In today's birth story episode Cassie Walek shares the story of her daughter's water birth which was an empowering experience that has left her wanting to pursue a career working with pregnant and new mothers

Erica Fleischer lives in Chicago and is a mom to two girls ages 4.5 and 21 months. Her first daughter was born via c-section and Erica had a difficult emotional recovery from it. She quickly found ICAN and 3 years later had a successful unmedicated VBAC. With both babies she suffered from low milk supply but found different ways of handling it with each baby. In this episode she shares both of her birth experiences and how they affected her both physically and emotionally.

Erica's day job is as government policy analyst but she truly enjoys helping other moms as a co-leader of ICAN of Chicago and through writing. You can see links to Erica's published writing on her website ericafleischer.com

Today's birth story guest is Lindsey Shipley who is sharing the story of her daughter's birth. Towards the end of her pregnancy Lindsey noticed a lack of fetal movement one day and knew she needed to go in to the doctor. When she was hooked up to a non stress test, she was told that her daughter was in distress and needed to be delivered immediately via cesarean. Her husband was out of town and had to FaceTime in to witness the birth. The experience wasn't at all what Lindsey was expecting but she trusted her intuition and her body and brought her daughter into the world safely. As an L&D nurse and lactation consultant, Lindsey has a unique perspective on her own birth experiences which I thoroughly enjoyed hearing.

Todays's The Birth Hour podcast guest is Lynzy Coughlin who lives in the Northeast with her husband and two daughters. She is also the editor behind Lynzy & Co., a blog that she created quite awhile ago as a creative outlet to her job in the ER. In this episode she shares her two hospital birth experiences including details like the crazy drive to the hospital, epidurals that only halfway took and her outlook on the whole experience as an ER physician's assistant. Lynzy and I also had a great conversation covering helpful information about her postpartum and breastfeeding journeys. 

Kayley Vise is from the Central Florida area. She is 25 years old and helps people with taxes for a living. Her passion for all things birth started with her best friend, when she she had the opportunity to attend her homebirth about 2 1/2 years ago. Kayley feels that her real calling for life is to be active in the birthing world. She loved her pregnancy and birth and thinks of it often. She utilized hypnobirthing, and it worked wonderfully for her so she encourages women all around her to use it and to know they are powerful. 

Christy Lee Knutson is a communications and creative professional at MoxieSpeak.com. She lives in Raleigh, NC with her husband (Jon), two children, Annazalie and Bennet, and 2 cats. She is also the founder of BirthMemoirs.com and the creator of Your Birth Story Journals. 

In this episode, Christy shares her birth stories, both in a hospital, and both with the same birth team. Christy had positive experiences both times which she attributes to planning ahead, choosing a birth team she felt comfortable with and confident in, and using a hospital friendly to midwives, doulas, and especially, babies. 

In this episode, Natasha Grey shares the story of her homebirth in Ontario, Canada. Natasha holds a deep belief that nature designed women to birth babies naturally; and so with this belief, she trusted her body and baby to do what was natural and she gave birth naturally and comfortably to a baby boy two years ago in their home. Natasha empowers, educates and inspires women everywhere to also take hold of their powerful abilities to birth the way they choose, which is a woman’s natural ability!

Rachel is a new mom to a little boy named Rónán and she owns and operates a small batch hand spun, plant dyed yarn business on Etsy called 44Clovers. In this episode, Rachel shares the story of the birth of her son, who was 3 weeks and 3 days early. She delivered in a wonderful birth center in the nearest town called The Birthplace with a doula, midwife, nurse and her husband.

Lauren Barlis is a teacher. She got her start teaching 10th grade English in Baltimore County and now teaches other teachers and administrators how to build powerful effective partnerships with the parents of their students. She is married to a wonderful man who also works with her at Step Up For Students, an education non-profit in Florida that provides scholarships to low-income families who want to send their children to private school. She has a daughter, Josie, who is 16 months old. She is also expecting a son, Benjamin, in May 2016. 

Today's birth story guest is Jen Lula who is a mama to two girls and one newborn baby boy living in the Northeast where she runs a blog called Jen Loves Kev sharing everything that she's passionate about; she's an adventure seeking, art loving, fashion obsessed, stay at home mom. You can connect with her on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter.

Today's guest is Jamie Dorobek who is sharing the birth story of her son Maxwell who was born at a birth center in Austin, Texas. Jamie discusses her decision to have a natural birth and the speedy delivery of her son after arriving at the birth center. Jamie shared this story while she was VERY pregnant with baby #2 and has since given birth to a daughter as well!

In this episode of The Birth Hour, Ashley Gartland shares her preemie birth story. She went into labor with her daughter, Kennedy, after her water broke a little before 36 weeks into her pregnancy, and she shares her experience giving birth and caring for a late term preemie.

In this episode, Andrea shares the birth story of her son, a natural birth in a birth center. Andrea discusses the commonality of c-sections in Brazil and how she chose a different birth for herself. She also shares helpful insight on the postpartum experience. 

Andrea organizes Women Circles in NYC. She is a Shaman practitioner, environmentalist, and vegan mama. Andrea facilitates emotional healing for women and Mother Earth. She recommends pregnant women and mothers to connect with other mamas and mamas to be through support groups, platforms like this podcast, and social medial like Tribe de Mama. Also Aviva Romm books are fantastic resources from pregnancy through postpartum. You can connect with Andrea on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or on her website The Gaia Healer.

Paige lives in Northern California where she is a stay at home mom to her 17 month old son. She had him via planned c-section due to his breech position and was excited to for the opportunity to share her experience and encourage other moms who may find themselves preparing for a planned c-section. (Spoiler alert: she loved it.) She enjoys any time she can get to be creative and crafty. You can catch her blogging periodically at TheRampaige.com. 

Today's birth story podcast episode features Sarah Tuttle and her gestational carrier, turned great friend, Kara Ford. I had the chance to interview both of them and hear the story of how they found one another, how they made the decision to have Kara carry Sarah's babies and the births of Sarah and her husband, Chris' sweet twin girls. 

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.

Daria Lazovskaya is sharing three birth stories, all of which took place in  Russia. Daria was born in Siberia, raised in Sochi, and is currently living in Moscow. Her three children were born in Sochi which is more rural than Moscow, and I was very surprised at how birth takes place in a Russian hospital. Listening to her stories, it was like I was traveling back in time 60 years in the United States. Their approach to birth is very medicalized and institutionalized. There is very little attention paid to prenatal care, and the majority of women give birth alone with the medical staff and are generally not allowed to have their partner or another support person in the room with them.

Daria's did mention that there were more options available in Moscow and suggested that any expats living in Russia try to get to a major city like Moscow for their births. You can connect with Daria on Instagram @feedthezoo.

In this episode, Miranda shares her three very different birth stories featuring the Bradley Method, an epidural, and water birth. Miranda Anderson is a wife and mom of three living in Austin, Texas. She is also a seamstress, compulsive DIY-er, believer, and adventurer, who shares stories and tips for living a simple, creative life on her blog One Little Minute. She also teaches local craft and sewing workshops in Austin. In what feels like a former life, Miranda graduated with a degree in nursing and worked several years as a nurse diabetes educator. She loves her family, food, and the next project, whatever it may be.