So your bundle of joy is finally here, you did all the research to purchase the best pram, the latest carseat, you have been reading every mummy blog out there – your hubby/partner/boyfriend came to some lamaze classes, put the cot together, painted the nursery and even with all this we feel minimally prepared for what parenthood throws us! Women are “generally” intrinsically more nurturing and knowledgeable about catering to the needs of a new human, but even so there is a lot of on the job learning! So now lets cut to darling daddy and look at how […]
The Pleasurable Birth of Ilya, by Amandine
I know it is hard to believe but YES, I got an ORGASMIC BIRTH! I literally DANCED my baby down! People around me know that I am passionate about birth and pregnancy, and since I found out about orgasmic birth I was preparing myself to get one! I mean, who wouldn’t want to get waves of pleasure instead of waves of pain during childbirth? But, childbirth is full of surprises and we do not always know how it is going to happen… I had planned to give birth at home, for the comfort and intimacy my own home would provide […]
What do you believe about birth? By Jessie Harrold
What do you believe about birth? My story of finding more meaning in birth planning. Five years ago, I created a birth plan that was more steeped in fear than in the ink with which it was written. At the time of my daughter’s birth, I had been a doula for four years. I had seen birth at its most magically mundane, most physiologically “normal,” and I had also witnessed deeply traumatizing birth experiences that I wore, unprocessed, like a dark cloak over my pregnant body. My birth plan reflected these experiences, and, like those of so many other […]
Archie Glenn’s birth story, by Chloe
1:30am Saturday 22/04 (I was 39+6) I woke up really restless and going to the bathroom. Had my first contraction at around 1:45am, and then was consistently getting the pains every 20 minutes on the dot. At around 6am I started feeling really sick and vomited & got quite weak and faint. Contractions completely stopped and I started thinking maybe I had food poisoning instead of being in labour. I slept for a little while and then they started back up again around 8am. Just after lunch time (2:47pm to be exact) I called my mum to come around […]
My Life with Joy, by Tamara
I have not publicly shared my birth story of Baby Joy with most of my friends and family because I didn’t want them to think of her differently. It is not a pretty story and I didn’t want their discomfort with my pain to diminish the joy that I also felt in finding my strength to survive it. October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month and will forever be the month that I am even more aware of all of the heartbreak in this world. My personal heartbreak led me on a path of discovering how to offer […]