Happy Homebirth

Have you ever looked at something in front of you and thought, "there's just no way"– no way that's going to fit, no way that's coming out, no way I can do this… and then watched it happen anyway?

 

In this episode, Rebecca walks us through six births, and not one of them looks the same. A 38-hour first labor that ended in a hospital transfer. An eight-hour second birth she almost didn't believe was real. A three-and-a-half-hour third birth that woke her out of a dead sleep. A dreamy fourth birth with three answered prayers. A fifth where she had to do something she'd never tried to bring her baby down. And a sixth– a peaceful water birth where she found herself smiling through the contractions, whispering "birth is easy." We talk about surrender, about God's provision, about the difference between shallow positive thinking and real honesty, and about what it means to stand at the edge of life and death and choose trust.

 

Episode Roundup:

 

Let's start with the variation, because goodness– six births and not one of them matched. Thirty-eight hours and then three and a half. Ten pounds and then eight. Forty-two weeks and then thirty-nine. If you came into this episode hoping Rebecca would hand you a pattern– this is just how my body does birth– she gently took that out of your hands and gave you something better. She gave you a wide, wide field of normal. Your body does not owe you a formula. It's allowed to surprise you every single time, and that's not a problem to solve, it's just the truth of how individual each of these experiences really is.

Next, I can't stop thinking about the surrender. Because underneath all that variation, there was one thing that never changed. Every birth, Rebecca came back to the same place– open hands. And with her sixth, she said out loud the thing that all her positive thinking had never let her say. Walking laps around her driveway with a toddler on her hip, she told the Lord that if He wanted to take her life, or her baby's, that day, she trusted Him with it. And what came on the other side of that honesty wasn't fear. It was peace. She said it herself– surrender and peace, they go together. I don't think that's a coincidence, my friends. I think those two always travel side by side.

And finally, I want to sit with what she said about fear, because it's so important. There's no moral failing in being afraid. Everything we know about fear and tension in labor is still true– and also, you are allowed to come to your Father and say, "I'm scared." That's not weak faith. That's confession. That's honesty. And He can carry you right there in it. Now, does that mean if you just surrender hard enough your birth will be easy and pain-free like Rebecca's sixth? No, of course not– she'd be the first to tell you a peaceful birth isn't a reward for doing it right. But whatever your birth looks like, fast or slow, at home or transferred, it can still be one of the most sacred places you're ever called into. Rebecca called it a privilege. To be called into those places over and over again. I just love that.

Bonus episode this week: Katelyn's solo episode, WThe Moment in Labor Nobody Warns You About, releases Wednesday 9/2.

 

Links:

FREE Peaceful Birth Reset: https://www.myhappyhomebirth.com/birthreset

Whole Mother Homebirth | https://www.myhappyhomebirth.com/wholemotherhomebirth (use code PODCAST for 10% off)

Youtube Episode Link: 

Learn more about Samaritan Ministries: https://samaritanministries.org/happyhomebirth

Bonus solo episode (releases 9/2): 

Rebecca's Instagram: @wellspringfamilywellness
                Facebook: Wellspring Family Wellness 
                Website: www.wellspringfertility.com

Why more research isn't making you feel ready
The one idea: you don't have a knowledge gap. You have an integration gap, and you've been treating one as the other. The one action: take the Homebirth Readiness Check.

 

FREE Peaceful Birth Reset: https://www.myhappyhomebirth.com/birthreset

 

Emily's Episisode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-340-freebirth-story-what-changed-between-her-first/id1446934537?i=1000785405631

 

Whole Mother Homebirth | https://www.myhappyhomebirth.com/wholemotherhomebirth (use code PODCAST for 10% off)

 

Learn more about Samaritan Ministries: https://samaritanministries.org/happyhomebirth

What if you could do all of it right– read every book, listen to every episode, interview the midwife, make the plan… and still walk into your birth completely unprepared?

 

Emily Swann is a wife to John, a mama of three, and the woman behind For the Love of Breastfeeding, where she teaches a bodywork course for babies and toddlers and runs a six-month program for mothers called Guided and Grounded. She's a nurse, an IBCLC, and holds a master's degree in public health and nutrition. She also binge listened to every episode of this podcast before her first baby was born.

 

In this episode, Emily shares three births that look nothing alike. Her first: a planned homebirth that became four days of labor, a house full of onlookers, and a transfer to the hospital. Her second: a baby born at 35 weeks after eleven days of an unexplained 105 degree fever, followed by the NICU and a readmission– and a mother who protected breastfeeding through all of it. Her third: a baby born at home, unassisted and en caul, on the evening she cooked an entire Thanksgiving dinner in labor.

 

We talk about the difference between being informed and being formed, about drama versus transformation, about where a woman's authority goes when she hands it off, and about why the magnifying glass in the lactation world is pointed at babies instead of mothers.

 

Bonus episode this week: Katelyn's solo episode, Why More Research Isn't Making You Feel Ready, releases Wednesday 8/26 and picks up exactly where Emily's first birth leaves off.

 

Links:

FREE Peaceful Birth Reset: https://www.myhappyhomebirth.com/birthreset

Whole Mother Homebirth | https://www.myhappyhomebirth.com/wholemotherhomebirth (use code PODCAST for 10% off)

Youtube Episode Link: https://youtu.be/9QcQb_Sg7Qc?si=bp9JQG4yJPGeqey0

Learn more about Samaritan Ministries: https://samaritanministries.org/happyhomebirth

Bonus solo episode (releases 8/26): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-341-why-more-research-isnt-making-you-feel-ready/id1446934537?i=1000785946382

Emily's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theloveofbreastfeeding

For the Love of Breastfeeding: https://www.theloveofbreastfeeding.com/

Have you ever decided — fully, completely, no-turning-back decided — that you were done doing something a certain way? And then done everything in your power to make the changes necessary?

