Episodes
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Over the course of having six babies, Kelly’s beliefs about birth, pregnancy, and sovereignty changed drastically. She went from thinking that women who birthed outside the hospital were irresponsible and dangerous, to free birthing her last baby at 42, with only her husband by her side.
Kelly shares her entire journey with us today in the hope of encouraging other women to recognize that they are perfectly designed for birth and motherhood.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me 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 [email protected]
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto
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Chandani was a doula working within the system when she became pregnant with her first baby. Witnessing the trauma and high cesarean rate in the hospital, she knew she didn’t want to give birth there and decided on a home birth.
Although she entered the pregnancy with extensive knowledge about birth and hired a midwife, her birth ultimately ended in a cesarean after her midwife transferred her during labor.
In the immediate aftermath, Chandani struggled to accept that this was her birth experience. However, as time passed, she began to reflect and realized that there had been red flags in her care, and her intuition had indeed been speaking to her. She also started examining other areas of her life where she wasn’t being true to herself. By the time she was pregnant with her second baby, she was fully ready to step into her power and birth in a new way.
Rather than hiring another medical midwife, Chandani chose a non-medical birth keeper who also became a friend. She emerged triumphant from that birth experience, feeling as though she could do anything.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me 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 [email protected]
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto
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Episodes manquant?
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Leisa Masters is a mother, an accomplished birthworker, and an experienced business manager. She has been supporting women through pregnancy, birth, and motherhood for over a decade.
Her own experience birthing her daughter in the Australian medical system became a classic cascade of interventions, ultimately leading to an unnecessary cesarean. However, being deeply committed to personal growth, Leisa chose not to simply blame the system. Instead, she realized that at a deeper level, her own people-pleasing tendencies had allowed the birth to unfold as it did.
In the years since that birth, Leisa has discovered a way to have revolutionary conversations with women, empowering them to own their birth experiences, their introduction to motherhood, and, by extension, their lives. As a sought-after voice in the global birth community, Leisa now helps other birthworkers recognize how to work with women in a truly life-changing way. She believes that women already possess all the wisdom they need inside them, and her role is to help them uncover that wisdom and build the confidence to trust in it.
Follow Leisa on Instagram @leisa.masters
Leisa’s Website
Join Leisa’s course Becoming a Birthworker
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me 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 [email protected]
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto
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India was 21, and dancing without a care in the world at a festival in Nepal when she suddenly felt her water break. That was the moment she realized she was pregnant—and about to have a baby!
What followed, in one of the most incredible birth stories I have ever heard, was a four-day labor, supported by her Rainbow Gathering community, in a remote village in Nepal.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me 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 [email protected]
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto
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Returning guest Tiffany shares her powerful third birth story—a precipitous freebirth. Alone with just her partner, Tiffany navigated this intense and transformative experience following a wild pregnancy.
Tiffany’s story also includes one of the coolest placenta births I’ve ever heard!
You can hear her first two birth stories, on her first appearance on the podcast, here.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me 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 [email protected]
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto
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Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) is a connective tissue disorder that presents differently in each individual. For Emily, it significantly affected her digestive system. During her first pregnancy, she struggled with severe hyperemesis, unable to keep any food down at all.
In this episode, Emily shares one of the most unique and challenging stories of pregnancy, birth, and postpartum I have ever encountered. Her journey is a powerful testament to the resilience of the mother-baby bond and her incredible strength.
Despite the hardships she faced, Emily has recovered and found joy in the small but profound moments of motherhood. She recalls the first time her baby smiled at her—a moment when her heart truly felt light for the first time.
Tune in to hear Emily's inspiring story of determination, love, and healing.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me 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 [email protected]
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
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After two hospital births—one of which was extremely traumatic—Laura decided to homebirth her third baby.
During her 20-week anatomy scan, a velamentous cord insertion was discovered. Laura’s main concern with this complication was the risk of intrauterine growth restriction. She chose to closely monitor her baby’s size through ultrasounds, and by 35 weeks, it was clear she was carrying a large, healthy baby. Feeling confident, Laura moved forward with her plan to give birth at home.
Her birth experience was fast, powerful, and profoundly healing.
We close this episode with Laura reflecting on the unexpected grief she felt for her older children’s birth experiences. She shares how she now recognizes the ripple effects of those births in their lives.
Listen to Laura’s first appearance on this podcast, where she shares her first two birth experiences, here.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me 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 [email protected]
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto
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I open season six of the podcast with the jaw-dropping story of a family who fled France after the authorities targeted them for freebirthing their baby.
Katie initially planned a homebirth for her first child, but during labor, her midwife transferred her to the hospital, where she was given no option but to have a cesarean section. When Katie became pregnant with her second child, her family had relocated from the United States to Paris, France, due to a job transfer. Because of her prior cesarean, no midwife in France was willing to attend her birth.
