you haven’t already!
Follow Neena @greatnorthpostpartum
Do you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! Email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.
You can find our new e-book, “Did I Really Need a C-Section?” on our website at www.healingbirth.net/shop
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Snowfall by Vendredi
Neena’s first baby was breech at term, so she was given no other option but a planned cesarean. When she conceived again, she knew she wanted a VBAC, but even at her local “VBAC-friendly” practice, she was coerced, gaslit, and shamed, at nearly every interaction with them.
Neena’s story an excellent example of how even a highly informed, confident, and, perhaps most importantly, perfectly healthy woman can end up with medical interventions and birth outcomes that are unnecessary and traumatic.
This is, though, ultimately, not a victim story, but a power story. There is power in how hard she fought. There is power in her healing journey. And so much power in the realizations she came to after this birth experience about herself.
This is part one of her story, tune in next week for part two!
Follow Neena @greatnorthpostpartum
Do you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! Email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.
You can find our new e-book, “Did I Really Need a C-Section?” on our website at www.healingbirth.net/shop
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Free by KV
Ada’s first baby was born at home, attended by a midwife. The birth was uncomplicated, but she realized in retrospect that the way her midwife handled the birth of the placenta was problematic, and could have caused serious complications.
She knew when she conceived again, it would be just herself and her partner at the birth. And that’s exactly what happened - in an off grid home, with no electricity and no running water! A testament to what’s really the most important thing to have while giving birth: someone there you can really trust.
She says that she feels this birth was a powerful initiation for him, too.
You can follow Ada on Instagram @wildridgeherbfarm
Do you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! Email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.
You can find our new e-book, “Did I Really Need a C-Section?” on our website at www.healingbirth.net/shop
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: My Way by Roa https://roa-music.com
After a hospital birth, then a midwife attended home birth, Brenna was ready the third time to follow the call she felt in her heart to choose freebirth.
She describes it as the longest and hardest birth, but without a doubt the most peaceful, redemptive and transformative.
Her daughter was born into the arms of her father, into a room full of sunshine, with the sounds of happy tears and rejoicing in the goodness of Yah.
She says, she will never be the same.
You can follow Brenna on instagram @brennaschwartzel
Do you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! Email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.
You can find our new e-book, “Did I Really Need a C-Section?” on our website at www.healingbirth.net/shop
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Snow Fall by Vendredi
After a birth with many interventions, ending in a cesarean, Tamika’s first baby spent a harrowing time in the NICU.
When enough time had passed for Tamika to process this experience and heal, she was able to release the heavy weight of guilt she carried.
With a deeper trust in her body, she chose to conceive again and gave birth to her second baby, at 43 weeks, in the comfort of her own home.
Do you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! Email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: oceanic space by Aryll
Kaylee’s first birth experience ended in a cesarean, after having been dropped by her midwives’ care for going over 40 weeks. She partially credits the events of 2020 as being a huge awakening for her, so when she became pregnant again she knew she no longer wanted to engage with the medical system, and planned a free birth.
When she went into labor with that baby, what transpired was a six day long ordeal, with many twists and turns, reasons and opportunities to give up, but she never did.
This is officially the wildest story I’ve ever shared - and that’s saying something!
Here is a link to Kaylee’s YouTube channel and birth video!
https://youtu.be/rbKgHg9Dz8o
You can follow Kaylee on IG @kreativekay_wilson
Do you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! Email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Chill Night by Amine Maxwell & MICHAL
After two hospital births, Danielle decided she wanted her third to be born at home. However, she happened to live in one of the five (now four) states which do not allow licensed midwives to attend VBAC births at home.
Listen to find out how she navigated this, and if she got her home birth!
Danielle is also a fellow podcaster. You can find her show @birthjourneyspodcast
Do you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! Email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Cool Cats by Smith the Mister
After the unplanned, but not traumatic, cesarean birth of her first child, Danielle felt a sense of grief she didn’t understand.
Despite having a successful VBAC in the hospital subsequently, that same feeling of grief and failure found her in her postpartum time. She eventually experienced post-partum depression severe enough to need medication.
Something inside her knew there was a better way.
This is part one of Danielle’s story. Be sure to tune in next week for part two!
Danielle is also a follower podcaster! You can find her show @birthjourneyspodcast
Do you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! Email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Oceanic Space by Aryll
After a traumatic, unnecessary cesarean in an Australian hospital, Rebecca knew that she’d get pregnant again, and would not enter the medical system.
She had a completely wild, peaceful pregnancy, and free birth with just her family present.
(Be sure to check out our instagram page this week @healingbirth to see photos of this birth, and the “potato embryo”!)
Do you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! Email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Free by KV
Rebecca’s first experience with birth was a miscarriage, which, in her words, left her with the beautiful message that “we are mother nature.” When she conceived again, she was hit with the firewalk of hyperemesis, an initiation all of its own.
She gave birth to that baby in an Australian hospital with midwives. Her story, sadly, is a perfect example of the ways that defensively practiced medicine, intervening in the natural process that is birth, is leaving so many of us with unnecessary surgery, trauma, and lifelong repercussions.
But this is only part one! Rebecca has a second child, and you’ll hear the story of that pregnancy and birth next week. You do not want to miss how her journey unfolds!
(I am adding the disclaimer to this one that I am not a doctor and nothing that I say on this podcast should be taken as medical advice.)
Do you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! Email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Transition music: Letting Go by Hotham
Leah shares her four birth stories with us. Her journey includes suffering a serious birth injury, a devastating second trimester loss, a hospital birth after that loss, and finally, a blissful home birth.
Of that homebirth Leah says, “I trusted my gut, my lived experiences, and the team that I had. I instantly felt this release of all of the trauma I had experienced. It was exactly the experience I needed.”
Photo Credit: Courtnee Pirozzini, @courtneepphotos
Do you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! Email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.
Audrey shares her three birth stories, all quite different, and all of which reflect her powerful nature.
You can connect with Audrey on instagram @ajoyfulbirth and at www.ajoyfulbirth.org
Do you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! Email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.
PLANNING FOR YOUR VBAC EVENT! On Sunday, April 30th, 2023 @5PM EST
Join Healing Birth and Dr. Sarah (@birthuprising) for a women-centered approach to planning for your VBAC!
Through the combined powers of modern research and the ancient wisdom of sisterly storytelling, we will cover:
- How to choose a provider & birth setting that aligns with your personal needs
- Utilizing the power of your mind-body connection
- The statistics & social evidence of VBAC
- Planning for your VBAC with Logic + Deep Intuitive Trust
- The hindsight wisdom of VBAC preparation, as told by women who have been there!
Your $22 investment includes:
- Admittance to the Live Event with Q&A
- The event recording sent directly to your inbox
- A copy of Dr. Sarah's Birth Plan
- Our OVERCOMING THE TOP 10 VBAC OBSTACLES instant download, printable PDF
LINK TO REGISTER HERE
During her first pregnancy, Chaya was dropped from her midwife’s care for the sin of going past 40 weeks. She gave birth to that baby in the hospital, an experience that left her feeling a lot of anger.
When she quickly conceived again, a series of life circumstances (and some slight denial), led her to have a wild pregnancy, and to freebirth her baby.
Do you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! Email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.
PLANNING FOR YOUR VBAC EVENT! On Sunday, April 30th, 2023 @5PM EST
Join Diana, Lynnea, and Dr. Sarah (@birthuprising) for a women-centered approach to planning for your VBAC!
Through the combined powers of modern research and the ancient wisdom of sisterly storytelling, we will cover:
- How to choose a provider & birth setting that aligns with your personal needs
- Utilizing the power of your mind-body connection
- The statistics & social evidence of VBAC
- Planning for your VBAC with Logic + Deep Intuitive Trust
- The hindsight wisdom of VBAC preparation, as told by women who have been there!
Your $22 investment includes:
- Admittance to the Live Event with Q&A
- The event recording sent directly to your inbox
- A copy of Dr. Sarah's Birth Plan
- Our OVERCOMING THE TOP 10 VBAC OBSTACLES instant download, printable PDF
LINK TO REGISTER HERE
www.healingbirth.net/events
Only in recent years has there finally been a recognition that birth trauma, affecting about one in three women in most Western countries (I would argue that number is much higher), has profoundly deleterious effects on a mother’s mental health. But to my knowledge, there is no formal study or discussion about how traumatic births can affect our babies, who experience the birth right along with us.
My guest Amber shares the dots she connected between the traumatic birth of her second daughter, and the unique challenges that daughter has experienced, referencing the brilliant work of author and researcher Gabor Mate.
I learned so much from the conversation about how to support my own child, who experienced a very similar birth as Amber’s.
Amber is a former English teacher with Teach For America and a founding staff member of an all-girls charter school in Saint Paul, MN. She left her career to pursue a writing alongside caring for her children full-time. She has three daughters and loves to think and talk deeply about motherhood, womanhood, parenting, and personal growth.
Amber is on Instagram @radical.homemaker. She blogs at Alternativegrace.com, and is planning to start her own Substack soon.
Here is a link to Gabor Mate’s Scattered, which we discuss in this episode.
Use the link below to purchase amazing CBD products from Puffs for the Public. They are offering 25% off your order when you use the coupon code “healingbirth” (all one word).
Thank you for helping to support the show!
LINK TO PURCHASE
Do you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! Email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.
Every now and then a story takes a twist I am not expecting during the interview - and it always makes for an even better story than the one I thought I would hear! This episode is a perfect example of that.
Rebecca shares two birth stories with us. First, a traumatic, unnecessarian (major kudos to whoever coined that term), and a redemptive, led by faith freebirth.
It is the extraordinary experiences around that second birth that gets us into talking about spiritual warfare, the spirit realm, and the truth that birth is designed to be a holy experience.
Check out Rebecca’s instagram for many beautiful reels that show images of her births @theradiantmission
If you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast, I’d love to hear from you. Send me a note at the contact page at www.healingbirth.net!
