hbac

After a traumatic first birth experience that ended in a cesarean, Amber knew she would never give birth in a hospital again. She quickly conceived again, found a midwife she loved, and had a completely different experience the second time. 

In her words, this second birth not only showed her that she could do it, but that it was what she had always truly wanted. 

Be sure to check out our instagram page this week, @healingbirth, to see photos of both births. I’ve never seen a better example of Amber’s pictures saying a thousand words!

If you love this podcast, I would greatly appreciate a review on  Spotify or Apple Podcasts! 

Follow us 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 contactus@healingbirth.net

Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net

Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard

Transition music is Cool Cats by Smith the Mister

In this weeks episode, Daniella shares her story of  an incredibly traumatic c-section with her first child, the two miscarriages that followed and then her reasons behind deciding to have a home VBAC when she became pregnant again.  

This heartwarming story is one that so many of you may relate to. Daniella tells of how the work she did to learn as much as she could in preparation for this recent birth, is what made the difference and helped her to succeed. 

The trust she built in her capability, and the way she strongly advocated for what she wanted despite pushback from the maternity services, enabled her to get the support she deserved. 

This is a fabulous story that you can share far and wide to help others learn the tips that Daniella has to offer. 

You can follow Daniella @bethebossintl

If you would like to buy a copy of either of the books that accompany this podcast please go to your online bookseller or visit Amazon:-

Labour of Love - The Ultimate Guide to Being a Birth Partner - click here:-https://bit.ly/Labouroflove

The Art of Giving Birth - Five Key Physiological Principles - https://amzn.to/3EGh9df

Pregnancy Journal for 'The Art of Giving Birth'
- Black and White version https://amzn.to/3CvJXmO

Pregnancy Journal for 'The Art of Giving Birth'
- Colour version https://amzn.to/3GknbPF

You can find all my classes and courses on my website - www.sallyannberesford.co.uk

Follow me on Instagram @theultimatebirthpartner

Book a 1-2-1 session with Sallyann - https://linktr.ee/SallyannBeresford

Please remember that the information shared with you in this episode is solely based on my own personal experiences as a doula and the private opinions of my guests, based on their own experiences. Any recommendations made may not be suitable for all listeners, so you should always do your own research before making decisions.

Neena’s first baby was breech at term, so she was given no other option but a planned cesarean. When she conceived again, she knew she wanted a VBAC, but even at her local “VBAC-friendly” practice, she was coerced, gaslit, and shamed, at nearly every interaction with them.

Neena’s story an excellent example of how even a highly informed, confident, and, perhaps most importantly, perfectly healthy woman can end up with medical interventions and birth outcomes that are unnecessary and traumatic.

This is, though, ultimately, not a victim story, but a power story. There is power in how hard she fought. There is power in her healing journey. And so much power in the realizations she came to after this birth experience about herself.

This is part one of her story, tune in next week for part two!

Follow Neena @greatnorthpostpartum

Do you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! Email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.

You can find our new e-book, “Did I Really Need a C-Section?” on our website at www.healingbirth.net/shop

Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard

Transition music:  Free by KV

After a birth with many interventions, ending in a cesarean, Tamika’s first baby spent a harrowing time in the NICU.

When enough time had passed for Tamika to process this experience and heal, she was able to release the heavy weight of guilt she carried.

With a deeper trust in her body, she chose to conceive again and gave birth to her second baby, at 43 weeks, in the comfort of her own home.

Do you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! Email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.

Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard

Transition music: oceanic space by Aryll

Kaylee’s first birth experience ended in a cesarean, after having been dropped by her midwives’ care for going over 40 weeks. She partially credits the events of 2020 as being a huge awakening for her, so when she became pregnant again she knew she no longer wanted to engage with the medical system, and planned a free birth.

When she went into labor with that baby, what transpired was a six day long ordeal, with many twists and turns, reasons and opportunities to give up, but she never did.

This is officially the wildest story I’ve ever shared - and that’s saying something!

Here is a link to Kaylee’s YouTube channel and birth video!

https://youtu.be/rbKgHg9Dz8o

You can follow Kaylee on IG @kreativekay_wilson

Do you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! Email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.

Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard

Transition music: Chill Night by Amine Maxwell & MICHAL

After two hospital births, Danielle decided she wanted her third to be born at home. However, she happened to live in one of the five (now four) states which do not allow licensed midwives to attend VBAC births at home.

Listen to find out how she navigated this, and if she got her home birth!

Danielle is also a fellow podcaster. You can find her show @birthjourneyspodcast

Do you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! Email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.

Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard

Transition music: Cool Cats by Smith the Mister

We had a special warm hearted conversation this week in honor of Mother’s Day! We talk about our biggest lessons from motherhood so far: trusting our intuition and learning to surrender. Jess shares how her home birth taught her to listen to her intuition and Jannelle gets into how letting go of control and surrendering is a daily practice. We also take a sweet moment to tell each other “I think you are a great mom because…”

Music by Eavesdrop https://eavesdropband.com/

Photography by Danielle Vengrove https://www.daniellevengrove.com/

Only in recent years has there finally been a recognition that birth trauma, affecting about one in three women in most Western countries (I would argue that number is much higher), has profoundly deleterious effects on a mother’s mental health. But to my knowledge, there is no formal study or discussion about how traumatic births can affect our babies, who experience the birth right along with us.

My guest Amber shares the dots she connected between the traumatic birth of her second daughter, and the unique challenges that daughter has experienced, referencing the brilliant work of author and researcher Gabor Mate.

