Healing Birth with Carla

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 support.

If, as you listen to Tessa’s story, you feel inspired to either join my Soulful Birth course or train with me to become a certified Healing Birth practitioner, be sure to click on the relevant link at the bottom of the show notes. Both courses are run multiple times throughout the year so it doesn’t matter when you are tuning into this episode there’s bound to be a course offered in the not-too-distant future.

But for now, let me grace your ears with this beautifully inspiring story of courage, trust, wisdom and growth, and oodles of delicious love.

Also discussed:

* medical trauma related to pandemic

* tuning into and trusting her intuition

* contemplating the potential for death in birth

* taking responsibility for the things that are within our control regarding birth

* partner’s role in free birth

* unpacking of conditioned fears surrounding birth

* guided meditations, journaling, somatic tools

* vulnerability of first latching baby at breast

* managing visitors in early postpartum

* vaginal tear - supporting the natural healing process

You can follow Tessa on her Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/tessaleighpitt/

Information on my (Carla's) group Soulful Birth course: https://www.healingbirth.co.nz/soulfulbirthgroup And on my 1:1 Soulful Birth For You offerings: https://www.healingbirth.co.nz/soulfulbirthforyou

More information on my Healing Birth Practitioner Training course: https://www.healingbirth.co.nz/hb-practitioner-training

Check out other content I have created on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@healingbirth and on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/healing.birth/

Tessa's doula, Alexa (who has also done my Healing Birth Practitioner Training), is based in Hastings NZ. Here's her website: https://www.alexadoulaphotography.co.nz/

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 buzz of ordinary delights like climbing into bed together as a family after a wondrous birth at day break. 

Also discussed in this episode:

Learn about Carla's Soulful Birth course here: https://www.healingbirth.co.nz/birthprep

Listen to Carla talk about birth and birth trauma related topics on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@healingbirth

Follow Carla on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/healing.birth/

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 having the near impossible instruction to stop pushing. Not long thereafter, Grace succumbed to a hospital transfer, followed by an epidural and then a c section.

The biggest struggle was yet to be faced though. It makes heartbreaking listening, hearing Grace describe the trauma she was met with as a new mum dealing with a low milk supply, a lack of bond with her baby, and isolation during Covid lockdowns in a town where she knew no one. Being advised that her baby required a formula top-up at 3 days of age, culminated in massive breastfeeding hurdles for the next five months.

Her next birth was an entirely different experience, as was her breastfeeding journey. Hear how Grace navigated her healing and prepared for an empowering home birth.

Also included in this episode:

* stretch & sweep

* 42+ week pregnancy

* deflexed head

* triple feeding (pumping)

* nipple shields

* doula care

* PPH

* birth debrief

Visit Grace's website to learn more about her work: https://www.modernvillage.co.nz/

Follow her work on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/modern.village/

Find out about my (Carla's) Healing Birth Practitioner Training programme: https://www.healingbirth.co.nz/hb-practitioner-training

Did you know I now have a Healing Birth YouTube channel. Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/@healingbirth

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 having gone from the devastating fall-out of her first birth, including a deep sense of failure and confusion surrounding it all, PTSD and relationship struggles, to feeling strong in her conviction that she could, and would, birth her next baby at home. She shares with us the various supports and tools she utilised to begin healing and to ready herself to fully embrace her power and wisdom as a Mother and as a birthing woman.

Also included in this episode:

* Unsupportive vs supportive and respectful midwifery care

* TENS

* Doula support

* Hypnobirthing

* Posterior baby

* Complications with living rurally

* Inability to communicate or think during labour

* Counselling support

* NZ College of Midwives Resolutions process

* Miscarriage

* VBAC course

Donna forgot to mention in her story that she found Havening a really helpful therapeutic tool for managing her PTSD symptoms.

My (Carla's) Healing Birth work...

Donna had a 1:1 Unravelling Your Trauma session with me. For more information on these and other healing services I offer, click here: https://www.healingbirth.co.nz/healing

And the Soulful Birth course that Donna participated in is an 8 weeks long holistic birth and postpartum preparation course that is held online. I also now offer personalised 1:1 Soulful Birth For You options (which include a gorgeous journal that I have created). To find out more about both of these services, click here: https://www.healingbirth.co.nz/birthprep

You can also access a lot of free information and guidance from me via my new YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@healingbirth

Donna's doula was Lily. You can connect with Lily via Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lilythedoula/

The Havening therapy that Donna found really helpful was with Robin Youngson: https://neuroscienceofhealing.com/

Donna also had wonderful acupuncture support from Anna-Lena Tews in Hamilton, NZ: https://altews-midwifery.com/

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 shownotes, so hopefully you don’t feel too lost with the various elements of the experiences that Aroha and Tihikura describe. It brings such a unique and spiritual approach to the telling of their story and to honouring birth as the rite of passage that it is. 

