Healing Birth

When today's guest became pregnant with her long-awaited first baby, she placed her trust in a physician who came highly recommended and was well respected in her community. Throughout her pregnancy, she had no reason to question that trust.

But when she made a decision at the end of pregnancy about where she wanted to give birth that her doctor disagreed with, everything changed.

What followed during the birth of her baby was a profound violation of her bodily autonomy, leaving her feeling betrayed, powerless, and traumatized by the very person she had trusted to care for her.

This is a difficult story to hear, but an important one to tell.

Today's guest has chosen to share her story anonymously, both to protect her privacy and to speak openly about an experience that left her feeling profoundly violated and betrayed.

Despite her efforts to seek accountability, justice has remained out of reach. As she shared with me, telling her story publicly may be the closest thing to justice she will ever receive.

And so, today, we make space for her voice.

Content Note: This episode contains a firsthand account of a serious violation of bodily autonomy during childbirth. Please listen with care and discretion, particularly if you are currently pregnant or preparing for birth.

Below are a couple of my personal favorite resources for victims of obstetric violence:

Birth Monopoly

How to Heal A Bad 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 [email protected]

Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard

Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto

Growing up in Brazil, where cesarean birth is extraordinarily common, Sofia is encouraged by a growing movement of women seeking to reclaim their birth experiences and rediscover the beauty of physiological birth.

After a difficult first birth that included two days of labor, an episiotomy, and a NICU stay for her baby, Sofia leaned on the wisdom of her sister, a nurse midwife living in Brazil, to help her process and heal from the experience.

During her second pregnancy, Sofia became intentional about the thoughts and beliefs she was bringing into birth. Through a daily practice of gratitude, positive birth affirmations, and scripture, she began replacing fear with confidence, reminding herself, "I can do hard things. I am strong. God will be there with me."

When her sister flew in from Brazil just two weeks before her due date, Sofia hoped more than anything that her baby would arrive while she was there. And as fate would have it, labor began with just enough time for her sister to create the peaceful, intimate birth environment Sofia had been envisioning.

What was meant to be another hospital birth unfolded into an unexpectedly beautiful homebirth, with Sofia welcoming her baby in the shower, supported by the very woman who had helped her rediscover her trust in birth.

This is a powerful story about the words we speak over ourselves, the influence of our beliefs, and just how transformative a positive birth experience can be.

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 [email protected]

Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard

Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto

This week's guest shares the remarkable evolution of her six birth stories, from fighting to have her wishes respected in the hospital, to discovering just how beautiful and transformative birth could be at home.

After advocating fiercely for herself throughout her first hospital birth, she was left deeply affected by the way she was treated. Her second birth brought an unwanted induction and an experience so difficult that the postpartum depression that followed clouded much of her memory of her son's infancy.

By her third pregnancy, she knew she needed something different. She chose the care of a midwife, first in the hospital, and eventually made the leap to homebirth with her fourth baby. That experience changed everything. For the first time, birth wasn't something to endure or recover from. It was beautiful, empowering, and transformative, not only for her, but for her husband as well.

She went on to welcome two more babies at home, and after the birth of her sixth, her midwife encouraged her to consider becoming a birthworker herself.

Today, she has the privilege of attending other women as they give birth, a calling born from her own journey of discovering just how profoundly different birth can be when a woman feels safe, supported, and respected.

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 [email protected]

Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard

Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto

In Part One of Alayna's story, we left off as she made the difficult decision to go to the hospital after developing clear signs of preeclampsia at the end of her pregnancy. As she had been planning to freebirth, she arrived with no record of prenatal care and ultimately experienced a failed induction followed by a cesarean, the last way she had imagined welcoming her baby.

But Alayna's story is about so much more than the way her baby was born.

In Part Two, she shares with incredible vulnerability about the many layers of grief that followed: being the last person to hold her baby, never seeing her placenta, and coming home to the untouched birth pool, and birth affirmations that had been waiting for a completely different birth.

She also speaks honestly about the loneliness and disconnection she experienced afterward, including the painful thought, "I know she's mine, but I don't feel it yet," and why she couldn't bring herself to share her birth story for two months.

Alayna is still healing. At the time of our recording, she only recently has she begun to feel that she holds the whole story of her birth, rather than scattered pieces of an experience she was still trying to understand. Together, we talk about grief, PTSD, the small mercies she held onto along the way, and how this experience is shaping, but not yet defining, the choices she may make in a future pregnancy.

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 [email protected]

Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard

Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto

Alayna's journey to motherhood began with two years of trying to conceive, a season filled with hope, disappointment, and the emotional rollercoaster of waiting for the pregnancy she wanted so deeply.

When she finally became pregnant, she thrived in those early months and began preparing for the freebirth she envisioned. But halfway through her pregnancy, life changed dramatically. Her husband was seriously injured in a car accident, leaving him unable to work and Alayna carrying the financial weight of their family while running her own chiropractic practice.

As the stress mounted, so did changes in her body. Swelling increased, sleep became nearly impossible, and her blood pressure began to rise. By 38 weeks, symptoms of preeclampsia had become too significant to ignore.

In Part One of Alayna's story, we talk about the long road to becoming pregnant, the pregnancy she had hoped for, and the particular kind of heartbreak that comes when you feel your carefully considered birth plans slipping away. For Alayna, it meant confronting the realization that she may have to go to the one place she desperately did not want to give birth: the hospital.

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 [email protected]

Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard

Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto

After going into labor unexpectedly at just 35 weeks with her first baby, Hannah's plans for a midwife-assisted homebirth quickly turned into a hospital transfer and a traumatic experience that left her feeling deeply let down by the very system of support she had trusted.

