In this episode of “Military Birth Talk,” Anni welcomes back Zatha, a former Marine now living near Naples, Italy, to share her third birth story two months postpartum. She recaps her first two fast births—one at a birth center after a late referral and one unassisted soon after moving to Italy—then explains her approach to a largely non-medicalized third pregnancy focused on self-care, tracking health metrics, exercise, chiropractic care, and intensive study of birth physiology. Labor began late at night around a predicted full supermoon, progressed rapidly with her mantra “feel it, don’t fear it,” and culminated in an unassisted bathroom birth where she caught her baby herself, with her husband and mother arriving moments before. She describes an unhurried postpartum, improved recovery, starting elimination communication from birth, and encourages families to “be students of birth” to replace fear with knowledge and better advocate for themselves.

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