In this episode, Angelica walks us through the full arc — from a surprise first pregnancy that ended in an emergency C-section and a baby born blue, to a rogue homebirth with her third child that she knew, in that very moment, she would never be able to go back from. And then to her fifth pregnancy, which became the most intentional season of her life — researching her liver health, rebuilding her iron through raw organ meats, and navigating cholestasis, low ferritin, and a medical system that didn't always have answers — all so she could bring her sweet baby earthside in her own home, with her husband by her side.

We also talk about what happened when her baby came down asynclitic and her body instinctively moved into a position her midwife had never seen before. That moment alone is worth the listen.


This podcast is sponsored by Samaritan Ministries. As a paid Samaritan member content creator, I receive compensation for sharing about the ministry.

 

Samaritan Ministries International is not an insurance company and does not guarantee that medical bills will be paid by SMI or other individuals. Participation in health care sharing is voluntary. Members remain personally responsible for their own medical expenses.

 

 Required legal notices for residents of certain states are available at: https://samaritanministries.org/about/transparency-legal.

 

Episode Roundup:

 

First, The image that keeps coming back to me is Angelica on that half lunge off the side of her bed — one leg up, one hanging, holding on to the headboard — her baby asynclitic, her body moving into something she had never planned, had never read about, had never been told to do. And her midwife standing there saying, "I've never seen that before."

That is body literacy in its most primal form. That is what it looks like when a woman has truly learned to lean into the intuitive urges.

Next, there’s something very meaningful about this storyline: it wasn't linear. Angelica had her third baby at home, had to go back to the hospital with her fourth because of cholestasis, and then….Angelica did everything in her power to prepare for that fifth birth — the diet, the supplements, the research, the sacrifices through Thanksgiving and Christmas and her sister's wedding. She stayed the course when it was hard, and it led to an absolutely amazing experience for her. That wasn’t the end, as we heard.  10 days postpartum she did have to go to the hospital due to retained placenta….

And yet — she didn't hemorrhage. Her body had the reserves. Her husband could look at her and say, "You were prepared for this. Even for the part you didn't plan."

That is what preparation actually does. It’s not a guarantee. Instead, it builds capacity in you. It gives your body what it needs to meet the unexpected with something left.

I also want to hold onto what Angelica said about women and body literacy — that we are probably the ones who should be most aware of our bodies, and yet we're going into everything blind because that knowledge isn't being passed down. That landed for me. It might have landed for you too.  I’m so excited to change that for the next generation, aren’t you?

So let this episode be part of that reclamation. Share it with someone who needs it. Leave a review if it moved you. And come find me on Instagram — I'd love to keep this conversation going.

 

 

Links:

 

FREE Peaceful Birth Reset: https://www.myhappyhomebirth.com/birthreset

 

Whole Mother Homebirth | https://www.myhappyhomebirth.com/wholemotherhomebirth (use code PODCAST for 10% off)

 

Youtube Episode Link: https://youtu.be/HskwrYUDmLo?si=RBreBoM5_y9dC7_k

 

Learn more about Samaritan Ministries: https://samaritanministries.org/happyhomebirth

What if the most powerful birth preparation isn't a course, a class, or a stack of books at all, but a mother who's simply willing to go first, so everyone behind her can follow?

Today I'm speaking with Cynthia Cruz, known to some of you online as Mama RAC. Cynthia is a wife to her husband Ron of 36 years, a mother, a grandmother, and a woman who chose homebirth in California more than 30 years ago, back when almost no one was talking about it. Her daughter Sabrina and her son Robert Anthony were both born at home. And if you have a baseball lover in your house, you may already know her son as Coach RAC of the Savannah Bananas.

In this episode, Cynthia takes us back to a time before social media, before the million courses and videos, when preparing for a homebirth meant finding a lay midwife in the Yellow Pages and filling your mind with Ina May Gaskin, Weston A. Price, and every birth story you could get your hands on. She shares the spiritual breakthrough that ended five years of infertility, a first birth surrounded by twelve onlookers, a second birth so fast and primal that it was over in about an hour and a half, and the family legacy of homebirth that her children are carrying now. You're going to love her heart for going first.




This podcast is sponsored by Samaritan Ministries. As a paid Samaritan member content creator, I receive compensation for sharing about the ministry.

 

Samaritan Ministries International is not an insurance company and does not guarantee that medical bills will be paid by SMI or other individuals. Participation in health care sharing is voluntary. Members remain personally responsible for their own medical expenses.

 

 Required legal notices for residents of certain states are available at: https://samaritanministries.org/about/transparency-legal

 

 

Links:

 

FREE Peaceful Birth Reset: https://www.myhappyhomebirth.com/birthreset

 

Whole Mother Homebirth | https://www.myhappyhomebirth.com/wholemotherhomebirth (use code PODCAST for 10% off)

 

Youtube Episode Link: https://youtu.be/9lYbyLWaP7g?si=v5rrR9BtDzc9IIKj

 

Learn more about Samaritan Ministries: https://samaritanministries.org/happyhomebirth