Healing Birth

For her first birth, Paige planned a natural delivery at a local birth center. But when the day came, her labor was long, and the pushing phase even longer. Eventually, the midwives decided to transfer her to the hospital. As is often the case with transfers, the birth ended in a cesarean, which left Paige heartbroken.

It took some time for Paige to conceive again, but when she did, she felt confident planning a homebirth, where she felt safest even after a surgical birth. This labor turned out to be completely different from her first. Her baby...

Jessica was a career-driven woman who never thought she wanted children, until a dream job fell through and an experience at a spiritual retreat awakened her desire to become a mother.

After joyfully conceiving, she miscarried at twelve weeks, enduring not only heartbreak but also a traumatic experience with the medical care she received. Over the following year, Jessica focused on healing, and when she became pregnant again, she was amazed to discover her second baby shared the same due date as her first!

With no midwives available nearby, Jessica decided to take her care...

Hannah grew up as the daughter of a doula and, as a child, had the unique experience of attending the births her mother supported. So when she became pregnant herself, she had a deep trust in the birth process and planned a freebirth.

Although there was nothing wrong with her or the baby, Hannah ultimately chose to transfer to the hospital during labor, where she had to strongly advocate for herself. She shares that, while the birth didn't unfold exactly as she had envisioned, it helped her find her voice and initiated her into the kind of...

In part two of her story, Rose returns to share the beautiful, pain-free freebirth of her second child, as well as the equally magical freebirth of her third.

Between these two births, Rose had an abortion, and she shares how even through that she deeply connected with the soul of that baby, who told her she would be coming back.

Throughout this second part of her story, Rose's experiences remind us how important conscious community is during life's transitions, and how powerful the rites of passage can be in birth, postpartum, and pregnancy release.

Growing up, homebirth was the norm for Rose. Both she and her brother were born at home, and her mother was heavily involved in the Homebirth Australia movement.

At age 26, while island-hopping around the Caribbean, Rose discovered she was pregnant. She decided to return to Australia and give birth on her father's rural property. That birth turned out to be a wild and dramatic experience—nearly resulting in a hospital transfer—but her baby arrived just as she stepped out her front door!

When pregnant with her second child, Rose once again found herself back in A...

During Hope's first pregnancy, she followed the conventional path—seeing an OB, agreeing to all the standard tests and procedures, and ultimately undergoing a Pitocin induction at 40 weeks. The birth was a traumatic initiation into motherhood, leaving lasting repercussions for both her and her daughter.

Before becoming pregnant with her second child, Hope discovered the concept of freebirth, and it immediately resonated with her. She went on to embrace the wild pregnancy experience and freebirthed her son.

This redemptive experience brought deep healing and taught her how to hold strong boundaries as a mother.

...

Alexandra's story begins abroad in Italy, where she goes into labor around 25 weeks while pregnant with twins and delivers via emergency C-section. Devastatingly, one twin survives the ensuing NICU stay, while the other does not.

Back in the United States later, Alexandra is thrilled to become pregnant again. She knows she wants a VBAC and achieves it in a hospital setting, although the experience includes both obstetric violence and unnecessary interventions.

During her third pregnancy, Alexandra becomes determined to have a positive, trauma-free birth experience. She hires homebirth midwives and comes achingly close to delivering...

Sabine shares her five birth stories, each one marked by increasing autonomy—from a hospital birth with her first child to freebirthing her fifth.

No matter where she gave birth, Sabine describes each experience as profound spiritual work that taught her what kind of mother each child needed her to be.

This is a story that will help dispel fears,  and leave you feeling inspired and excited about giving birth!

If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on  Spotify or Apple Podcasts! 

Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth

Emily's first pregnancy was surprise twins! In some places, this would have severely limited her options for where and with whom she could give birth. Fortunately, Emily found a midwife who was willing to attend a twin birth at home. 

After an uneventful pregnancy, she went into labor at home, but due to high blood pressure readings, the decision was made to transfer to the hospital. Once there, she was given no option other than a C-section, and the hospital staff was unsupportive and even unkind about her attempted home birth.

Despite this first experience, E...

Ava shares the sweet and simple story of choosing to birth her first baby at home (even while living with her in-laws!). Her confidence in home birth was shaped largely by growing up with a mother who spoke positively about her own natural birth experiences.

Her story is a beautiful reminder that a first birth is not just a trial run!

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 sh...

From a young age, Sophia felt a powerful calling to support babies entering the world. By the time she became pregnant with her first child, she was already deep into her midwifery training, and ready to welcome life, both professionally and personally.