You can support the podcast on Patreon! www.patreon.com/healingbirth
www.healingbirth.net
Nelia was assaulted during her first birth experience at her local hospital. Stories like hers are tough to hear, but unfortunately, common.
What is uncommon is that she understood immediately what happened to her was wrong, and sought legal counsel to get justice and to heal. The second time she gave birth, she took back her power in a massive way. We mention @birthmonopoly as a great resource for anyone who has experienced obstetric violence. You can find the map of obstetric violence, read other survivor’s stories, and other resources here: https://birthmonopoly.com/obstetric-violence/ Follow Nelia @neliathedoula www.neliathedoula.com If you have a story you'd like to share on the podcast, I'd love to hear from you! Send me a note via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net. Be sure to follow us on IG! @healingbirth If you love the show, please consider supporting us on Patreon! www.patreon/healingbirth
Carla’s planned home birth with her first baby ended in a hospital transfer.
Two years later, she conceived again. Armed now with more knowledge about the birth, she hoped and planned for a physiologic birth, without interventions, at home.
This is part two of her birth stories.
You can find Carla on instagram @carla.sage.birthwork
Her website is www.traditionalhealingbirthwork.com
Use the link below to purchase amazing CBD products from Puffs for the Public. They are offering 25% off your order when you use the coupon code “healingbirth” (all one word).
Thank you for helping to support the show!
LINK TO PURCHASE
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.
If you love this show, please consider supporting us on Patreon! We have bonus episodes, video podcasts, and lots of other exclusive resources. www/patreon.com/healingbirth
Carla’s mother passed away on her first baby's due date. A week later, still grieving, she went into labor.
She had planned for and desired a home birth, but was transferred to the hospital. This is not, however, the traumatic story it could have been.
While there it was evident that her mother’s spirit was present, protecting Carla and her baby. And this birth experience, in the miraculous way that birth can, allowed for deep healing of her matrilineal line.
This is a truly magical story.
And it’s only part one! Tune into next week to hear Carla’s other birth stories.
You can find Carla on instagram @traditional.healing
Her website is www.traditionalhealingbirthwork.com
Use the link below to purchase amazing CBD products from Puffs for the Public. They are offering 25% off your order when you use the coupon code “healingbirth” (all one word).
Thank you for helping to support the show!
LINK TO PURCHASE
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.
If you love this show, please consider supporting us on Patreon! We have bonus episodes, video podcasts, and lots of other exclusive resources. www/patreon.com/healingbirth
Lynsi Eastburn is the world’s established expert in the field of hypnosis to promote fertility. She began professionally using hypnosis to facilitate pregnancy before anyone else had actively considered or pursued its benefits.
Blending the scientific with the spiritual, she is also gifted with the intuitive capacity to sense spirit babies around their mothers.
In this fascinating conversation, we talk about:
- How spirit babies come through to her
- Do we all have spirit babies around us?
- How do they communicate with us?
- What could be the deeper spiritual reason for miscarriage?
- Who are the pink starlights, and the spiritual shift that is happening on the planet
- The 3 keys to conception
You can find Lynsi via her website www.hypnofertility.com
on Instagram @lynsi.eastburn
Link to her books
Do you have a birth story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.
If you love this show, please consider supporting us on Patreon! We have bonus episodes, video podcasts, and lots of other exclusive resources. www/patreon.com/healingbirth
After the devastating loss of her first pregnancy, Sharna became acutely aware of the lack of professional support for, and understanding of, the uniquely painful experience of pregnancy loss.
Sharna is now a pregnancy loss life coach supporting women through miscarriage or pregnancy loss. She has also founded The Institute of Healing through Pregnancy loss, out of the need for there to be other perinatal and coaching professionals who know how to truly support women going through pregnancy loss.
This is deep, very important work, and a wonderful conversation especially for anyone who has experienced pregnancy loss. Sharna wants you to know that you can heal, and you are not alone.
Find Sharna at www.sharnasouthan.com
On Instagram @instituteofhealing_pl
Do you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast? I love to hear from you! contact me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net
The power, mystery, love and rawness surrounding pregnancy and birth have intrigued Carla since childhood. In 1998 she became New Zealand’s youngest graduate from the Direct Entry Midwifery program, and began work as a midwife.
Her experience as a midwife was eye-opening, to say the least. She became aware that the power and mystery of birth had, for many it seemed, been flipped on its head, with medical minds, hands and machines seeking to control, categorize and sanitize the innately unique and unpredictable experience of birth.
Leaving midwifery behind, Carla has now stepped into the role of supporting the emotional needs of parents who are struggling to come to terms with a traumatic birth experience.
Carla is doing very important work!
Her website: www.healingbirth.co.nz
Instagram: @healing.birth
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/healingbirthwithcarla
Book: https://www.healingbirth.co.nz/mybook
Birth trauma survey report: https://www.healingbirth.co.nz/_files/ugd/d9a2d7_e161fa673d704be386f2a83b5301927d.pdf
Podcast: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/TcDUwP4Atxb
If you have a birth story you’d like to share, please reach out! Contact me at www.healingbirth.net.
I love to hear from you!
Sarah’s journey includes multiple losses, two cesareans, two VBACs, and births both in and out of the hospital. Her story encompasses so much richness, that I had to break it up into two parts.
In this part two, you’ll hear about her third birth, a traumatic cesarean, and her fourth birth experience, a total reclamation of her power. Be sure to check our instagram page this week to see photos of this amazing birth and her perfectly huge baby! We are @healingbirth.
There are also a few resources we talked about during this conversation that I’d like to drop here:
Everything Below The Waist by Jennifer Block (a must read book if you have a female body)
Why Not home (a documentary about medical professionals who chose home birth)
Sarah is a listener who reached out to me to share her story. If you have a birth story you’d like to share, please reach out! Contact me at www.healingbirth.net.
I love to hear from you!
Thank you for supporting brands that help support the show! Treat yourself with Puffs for the Public. They make high quality, CBD & CBG products that I absolutely love.
As a listener of this show, you get 10% off at check out with code “healingbirth” (one word).
Here’s a link to Soothe the Soul
Here’s a link to Snooze Button
Use the link below to purchase! It lets them know you heard about them from me. Thank you for helping to support the show!
LINK TO PURCHASE
Sarah’s birth journey includes multiple losses, two cesareans, two VBACs, and births both in and out of the hospital. Her story encompasses so much, that I had to break it up into two parts.
In this part one, you’ll hear about her first birth, which ended in a cesarean after the classic cascade of interventions in the hospital.
Despite that experience, she still felt that people who gave birth at home were crazy, and planned to VBAC her second baby at a different hospital (spoiler alert: she will later join the ranks of us crazies. Do not miss part two!).
Sarah is a listener who reached out to me to share her story. If you have a birth story you’d like to share, please reach out! Contact me at www.healingbirth.net.
I love to hear from you!
Thank you for supporting brands that help support the show! Treat yourself with Puffs for the Public. They make high quality, CBD & CBG products that I absolutely love.
As a listener of this show, you get 10% off at check out with code “healingbirth” (one word).
Here’s a link to Soothe & Soul
Here’s a link to Snooze Button
Use the link below to purchase! It lets them know you heard about them from me. Thank you for helping to support the show!
LINK TO PURCHASE
Corinne shares the story of giving birth in a birth center during the height of Covid. After the birth, her baby was transferred to the NICU where she spent her first few days, seemingly unnecessarily.
Thank you for supporting brands that help support the show! Treat yourself with Puffs for the Public. They make high quality, CBD & CBG products that I absolutely love.
As a listener of this show, you get 10% off at check out with code “healingbirth” (one word).
Here’s a link to Soothe the Soul
Here’s a link to Snooze Button
Use the link below to purchase! It lets them know you heard about them from me. Thank you for helping to support the show!
LINK TO PURCHASE
Nelson and Alison were so inspired by the home birth of their first baby, that it lit a fire in them to share what they learned through this experience with others. They believe that conception, pregnancy, birth, motherhood and fatherhood are all sacred experiences and should be honored as such.
Five minutes into speaking with them, I fell in love with their passion, their light, and infectious energy. It was also a real treat to get to hear, for the first time on this show, a male partner’s perspective about what it was like to have a baby at home.
If you are in the Austin, TX area (or feel inspired to go there like I now am!), join them for the Sacred Birth Symposium March 11-12 at Casa De Luz.
You can find tickets, the speaker lineup, and all other relevant info here:
www.sacred-birth.com
You can find them on Instagram @sacredbirthsymposium
After a birth experience that left her feeling trapped and traumatized, Sian developed severe postpartum anxiety and depression. Realizing she needed help, she turned to the National Health Service (UK) for mental health support, but the therapy she was received was nearly useless to her (and, delivered over the phone no less).
Sian found her way out of the dark place from spiritual, rather than cognitive, solutions, and the joy she now feels from her new son.
We also talk about the importance of planning your postpartum period intentionally, accepting help when it’s offered, and asking people to bring you food (SERIOUSLY. Trust us).
Speaking of accepting help…treat yourself with Puffs for the Public! They make high quality, CBD & CBG products that I absolutely love (in fact, I wish I knew about CBD when I was postpartum!).
As a listener of this show, you get 10% off at check out with code “healingbirth” (one word).
Here’s a link to Soothe the Soul
Here’s a link to Snooze Button
Use the link below to purchase! It lets them know you heard about them from me Thank you for helping to support the show!
LINK TO PURCHASE
After a long labor, and, feeling like she needed some relief, Emily transferred from her midwife-attended home birth to the hospital. The classic cascade of interventions ensued, beginning with an epidural, ending in a cesarean.
At several points during her labor experience there, surrounded by total strangers and overwhelmed by the sensations in her body, the staff failed to support her in the ways that she needed.
Emily connects the experience of being sexually violated at an early age, and that having been met with shame and indifference from adults who should have protected her, with this experience too. It is a pattern that has showed up in her life, and, it showed up in her labor.
In a postscript that I love, Emily had the strength to provide written and verbal feedback to the hospital where her birth occurred, which caused them to make changes to their policies around how homebirth transfers are handled.
What a wonderful gift to those who will come after her.
You can find Emily on Instagram @storiesandsongbirds
———————
Support Puffs for the Public! They make high quality, CBD & CBG products that I absolutely love!
As a listener of this show, you get 10% off at check out with code “healingbirth” (one word).
Here’s a link to Soothe The Soul bath salts
Here’s a link to Snooze Button
Use the link below to purchase! It lets them know you heard about them from me :)
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Welcome to SEASON FOUR!
Christina is a coach, doula, and childbirth educator, who helps new parents with the transition when a new child is born.
Like so many of us who get into birth work, her passion for it comes from her own experiences giving birth, which she shares with us today. After two births in German hospitals, the second of which left her traumatized, she knew she wanted to birth her third baby at home. That birth was the powerful, healing experience that she knew she needed.
We also talk about the culture of birth in modern day Germany, and speculate as to why the C-section rate there is rising.
You can connect with Christina on Instagram, @theintuitivemamacoach
Christina is a listener who reached out to me to share her story. If YOU would like to share your birth story on the podcast, I want to hear from you! Send me a note via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.
If you love the show, please consider supporting the podcast on Patreon! There are bonus episodes, video podcasts, + other content there. www.patreon.com/Healingbirth
Thank you for listening!
An end of year message from my heart to yours.
Thank you so much for listening! I love you!
Send me a note at www.healingbirth.net
We're on Instagram @healingbirth
Diana
Unhappy with her previous experience birthing within the medical system, Saphron decided to simply stay home and free birth her second baby.
Leading up to the birth, she had constant, vivid dreams with visual representations of transformation. Reflecting back on the two birth experiences, she’s says that physiological birth is what helps us cross the transformational threshold, ushering us into our full power as a mother.
Having experienced both ways of birthing myself - I fully agree.
We wrap up our conversation talking about the of sacred role of the birthing woman’s partner in birth.
If you love the show, please consider supporting us on Patron! www.patron.com/healingbirth.
I love to hear from you! If you would like to send me a note, please use the contact page at www.healingbirth.net. And if you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast, reach out to me there as well!
Jackie shares the story of having her first baby via unplanned cesarean at 35 weeks.
After the NICU stay, and very tough first year, she found healing in getting answers from a spiritual perspective to the “what, why and how” of that birth experience. When she was ready, she and her daughter had a rebirthing ceremony that also helped to heal the trauma of the birth.
Be sure to check out our instagram page @healingbirth for a bunch of photos that accompany this episode!
Jackie is a listener who reached out to share her story. If you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast, please reach out! You can send me a note via the contact page on our website which is www.healingbirth.net
If you love the show, please consider supporting us on Patron! www.patron.com/healingbirth
How do you ravish a mother?
In this vulnerable conversation, Lisa and I share our experiences coming back to our sex lives after a traumatic birth.
I strongly suspect that feeling shut down sexually after giving birth, especially a traumatic one, is something that is way more common than is openly discussed.
The reasons can be myriad. Our relationship to our bodies change, our very identity changes, some of us have complicated physical healing to do, and many of us have experienced medical rape or assault during the birth process, just to name a few. Coming back into right relationship with our sexuality is coming back into right relationship with ourselves, and is such an important piece of the healing journey.
Thank you Lisa for getting so vulnerable and raw with me! You can find Lisa on Instagram @thewomanssanctum and at www.thewomanssanctum.com
You can find Lisa’s first appearance on the show, where she tells her whole birth story, here:
https://www.healingbirth.net/podcast/episode/2c7f3747/a-loss-a-cesarean-an-awakening
Intro music is Dreams, by the artist Markvard @Markvardofficial
Transition music is Adventures, by A Himitsu @Ahimitsu
If you love the show, support us on patreon! www.patreon.com/healingbirth
I love to hear from listeners, send me a note via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net
Two births in the Finnish medical system left Anahel angry and knowing, in her words, “something is not right here.”
She planned to have her third baby at home. That whirlwind birth experience completely healed the pain of the past two.
Anahel is a listener who reached out to me to share her beautiful story. If you have a story you’d like to share too, reach out! Send me a note at the contact page at www.healingbirth.net
If you love the show, support us on patreon! www.patreon.com/healingbirth
After years of working in hospitals as a midwife, being a part of the broken maternity system that causes 1 in 3 women to experience birth trauma, Anna chose to step out on her own, become a whistleblower and actively work to speak the truth about the power of natural physiological birth. She exposes the over medicalized maternity system for the harm it is causing women, babies, families and the world at large.
Follow Anna @the_spiritual_midwife
Anna has some amazing offerings including a course, her own podcast, and works one on one with women to help unpack birth trauma. You can learn more at her website, which is www.thenaturalbirthcourse.com.
If you love the show, support us on patreon! www.patreon.com/healingbirth
I love to hear from listeners! Send me a note at the contact page at www.healingbirth.net
Julia was planning for a peaceful home birth with her third baby, but plans changed when her labor began at 34 weeks gestation. Even though she gave birth in an environment she didn’t want, she did an amazing job advocating for herself and her baby during his subsequent NICU stay, and medical complications.
She truly believes that the circumstances around his birth were exactly as they should be.
I am always amazed at the miracles that happen when we honor our maternal intuition, and listen to guidance from our babies. This story is perfectly illustrative of that truth!
If you love the podcast, please consider supporting the show! www.patreon.com/healingbirth
I love to hear from you! Send me a note at www.healingbirth.net
Transition Music by: @jaysomeday
Juanita’s story begins with the heart wrenching experience of becoming pregnant at 14 after a sexual assault, and giving that baby up for adoption.
Later in life, the birth of her second child was a re-traumatizing experience for her, as it commonly can be for survivors.
The third time, Juanita used mindfulness tools, meditation, a trauma-informed team to support her, and super strong boundaries to have exactly the birth she desired, even in the midst of a time of national chaos.
She says that you (yes, you!) CAN you have the birth you desire.
At the 1:08 minute mark Juanita leads us in a grounding meditation that she wrote just for listeners of this podcast!
We mention a few there resources during the conversation that both of us strongly recommend, especially if you are survivor of sexual assault who is planning for birth:
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The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk
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When Survivors Give Birth by Penny Simkin and Phyllis Klaus
Be sure to go to our instagram page this week to see the grounding and centering resource that Juanita created herself and generously shared with us all. We are @healingbirth
You can find Juanita @thesnappiehippie and @pauseanywhere
Go too www.pauseanwhere.com to see all of Juanita’s mindfulness offerings!
If you love the podcast, please consider supporting the show! www.patreon.com/healingbirth
I love to hear from you! Send me a note at www.healingbirth.net
Mandy was induced for all of her births, until her fourth. She was told by medical professionals that her body just “didn’t go into labor on it’s own” and she “needed a little help.”
The resulting distrust in her body was something she carried within her until, after having had enough with the conveyer-belt style standard maternity care, she sought out a midwife who would support her to birth at home.
And after three previous births, all induced and two of them, cesareans, she birthed this baby at home without surgery or drugs.
Turns out, her body knew how to give birth just fine.
If you love the podcast, please consider supporting the show! www.patreon.com/healingbirth
I love to hear from you! Send me a note at www.healingbirth.net
Leah’s first daughter was born still, but this isn’t the story of trauma you might be expecting. Supported at home with just her husband and best friend, she says that the somatic experience of that birth was so intact, that it left her feeling the fullness of her power, full of oxytocin, even ecstatic.
Leah quickly conceived again after her loss, and under rainbow filled skies on the island of Kauai, freebirthed her second daughter.
This one feels really special for me to share because as you will hear quite early on, I have a personal connection to this story!
Follow Leah on instagram @of.mystic.nature
If you love the podcast, please consider supporting the show! www.patreon.com/healingbirth
I love to hear from you! Send me a note at www.healingbirth.net
Last season, (episode linked below) Natalie shared the truly jaw-dropping story of giving birth via cesarean with completely failed anesthesia - she had full sensation of the procedure.
We talked about what it looks like to heal from an experience like that, and the total lack of accountability from anyone at the hospital where this birth occurred.
This year, Natalie reached out to me to let me know she’d had another baby, and I’m happy to say, this time it was different.
You can hear her first birth story here:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4b1ZExcI5aogUcCbMSuNSk?si=d59b34fcd1124632
Please consider supporting the show! www.patreon.com/healingbirth
Visit our website! www.healingbirth.net
The best definition I know of trauma goes something like this: Anything that was too much, too soon, and too fast for us to process and integrate. It causes elements of the past to get stuck in the biology of our bodies and our subconscious experience.
This story is a perfect example of how that can show up in birth.
You can follow Katie @clairehaven_farm and @littleonedoula
Please consider supporting the show! www.patreon.com/healingbirth
Visit our website! www.healingbirth.net
Dr. Sarah is a chiropractic physician, birth educator, and mother of three. She became entrenched in the birth world after a traumatic, unnecessary cesarean led her to have a subsequent, healing freebirth. In this episode, she shares the stories of both of those births.
Sarah is an advocate for bodily autonomy and human rights in childbirth, and believes that you deserve to be in charge and have a birth that transforms you. You will hear us talk quite a lot about that!
Follow Sarah @birthuprising
www.birthuprsing.com
JOIN US! BIRTH PLANNING WORKSHOP
Join Dr. Sarah of Birth Uprising and Lynnea Laessig for a two-hour, intimate birth planning session where you will learn about ALL of your options for birth and have a village to support you as you make decisions that feel best to you.
This workshop is an amazing foundation for first time moms and seasoned mothers who plan to birth in any setting to get curious and make informed choices about your upcoming birth.