Faced with the prospect of another hospital experience as her only option, Katie chose to freebirth her baby. The birth was beautiful, but trouble arose when the family tried to obtain a birth certificate. Since there was no record of medical care during her pregnancy and no official attendant at the birth, the French authorities retaliated. After a series of bureaucratic encounters with government and medical officials, Katie learned that French Child Protective Services planned to remove her children from her care.
With emergency passports issued by the American embassy and all their belongings still in Paris, Katie and her family fled the country, eventually making it back to the United States.
Katie went on to have a third baby, another freebirth, which brought her healing, closure, and invaluable lessons. She is now planning to write a book about her extraordinary experience. You can follow her journey on Instagram at @thek80show.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me 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 [email protected]
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto
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Katie’s journey with birth has been one of both trauma and triumph. It begins with an excruciating, 3-day Pitocin induction, ending in a c-section, which left her devastated and later diagnosed with postpartum PTSD. She endured months of nightmares, flashbacks, and depression.
In contrast, Katie later experienced a second trimester loss, and says that her experience in the medical system managing the death of her baby was better than the previous live birth - because this time she had trauma-informed, deeply compassionate care providers.
Katie finally has her healing birth, a VBAC, at a trauma informed hospital. She describes this experience as incredibly beautiful, and something she sources strength from even to this day.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me 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 [email protected]
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
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Julia became pregnant in December of 2019, right before the world shut down. She spent that pregnancy isolated, alone, and made to go to her prenatal appointments without her partner.
Beginning at just 36 weeks, she was pressured to have a c-section, because her baby was breech. Deep down, Julia knew her baby was healthy, still growing, and perhaps still had time to turn. But after several weeks of unrelenting pressure from her doctor, she gave in and scheduled the cesarean.
After this experience, Julia immediately knew she wanted a natural, unmedicated VBAC. And after lots of research and listening to birth podcasts, she decided that home was the safest place for her to achieve it.
When she met her team of midwives, and delved into the world of Hypnobirthing, Julia discovered how beautiful and peaceful birth can be at home, rather than the medical emergency it often is in a hospital.
Her second baby was born at home, in the water, at just shy of 43 weeks.
Mentioned in this episode:
The Business of Being Born
Hypnobirthing: The Mongan Method by Marie Morgan
Birth photos by @skylightphototx
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me 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 [email protected]
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
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Patience is a doula and birth keeper, and was quite familiar with birth when it was time to have her first baby. She chose to give birth in a midwife-run birth center, but her labor progressed so fast that they never made it inside, and the baby was born in the doorway!
When she became pregnant with her second baby, she wanted a more autonomous experience, and chose to birth at home with just her husband and a non-medical birth keeper for support.
Patience has an unshakable faith in the wisdom of the birth process which is inspiring and infectious. She attends home births and offers placenta encapsulation + art services in the Sonora, California area.
Follow Patience on Instagram @atouchofpatience_birth
Patience’s website: www.atouchofpatiencebirth.com
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me 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 [email protected]
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
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Molly planned to give birth to her first baby at a birth center, but when she hit 41 weeks, she was bait and switched into a hospital induction. The Pitocin-induced birth was traumatic and excruciating, and ended with a week long NICU stay for her son.
In retrospect, Molly believes the induction, and the trauma to her and her son, was completely unnecessary.
It wasn’t until she began therapy at one year postpartum to address the scars of this first birth experience that she began to heal, and consider that she could give birth again without interventions and trauma.
Discovering Hypnobabies, was also a complete game changer for her the second time around. The affirmations and hypnosis techniques helped her to address her fears and feel confident. She describes that birth experience, using Hynobabies, as pain free!
At the time of this recording, Molly is pregnant and planning a home birth with her third.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me 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 [email protected]
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
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Lea is the content creator behind the popular Instagram account @trusting_life_, and host of the Wise Woman Diaries podcast.
In this conversation, we go deep. Lea shares candidly about how a ten-year preconception journey has been the path that led her to soul, and, paradoxically, into true trust in her body. She shares what inspired her to create both Trusting Life and Wise Woman Diaries, despite being a maiden and not having experienced motherhood yet.
We talk about the importance of story medicine, particularly for women. We are right now witnessing a shift from an old paradigm of experts and authority as knowledge and wisdom keepers, to a more egalitarian, aquarian moment in human history.
We also talk about the unique nature of social media, and how triggers are a window into who we are, our traumas, and are a reflection of our energy.
Follow Lea on Instagram @trusting_life_
Listen to Lea’s excellent podcast (If you like this one, you will like hers!): Wise Woman Diaries
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me 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 [email protected]
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
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Alice was induced at the end of her first pregnancy, which ended with a forceps delivery and an episiotomy. The trauma and intensity of this experience profoundly affected both Alice and her baby, who was bruised and cut from the forceps. In the aftermath of this birth and postpartum time, Alice’s marriage ended - in part because of how difficult that first year was for them.
But Alice found love again, and had a second chance at birth. This time, she chose a home birth with a midwife, which is a completely free and underutilized option within the UK’s NHS system.
She had her second child peacefully, at home, with just her partner and the midwife.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me 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 [email protected]
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
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During Delainey’s third birth (her second freebirth), her baby experienced a true shoulder dystocia at his emergence - a complication that is almost never heard of in home or free births, and can be one of the few, rare, actual obstetric emergencies.
His head was out for eight whole minutes before the rest of his body was born, and Delainey could feel exactly where his shoulder was stuck. Impressively, she and her partner stayed very calm and, guided by their intuition and intimate connection, were able to safely get their son born.
This story is such a powerful example of how safety is an innate part of the birth process, but only when we don't interfere with it.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me 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 [email protected]
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
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Emily, a former nurse of 13 years, shares the sweet story of the homebirth of her first born son.
Since entering that rite of passage, her heart and soul mission has become focused on using her cumulative life experiences to walk alongside women and their families as they too cross the threshold.
She helps to facilitate the deep inner work needed to prepare mothers for an empowering, physiological pregnancy, birth, & postpartum experience. She holds sacred space and advocates fiercely for the undisturbed, natural birth of their dreams.
Emily will be releasing a physiological homebirth course soon - follow her and stay tuned for an early bird discount!
Emily’s website: www.birthadvocate.me
Since we recorded this episode, Emily began her own beautiful podcast, Soul Evolution: Embodied Women’s Wisdom, Birth Stories, and More.
Find Emily on Instagram @birth.advocate
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me 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 [email protected]
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
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The medical system couldn’t offer Tiffany the kind of birth she wanted for her twin boys, so she fired her doctor, and planned to birth them at home.
Needless to say, this was a choice that took a great deal of courage, trust, and consciousness. All along the way, Tiffany was shown signs from the universe that she was on the right path, and was in alignment with what was right for her and her babies.
Her twin boys, Astro and Cosmo, were born at home, in the presence of family, on Halloween!
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 [email protected]
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: Cool Cats by Smith the Mister
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Lindsey begins her motherhood journey with the experience of an ectopic pregnancy, which she - amazingly - resolved without taking medication or having surgery.
Despite her being told by medical professionals that it would hard for her to conceive again, she did, easily. Her first baby was born in a hospital, and this experience left her knowing that she would never give birth in a hospital again.
Her next baby was born at home, with a midwife.
Lindsey then began working as a midwife apprentice and quickly realized she was seeing many of the same interventions, interruptions, and violations at homebirths as happens in hospitals. She realized she wouldn’t want any of the midwives she was working with at her own birth. They were effectively bringing the hospital into the home.
Around this time, Lindsey’s third baby, in spirit form, was calling to her, but she knew she had to leave her apprenticeship to be in integrity with herself before this baby would come. She left the medical midwifery world and instead began supporting freebirths, and it was here she learned to trust birth again.
Her third baby was born at home with just her family present. It was just a normal Wednesday afternoon, except she gave birth in her bathtub! The mundane and sacred, intertwined.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me 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 [email protected]
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard
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Maiken always knew a hospital birth wasn’t for her. When she welcomed her first child, it was at home, with only her partner and a doula present, embracing the power of her body in an intimate, natural setting.
Her journey through pregnancy and birth wasn’t just life-changing—it was deeply healing. The experience reshaped how she saw herself, teaching her profound lessons about strength, letting go, and trust in her own body.
In this episode, we also explore the evolving birth culture in Norway, where birth care is free, but women are increasingly seeking alternatives to the standard hospital birth. Maiken sheds light on this growing movement and what it means for Norwegian women reclaiming their birth choices.
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me 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 [email protected]
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
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Tia’s first two birth experiences were hospital inductions. By the time she was pregnant with her third, she knew she wanted a more empowering and natural experience, so she hired a midwife, and planned a home birth.
But around twenty-one weeks into that pregnancy, Tia went into preterm labor. She was rushed to the hospital where she delivered not one, but two babies. Tragically, this was how she found out she had been carrying twin girls.
A couple months after this terrible loss, Tia was ready to be pregnant agin, and conceived. And she finally got to experience a beautiful, natural birth.
Her story is one of hope and healing. Tia wants other women who hear it to be encouraged and know that a beautiful birth experience is possible for everyone, even after such a huge loss.
Follow Tia on Instagram @thethrifty_homemaker
If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
Follow me 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 [email protected]
Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net
Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard
- Montre plus
