In today's episode we're talking to two-time mom Melissa Thormahlen, about the home birth of her son Tyler. Melissa's home birth story is a beautiful example of trust and surrender to the process of childbirth.

Melissa Thormahlen knows how to give me “all the feels.” I knew her story would impact many when her first email to me about her birth story had me tearing up.

She experienced most of her birthing experience at home with her first baby Emeline, before transferring to a hospital and having a beautiful birth.

For Tyler, baby number 2, she knew she wanted to go for a home birth again because she trusted her body and her amazing birth team.

In Tyler’s birth story, Melissa explains the trust and surrender to the process. She also took time to be close and intimate with her husband, Paul in the time before active labor.

When baby Tyler was born in the bathtub after a strong surge that took everyone by surprise she exclaimed, “I DID IT!”

We even get to hear from baby Tyler as he chimes in a couple of times. We love when the babies make little appearances, they’re the reason we’ve come together to chat after all!

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Everything is energy - this is a principle that Matthew and I became aware of a few years ago and since then have used it to guide our lives. How we create and nurture our relationships, our businesses and how we make decisions in our lives have all been influenced. And especially our home birth journey.

Essentially when it comes to planning your home birth, it serves you well to drop judgements and be at peace with what is.

It’s also a great idea to think about the energy you have around you during your pregnancy and birth. This includes (but is not limited to) to physical environments you place yourself in, the people you hang around, the information, entertainment and food you ingest, and even down to the thoughts and emotions you have.

Pregnancy can be a particularly vulnerable time, so it’s important to be mindful of what you allow to enter your own energy field.

One way to think about it is to evaluate your ART form. In other words, your ACTIONS, RELATIONSHIPS and THOUGHTS. How is the energy of all of these things playing a part in your home birth experience?

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In today's episode we have another home birth story for you, this time from Megan Henebstreit.

Megan Hebenstreit is a straight shooter - she’s very real and super clear about her decision to go with home birth and how she experienced it.

She’s also known from a younger age that she was interested in home birth - something Matthew and I haven’t heard very often in our conversations with women and families. So that’s really exciting and inspiring!

One of the biggest things you get from Megan when you hear her birth stories is that birth has been so empowering for her. You also get to hear the difference in experience with her two births. One was relatively quiet, and in the other she thought her body was going to explode! Just goes to show how no birth story is the same, even for the same woman.

Megan’s honest story covers all manners of things many who choose home birth encounter like: resistance from family, conversations around the female body and its ability to know what it’s doing, and the physical experiences of a challenging pregnancy that make birth seem like “a breeze.”

Megan lives in Austin, Texas with her husband Ian and her two daughters, Amelia and Macy.

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How do you get your space ready for your home birth?

In this episode we’re talking about ways in which you can prepare the physical space (i.e. your home) for your home birth.

For our home birth, Matthew and I were very intentional in wanting to create a peaceful, comfortable, relaxing space to welcome Maya into the world. We were also gifted with incredibly fabulous things like a home cleaning and a “homebirth space setting” ceremony, which really helped create the most amazing environment for birth.

So in this episode we share with you all the things that worked for us and some ideas to help make your home birth space as magical as it can be.

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In today's episode we're talking to Anne Margolis - Certified and Licensed Home Birth Midwife, Licensed OB/GYN nurse practitioner, practicing prenatal yogi, home birth expert and creator of HomeSweetHomeBirth.com.

Anne believes in a healthy woman’s innate ability to give birth normally, naturally and with pleasure despite the challenges. She is devoted to protecting undisturbed physiological labor and birth, and, after our conversation, you'll see that she is a wealth of knowledge and resources!

It’s really exciting when things you put out into the Universe come together. That’s how I feel about this episode.

I had been following Anne Margolis of Home Sweet Home Birth for a while. I love the work she does and her influence of empowering women around holistic birth. With over 21 years of experience as a home birth midwife, more certifications than I have fingers, knowledge in all things pregnancy, birth and postpartum, and not to mention an Instagram following of over 47,000 people, it’s safe to say that Anne is a leader in the space of home birth. I knew we had to have her on the show.

When we finally connected, it’s so easy to see how Anne has touched so many lives. I could sit and listen to her talk for hours.

Anne has 4 children: 2 born in a hospital and 2 born at home (in that order). She brings the perspective of not only giving birth in a hospital, but also working in one as an obstetric nurse - an experience which oddly enough created a lot of fear for her around giving birth.