She went on to freebirth her next two babies at home, experiences she remains incredibly grateful for. But looking back, Hannah can also see how her choice to birth without professional support was shaped, at least in part, by what she had experienced the first time around.

By her fourth pregnancy, something had shifted. She no longer felt like she needed to do it all on her own. She wanted support, and for the first time since her first birth, she felt ready to invite a midwife back into her birth space.

She experienced weeks of exhausting, mind-bending prodromal labor before Hannah finally welcomed her fourth baby peacefully at home, surrounded by her midwife and supportive friends.

This is a story about much more than one homebirth. It's about the ways our previous birth experiences shape the choices we make, the difference between choosing independence and feeling like we have no other choice, and Hannah's journey toward healing her relationship with midwifery and allowing herself to be supported again.

You can listen to both of Hannah's powerful, previous birth stories here:

Trusing Birth at 35 Weeks

A (Surprise!) Breech Freebirth

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 [email protected]

Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard

Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto

As the oldest of 13 children, nearly all of whom were born at home, Evelyn grew up with homebirth as her normal. Naturally, when she became pregnant with her first baby, she planned to give birth at home, too.

But at 36.5 weeks, a violent case of food poisoning unexpectedly sent her into labor, just days before she would have reached the 37-week cutoff for a midwife-attended homebirth. Suddenly thrust into the hospital system without a plan in place, Evelyn experienced a birth she describes as traumatic, followed by feeding challenges that made an already difficult transition into motherhood even harder.

Then, just three months postpartum, Evelyn discovered she was pregnant again.

Coming to terms with another pregnancy so soon was difficult, especially while she was still carrying the trauma of her first birth in her body. Throughout her second pregnancy, Evelyn intentionally worked to somatically process and release what she had experienced, while preparing for the very different birth she hoped was possible.

This time, she gave birth at a birth center in a peaceful, fast, and deeply healing experience.

Evelyn's story is a beautiful example of how profoundly different two births can be, and how healing can happen when we give ourselves the space to process what came before and step into birth again with new support, trust, and possibility.

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 [email protected]

Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard

Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto

Today's guest reached out to me just after welcoming her fifth baby at home, in what she described as a deeply healing birth.

Her journey to this birth was shaped by four very different experiences before it, including a hospital birth, two previous homebirths and a traumatic freebirth with her fourth baby. Looking back, she doesn't blame freebirth itself for what happened. Instead, she recognizes that there were moments when she needed support and didn't seek it, an experience that profoundly changed the way she approached birth the next time around.

For her fifth baby, she chose to birth at home again, this time with trusted support around her. What unfolded was the beautiful, attended homebirth she had hoped for and an experience that helped bring healing to the birth that came before it.

In this episode, she shares what her five births have taught her about intuition, support, and knowing when to reach for help. She reflects on why she still believes in the beauty of freebirth while also recognizing that, sometimes, having the right person beside you can be lifesaving.

Most of all, her story is a reminder that healing doesn't require us to erase or reject the births that came before. Each experience can shape us, teach us, and become part of the mothers we are becoming.

Find Desirae on Instagram @womb.2.grow

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 [email protected]

Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard

Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto

Julia was planning to give birth at a birth center throughout her pregnancy, but at 37 weeks, she learned that it was closing its doors. With little time to make a new plan, she and her husband chose to transfer their care to a home birth midwife, a decision that would profoundly shape the way their son's birth unfolded.

During labor, Julia experienced an unusual contraction pattern, with contractions coming close together and then unexpectedly spacing back out. In a hospital setting, this pattern may have been interpreted as labor failing to progress and prompted intervention. Instead, Julia was given the time and space to labor patiently, eventually welcoming her son at home after nearly three hours of pushing.

After he was born, they discovered that he had an exceptionally short umbilical cord, offering a remarkable explanation for the unusual rhythm of her labor. Julia's story is a beautiful reminder of the inherent wisdom of the birth process: that what appears to be "wrong" or dysfunctional from the outside may sometimes be the body adapting to the unique circumstances of a particular mother and baby. Her experience invites us to wonder what birth may be accomplishing when it is given the time and space to unfold in its own way.

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 [email protected]

Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard

Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto

After spending years supporting families as a doula, Nina Spears had witnessed birth in hospitals, birth centers, and homes. So when it came time to welcome her own babies into the world, she made a choice that surprised many: she chose to give birth at home.

In this episode, Nina shares her own birth story, why home birth felt like the right path after years of witnessing birth in so many different settings, and what becoming a mother taught her that no amount of professional experience could.

Our conversation then turns to the transition into motherhood. Drawing from decades of experience as a doula, childbirth educator, founder of The Baby Chick, and now author, Nina reflects on a pattern she's seen again and again: women often spend months preparing for labor, yet many still enter postpartum feeling emotionally overwhelmed and underprepared.

We discuss:

• What mothers commonly wish they had prioritized before birth and postpartum

• The hidden mental load that often begins during pregnancy

• How to choose a provider and birth setting that aligns with your values

• Practical ways to prepare emotionally for the postpartum season

Whether you're expecting your first baby or welcoming another, this conversation offers both a deeply personal birth story and practical wisdom for preparing not just for birth, but for the life-changing transition into motherhood.

Nina also shares insights from her new book, The Baby Chick Guide to Positive Pregnancy, a resource designed to help women feel informed, confident, and emotionally supported throughout pregnancy, birth, and postpartum.

Find Nina @thebabychick and www.baby-chick.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 [email protected]

Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard

Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto