Dorothy Cross lives in Charleys Forest, a little over 20 minutes out of Braidwood NSW. I met Dorothy when my son was about a month old at Playgroup. We were really fortunate, as parents of young children, that someone took the initiative to organise this weekly group and give us all the opportunity to come together for chats and a play. Dorothy has also been regularly involved in the local parkrun at the Braidwood Showground and was instrumental in encouraging me to get out and about again, once those postpartum aches subsided. Dorothy is mum to three children, two born prior to moving to her rural property at Charleys Forest and then Bastien (her youngest) who was born in 2018. Bastien’s birth was a quick one. Dorothy went into labour as Anamae got off the school bus. Bastien was born a short while later at Queanbeyan hospital around quarter to 7 and Dorothy was driving her family home by 9.30pm. Living rurally makes you no stranger to travel but Dorothy definitely took the travel and distance in her stride, as she travelled to the maternity ward and back home in a single evening. Dorothy shares how, as a member of the Queanbeyan hospital’s ‘Aboriginal Maternal and Infant Health Service’ program, she was offered in home appointments with her midwife before and after Bastien’s birth. She believes that it would be phenomenal if in the future this community practice could become available to all rural birthing women and that minimising travel for pregnant women during that tight maternity check-up schedule could be achieved. I hope you enjoy listening to Dorothy’s rural birth story. I had a lot of fun talking to her. Dorothy is fantastic to chat to and I just felt like we bounced so easily as we shared in what it was like to be pregnant, birth and experience the postpartum period as rural women.

Rosie Rick lives in Majors Creek, a rural village, near Braidwood in NSW. I met Rose through our shared passion for theatre, as we collectively supported young people in Braidwood to devise performances for a local festival in 2017, but I truly got to know Rose when we met again through motherhood and shared in the first year of raising our children.

I was really lucky in my postpartum period to be with Rose, as she activated opportunities for women in town to gather together for yoga, women’s circles and would always welcome myself and others to be a part of her and Sunny’s days. Rose created the community and resources we wish were available. She was offering alternatives to the limited care options available in the postpartum period for rural women.

I hope you enjoy listening to Rose’s story. She weaves ideas together beautifully like a tapestry. During her postpartum period Rose gave expression to this new stage of life and her journey into matrescence through journaling. She studied and explored the teachings of doulas and used online communities to connect with women and their wisdoms across this distance divide.

Rose is now a Doula and Mentor. You can work with Rose through preconception, pregnancy and motherhood. She can offer support through exploring birth options and planning, and birth debriefing and postpartum.

You can connect with Rose via Instagram (@_rosierick_) and her website, where Rose shares wholeheartedly as she expresses her daily journey through motherhood with Sunny and herself:

https://www.instagram.com/_rosierick_/?hl=en

Rosie Rick:

How do you want to feel when you are in service of others? Do you give of yourself until empty? Does the assumption that you have an endless ability to be accommodating to the needs of others, make you rebel against it in destructive and addictive behaviours? Do you feel trapped?

Your love is your medicine.

I believe the birth of a mother is the birth of the healer. The healer the we all need. And how do we rise as the women the planet needs now? We have to know our own medicine, to own our own story, and to value our huge contribution. I am here to be a guide on this journey.

I work with women who are interested in using the rite of passage that is motherhood to remember her medicine, and her innate power. “