Clancy is an Australian based birth worker and mother of three. Although she had planned to birth her first baby at home, instead she ended up with a traumatic hospital birth experience.  In this podcast episode Clancy shares with us the terrain she has traversed in the 8 ½ years since Louie’s birth, including an early loss experience followed by a four years long journey to conceive her next baby. She talks about the solo bush retreat she went on for 4 nights with just water and a tarp, a...

This podcast episode is such a potent mix of deep trauma, powerlessness, hope, faith, determination and sisterhood. Chaya carries us through the births of her seven children, starting with the cesarean birth of her twins and ending with the free birth of her newest baby, just a few weeks ago.  Among her sharing are stories of placental abruption and stillbirth, breech presentation, postpartum haemorrhage, unconsented to sedation, threats of labelling Chaya as psychotic as a means of forcing...

Alexa’s six year old daughter was born in the water under the big Oak tree, just as she’d seen in her dream. This loving, gentle and oh so powerful free birth experience added further fuel to the fiery passion that Alexa held for working with the divine wisdom of birth.  In this heart-fuelled podcast episode, Alexa shares with us her path to becoming a birth doula and much of the philosophy surrounding the ways she navigates this role. She also talks about the birth trauma support she offers...

This podcast episode with Sarah is one of the most powerful stories of trauma, resiliency, courage, vulnerability and healing that has ever been shared with me… and over the years I have been privy to hundreds of stories of traumatic birth and healing. I feel it’s important to forewarn my podcast listeners of the, what will be for many, hugely confronting topics that we discuss in this episode, including rape and sexual abuse, suicide, cancer, early pregnancy loss, extreme postnatal...

Hannah, a mother to two daughters aged 3 and 6 months, joins me on the podcast from her rural home, a yurt, in a remote part of Northland here in Aotearoa. Her story is in equal parts, unsettling and inspiring.  She began her journey into motherhood with full trust that birth, as a healthy part of life, would happen naturally. But Hannah learnt the hard way that relying on the guidance of a midwife whose philosophy was a misalignment for her own, was not going to allow her to feel safe...

Gwen lives in Washington State USA after travelling the US for the past year in their RV and before that living in Australia, the place where she birthed her three babies who are now 1, 5 and 6 years old. She has an honours undergraduate degree in Sociology, Masters in Teaching and she is certified by the International Coaching Federation as a Spiritual Psychology Coach and trauma specialist. Gwen is founder of her business Connecting Consciously Collective and is very passionate about...

Ella, a home-birthed, surprise breech baby herself, knew, before she was even pregnant, that she would be having an unassisted birth at home. In this podcast episode she shares with us the explorations she did before and during her pregnancy, including attending Radical Birth Keepers School, conversations with her man about “what if our baby dies?”, the decision to hire a virtual doula, and conversing with her baby when unsure about his quietness, in terms of movements. Just shy of 42 weeks...

I first met Elvisa when, pregnant with her second child, she joined my online Soulful Birth course. Although she had planned to birth her first baby at home, she said she wasn’t mentally prepared and decided to transfer to hospital for an epidural. The birth of her first baby resulted in a big tear, and breastfeeding struggles and PND ensued.  In describing her experience, Elvisa says that the birth itself wasn’t traumatic for her, but rather it was the transition to motherhood that she...

In today’s episode I interview Olivia about her two very different birth stories that, in some key ways, looked set to head down the same path. It’s hard to fathom how she maintained the self determination and belief that she could birth vaginally with her second when, like her first birth, which was a cesarean, Olivia’s second baby remained very high, not seemingly keen or able to drop into her pelvis, and she was in early labour for many, many days with very little sleep. Olivia’s story of...

Today I dive into a passionate conversation with UK-based Shellie, aka The Serenity Doula. Shellie caught my attention with the Instagram reels she creates, depicting some of the many ways birthing women’s bodies and rights are undermined, and challenging a lot of mainstream narratives and maternity system practices that contribute to so much unnecessary birth trauma. We talk through the importance of understanding and respecting birthing physiology, something Shellie has a very in-depth...

Rural living saw Chloe choose a sight unseen birth centre as her birth place and she anticipated she’d do just fine, like the thousands of animals she and her man had seen giving birth on the farm. A hideous car ride during labour to what turned out to be an incredibly unappealing birth space, followed by a lack of attentive support and meconium in the waters, meant that Chloe ended up being transferred to hospital… by helicopter and without her man or midwife by her side. What is more, she...

Today’s episode is a bit of a different one and quite possibly my favourite interview to date. Tessa gave birth to her first baby just 4 months ago. I met her during her pregnancy when she did my Soulful Birth course and then she also went on to do my Healing Birth Practitioner Training in the final months before she gave birth. Tessa shares with us the path she walked to prepare herself for a truly wonderful home birth experience, with just her man, her doula and her friend present for...