She gave birth at home, surrounded by care and familiarity, with a trusted colleague by her side. But soon after her son arrived, it became clear that something wasn't right. He was quickly diagnosed with VACTERL, a rare and complex combination of birth defects. At just 36 hours old, he underwent his first surgery — the first of...

Norah's first birth experience was a medical induction that left both her and her husband traumatized. Despite this, she knew she wanted to have more children. The journey to her second baby, however, was long and difficult—marked by a miscarriage, an ectopic pregnancy, secondary infertility, and eventually, IVF.

Norah ultimately conceived her second baby naturally and began preparing for another birth. As part of her preparation, she visualized the birth exactly how she wanted it to unfold, replaying the scene in her mind each night before falling asleep. But every time she did this, she would fa...

As a first-time mom, Melanie arrived at the hospital ready to simply trust the experts to manage her birth experience. What transpired was twenty-three hours on Pitocin, and an only narrowly avoided cesarean. In the weeks that followed, Melanie suffered with postpartum depression, something that she now, in retrospect, partially attributes to the prolonged use of Pitocin. 

She had a long healing journey ahead, including the loss of two pregnancies before finally welcoming in another baby. This time, she turned to the mothers in her community, asking how, and with whom, they birthed. That's when she discovered t...

As a young woman, Dana lost any blind trust she once had in the allopathic medical system after watching her father battle cancer within it. So when a popular TikToker introduced her to the concept of freebirth, it immediately resonated with her—a seed was sown.

Today, Dana opens up about the strength it took to trust her body and follow her intuition as she brought her first child into the world.

If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on  Spotify or Apple Podcasts! 

Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth

Emily enjoyed a blissful wild pregnancy, completely outside the medical paradigm, and planned to freebirth her first baby. After several days of a marathon birth experience, her baby was finally born—perfectly healthy. Emily, however, immediately recognized that she needed medical support. She transferred herself to a local hospital, where she was treated for a retained placenta and postpartum hemorrhage.

Despite having received no medical care during her pregnancy and freebirthing her baby, the hospital staff were kind, respectful, and honored all her wishes. Emily feels she received the care she needed and left the experience without tr...

Kelly is the oldest of three siblings. Her own birth was a hospital induction—an experience that led her mother to choose home birth for her subsequent children. The intergenerational thread of trauma from Kelly's birth carried forward into her own experiences with childbirth. With her first two children, she faced intense postpartum periods, and separation from her babies.

The birth of Kelly's third child, however, was a transformative home birth. This healing experience not only helped her process the trauma of her previous births but also reached back a generation, bringing healing to her own birth st...

Emily, a home birth midwife, shares her personal birth story after years of supporting others through theirs. While her birth didn't go as planned, she was able to advocate for herself and felt a strong sense of agency throughout the experience.

We discuss a wide range of topics, including how a midwife can "midwife" herself during her own birth and how to navigate a hospital birth experience. We end on a hopeful note with Emily's perspective that positive changes are underway in the world of medicalized birth.

You can find Emily @expectingwithemily and at www...

After a transformative homebirth experience, Olivia was shocked to discover an astonishing gift: she could communicate with spirit babies—the souls of our children before they come to Earth.

She now uses her mediumship skills to guide women who have experienced baby loss or infertility through conception, pregnancy, birth, and beyond.

Today, she shares a beautiful message from the spirit babies, especially for anyone struggling with loss or a long preconception phase.

Connect with Olivia on Instagram @mystical_birthing

If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on  Spo...

Megan's first birth was a traumatic and violating hospital experience. Afterward, her baby developed a serious infection—something Megan suspects was caused by a novel procedure performed during the delivery.

Though she deeply desired another child, she knew she had healing to do. A pivotal moment in that healing journey came when she attended a friend's home birth as a doula. Witnessing a peaceful birth and the respectful, culturally rooted care provided by midwives who serve the local Indigenous community was deeply moving.

Not long after, Megan conceived her second baby and hired the same mi...

Joanna was deep in labor at home, attended by midwives, when she hit a breaking point and asked to transfer to the hospital. Nothing was medically wrong, but her labor was long, and she sensed the midwives were ready for it to be over.

She gave birth shortly after arriving at the hospital and still got to experience the euphoric post-birth high she had hoped to feel at home. While her birth didn't unfold exactly as she had envisioned, Joanna reflects that she was still born into motherhood—as we all are—and that the initiations came in w...

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 th...

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.

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 grea...

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 hea...

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...

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 ha...

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...

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...

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...

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 s...

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 th...

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...

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, sp...

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

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 bi...