Online Event | October 1, 2022 | 10AM EST
Sign up at www.birthuprising.com
Support the show and get bonus episodes! www.patreon.com/healingbirth
Amana is a mother, birth keeper, death keeper, and host of the show The Heart of the Soul. Recently she invited me onto her podcast as a guest, and the conversation we had was so epic we decided to release it to both of our audiences!
In this part two, Amana shares the stories of her journey with birth and loss, including that of her daughter Hartly, who passed shortly after her birth at home.
From working as a hospice nurse, to the ways death has touched her as a mother, I have rarely met someone so young who has so much experience with loss, and wisdom about grief.
Amana’s website:
https://www.birthingnova.love/
Check out the Heart of the Soul Podcast!
https://www.birthingnova.love/podcast-theheartofthesoul
Support the show!
https://www.patreon.com/healingbirth
Our website is www.healingbirth.net
Amana is a mother, birthkeeper, deathkeeper, and host of the show The Heart of the Soul. Recently she invited me onto her podcast as a guest, and the conversation we had was so epic we decided to release it to both of our audiences!
In this part one, Amana interviews me. I share both of my son’s (very different) birth stories, and if you are a new listener and not familiar with my story, I think you will understand why I am so passionate about birth and birth trauma.
Next week, in part two, you’ll hear Amana’s story.
Amana’s website
https://www.birthingnova.love/
Check out the Heart of the Soul Podcast!
https://www.birthingnova.love/podcast-theheartofthesoul
We have an upcoming event!
Rituals for Rooted Postpartum with Nicole Parker
Join us with traditional birthkeeper Nicole Parker as we integrate into embodied motherhood with the support of conscious, rooted rituals for postpartum.
In this live webinar, you'll learn about the energetics of postpartum descent and the biomarkers your body uses to communicate with you, over 30 simple nourishing rituals to support you as you integrate the initiation of motherhood each time you cross the veil, and reclaim the innate power of your inner matriarch.
www.healingbirth.net/events
ONLINE EVENT
SEPTEMBER 18, 2022 | 4 PM PST
Support the show!
https://www.patreon.com/healingbirth
Our website is www.healingbirth.net
Jessica’s first baby was born in a hospital in Australia. Although she had the natural birth that she desired, some interventions happened that, in retrospect, she realized were not necessary.
Her second baby was born in Bali, at home, attended by Balinese midwives who barely made the birth. That birth helped her to realize she never needed to outsource her power to give birth. She had everything she needed within herself all along.
Jessica is the founder of Mothers of All, a wife and a mother of two boys. She created Mothers of All so women can have a place to go to find evidence based information to support them in their pregnancy, birth and motherhood journey from a holistic perspective.
After giving birth to her first son, Jessica realized how much of the world isn’t set up to support women when they become a mother, so she decided to create a space that was supportive and nourishing to women.
www.mothersofall.com
JOIN US! For Rituals for Rooted Postpartum with Nicole Parker
Join us with traditional birthkeeper Nicole Parker as we integrate into embodied motherhood with the support of conscious, rooted rituals for postpartum.
In this live webinar, you'll learn about the energetics of postpartum descent and the biomarkers your body uses to communicate with you, over 30 simple nourishing rituals to support you as you integrate the initiation of motherhood each time you cross the veil, and reclaim the innate power of your inner matriarch.
www.healingbirth.net/events
ONLINE EVENT
SEPTEMBER 18, 2022 | 4 PM PST
Support the show!
https://www.patreon.com/healingbirth
Our website is www.healingbirth.net
Bella shares the birth story of her first baby, after multiple pregnancy losses and multiple rounds of IVF. She speaks candidly about the experience of infertility, loss, and how best to support others going through it.
She serves as the assistant director of Empty Cradle, a loss support group local to the southern California area. They offer in person and virtual support, and hold several events annually honoring the lives of babies who have passed. You can connect with her, and Empty Cradle, by searching for Empty Cradle on Facebook.
Support the show!
https://www.patreon.com/healingbirth
Our website is www.healingbirth.net
Nicole shares her three, epically different, each beautiful in their own way, birth stories.
They include a cesarean, a powerful hospital transfer VBAC, and a free birth.
The daughter of a midwife herself, Nicole grew up attending home births, tagging along with her mother. She is now a traditional birth witness, postpartum keeper, and embodied motherhood guide.
She is offering a coupon code for listeners of this podcast for her postpartum course, NOURISHED! You can purchase it through the link below, or, use the code “HEALINGBIRTH” for nearly 30% off.
https://www.sufey.love/offers/rvvuBe2F?coupon_code=HEALINGBIRTH
She is also offering 25% off entire orders on her website, using the code 'HEALINGBIRTH'
Mention the Healing Birth podcast by name when joining any of her embodied motherhood programs or 1:1 mentorship, and you will receive 25% off the sign up fee!
Nicole’s Website is www.theseedofjoy.com, where anyone can navigate to her programs, shop the herbal apothecary, and find her postpartum cookbook.
You can follow Nicole on Instagram @theseedofjoy
Support the show!
https://www.patreon.com/healingbirth
Our website is www.healingbirth.net
Laura’s first baby, born in 2020, came with the most severe birth complication I have personally ever heard of. While she was postpartum, trying to heal, and figuring out how to be a mom, she was left almost completely alone due to fears from the community of spreading covid.
This left her in a postpartum depression so dark, she attempted to take her own life.
After recovering emotionally and physically, she had a second child under much better circumstances. To say the pregnancy was rough is a massive understatement, but the eventual experience of giving birth naturally this time was extremely healing for her.
Even though there are really heavy parts of this story, Laura shares it with so much strength, radical honesty, and levity. Her story truly illustrates importance of in-person support, which I feel cannot be overstated for new mothers.
Please note that this episode does discuss attempted suicide, and use your own discretion.
Support the show! www.patreon.com/healingbirth
www.healingbirth.net
Sian was 12 weeks pregnant when the United Kingdom announced a national lockdown, and she shares what it was like navigating her pregnancy, the birth, and the NHS during this strange time.
Her second baby was born just two months ago at the time of this recording, and overall her two birth stories are not at all what I was expecting to hear (which is always my favorite kinds of stories to share!).
Sian is now training to be doula, and you can find her on instagram @diaryofmrsk and at @sacredmagicbirthing
Support the show!
https://www.patreon.com/healingbirth
Our website is www.healingbirth.net
Ali shares her experience giving birth at home with a midwife, and navigating a hospital transfer during covid, for post-partum blood loss.
While the transfer was a scary thing to happen to Ali, her partner was the most traumatized by the experience, which was exacerbated by pandemic protocols that kept him separate from her for a time.
Her story also includes hands down the most unique pregnancy symptom I have ever heard - comment on our social medias if you have ever heard of it too!
Support the show! www.patreon.com/healingbirth
www.healingbirth.net
Sondra, a former healthcare worker herself, shares her experience of navigating the healthcare system, and giving birth, during the covid pandemic.
Her story is such a beautiful example of what is possible when we are spiritually prepared for birth. Even when the outcome is not what we desire (or perhaps, even what we fear the most), we can emerge from our birth experience empowered and avoid trauma.
Sondra now works as a doula, and you can follow her on IG @maternalintuition, and find her at www.nursedoulabirthworker.com
Support the show! www.patreon.com/healingbirth
www.healingbirth.net
Every now and then a story takes a twist I am not expecting during the interview - and it always makes for an even better story than the one I thought I would hear! This episode is a perfect example of that.
Rebecca shares two birth stories with us. First, a traumatic, unnecessarian (major kudos to whoever coined that term), and a redemptive, led by faith freebirth.
It is the extraordinary experiences around that second birth that gets us into talking about spiritual warfare, the spirit realm, and the truth that birth is designed to be a holy experience.
Check out Rebecca’s instagram for many beautiful reels that show images of her births @theradiantmission
You can support the podcast on Patreon! www.patreon.com/healingbirth
www.healingbirth.net
Lauren was pressured into a “natural” induction by her midwives as she approached 40 weeks pregnant. After multiple rounds of herbal cocktails and finally, the dreaded castor oil, her body was forced into the labor process.
She believes that the labor was so intense, painful, and her baby mal-positioned because her body and baby weren’t actually ready to begin. And, after a very long time laboring at home, she transferred to the hospital, which had been her biggest fear.
While postpartum with her son, Lauren’s twin sister (who has also been a guest on this podcast!) freebirthed her second child at home. Witnessing her sister do this made Lauren realize that was also the path forward for her.
(If you’d like to hear Lauren’s twin sister’s episode, it is season two, episode 20: “The Incredible Power of a Mother’s Intuition | Spirit Baby Communication, Free birth, and Resolving a Retained Placenta at Home.” Here is a link.)
JOIN US on Sunday, July 16th for Reclaiming The Village with Neena Brunngraeber, of Great North Postpartum.
This is an interactive webinar & workshop for dissecting depletion culture, excavating your core needs, and reclaiming the village you & your baby deserve.
You can register here:
https://www.healingbirth.net/reclaiming-the-village
Irina had just moved to the United States from another country when she found out she was pregnant. Without knowing much about our maternal healthcare system, she gave birth in the local hospital, and the care she received was unimpressive to say the least (among the crazier parts of this story was a nurse telling her, mid-labor, that giving birth on her hands and knees would “kill her baby”).
When it came time for her second birth, she decided she didn’t need the healthcare system at all. And although she had a beautiful birth that time, she sorely lacked the right postpartum support.
Now, Irina is passionate about supporting other mothers in their postpartum time.
You can follow Irina on Instagram @embodiedwomanhood
JOIN US on Sunday, July 16th for Reclaiming The Village with Neena Brunngraeber, of Great North Postpartum.
This is an interactive webinar & workshop for dissecting depletion culture, excavating your core needs, and reclaiming the village you & your baby deserve.
You can register here:
https://www.healingbirth.net/reclaiming-the-village
After an unplanned pregnancy very newly into her marriage, Melissa planned a home birth, but was transferred out of midwifery care due to a pre-eclampisa diagnosis. She was given no other option than an induction in the hospital.