When she made the switch to midwifery and eventually opened up her own home birth practice, she describes it like “coming home.”

Anne is brilliant, personable and funny. This interview is chock-full of great quotes, tidbits of information and morsels on resources for you all to take advantage of. I say listen to this one with a notepad and pen. Listen, pause and re-listen.

It’s a great one!

Links From The Episode:

• Anne's website: HomeSweetHomeBirth.com

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In this episode we're giving you some powerful affirmations to help you prepare for your pregnancy and home birth. We have 2 affirmations for moms and 2 for dads.

We’ve talked a lot about affirmations on the show at different points in time - a little bit in our story and then in the stories of other moms, so we thought we’d create some of our own for you beautiful listeners!

I thought it would be fun to have some for both pregnancy and the birthing process. And not just for mamas - for the dads too!

This episode is a little shorter, but all the more sweeter. We both share our affirmations and a little bit on why we chose them and how they can contribute to a powerful and peaceful mindset and experience of your home birth.

We hope these affirmations serve you well or even inspire you to come up with your own!

Here are the affirmations for you to copy and use or share with others:

For Pregnancy

Sarah: I am fully connected to my body and my baby’s needs

Matthew: I anticipate our upcoming birth with joy and peace in my heart. It will unfold exactly as it should.

For Birth

Sarah: I am powerful, peaceful and fully supported as I give birth.

Matthew: I am strong. I am capable. I am intuitive. I am compassionate. I am patient. I am a parent.

Links From The Episode:

• The blog post Matthew drew inspiration for his affirmations from: Birth Affirmations for Expectant Dads and Partners

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In today's episode we're talking with Marissa Olivera, a mom of 2 from Utica, NY, with both a hospital birth story and home birth story.

Marissa experienced intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) with her first pregnancy. That, along with some early signs of labor made for a hospital birth that included a lot of intervention and fear. The way she sees it, baby Maxwell just wasn’t ready yet.

She planned for a home birth again with baby number two, Miles. With positive reinforcement from resources like Ina May Gaskin and Birth Without Fear, Marissa went into her second birth tuned in to her intuition and gut feeling (and we’re not just talking about the contractions!).

Marissa’s candor and detail with her birth stories compels you to listen and engage. She’s a great example of how to plan the birth you’re intending to create - like finding midwives even when you’re far away from a big city with more options.

We even get a little cameo from surprise guest Maxwell!

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In today's episode we're giving you nine questions to ask yourself to decide whether home birth might be an option for you and your family.

This podcast is all about providing resources, stories and empowering around the home birth conversation. We personally chose homebirth to welcome our daughter into the world, but we realize that home birth is not the best option for some families. There are so many factors to take into consideration when making your birth plans. Our number one priority with this show is to help you ask the questions, have access to the resources, and find the information to help you make the best decision for you.

This episode was inspired by an article on Fit Pregnancy called "3 Questions To Ask Yourself Before Giving Birth At Home". I read that article and immediately felt there were more things to ask, and felt inspired to record this episode. 

These are the 9 questions covered in today's podcast: 

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In today's episode we talk to mom Lindsay Bonnar about her home birth story. Lindsay planned a home birth for her first baby, but circumstances required a transfer to a birth center. Now pregnant with her second, Lindsay and her husband are planning a home birth again for the second round. 

Lindsay is another beautiful face of home birth, sharing her plans for home birth with her daughter that eventually shifted into a transfer to a birthing center.

Now pregnant with baby number two, Lindsay is planning another home birth, a decision that we are totally inspired by and know others will be as well.

For Lindsay, birth was the most spiritual experience of her life. And she talks about trusting herself and her body in such a way - it’s an amazing example to women everywhere to empower themselves to choose in alignment with what’s best for them.

Another aspect of Lindsay’s story that really resonated with me and Matthew was the role of her husband Kevin and how awesomely he showed up for the birth experience. Dads and birth partners, take notes from this one!

You can learn more about Lindsay and the resources mentioned in the show below.

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In today’s episode I’m sharing my postpartum story.

I get into the nitty gritty details of the very first postpartum stages after my home birth. I also talk about what I experienced with postnatal visits with my midwives, healing a perineal tear, breastfeeding, diastasis recti (aka ab separation), postpartum sex and more!

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