Julia planned for an unmedicated, hospital water birth. After having to have her water artificially ruptured and finding meconium, the water birth was no longer an option. After laboring for nearly 26 hours, pushing for 4.5 hours and narrowly avoiding a c-section, Julia was able to have an unmedicated vaginal birth.

Danielle shares her two cesarean birth stories

On this episode, Victoria shares her pregnancy, birth, and postpartum stories. After dealing with Gestational Diabetes that was insulin dependent for her fasting numbers and finding out she had Group B strep, Victoria had the most amazing, beautiful birth. She labored for 24 hours, pushed for 3 hours, all with the wonderful support of her doula and birth center. Unfortunately things got harder postpartum.

Carrie, an experienced doula, had an unexpectedly emotionally-difficult pregnancy. She worked hard throughout to release secondary trauma from being a birth worker, all in hopes of having a home birth with a truly community-centered birth team.

Before getting pregnant with her first child, Brittany had hoped and planned for an unmedicated birth. Due to an unnecessary induction and several interventions her first birth ended in a cesarean. Immediately following that birth, she began preparing for a VBAC.

At 37 weeks, Katie went in for an induction due to an ICP diagnosis (thanks to learning about it from this show and Nicole Phelps' story!)  Hoping for a very low-intervention birth experience, the team of midwives and nurses were amazing at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Mass in providing as gentle of an induction as possible.

Tash shares her two cesarean section birth stories, one traumatic, the other redemptive.

After Shannon found out she was pregnant with her first, there was no question that she wanted an unmedicated, untouched birth. The questions were: where, and with who.

Rebecca is the founder of Evidence Based Birth® and the author of Babies Are Not Pizzas: They’re Born, Not Delivered! On this episode she shares two of her birth stories and discusses the impact those experiences had on shaping her life.

Hannah shares her surprise road side delivery and homebirth stories.

While planning on an intervention free birth center birth, Taya and her husband prepped by doing the Know Your Options childbirth course. At 39 weeks, Taya was diagnosed with preeclampsia and, after being turned away from a local hospital for refusing certain medical treatments, finally ended up at the university of Washington medical center.

Katie and her husband, Dave, conceived twins through IVF after four years of intensive fertility treatments.  Katie’s conception story includes a vasectomy reversal, two rounds of embryo generation, miscarriage, embryo loss, genetic studies, and seemingly endless trans-vaginal ultrasounds. 

On this episode, Valerie shares her two birth and postpartum stories.

On this episode, Lina shares her hospital and home birth stories.

Rachel shares her birth story and discusses using the Ava bracelet to get pregnant, as well as being diagnosed with both Hyperemesis Gravidarum & Dysphoric Milk Ejection Reflex (D-MER).

Kyra and her husband Oscar uploaded their first video to OKbaby in 2015. At the time, they were 18 years old and expecting their first child, dealing with the challenges many teen parents face, such as finishing high school and finding financial stability.

After years of sharing their lives with the world (as well as two more babies), they have engaged millions of devoted fans and now host two wildly popular channels and have a massive Instagram following.

OKbaby features the entire family as they share their experiences - from everyday activities to travel and adventure. Fans love watching the family grow and explore life together as they face the challenges of being a young family with love, humor, and tons of fun. Connect with Kyra on Instagram and YouTube.

On this episode, Carly shares her experience getting pregnant as a queer couple as well as planning for a homebirth that ended up in a cesarean transfer.

On this episode, Valerie shares her loss and birth stories.

On this episode, Mia shares her two birth stories: a c-section and VBAC.

Sierra shares her experience with two early miscarriages as well as her birth story. She discusses being diagnosed with placenta previa, her resulting cesarean section, and postpartum complications afterwards.

After an easy pregnancy with few complications, Melissa endured prolonged labor with Group-B Strep, leading to her son contracting bacterial meningitis after birth. After a three week stay in the hospital, he is now 18 months old and happy and healthy! Melissa dealt with Postpartum Depression and anxiety stemming from her experience, and hopes to shed light on GBS and its possible complications at birth. She hopes to encourage women to be their own advocate and take charge of their own health research as they prepare for pregnancy and birth.

On this episode, Erica tells her two birth stories.

Erica planned a birth center birth with her first child. After a low risk pregnancy, she went into labor at 39 weeks and 6 days. After having early labor contractions all night she checked into the birth center at 6 am on November 6th. She labored there all day and eventually started to run a low grade temperature resulting in her midwife risking her out of the practice and insisting on a hospital transfer. After a total of 33 hours, she welcomed her daughter at a Houston Hospital.

After her first birth experience Erica knew she wanted to try again for an unmedicated birth. Thinking her previous hospital transfer was necessary she opted for a group of midwives at a local hospital for prenatal care. After an upsetting encounter with one of the midwives in the group she followed her gut and switched to planning for a homebirth. Erica had another low risk and straight forward pregnancy and welcomed their son at home at 38 weeks and 4 days after only 6 hours of labor.

On this episode, Lauren returns to share her second birth story.

Mari became pregnant with her second child in September of 2018. After an anxiety-ridden fearful c-section 2 years prior, due to failure to descend, she was determined to have a VBAC!  She experienced a lot of push back from doctors, family, and her partner. Ultimately after facing her anxiety, getting her partner on board and breaking down all her VBAC fears, she was successful in birthing her son via VBAC in May of 2019. She shares the journey of her healing birth, including breaking up with two doctors in her both her second and third trimester and her empowered labor and delivery with a full female staff.

On this episode, Claire shares her two very different birth stories.