As I prepare to welcome my second child into this world, this episode feels especially appropriate and a good one to temporarily sign off with. Renee Morrison, a mother to two beautiful children earth side, entrepreneur, and creator shares her birthing stories – one at a birth center and one at home. Get ready for a rich and inspiring 2-hour journey as we speak about birthing life, loss, grief, and gratitude and how all of it has informed the personal work Renee does within herself and thus the way she mothers and nurtures her children and family.

Samara is a 42-year-old mother of 4, yoga instructor and Zumba teacher. She gave birth to all of her children at home with her youngest just 9 months ago. In addition to co-managed care with an OB-GYN and her midwife, Samara’s trust in her body’s strength, wisdom and capabilities trumped all concerns she heard around pregnancy over 35. However, like every birthing story, there’s a turn in ‘ the labyrinth’ one doesn’t expect and even for a seasoned mama, Samara ultimately had to do what every birthing person has to do — surrender to the journey.

Jenna discusses the parallel experiences of pregnancy and a pandemic - and the feelings of living through both at the same time. She shares her journey of choosing her birthing team and eventually a birth center setting, her physiologic and fast birthing story and lastly the surprise of suffering from anxiety turned insomnia in the weeks and months after giving birth.

When second time labor and births are more challenging than the first, it can be jarring and confusing, especially when the first experience was so fast towards the end of labor, that your baby was known as “Hallway Harrison” at the birth center where he was born. Elizabeth and Doug share the story of their home birth for their second son and the great surprise of having to work so much harder – emotionally and physically – for the birthing experience they had before. In the early days postpartum, Elizabeth came to find out why her labor was so challenging, the long-haul road to recovery and moving through it all at the start of a global pandemic.

Ally is a mother of two and shares her experience of having an HBAC – Home Birth After Cesarean. In the US, more and more birthing folks with a prior cesarean are seeking out home birth in response to a denial of hospital-based care for a VBAC (aka vaginal birth after cesarean), to avoid having an unnecessary cesarean and lastly to avoid repeating a previously traumatic experience in the hospital. In Ally’s case it was for all of these reasons. She discusses her first birthing experience, the postpartum grief and healing that took place and the courage to do it again in a way that felt true to her motherly and bodily instincts.

It’s the middle of March and Cianna is 35 weeks pregnant with a plan to give birth in the hospital. Meanwhile, the Coronavirus pandemic has spread to the US, and the mandated lock down has begun. As a Black presenting Mexican woman, she is aware of her risks of birthing in a hospital simply because of the way she looks. Now compounded by the risk of COVID-19, Cianna and her husband felt it was safer for her to birth at home – something in fact they both had always desired. It was only the beginning of surrendering to the journey and its many twists and turns ahead.

For Megan’s first child, she planned to give birth in a birth center with her husband, doula and team of midwives. However, as is the nature of parenthood, the best laid plans can often go awry. In early labor, Megan transferred to the hospital where she had an unmedicated vaginal delivery. Her early postpartum phase was difficult – riddled with anxiety, sleep deprivation and feelings of grief, as she mourned the loss of her pre-baby self. Much of this she felt had to do with a lack of preparation and support for this time with a newborn. A little over a year later and expecting her second child, Megan was determined to prepare as best she possibly could for the birthing experience she had always wanted.

Elizabeth is 8 weeks postpartum and already wears many hats – a new mother to Francesca, loving partner to Priscilla and back to work as a somatic sex therapist to her now virtual patients. We talk about her experiences of choosing reciprocal IVF, having a home birth, helping clients regain sexuality in the postpartum phase and what social distancing has been like with her newborn baby.

Ruby was one of the “lucky” ones. It took no effort to get pregnant, she felt great in her pregnancy and the birth was relatively easy. But the immediate postpartum and weeks thereafter was really when she went into “labor”, facing the challenges that helped her transform into a mother.

Britta Bushnell is a renowned childbirth educator and doula as well as a wife, mother of two, and now author of her first book – Transformed By Birth. She has a PhD in mythology which she has brilliantly woven into her birth preparation series – Embodica. Her class is unique in that it’s less about the mechanics of birth and more about the greater transformation that takes place when becoming parents – no matter where or how you give birth. Together, we talk about birth as a rite of passage and how to keep going on the journey when your intentions, capabilities, and ideologies are tested.