Today's guest is Laura Dearman who is sharing her birth story that took place at The Farm in Summertown, TN.
Laura Dearman is a mom to three children ages 7, 5 and 2. She has experienced a wide range of birth experiences from a mainstream hospital birth, homebirth with a postpartum hospital transfer, natural miscarriage at home and a 3 week stay at The Farm in Summertown, TN for the birth of her youngest.
In her native Mississippi, Laura was a birth activist focused on birth options and midwifery care, including a short time as a professional doula and childbirth educator. Now living in sunny Florida, Laura is dedicated to helping women successfully breastfeed as a volunteer accredited La Leche League Leader. Laura wrote a little more about the history of The Farm and her reasons for choosing to give birth there in a blog post for The Birth Hour.
In this episode Cassandra Casillas-Smith tells the her birth story of having a homebirth in Australia. She describes the midwifery model of care and her experience as an expat in Australia of planning for and going into labor and ultimately giving birth at home. If you want to hear another set of birth stories that took place in Australia, listen to Shalome Doran's episodes which also feature a homebirth in Australia and one of her experiences was even an orgasmic birth.
Katie Vigos of Empowered Birth Project is a mom to three boys and wife to her husband of nine years. She shares her hospital birth, homebirth, and her most recent birth which was a planned unassisted home birth that ended with an emergency c section.
Today's birth story episode features Marissa Lawton who discusses getting pregnant with PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) and dealing with fertility treatments. Marissa is a military spouse and discusses the experience she had giving birth at a military hospital. She experienced vast differences between the day and night shift of doctors and nurses and was in labor for over 30 hours.
Marissa also discusses the anxiety she dealt with about infertility, about whether a fertilized egg would be viable, how many babies she would carry and whether her baby would be healthy throughout her pregnancy.
She also explains that her anxiety also caused her to make birth choices she probably wouldn’t have otherwise. For instance, she wanted a natural birth, and did deliver vaginally, but was induced (41 and 5) with pitocin and ended up having an epidural after feeling unsupported by some of the hospital staff. Marissa also dealt with a strong nesting instinct that manifested almost like OCD.
She was apply to rely on prenatal yoga to help with anxiety and practiced it all throughout her pregnancy and wishes she could have listened to her yoga training during labor including bodywork over what the doctors were saying that didn't feel right.
Today's birth stories features Elise sharing her birth center and homebirth experiences. Her first birth at the birth center, although empowering, was not what she was expecting. With her son she carefully planned for and had what she describes as a sacred birth experience.
Gypsy mama Elise and her tiny tribe currently call the islands of Hawai'i home, although they are travel junkies most of the year. Elise whole heartedly believes in natural birth, gentle-playful parenting, and living life to the fullest! She is passionate about sharing her experiences birthing her two babes, which she believes inspires the way she now lives her life. Everything in life comes back to the breath.
Today's episode features Jesse Coulter, who is going to share the birth stories of both her son, born at a birth center, and her twins who were born vaginally in a hospital. The twins' birth story is fast and furious as they arrived before the hospital staff even had a chance to put the IV in Jesse.
Jesse Coulter is a wife and mom of a 3 year old boy and newborn boy/girl twins. She is a full-time marketing professional by day and blogger by night. She blogs at JesseCoulter.net about DIY projects, fashion, marriage, motherhood, travel and more. You can also connect with her @JesseCoulter on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. "
Liz Angeles is a massage therapist, aspiring wellness coach and the published author of 45 and Pregnant: How I Conceived & Delivered Naturally and today she is sharing her unexpected journey of becoming a mom at age 45 and her decision to have a peaceful water birth at home.
Dori Varga is the mama to Noah and wife to Adam. Originally from Hungary she is living in California where she founded TRIBE de MAMA, now a global movement. Dori tells the story of her son's birth which was planned to take place within a birth center and after 30 hours of labor she was transferred to the adjoining hospital.