Abi is Mum to 4 year old Bill, 2 year old Freya, and 8 week old Ida, living on their rural property 2.5 hours drive from the nearest hospital. Her first two births were medical affairs, involving epidurals, induction and a large postpartum haemorrhage. Her most recent birth, however, was a gentle water birth experience at home, an utterly ordinary, yet simultaneously extraordinary occasion.  Abi shares with us the journey she went on to confidently prepare for a rural home birth, and the...

Pregnant with her first baby in Australia, Grace did her doula training and was planning a gentle home birth. She had an epic support team who she fully trusted, but then at 36 weeks of pregnancy Grace had to make the excruciating call to move to NZ for her partner’s work.  Aside from the struggles with leaving behind her wonderful home birth midwife and having to find a new match, Grace was also met with a few other challenges during her labour, the key one being a swollen lip of cervix and...

Donna takes us on quite the journey, vulnerably sharing the stories of her two very different birth experiences. Her first birth was a harrowing time, fraught with abandonment, labouring in a motel room, meconium stained waters, a terrifying hospital transfer, exhaustion, a delayed epidural, and then finally culminating in a cesarean section. In stark contrast, Donna’s second was an incredibly empowering, healing and triumphant water birth at home. It’s quite something to imagine Donna...

In this episode I speak with Aroha and her partner, Tihikura, about the home births of their two children, 5 year old Te Rangimoeke and 4 month old Rangiāniwaniwa. We hear about the challenges of having a long labour, including the influence of other people and their energies within the birth space, as well as a sense of abandonment when labour dragged on. Within the conversation, a lot of Māori words and practices are shared. I have included many of the words and their definitions in the...

Today’s guest, Sarah, vulnerably shares about the various struggles and traumas associated with her Mothering journey, including horrific Hyperemesis in her first pregnancy, numerous ultrasound scans which involved a lot of professional misconduct and needless fear mongering, being medicated for perinatal depression, feeling completely disconnected from her baby girl, amongst other medically managed challenges.  She talks us through the grief and rage that resulted from her first birth and...

Chelsea is a young mum of two littlies, Bindi and Wolf, and has another bub blossoming in her womb. Although she had hopes for a birthing centre water birth with her first, like so many, Chelsea found herself pushed down an interventionist path that culminated in a ceserean. In this episode of the podcast, Chelsea vulnerably shares the impacts that this experience had on her and how determined she was to ensure her next birth was a more gentle and respectful experience. Her birth with Wolf...

Elsie is the host of the Birthing at Home podcast, a mission that was inspired after the empowering home birth of her second baby. Both of Elsie’s children were born at home, but not all home births are created equal, and in this podcast episode she shares with us the various ways she was negatively impacted during her first birth, comparing them to the ways she stood in her power in her second. We also discuss medicalised midwifery training, as Elsie was once a student midwife herself, and...

Kate’s story is a bit of a different one to those that are typically shared on here, not because she didn’t have a traumatic first birth, she did, and not because she didn’t have a healing next birth experience, she did. But, Kate’s second birth went nothing like the peaceful home birth she had hoped for and dreamed about.  Thankfully, the self work and birth preparation that she did during her second pregnancy, part of which involved us working together, meant that Kate continued to...

Nicola is Mum to 3 year old Skye and 6 week old Luca. Her first birth was a traumatic 5 day long ordeal that involved a posterior baby, an excruciating induction of labour, and an epidural that took far too long to be administered. During her next pregnancy, Nicola sought my support to unravel her trauma and to make plans for a healing birth experience. She talks us through how that 1:1 guidance encouraged her to have an empowering home birth, despite it being another long, posterior labour....

This episode is a deeply vulnerable share which delves into all the taboo topics surrounding birth and new motherhood. Poppy, a home birthing mother of two, one of which was a free birth, speaks frankly about herpes, about miscarriage, about radical responsibility, about being confronted with the potential for death in birth, about vaginal wall prolapse, about healing ourselves, and about postpartum sex. We leave no stone unturned with this wildly honest conversation that gets right to the...

Pippa is Mum to 5 year old Greta, whose planned home birth ended in cesarean, and 8 month old Flora, whose empowering home birth involved an unexpectedly healing postpartum transfer to hospital due to a third degree tear.  In this episode, Pippa shares various dimensions of the healing that becoming a mum has encouraged her to delve into. She talks about how peeling away the layers of the mother wound has supported her to find her voice and be her authentic self, and she shares the journey...

As humans we are also mammals, and like all other mammals, evolution has ensured that we are well equipped to birth in safe and rewarding ways with a very rare need for outside interference. In fact, disturbing our innate birth design in the countless ways us humans do, often creates a lot more difficulties and harm than safety.  Today’s podcast guest, Lindsay Askins, knows a lot about mammalian birth. She shares with us how her decade long experience as a vet tech, witnessing untold births...