Overall, she was grateful to have not ended up with a cesarean, but there was so much that happened during that birth that was violating and unnecessary. After her baby was born, she started listening to birth story podcasts and realized that birth didn’t have to be that way.
During her second pregnancy, Melissa knew she wanted a different experience. She sought out a midwife with who had a wealth of knowledge about how to manage her blood pressure holistically in the event that she developed high blood pressure again.
Recorded at just 7 weeks postpartum, her second birth was full of joy, humor, and there’s a surprise twist at the end!
This is such a beautiful story!
Her high blood pressure prevention protocol:
- Passionflower tea
- Epsom salt baths
- Reducing stress
- Journalling
(Please note that I am never giving medical advice on this podcast, I am simply sharing women’s own stories!)
You can follow Melissa on Instagram @mklemens28
Join our online community! www.healingbirth.net/membership
If you love the show, please support us on Patreon! www.patreon.com/healingbirth
At just 21 years old, Trae’s experience giving birth to her first baby was a truly life threatening one.
Although she is still processing the events of that day, Trae is very passionate about advocating for other mothers who experience traumatic births. She shares the whole story with us today, including ways she has found healing in the aftermath.
Please note that this episode contains a description of a traumatic birth, and take care of yourself accordingly.
You can follow Trae on instagram @traethurston
Join our online community! www.healingbirth.net/membership
If you love the show, please support us on Patreon! www.patreon.com/healingbirth
After a failed induction, a very long bout of prodromal labor, and getting ultimately kicked out of her birthing center, Ita’s first baby was born surgically, under general anesthesia, in Bali. After this birth experience, Ita had a hard time bonding with her daughter, and they struggled with their breastfeeding relationship.
After that first tough year, and a move to the US, Ita became pregnant with her second baby. And as the pregnancy progressed, Ita felt increasingly called to freebirth this baby despite having initially hired a midwife.
At 43 weeks and four days gestation (!) Ita birthed her baby in the sovereignty and safety of her own home. At the time of this recording, which was only 6 weeks postpartum, Ita says she can’t wait to give birth again.
Join our online community! www.healingbirth.net/membership
If you love the show, please support us on Patreon! www.patreon.com/healingbirth
In honor of #internationalhomebirthday (June 6th), I’m sharing this beautiful home birth story.
Samantha, a twin who was born at 33 weeks, wisely dealt with the trauma of her own birth before becoming pregnant herself. She says that the day she gave birth was truly the best day of her life, but that she worked really hard for it.
The most remarkable part of her story for me was the dreams she describes during her pregnancies which were clear communications from her babies' souls.
Join our online community! www.healingbirth.net/membership
If you love the show, please support us on Patreon! www.patreon.com/healingbirth
Before having children, and doing the work that I do now, I spent ten years working within the health insurance industry.
I sat in on a lot meetings that (accidentally) shared what I believe to be the truth about our healthcare system - namely, that it doesn't really create health.
Above all, it's a really big business.
I focus this episode mainly on the myth of preventive care, because it's of particular relevance to pregnancy and prenatal care.
If you love the show, please consider supporting our work on Patreon! www.patreon.com/healing birth
Go to our website to find out more about Healing Birth! www.healingbirth.net
The image accompanying this episode was taken by the wonderful photographer Jade Beall.
Gena McCarthy is an educator, nurse, and perinatal psychotherapist. Her work is to support you to build bridges between your heart and your womb, between your birth imprints and your present life, between your spiritual, parenting and professional paths.
During our conversation she shares the story of her own birth 70 years ago, with her mother under twilight sleep, and the home birth of her son.
She takes us through a couple different practices to help us heal birth trauma, one, an EMDR practice to help us feel safe in our bodies when big feelings come up, and another that moved me to tears.
There are moments during this interview when I really stepped out of the role of host and got vulnerable with my own wounds which I still carry from my first birth.
We also talk about somatic healing, handling guilt, helping our babies and children heal from a traumatic birth, and resources for birth workers.
Gena’s website is www.birthspiritualityandhealing.com, and you can find her on Instagram @birthspiritualityandhealing
If you love the show, please support us on Patreon! www.patreon.com/healingbirth
After two pretty straightforward births, Amy’s third birth resulted in a traumatic, unplanned cesarean, where she experienced obstetric violence, PTSD, and postpartum depression and anxiety.
Amy had a lot a trauma from childhood come up for her after this birth. She says that the experience made her second guess everything she believed about the medical system, and even her beliefs about God.
After that birth, and two losses, Amy had her fourth baby at home.
Amy graciously shared with me some of the resources that were most helpful to help her heal:
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This podcast (thank you!)
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The place we find ourselves (podcast) with Adam Young
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Birth Trauma for Birthworkers (podcast) with Dr. Erin Bowe
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How to Heal a Bad Birth (book) by Melissa J. Bruijn
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Brave Beautiful Birth (book) by Jamie Schrock
You can follow Amy @burr382
If you love the show, please support us on Patreon! www.patreon.com/healingbirth
After a conscious conception, Ally went into labor at almost 43 weeks. Her epic, three day long birth process included many things that could be considered a “problem” or otherwise pathologized, but with the right support, and unwavering trust in herself and her body, this birth initiated Ally into a more powerful, sovereign version of herself.
You can follow Ally on instagram @ally_aura
JOIN OUR ONLINE MEMBERSHIP HERE! https://www.healingbirth.net/membership
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JOIN OUR LIVE WEBINAR EVENT: Discovering Your Mothering Superpower with Emily Bruce on May 15, 2022 4PM PST https://www.healingbirth.net/event
This is part two of a series exploring, through personal stories, how the experience of prior sexual assault can show up when we give birth.
Rebecca shares the incredible story of the birth of her fourth child, born at just 32 weeks, in a teaching hospital. This is one of the most emotionally intense stories I have ever recorded, both in its beauty and pain.
(Please note that while we do discuss sexual assault, this conversation does not contain a description of sexual assault).
You can follow Rebecca on instagram @cosmic_love_child
JOIN OUR ONLINE MEMBERSHIP HERE! https://www.healingbirth.net/membership
If you love the show, please consider supporting us on Patreon! www.patreon/healingbirth
JOIN OUR LIVE WEBINAR EVENT: Discovering Your Mothering Superpower with Emily Bruce on May 15, 2022 4PM PST https://www.healingbirth.net/event
This is part one of a two part series exploring, through personal stories, how the experience of prior sexual assault can show up when we give birth.
(Please note that this conversation does not contain any description of sexual assault).
You can follow Gemma @wyldbirth and www.wyldbirth.com
JOIN OUR ONLINE MEMBERSHIP HERE! https://www.healingbirth.net/membership
If you love the show, please consider supporting us on Patreon! www.patreon/healingbirth
JOIN OUR LIVE WEBINAR EVENT: Discovering Your Mothering Superpower with Emily Bruce on May 15, 2022 4PM PST https://www.healingbirth.net/event
What if breech birth is not the inherent emergency we are conventionally told, but rather, an expression of intelligent, deeply empathic, communication between mother and baby?
Jess shares her three birth stories with us - actually four, as we begin with her own - all of which carry the through line of breech presenting babies and maternal communication.
This is another one of those stories where ancestral and matrilineal healing come from a powerful reclamation of what it means to birth in sovereignty.
You can follow Jess @jess.aralia
JOIN OUR ONLINE MEMBERSHIP HERE! https://www.healingbirth.net/membership
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In this solocast I explain why.
Let me know what you think! HMU @healingbirth or www.healingbirth.net
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Ariana shares the story of her daughter’s birth, a planned homebirth that ended in a cesarean.
Recorded at only four months postpartum, she shares some of the insights she’s already gained from this experience, and reminds us that’s its okay to feel it all - happy that you have a healthy baby, and perhaps, sadness or other complicated feelings about how the birth itself happened.
This is exactly the kind of story that I needed to hear, years ago when I went through a very similar experience with my own first baby, and her story is still medicine for me, today.
You can follow Ariana @arianafotinakis on instagram, and via her website www.arianafotinakis.com
JOIN OUR ONLINE MEMBERSHIP HERE! https://www.healingbirth.net/membership
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I love stories that illustrate how the births of our first babies (maybe every baby?) often prompt us to change and shift our lives, and this is definetly one of them.
Christine shares the story of free birthing her son in Canada. There are so many juicy elements to this one - making love during labor, having a psychedelic, out of body experience, spirit baby communication, just to name a few!
Christine also shares how, after such a powerful birth, she felt alone in the postpartum time. This prompted her to shift her life to now live in a conscious community.
Christine supports other mothers as a radical birth keeper, and you can follow her on Instagram @wildwomanmothering
JOIN OUR ONLINE MEMBERSHIP HERE! https://www.healingbirth.net/membership
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Victoria’s first birth was unmedicated, in a hospital, and although everything went “right” it left her feeling like something wasn’t quite right. Her postpartum experience with that baby was very challenging, and she later connected the challenges postpartum with some of the disempowering things that happened during the birth.
She shares the experience of miscarrying at home after that hospital birth, and how that miscarriage helped her realize that her body was completely capable of birthing without anyone’s help or interference (this is something I have heard often and am so fascinated by - that pregnancy loss, though never easy, can be healing).
Her third baby was born at home with a very hands off midwife, an experience that set her up for a totally different and easeful postpartum time.
Victoria now works to support other mothers postpartum. You can connect with her on instagram @the_motherbiome.
During the interview she mentions her epic birth playlist! You can listen to it here:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1EROuluKp3kEwtTq642UM8?si=UDxFsyj4TeuE0uI6l4AHtA&utm_source=copy-link&nd=1
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Jenna, a spiritual life coach for moms (and friend of mine!), shares her two birth stories. One, midwife assisted at a birth center, and the second, a very consciously chosen free birth.
Guiding her through her pregnancies and birth experiences was Jenna’s strong intuition and willingness to trust herself.
She also shares much about the always unfolding lessons of motherhood, and has a special message for anyone who is struggling to process a birth experience that left them in pain.
