As featured in the Best Holistic Life Magazine….

The biggest act of self-love is to become the creator of our lives, not the victim; to take charge of our thoughts, emotions, reactions, behavior and habits that do not serve us; to take responsibility for our own health and well-being, not depend on others to do that for us. As a holistic nurse-midwife of 27+ years, self-love includes taking back our pregnancies, births, and health of our babies. This takes lots of work. But the reward is divine, sacred , empowering and transformative. You want to shout from the roof tops how incredible your experience was, how it moved you and your partner to tears and opened your hearts, that you DID it, you found your strength in the challenge – in the mountain that you felt too big to climb, and you birthed your baby as YOU wanted to. Your body worked to birth as your heart knows how to beat and your lungs know how to breathe.  You can draw on this power forever as you face other mountains that seem too high.

In the westernized early 1900s, healthy birth was moved out of the homes and normal family life, and taken over by hospital institutions and their providers; it was treated as an illness and stripped of humanity; our ability to give birth and experience it in its intensity, its raw realness and wondrous beauty, surrounded by the support and wisdom of our loved ones was robbed from us. We surrendered our autonomy, and harmful things were done to us in our most intimate areas, at our most vulnerable moments; we trust technology and modern medicine rather than ourselves and our healthy bodies innately wise ability to grow, birth and breastfeed our babies, and our healthy babies’ ability to be born and breastfeed. This caused high rates of birth trauma and worsening health outcome stats for mom and baby as compared to developed countries, among other concerning long term effects.

There is HUGE hope. That depends on YOU. It involves lots of preparing like you are running your marathon, educating and empowering yourself with knowledge; mastering coping and life enhancing techniques to practice so they become habitual; shifting your mindset, getting your modern mind out of the way so you can let you body do its thing; remembering what you forgot; going against your conditioning, going against the grain, your culture, your family and friends who may not understand, and joining a new rapidly growing community who are doing this with you around the world; being very selective about the provider and setting you choose to give birth, and respectfully speaking up for your rights as an autonomous human being. This may involve paying more money, but it’s worth every penny. The outcome is not only a healthy mind, body , heart and spirit for you, but also for your baby and your family, you will all treasure forever. You will have the experience of pregnancy and giving birth beyond your wild dreams, supported as you deserve postpartum – as we have been for thousands of years before. You will LOVE the experience in spite of its intensity and challenges. You will be so darn proud of yourself with a heart bursting with joy and gratitude.

It is SO possible. But YOU must be the change. I recently received an email from a mama who lives in a remote rural area. She had no option for her birth setting and provider other than a small local hospital with an obstetrician with unacceptable, extremely high rates of risky interventions and cesarean. She was inspired by my social media pages, devoured my book. She wanted a natural birth, a special peak life, family-centered experience that is inherent in bringing the new life of your own baby into the world. He said he did not practice that way, never saw natural birth and did not believe in it. She empowered herself further by taking my online course, presented him with her evidence based decisions and choices, and kindly insisted that he honor her wishes, to be there in the background, just in case, to do nothing but let her body go through its natural physiologic process without disturbing it. He finally agreed. She had her beautiful healthy birth and not only was she in heaven, but also her obstetrician was humbled and moved beyond words. What a ripple effect that will have on how he cares for others in his practice. That is how we improve birth and make needed change.

My gift to you to get you started is my free guide to planning your own birth mini course - with video and PDF download. My advice is to prepare like a boss so you can rock you birth in all settings. It takes work, but it is beyond worth it. Here are more resources I have for you. Each are different, and they are meant to be used in adjunct to one another. Many blessings on your journey of a lifetime!