I learned so much from the conversation about how to support my own child, who experienced a very similar birth as Amber’s.

Amber is a former English teacher with Teach For America and a founding staff member of an all-girls charter school in Saint Paul, MN. She left her career to pursue writing alongside caring for her children full-time. She has three daughters and loves to think and talk deeply about motherhood, womanhood, parenting, and personal growth.

Amber is on Instagram @radical.homemaker. She blogs at Alternativegrace.com, and is planning to start her own Substack soon.

Here is a link to Gabor Mate’s Scattered, which we discuss in this episode.

Use the link below to purchase amazing CBD products from Puffs for the Public. They are offering 25% off your order when you use the coupon code “healingbirth” (all one word).

Thank you for helping to support the show!

LINK TO PURCHASE

Do you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! Email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net.

Every now and then a story takes a twist I am not expecting during the interview - and it always makes for an even better story than the one I thought I would hear! This episode is a perfect example of that.

Rebecca shares two birth stories with us. First, a traumatic, unnecessarian (major kudos to whoever coined that term), and a redemptive, led by faith freebirth.

It is the extraordinary experiences around that second birth that gets us into talking about spiritual warfare, the spirit realm, and the truth that birth is designed to be a holy experience.

Check out Rebecca’s instagram for many beautiful reels that show images of her births @theradiantmission

If you have a story you’d like to share on the podcast, I’d love to hear from you. Send me a note at the contact page at www.healingbirth.net!

You can support the podcast on Patreon! www.patreon.com/healingbirth

www.healingbirth.net

After two pretty straightforward births, Amy’s third birth resulted in a traumatic, unplanned cesarean, where she experienced obstetric violence, PTSD, and postpartum depression and anxiety.

Amy had a lot a trauma from childhood come up for her after this birth. She says that the experience made her second guess everything she believed about the medical system, and even her beliefs about God.

After that birth, and two losses, Amy had her fourth baby at home.

Amy graciously shared with me some of the resources that were most helpful to help her heal:

1. This podcast (thank you!)

2. The place we find ourselves (podcast) with Adam Young

3. Birth Trauma for Birthworkers (podcast) with Dr. Erin Bowe

4. How to Heal a Bad Birth (book) by Melissa J. Bruijn

5. Brave Beautiful Birth (book) by Jamie Schrock

You can follow Amy @burr382

If you love the show, please support us on Patreon! www.patreon.com/healingbirth

What if breech birth is not the inherent emergency we are conventionally told, but rather, an expression of intelligent, deeply empathic, communication between mother and baby?

Jess shares her three birth stories with us  - actually four, as we begin with her own -  all of which carry the through line of breech presenting babies and maternal communication.

This is another one of those stories where ancestral and matrilineal healing come from a powerful reclamation of what it means to birth in sovereignty.

You can follow Jess @jess.aralia

JOIN OUR ONLINE MEMBERSHIP HERE! https://www.healingbirth.net/membership

If you love the show, please consider supporting us on Patreon! www.patreon/healingbirth

Megan’s first birth was a cesarean for breech presentation, which she describes as a giving of herself and her baby over to the system.

Her strong faith in God helped her find the courage and conviction to trust herself, her baby, and the intelligent design of birth the second time. She birthed her second baby at home, in power.

My apology that the audio quality is quite imperfect, we actually tried to record this twice and this was the best we got! I think her beautiful story is worth hearing even with the imperfections!

If you love the show, consider supporting us on patron! Patreon.com/healingbirth

Ellie’s first birth could be described as a classic cascade of interventions that ended in a cesarean, and left her devastated.

She gave birth to her second baby at the Farm in Tennessee, after a series of divinely guided incidents and after having committed to trusting her own instincts.

Recorded just six weeks postpartum from her second birth, this is a beautiful, raw, emotional story of courage, faith, and Divine Guidance.

This is part two of her story. 

Follow Ellie @ellieromairalford

Ellie’s first birth could be described as a classic cascade of interventions that ended in a cesarean, and left her devastated.

She gave birth to her second baby at the Farm in Tennessee, after a series of divinely guided incidents and after having committed to trusting her own instincts.

Recorded just six weeks postpartum from her second birth, this is a beautiful, raw, emotional story of courage, faith, and Divine Guidance.

Ellie’s story is so rich and powerful I made it into two parts! Enjoy this part one, and tune in next week for the conclusion in part two.

Follow Ellie @ellieromairalford

You know I love a VBAC story! Tessa shares her victorious, home birth, VBAC story, after having experienced a coerced cesarean due to breech positioning with her first child.

Her story is such powerful testament to listening to your own instincts, self-education, and the importance of leaving behind a system that consistently fails birthing women. 

Join me for our August Group Call - Healing Your Birth Story in Community

8/12 1pm HST / 4pm PST / 6pm CST. Book online at www.healingbirth.net

Support us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/healingbirth

This week Candace and her husband sit down to share Rhys's birth story: a homebirth after cesarean (HBAC). 

Follow Delivering Strength: @deliveringstrength

Follow Candace: @mothers_den_cleveland + @clechiropractic

http://www.drcandacegesicki.com/online-courses

Lynnea shares her two birth experiences, both of which included non-consented procedures, medication, and unnecessary episiotomies. She bravely explores how what happened to her body during her births affected her into her postpartum and beyond.

We talk about what her healing has looked like, on the other side of trauma. And how patriarchal systems, embedded into medical culture, are at the root of how women's bodies and the process of birth are pathologized.  

Follow Lynnea @mamatuki

Follow us @healingbirth

Support the podcast! https://www.patreon.com/healingbirth