She’s funny, wise, and spiritual, I loved every second of this conversation!
If you would like to work with Jenna, you find her at www.jennawalenga.com and on Instagram @whole.heart.mama
JOIN OUR ONLINE MEMBERSHIP HERE! https://www.healingbirth.net/membership
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In a heart wrenching and raw interview, Ashley shares the story of the unnecessary cesarean birth of her first child.
From showing up in labor and being misidentified as a different patient, to having her doctor rush her labor process due to his golf tournament, her whole story is infuriating and deeply sad, most of all, because it’s simply so common.
Many times during this conversation, I had to mute my mic and take deep breaths, because so much of her story was personally relatable to me.
I believe that as long as women are being brutalized during the most sacred thing we participate in and through, we have a moral imperative to share difficult stories like these.
If you have experienced a cesarean you feel was unnecessary, or simply found the countless indignities and traumas of industrial birth within the machine just wrong, this episode is for you.
You are not alone.
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Margeaux, a therapist who works in maternal mental health, went into her first pregnancy having heard first hand the many ways that a birth experience can leave us traumatized. Unfortunately all that knowledge was not enough to prevent her from being coerced into an induction that left her in the kind of pain she counsels her clients through.
After the first year postpartum, a series of beautiful, magical synchronicities, and a deep connection to her inner voice, led her to become pregnant again. She was guided that she would have a baby girl, and that this time birth wouldn’t hurt her, it would heal her.
As she said to me after this interview, it feels so good to be on the other side, and be able to share this redemptive story!
You can follow Margeaux on Instagram @margeaux_gibson_therapist and at www.margeauxgibson.com
JOIN OUR NEW ONLINE MEMBERSHIP HERE! https://www.healingbirth.net/membership
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www.healingbirth.net
Elizabeth shares two very different home birth stories with us today. This first, included almost every traumatic thing I can think of that can transpire at home, including a postpartum hospital transfer for blood loss. After that experience, she says she never wanted to give birth again.
But when she had healed enough from that experience to become pregnant and birth again, that birth was so powerful and blissful she wanted to experience it over and over.
You will not want to miss her description of dancing through labor, in the wake of her father’s just having passed over, calling on her ancestors, and feeling him there with her.
Or her describe that sacred moment after birth holding her daughter, basking in the feeling of elation and joy.
Elizabeth mentions a few resources in this episode that I’d like to link to below:
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The “dancing doula” instagram page is @doulawombwork.
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the meditations that were so helpful for her can be found at www.hypnobirthinghub.com.
You can follow Elizabeth on Instagram @dr.elizabethwade and at www.drelizabethwade.com
JOIN OUR NEW ONLINE MEMBERSHIP HERE! https://www.healingbirth.net/membership
If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting us on patron! www.patreon.com/healingbirth
www.healingbirth.net
Charlotte shares her three birth stories with us - one cesarean (the reason for which is definetly the most unique one I have ever heard!), and two home birth VBACs.
Her entire journey is so beautiful, she has so much wisdom to share, and now has stepped into working with other women who want to birth in sovereignty.
You can follow her @the_vbac_coach
JOIN OUR NEW ONLINE MEMBERSHIP HERE! https://www.healingbirth.net/membership
If you love the show, please consider supporting us on Patreon! www.patreon/healingbirth
On March 15, 2020, I recorded a bonus episode with my thoughts about the then currently emerging global situation. It was fun for me to go back, almost two years later, and listen to what I had to say!
Largely I asked us all to stay out of the fear. And, I still feel that way.
I hope you guys enjoy this and I'd love to hear your thoughts!
www.healingbirth.net
IG: @healingbirth
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Andrea’s first birth experience is a perfect example of what it can look like when your midwives work for the state, not you.
After a traumatic cesarean birth, she was determined to birth her second baby at home.
Unfortunately (or maybe, fortunately?) no one in her province you could offer her the kind of support she needed, so she birthed that baby with just her partner as support.
That birth was a firewalk, but in it, she found the connection to her ancestors that wasn’t present the first time when she called on them for support. She could feel them witnessing her in this powerful act of reclamation.
Around the one hour mark, Andrea mentions a few resources that were really helpful along her journey to free birth.
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Christine Murphy - you can find her on instagram @wildwomanmothering
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Yolande Norris Clark - www.freebirth.ca and on instagram @bauhauswife
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Freebirth Society’s The Complete Guide to Freebirth online course - link
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Hint: It has to do with finding grace for yourself.
This is a bonus solocast.
JOIN OUR NEW ONLINE MEMBERSHIP HERE! https://www.healingbirth.net/membership
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Kristen shares her two pregnancy and birth stories, one, a home birth with a midwife, and the second, a planned free birth. Throughout her pregnancies, Kristen was in direct communication with the spirits of her babies on the other side, waiting to come through. In fact, it was they who guided her to make the decision to free birth the second time.
Kristen also shares how she resolved the retained placenta from her free birth naturally at home - something I have never heard anyone do before!
JOIN OUR NEW ONLINE MEMBERSHIP HERE! https://www.healingbirth.net/membership
If you love the show, please consider supporting us on Patreon! www.patreon/healingbirth
Esme vividly describes her first birth experience as a descent into the underworld. Ultimately, that birth process was interrupted by an overly cautious midwife, which had long term physical and emotional ramifications for both her and her son.
After a lot of healing work, her second child was born, in an experience she describes as blissful.
Esme’s entire story is nothing short of pure magic! I loved every second of our conversation.
You can follow Esme @esmeannarose
If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting us on patron! www.patreon.com/healingbirth
www.healingbirth.net
Nelia was assaulted during her first birth experience at her local hospital.
Immediately understanding that what happened to her was wrong, she fought to get justice and to heal.
The second time she gave birth, she took back her power in a massive way.
We mention @birthmonopoly as a great resource for anyone who has experienced obstetric violence. You can find the map of obstetric violence, read other survivor’s stories, and other resources here:
https://birthmonopoly.com/obstetric-violence/
Follow Nelia @neliathedoula
www.neliathedoula.com
If you love the show, please consider supporting us on Patreon! www.patreon/healingbirth
A personal share about faith, my relationship with God, and how it all relates to birth.
After her first pregnancy ended in a loss, Lisa quickly fell pregnant again. The story of her labor and the birth of her baby is the all too common one of a cascade of interventions, beginning with an induction, that ends in a cesarean.
In the aftermath of the trauma of that experience, something beautiful blossomed. I hear this theme commonly from women who experience the utter failure of the maternal healthcare system first hand - if that system is a lie, what other systems or institutions we are taught to blindly trust that are also built on a foundation of lies?
This is a raw, beautiful conversation with a woman beginning to heal.
If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting us on patreon! www.patreon.com/healingbirth
www.healingbirth.net
“It was so boring”
This is how my guest today described her birth, several times, during the course of our conversation. Of course, birth is not actually boring and certainly the journey that brought her to this birth is anything but - but that statement illustrates so perfectly the central theme of her story. That birth, when left alone, even in someone deemed high risk, even in someone who has only had cesareans, can and often does unfold in a very straightforward manner.
This is a story of a woman who radically trusted herself to know what was best for her baby, her body, and how to give birth. She finally said no the systems that had hurt her.
This is also my first returning guest! If you haven’t heard the first part of her story, go back to episode 6 of season two of the show, linked below:
https://www.healingbirth.net/podcast/episode/43559a5a/i-had-to-push-through-or-chayas-three-birth-stories
(The image of the pregnant woman that accompanies this episode is a stock image, and is not my guest.)
You can follow Chaya @themindfulwoman365
If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting us on patron! www.patreon.com/healingbirth
www.healingbirth.net
During her pregnancy, Roxanne was coerced into taking an injectable pharmaceutical product that injured her, greatly affecting her quality of life postpartum.
Her son was later also injured by the same product.
This is their story of healing together.
#believemothers
If you appreciate the show, please consider supporting us on Patron! www.patreon.com/healingbirth
Visit our website, join the newsletter, and stay in touch with me! www.healingbirth.net
Najma spent her early career in the pharmaceutical field, and trusted the medical system. During this time, she also had the sense many times that something wasn't right.
When it came time to have her own children, she chose to keep them pharmaceutical drug-free, until that choice was taken away from her without her consent or knowledge. As a result, her child suffered a vaccine injury.
This is warning to anyone who has their child in a government school, it could happen to any of us.
Located in Egypt, Najma also offers us a window into what is happening there in terms of mandates, medical freedom, and the global tyranny we are all experiencing to one degree or another.
If you appreciate the show, please support us on patreon! patreon.com/healingbirth
Mothers have always been at the forefront of the medical freedom movement - the fight for the freedom to decide what is or is not injected into their bodies and those of their children.
We are a time in history where the fight for medical freedom has never been so crucial, and so heated.
This is part one of a three part series where mothers share their personal stories of why medical freedom matters to them. #believewomen.
This is Sarah's story.
To find out more about ILLUMINOUS, our newest offering, go to https://www.healingbirth.net/events
Miranda was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia and HELLP syndrome near the end of her first pregnancy, which led to an induced, traumatic birth experience. As she began to heal herself, she also helped to heal her son.
This is a story of healing, transformation, and spiritual growth.
Follow Miranda on IG @rooteddaughter
If you love the show, please consider supporting us on Patron! www.patron.com/healingbirth
Serendipiti Day is a radical feminist who has spent the last ten years of her life hitchhiking all over the world, mostly by herself.
Her passion for women's work was influenced by her childhood, when she experienced firsthand what it meant to be exploited because of her sex. At the age of 12, she was taken out of a sexually abusive home and put into the foster care system, where she stayed until she aged out. From there, she launched herself into the world, visiting over 40 countries, witnessing what womanhood looks like all around the world.
We talk about the importance of understanding what menopause looked like for our elders, miscarriage, abortion, and forced birth control within the foster care system.