We cover many moving and important themes, such as the impacts of midwifery interference in birth and the healing that can come through the debriefing process, super supportive postpartum preparations, the influence of children and siblings at births, Māori-based antenatal education, unhelpful expectations and predictions when it comes to birth, and so much more. 

Tikanga - customs, practices

Whare - house

Whenua - placenta and land

Kainga - home

Tamariki - children

Whanaunga - relatives

Tangi - cry and funeral

Hapū - pregnancy

Kōtiro - girl

Harakeke - flax

Mahitahi - working together

Atua - gods and goddesses

Wairua - spirit

Tipuna - ancestors 

Wharepaku - toilet

Tangaroa - god of the sea and fish

Rangatiratanga - chieftainship, self-determination, sovereignty

and on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hapuwananga

Contact Aroha via email: [email protected]

If you're interested in my (Carla's) Soulful Birth online antenatal series, click here for more details: https://www.healingbirth.co.nz/birthprep

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 how she chose to navigate her next pregnancy. Sarah was faced with further systemic challenges nearing the end of that pregnancy, but ultimately decided that birthing at home with a trusted midwife was the best path for her. 

Be prepared to be taken on an emotional ride as Sarah tells her story with much passion and heart.

Also discussed in this episode:

* Group B Strep - antibiotics

* Induction & epidural

* Breastfeeding challenges - torticollis & tongue tie

* Growth scans - SGA/IUGR babies

* Different types of midwifery care

* Postpartum rage

* Postnatal depression in fathers

* Psychotherapy

* Marginal cord insertion & velamentous cord insertion

* Waterbirth

To check out my (Carla's) 1:1 birth trauma support offerings visit this link: https://www.healingbirth.co.nz/healing

To follow my work on Instagram, head here: https://www.instagram.com/healing.birth/

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 took place at home with midwives present. Although Wolf’s birth was really empowering for Chelsea, she reflects on the many ways her experience was disturbed unnecessarily and the effort required of her to ensure that her birth wasn’t derailed by the impacts of the birth system that were playing out in her home.

Now, pregnant with her third, and with the insights and wisdom gained from her previous births, Chelsea is planning a wild pregnancy and free birth. Get ready to be taken on an inspirational, perhaps triggering, hopefully enlightening, and surely validating journey. So much of what Chelsea shares are experiences and feelings that many traumatised mums share with me in my work.

Also discussed in this episode:

* Induction

* Cervical lip

* C section for ‘failure to progress’

* VBAC/HBAC

* Home birth

* Impacts of choice of birth attendants

* Perineal tear

* Co-sleeping

Follow Chelsea on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chelseaearley_/

Follow me (Carla) and my work on Instragram: https://www.instagram.com/healing.birth/ or check out my website: https://www.healingbirth.co.nz/

Find out more about VBAC and Kristin's work via her MamaRise Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/mamarisedoulanz/

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 how restrictions of their licence limit the ability of midwives to honour physiological birth and a mothers’ right to choose her birth path.

Also discussed in this episode:

Follow Elsie and her work on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/birthingathome_apodcast/

Find her podcast via her LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/birthingathome_apodcast 

And find out more about me (Carla) and my work on my Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/healing.birth/ or website: https://www.healingbirth.co.nz/

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 experience her birth as empowering even when it appeared to be heading down the same harrowing path as her first.

This is such an important story to be sharing. Kate was empowered to fully own her birth experience, and she shares about the multitude of things she did to ensure that her medicalised birth was a positive and healing one.

She also opens up about how her births led her down the path of training with me to become a certified Healing Birth practitioner, something that has been a life altering experience for her. So, it’s a bit of a longer episode but definitely a worthwhile listen. Enjoy!

Also discussed in this episode:

To connect with Kate email her on [email protected]

Follow my (Carla's) work on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/healing.birth/

Or Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/healingbirthwithcarla

My website contact page: https://www.healingbirth.co.nz/contact

Details on my Healing Birth Practitioner Training course: https://www.healingbirth.co.nz/hb-practitioner-training

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. In listening to others’ stories on this podcast, Nicola hadn’t been convinced that the descriptions of women going from traumatic to healing birth experiences had been completely honest… until she walked that journey for herself. Now that she knows what is possible, she wants to share her own inspirational story.

Also included in this episode:

For information on how you can receive 1:1 birth trauma support from me (Carla), head here: https://www.healingbirth.co.nz/healing

To find out more about my Healing Birth Practitioner Training programme, click here: https://www.healingbirth.co.nz/hb-practitioner-training

And to access my free Understanding Birth Trauma Basics course, click here: https://www.healingbirth.co.nz/understanding-birth-trauma-basics-course