So your bundle of joy is finally here, you did all the research to purchase the best pram, the latest carseat, you have been reading every mummy blog out there – your hubby/partner/boyfriend came to some lamaze classes, put the cot together, painted the nursery and even with all this we feel minimally prepared for what parenthood throws us! Women are “generally” intrinsically more nurturing and knowledgeable about catering to the needs of a new human, but even so there is a lot of on the job learning! So now lets cut to darling daddy and look at how much support is out there for new dad ..read more

What do you believe about birth?  My story of finding more meaning in birth planning.   Five years ago, I created a birth plan that was more steeped in fear than in the ink with which it was written. At the time of my daughter’s birth, I had been a doula for four years.  I had seen birth at its most magically mundane, most physiologically “normal,” and I had also witnessed deeply traumatizing birth experiences that I wore, unprocessed, like a dark cloak over my pregnant body. My birth plan reflected these experiences, and, like those of so many other birthing women I’ve support ..read more

  I have not publicly shared my birth story of Baby Joy with most of my friends and family because I didn’t want them to think of her differently. It is not a pretty story and I didn’t want their discomfort with my pain to diminish the joy that I also felt in finding my strength to survive it. October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month and will forever be the month that I am even more aware of all of the heartbreak in this world. My personal heartbreak led me on a path of discovering how to offer hope in times of despair. Every loss that I am able to offer support through makes ..read more

I need to provide a little background information for this birth story so please put on the kettle and relax with a hot beverage! My second pregnancy was going along nicely and I was relatively lucky with symptoms. I had only a slight amount of nausea and back pain throughout. We had genetic testing done at 10 weeks and found our we were having a girl; we would have a son and a daughter! We had the gender confirmed during the 20 week ultrasound and baby was looking healthy. I went in to see my midwife for my routine 38 week check up. I was in a midwife based program where I had my own ap ..read more

We found out we were pregnant in the middle of a hot and dry summer. Our pregnancy was welcomed by our family of four and we anxiously awaited our newest addition. This pregnancy came with some mixed emotions for me, for several reasons, but the most forefront being that this was likely going to be our last pregnancy – and I desperately wanted to end our birthing days in the comfort of our own home. For those who are not familiar with our previous births, you can read about them here: Mila’s Birth Part 1 Mila’s Birth Part 2 Lillian’s Birth I had known for some time that if we had a successf ..read more

It’s taken me 4 month to write this, I have had no idea where to start.  I have struggled with putting my story out there because honestly, it is a very successful birthing story and I would hate to be perceived to be bragging. All the birth stories I have read are mostly about over coming challenges and adversity during the birth, whereas for me the hardest thing I’ve done was this pregnancy.    I have given myself a lot of time to reflect on the experience as a whole and what was “rockstar” about it. Perception is a wonderful tool and as cliché as it could ever soun ..read more

The story of my home VBAC starts with the story of my csection. I was due on October 10, 2014 with our baby girl. I was eager, impatient, and ready to meet her face to face. October 10th passed by without even a faint sign of labor. My labor for Leona began on October 14th, around 4am, waking me from a dead sleep. By 7am, we were heading to the hospital an hour away. When I arrived to the hospital room around 8:30am, the OB promptly checked my cervix and announced “7cm, 100%. -2 station, and I just broke your waters to speed this up”. Didn’t ask my permission, didn’t warn me, nothing. This was ..read more

  On the evening of the 31st of May, I was having a bath, burning my oils, relaxing to my birth music and practicing envisioning my birth. In my head, I could see myself in a bath surrounded by candles, bringing my baby up out of the water, on to my chest, tears strolling down my face, and I could feel the love, and see my husbands face near me, overwhelmed with love. This was my vision. This was my birth. I had read the books, learnt about the hormones, and I had never felt so strong in my life. Pregnancy bought out everything I had never felt about myself as a woman. I LOVED my body. I ..read more