Follow serendipidi @astarte_rose_in_confidence
Support the podcast on Patreon! www.patreon.com/healingbirth
Hannah shares her two birth stories, both at 35 weeks gestation.
One, in a hospital with all the standard things that come with a pre-term birth, and the second, freebirthed at home.
Her story is one of a journey to trust herself, her body, and her baby to be born at the right time. There are also some wild twists and turns!
Follow Hannah @tovarhomestead
www.hannahandbabes.com
Katie Sutherland is an energy medicine healer, teacher and holistic wellness practitioner who supports mothers to thrive and reclaim their empowerment and vibrancy while navigating the journey of motherhood and childbirth.
Katie had a powerful initiatory experience through the birth of her daughter almost a decade ago. It was one of the most intensely challenging rites of passage in Katie’s life, yet held an important key in the awakening of her greater purpose, and was a catalyst for much of the transformational work Katie now shares in empowering and supporting other mothers. Her birth story is one of my favorite ones I have ever shared!
Katie’s work and offerings can be found at www.innerwisdommotherhood.com
Join us on Sunday, May 23rd, 5PM PST / 7PM CST for a FREE community call. Share your birth story, journey with healing, or anything else that is on your heart. Sign up on our website at www.healingbirth.net/events
Bethany is a holistic womb-pelvic bodyworker, wild mama, and author of the book Pelvic Awakening. She guides women and mothers through deep-dive journeys into womb and pelvic healing, weaving together the physical and energetic and cultivating deep magical awareness, that makes big shifts. She believes that when a woman roots within her pelvic bowl, she finds the deep well of power and knowing that lives within – she comes back home to herself.
This is a wonderful, healing conversation for any woman who has experienced a surgical birth, a traumatic birth, or any trauma to the pelvic area (and if you can, join us at around the 35 minute mark, when Bethany takes us through a meditation called “Cultivating Joy,” that nearly brought tears to my eyes).
Bethany has put together a special offer for listeners of this podcast. You can find it on her website here:
http://www.bethanywilde.com/healingbirthpodcast/
Follow Bethany @bethany.wilde
www.bethanywilde.com
Arielle was induced at 41 weeks. During the induction process, it was discovered that her baby’s cord had prolapsed, which led to an emergency cesarean birth. Arielle shares how she emotionally processed this experience, and the important role that healing plant allies played in her journey.
Join us this Sunday, April 18th, for Healing the Heart, a collaborative webinar between Healing Birth + my guest this week! Arielle will share her knowledge and experience using plant allies to support healing the emotional heart and wombspace, in regards to birth trauma.
We will cover plant allies associated with:
Grief
Protection
Boundaries
Heart Healing
Wombspace Connection
The Nervous System & Energetic Dosing
Reserve your spot at healing birth.net/events
Follow Arielle:
@arielledemartinez
www.arielledemartinez.com
Chaya shares her three birth stories which include a loss, a cesarean twin birth, two subsequent cesareans, and a fairly harrowing experience with post-partum birth control and PPD. Throughout her story is the theme of having to push through these difficult experiences in order to survive them.
Mentioned in the episode: Nancy Wainer Cohen’s Silent Knife and Jennifer Block’s Everything Below the Waist (a must read!)
Follow Chaya: @themindfulwoman365 and www.themindfulwoman.org
Join our upcoming webinar with the wonderful birth educator Maha Al Musa on April 11th! www.healing birth.net/events
If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting us on Patreon! Patron.com/healingbirth
I am often asked to define birth trauma. Or other times, new moms will ask me, how do I know if I was traumatized by my birth experience?
For some the answer is clear as day, but it's not a dumb question at all. For many of us, we emerge from the birth experience grateful to be alive and have a healthy baby, and yet can still be haunted by certain parts of the experience.
If you enjoy the show, please support us on patreon!
www.patreon.com/healingbirth
We have several amazing virtual events happening in April! Please go to www.healingbirth.net/events to hang out with me and other wise women.
During labor with her first baby, Gemma’s midwives transferred her from home to the hospital due to her waters being opened “too long.” This experienced ended as it so often does in a coerced, unnecessary surgical birth.
Gemma got extremely clear during her second pregnancy on the kind of support she wanted, and found a radical birth keeper to support her autonomy. She gave birth to her posterior, ten pound son wildly and freely in her own home, with only her partner and family present.
Just four months postpartum at the time of recording, she shares how healing this experience was for her, and the joy she’s found in motherhood. Thank you Gemma, for sharing this beautiful story!
If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting us on Patreon! Patron.com/healingbirth
I share some recent observations and thoughts I've had from listening to a LOT of VBAC stories these past few months.
www.healingbirth.net/events for the upcoming webinars!
Megan’s first birth was a cesarean for breech presentation, which she describes as a giving of herself and her baby over to the system.
Her strong faith in God helped her find the courage and conviction to trust herself, her baby, and the intelligent design of birth the second time. She birthed her second baby at home, in power.
My apology that the audio quality is quite imperfect, we actually tried to record this twice and this was the best we got! I think her beautiful story is worth hearing even with the imperfections!
If you love the show, consider supporting us on patron! Patreon.com/healingbirth
Ellie’s first birth could be described as a classic cascade of interventions that ended in a cesarean, and left her devastated.
She gave birth to her second baby at the Farm in Tennessee, after a series of divinely guided incidents and after having committed to trusting her own instincts.
Recorded just six weeks postpartum from her second birth, this is a beautiful, raw, emotional story of courage, faith, and Divine Guidance.
This is part two of her story.
Follow Ellie @ellieromairalford
Ellie’s first birth could be described as a classic cascade of interventions that ended in a cesarean, and left her devastated.
She gave birth to her second baby at the Farm in Tennessee, after a series of divinely guided incidents and after having committed to trusting her own instincts.
Recorded just six weeks postpartum from her second birth, this is a beautiful, raw, emotional story of courage, faith, and Divine Guidance.
Ellie’s story is so rich and powerful I made it into two parts! Enjoy this part one, and tune in next week for the conclusion in part two.
Follow Ellie @ellieromairalford
Kristyn was 37 weeks pregnant with her first baby when she developed acute appendicitis. in order to be treated for it, her baby needed to be delivered immediately, but due to delayed diagnosis and dismissive care at the hospital, she suffered a great deal of pain, delivered via cesarean under general anesthesia, and had her baby separated from her postpartum.
Kristyn shares with us the long term ramifications of this experience, the impact of having a healing, subsequent birth at home, and finding her place in the movement to improve birth for women in Australia via craftivism.
Follow Kristyn @buntingforbirthrights
www.buntingforbirthrights.com
Tarina is a certified FEMM Instructor and a student midwife. Her own struggle with high blood pressure, headaches, cramping, and spotting from an IUD led her to explore natural birth control options. She now guides women as they learn to confidently use this science-based, natural method of birth control. Fertility Freedom is available to everyone.
Follow Tarina @fertilityfreedom
www.fertilityfreedom.net
Freya Kellet is a radical birth coach, and a regenerative farmer who works with women who are dreaming of a wild birth, at home, in power.
Do you long to be witnessed by an authentic wise woman? Do you wonder if you’ve found her? I’ve heard too many stories of medically minded midwives sabotaging birth, abandoning women at the end of their pregnancies, or coercing them into unnecessary or unwanted tests, procedures, and transfers.
Freya and I discuss ten questions to ask your midwife to become 100% clear on what kind of midwife you have, so that you can make decisions that serve you, and move forward in total clarity and power.
You can find the free download we discuss on Freya’s website, www.freyakellet.com
Follow Freya @freyakellet
Jasmine was 41 weeks pregnant, and about to give birth to her first child, when her brother suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. She tells us the story of what it was like to be induced and give birth while dealing with the whirlwind of stress, emotions, and grief.
Jasmine also shares the story of her second birth which was near a completely opposite experience, at home, and was (as so many subsequent births often are), a healing experience.
Follow Jasmine! @thebirthzone
BUCKLE UP for a powerful conversation with one of the wisest women I’ve had the pleasure of speaking to.
Maha Al Musa is a Wise Birth Oracle, an award-winning international birth mentor, author and speaker as well as the founder and creator of EmbodyBirth™ School and BellydanceBirth.
Maha gave birth to her 3rd child at home, a full water lotus birth when she was 46 years of age and has been featured in several worldwide media outlets for her strong stance on natural term breastfeeding, an experience she shares here.
If you want to feel not only fearless, but excited to give birth, I highly recommend this episode for you!
Follow Maha:
@maha_al_musa
www.mahaalmusa.com
https://www.facebook.com/mahaalmusabirthvisionary
EmbodyBirth Affiliate link:
https://healingbirth.krtra.com/t/xZa3Jignc1oQ
Erica hired a “midwife,” had a healthy uneventful pregnancy, and meticulously planned for an unmedicated vaginal birth. What transpired at the hospital when it was time to deliver was a cascade of dehumanizing and unnecessary interventions, culminating in Pitocin and finally, a cesarean.
Erica is now 15 months postpartum, and shares how she’s healing the PTSD from this experience. We talk about how difficult it is to struggle with the question, why did my birth go this way, when it is so easy for others? We end with some thoughts on how traumatic births impact our babies, and a call to action to listeners to share any resources you have on this subject.
Follow Erica: @e_m_kenner
If you appreciate the show, consider supporting us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/healingbirth
Dr. Beebe Dericks is a Naturopathic Doctor, Acupuncturist, Holistic Pelvic Care© Practitioner, Birth Healing Provider, and Chinese Herbal Medicine Specialist.
She’s obviously brilliant, but I wanted her on the show not merely to share her vast body of knowledge about healing, but her passion for serving women. We go DEEP into the science of why trauma, of any kind, is literally stored in our tissues, and how to heal it. Beebe also shares the powerful story of her own births, the first of which was made difficult due to an IUD injury, and the second, a triumphant VBAC.
My guest this week shares the story of the births of all three of her babies, with an emphasis on the birth of her twins one year ago. Her story is of the clearest examples of coercive, abusive, obstetric violence I have ever heard.
We also talk about the importance of telling your story, as many times as you can, the importance of sisterhood, and how we can begin to hold physicians and hospitals accountable for experiences like hers.
Please note that this episode contains a description of a traumatic birth, skip it if you are pregnant, or needing to protect your space.
I took a poll on instagram and you have spoken! Tune in to hear me speaking about what it's like to parent a child with special needs during this very interesting year. I speak about why it's taken me so long to talk about parenting an autistic child, major compromises I have had to make, masks, surprises, and most of all, solidarity with all of you who are going through the same thing.
This kind of content is only something I create for Patreon. If you like it, please consider supporting us there! Either way, thanks for listening!
Birth work is also death work.
Meet Wild Luna Raven, a radical birth keeper, and death keeper, who does not shy away from the death work.
She offers beautiful support for women who experience an early birth (a term we use intentionally, and you’ll learn why). We talk about her own experiences of early births, and the different ways that early births can unfold. We also talk about the birth of her son within the medical system, which (as so often happens!) led her on a path to offer women an alternative way.
If you’ve ever had an early birth, or want to lean into supporting other sisters in this aspect of birth work, this episode is for you!
Follow Wild @wild.womb.witch
www.laniraven.com
What does it mean to take responsibility for our birth experiences? How do we learn from it, digest it, and, in the case of a traumatic birth, heal from it, without staying in a place of victimhood or self blame?
This is extremely tricky work! Join us this week as explore this topic with sensitivity and loads of compassion, for all of us.
If we can get to the point of owning our stories, we can be the ones to heal it.
If you love us, support us on Patreon!
Patreon.com/healingbirth
You know I love a VBAC story! Tessa shares her victorious, home birth, VBAC story, after having experienced a coerced cesarean due to breech positioning with her first child.
Her story is such powerful testament to listening to your own instincts, self-education, and the importance of leaving behind a system that consistently fails birthing women.
Join me for our August Group Call - Healing Your Birth Story in Community
8/12 1pm HST / 4pm PST / 6pm CST. Book online at www.healingbirth.net
Support us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/healingbirth
Natalie shares her story of giving birth via a cesarean that she could feel.
We talk about her healing process, and the total lack of accountability from anyone at the hospital where her birth occurred.
Please be advised, this episode contains a graphic description of a traumatic surgical birth. Skip this one of you are pregnant, and need to protect your space.
Follow Natalie @mermaidnat1
Support us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/healingbirth
Why is the practice of inducing labor so ubiquitous?
What does it mean to have someone else decide when your baby should be born?
What are the long term ramifications of giving a synthetic form of oxytocin, the bonding and love hormone, to so many women during birth?
Join Lynnea Laessig (@mamatukibirth) and I for a philosophical discussion about labor induction. Please note, nothing we say in this episode should be considered medical advice.
Support us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/healingbirth
Most people probably wish for a fast labor. But the experience can hold a different type of trauma than you might imagine.
Join Olivia and I as we discuss her experience with miscarrying her first pregnancy, laboring so fast with her second that she describes it as an out of body experience, and how she went from delegating all decision making, to taking her power back in subsequent deliveries.
Be sure to stick around for the end, when we get into the woo stuff - manifesting a longer labor for her fourth, healing ancestral trauma, and spirit babies!
Follow Olivia -
@discovermother
Support us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/healingbirth
Join Jonea and I this week as we talk about the massive maternal healthcare crisis facing black women and their babies in America today. The information contained in this conversation is absolutely vital for us all to grasp in order to, quite literally, help saves lives.
Anti-Racist Resources:
So You Want to Talk about Race
White Fragility
Rachel Cargle
Discussed in this episode:
History of the African American Midwife
Dr. J. Marion Sims Experimented On Black Women & His New York Statue Has People Outraged
Amber Isaac Story
Please support the woman in AZ we discuss who was separated from her baby. Venmo @desertwombsinbloom
Follow Jonea -
@wild.pregnancy_free.birth
Support the podcast! https://www.patreon.com/healingbirth
Emilee Saldaya is the trail blazing leader and founder of Free Birth Society. She was a doula for over ten years, until the reality of her complicity with the obstetric system and the harms that it does to women and babies prompted her to find a better way. In aligning with freebirth, Emilee's dharmic path became clear. She quickly evolved into a "Radical Birth Keeper" who serves women birthing outside the system.
Join us this week as we discuss freebirth, intuition vs. fear, taking radical responsibility, transmuting trauma into power (by saying NO MORE), and so much more.
Follow Emilee -
@freebirthsociety
www.freebirthsociety.com
Support the podcast! https://www.patreon.com/healingbirth
Clancey share the stories of her two births. The first, a traumatic forceps delivery, and the second, a free miscarriage.
Connect with Clancey -
https://www.clancyallen.com/healing-from-birth/
Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/clancy_allen_doula/
Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/clancyallendoula/
Website
https://www.clancyallen.com/
Support the podcast! https://www.patreon.com/healingbirth
Join us this week for another conversation about giving birth in the time of coronavirus. We discuss what authentically supporting birthing women looks like now, how we can show up for our sisters, and near the end of the show, Isabella has a beautiful message for anyone who is pregnant and facing uncertainty about her birth.
Follow Isabella -
@whosebodyisit
www.whosebodyisit.com
Support the podcast! https://www.patreon.com/healingbirth
Lynnea Laessig (@mamtukibirth) returns to the show to discuss the topic that’s on all of our minds.
We explore the rapidly changing recommendations and regulations affecting birthing women during the perceived pandemic. Spoiler: they’re not good for women and they’re not good for birth.
Lynnea sums it up best when she says: “ this isn’t a new issue, it’s just being amplified.”
Can it be that, at the highest level, what we are experiencing right now is a wake up call to examine societal systems that haven’t been working for a long time, and step into our own sovereignty?
Support the podcast! https://www.patreon.com/healingbirth
Can childhood trauma affect how we experience giving birth?
This week, my guest Britney shares how trauma showed up for her in her first two birth experiences, and how she as able to totally shift it for a healing third birth. She invites a surprise guest to that birth, a story you will not want to miss.
Article link:
https://birthboobsandbabies.com/2020/02/17/how-my-third-birth-began-healing-a-lifetimes-worth-of-trauma/
Follow Britney @birthboobsandbabies
Support the podcast! https://www.patreon.com/healingbirth
FEAR. Most of us experience some fear when approaching a birth. It’s practically taught to us. It’s in the cultural ether, passed down in the stories we hear, and the media depictions of birth.
But maybe your fear comes from a place of having had a previous traumatic birth experience. How do you cope with that? Is it possible - maybe even necessary- to be completely over your fear? Will being afraid of birthing again mean you will manifest a bad birth experience?
In this episode, Diana talks about all of those questions and more. She shares her personal journey with fear in both of her pregnancies and births, and shares her favorite, super practical coping strategies for coping with birth fears.
A special thanks to my friend Austin Edge @findercurator for composing new, original music for the show!
Support the podcast! https://www.patreon.com/healingbirth
Carey Chapman Glenn is a mother, midwife, and producer of the gorgeous birth film These Are My Hours.
In addition to a discussion about the film, Carey shares her own birth stories on the show today. She experienced two cesarean births, the last one being one she describes as a healing experience. Intriguing, right?
This is one of those interviews where I teared up a few times. Be sure to stick around to the very end for that.
Follow Carey @thesearemyhours
thesearemyhours.com
rootedbirth.com
Support the Podcast! https://www.patreon.com/healingbirth
When Carla found out her baby was going to be born with a cleft palate, and her immediate life outside the womb filled with surgeries and hospitals, she knew she wanted to give her child the most peaceful birth experience possible.
Sometimes it’s not the birth itself that’s traumatic, but the intensity of the postpartum time.
We also talk about cultural beliefs in the Dominican Republic (where she is from) around birth, and how the experience of being sexually harassed as a child came up for her during the birth process.
Follow Carla @motherly.goddess
Support the podcast! https://www.patreon.com/healingbirth
Tune in for a RADICALLY HONEST conversation between Diana & Lynnea on the transparency (or lack of) around the cultural expectations of these roles.
Women serving women in birth is not a new concept, and it's crucial for the preservation of birth and the well-being of women and babies to acknowledge the appropriation of traditional wise-woman practices into the modern day "band-aid" we market to women today.
Hiring a doula or midwife alone is not enough to save you from the system, or the trauma that comes with it. Here we explore why and how you can use this information to protect your birth space, what finally, what is a “true” sense of security?
Dr. Sarah is a chiropractic physician, birth educator, and mother of two. She became entrenched in the birth world after a traumatic, unnecessary cesarean led her to have a subsequent, healing freebirth. In this episode, she shares the stories of both of those births.
Sarah is an advocate for bodily autonomy and human rights in childbirth, and believes that you deserve to be in charge and have a birth that transforms you. You will hear us talk quite a lot about that.
Follow Sarah @birthuprising
Follow us @healingbirth
Support the podcast! https://www.patreon.com/healingbirth
Lynnea shares her two birth experiences, both of which included non-consented procedures, medication, and unnecessary episiotomies. She bravely explores how what happened to her body during her births affected her into her postpartum and beyond.
We talk about what her healing has looked like, on the other side of trauma. And how patriarchal systems, embedded into medical culture, are at the root of how women's bodies and the process of birth are pathologized.
Follow Lynnea @mamatuki
Follow us @healingbirth
Support the podcast! https://www.patreon.com/healingbirth
Meet the host of the Healing Birth Podcast, Diana Forsell Tayan.
In this episode, Diana shares her two birth stories. She shares about the healing journey from a traumatic cesarean with her first, to a beautiful, powerful home birth with her second.
Follow us @healingbirth
www.healingbirth.net
Follow Diana @aninstrumentofthypeace
www.dianaforsell.com
Support the podcast! https://www.patreon.com/healingbirth