Happy Homebirth

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.

 

Episode Roundup:

 

First, the line I think a lot of you felt in your chest: "I had too much information and not enough heart." Emily had listened to every episode of this show. She'd read every book. She had a master's degree and a nursing license and she'd been the one at the foot of the bed for other women's births. And she still walked into that first labor with all of it sitting outside of her. Being informed is not the same as being formed, my friends. It never has been. Information is wonderful and I will hand you all of it that I have– but it does not become yours until it goes through your heart and your body and your practice. Emily is living proof that you can be the most educated woman in the room and still be waiting for someone else to do it for you.

 

And I want to flag something for you here, because I don't normally do this. On Wednesday I'm dropping a bonus solo episode– just me, about ten minutes– called Why More Research Isn't Making You Feel Ready. And it is on this exact thing. I'd actually recorded it the day before Emily and I sat down, which is why you heard me interrupt her mid-story to tell her she'd just handed my own episode back to me. So if what she said about her first birth landed anywhere near home for you, come back Wednesday the twenty-sixth. It's the teaching version of what you just heard her live.

 

Next, let's talk about what happened with the cervical checks, because I want to be careful here. For nine months Emily told her midwife she did not want to be checked. Then her midwife arrived, offered a check, and Emily said sure. And notice how Emily holds that. She says she wishes her midwife hadn't asked– and she also says she takes ninety-nine point nine percent of the responsibility for that birth. She doesn't hand it off. She doesn't villainize a woman who was, by her own account, nice. She just tells the truth about where her own authority went. And I think there's something enormous in that for us. The decision you make on a Tuesday afternoon in a prenatal appointment is not the same decision you'll be asked to make at three in the morning with a house full of people watching you. Practice saying it out loud when nothing is on the line. That's not being difficult. That's rehearsal.

 

Third, drama versus transformation. Emily used the word drama over and over about that first birth– the calling of people, the playing it up, the performing of labor to try to make labor happen. And I offered the word production, and she took it further and said something I've been chewing on ever since: it's supposed to be a big experience, but it's not supposed to be a production. Internally enormous. Externally, quiet. When she had Arthur, her dad ate Thanksgiving dinner in her house and left, and her husband was upstairs putting the kids to bed, and she was in a dark bathroom having a baby. There was nothing to watch. That doesn't mean your birth has to look like that. Some of you want your mother there and your sister there and your best friend taking pictures, and that is beautiful and it is yours. But it's worth asking honestly: is that person in the room because I want her, or because I want the birth to be a thing that people saw?

 

And fourth, this one is for the mamas deep in it right now. Emily's whole body of work came out of the hardest parts of her story– the breastfeeding that nearly broke her, the baby she thought was broken. And what she found was that the magnifying glass was pointed the wrong direction. She said no one is talking about moms because babies can't feel shame yet and mothers can. So we fix the baby. We chase the tongue tie, the chiropractor, the next appointment on the crunchy mom's list. And sometimes– not always, but sometimes– when the mother is tended to, the baby resolves without anyone doing a single thing to him. Witness before you fix. That goes for your baby, and it goes for your labor, and I'd argue it goes for you.

 

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 8/26): 

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

Have you ever worked so hard for something — prepared for it, prayed over it, given it everything you had — only to watch it unfold nothing like you pictured? And then found, on the other side, that it shaped you anyway?

 

Carly Hartwig is a wife and a mama of two little girls up in upstate New York, a former special education teacher who followed her own journey with fertility awareness all the way into a new calling — she's now a certified fertility awareness educator and holistic reproductive health practitioner, walking women home to their bodies from the comfort of her own. And here's what makes this one so special to me: Carly has been listening to this podcast for years. She got ready for both of her births with these stories in her ears. So it is a true honor to hand her the microphone now.

In this episode, Carly shares two homebirths that could not have been more different. Her first: a forty-nine-and-a-half-hour labor with a baby who flipped posterior and asynclitic, relentless back labor, a catheter, and a middle-of-the-night conversation about whether to transfer — and how she stayed. Her second: a birth she manifested and prayed over down to the smallest detail, a water birth so fast her midwife said the baby "fire-hosed" out, with her four-year-old in the room to announce her little sister. She takes us through the hard beauty of both, and the tender, honest reality of two very different postpartums. You are going to love her perseverance, and the way she holds it all with so much gratitude.




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:

 

The first is the contrast itself. Two births — same woman, same home, same midwife — and worlds apart. One asked her to endure: forty-nine and a half hours, a posterior baby, back labor that left a welt on her back for weeks. The other asked her to surrender: a water birth so fast her baby "fire-hosed" right out. It would be so easy to rank them, the hard one and the easy one. But Carly won't let us, and she's right. Neither was a reward for good behavior. Neither was luck. Both were the fruit of a woman who prepared the whole of herself and then met her birth as it actually came.

Next, let’s talk about where her confidence came from. When Carly walked into her second birth so grounded, so sure — that steadiness wasn't handed to her by the manifesting, as beautiful as that practice was. It was forged in the first birth. "If I can deliver a posterior and asynclitic baby," she told us, "I can take whatever this baby throws at me." The hard birth is what made her sure. That's redemption at work: it doesn’t erase the difficult story, but it transforms what it means.

And third: I deeply appreciate Carly’s honesty about after. Her dream birth was followed by her harder postpartum — a feeding journey she didn't expect. Carly doesn't smooth that over, and I love her for it. Because a beautiful birth was never a promise that everything after would be easy. It was, however, preparation and encouragement that this woman can carry it and move through it.

So wherever you are in your own preparing — whether you're doing the forward-leaning inversions and the daily birth stories, or you're lying awake wondering whether your body will know what to do — keep this in mind. You don't have to earn your birth. You get to meet it. You cannot script the length of your labor, or which way your baby will face, or how postpartum will unfold. But you can become the woman who meets any of it grounded, supported, and trusting. As Carly said it best: both hard, both beautiful, both empowered.

And that woman — the one who's prepared in mind, body, heart, home, and marriage — is exactly who I get to walk with inside Whole Mother Homebirth. It's not about scripting the perfect birth. It's about becoming a prepared woman, the way Carly was for both of hers. If your heart tugged a little listening today, that's worth paying attention to. You can find everything in the show notes whenever you're ready.

 

Links:

 

Carly's IG: instagram.com/cleanlivingwithcarly

 

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/7mHvzla8Qyg

 

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

Have you ever sat in that strange, sacred in-between, when labor has whispered its beginning but hasn't fully arrived, and felt something rise up in you that you couldn't quite name? What if that feeling wasn't fear to push away, but power to say yes to?

 

Petronella is a mother, a wife, and a lover of nature, art, and creativity, joining us all the way from Sweden. She grew up with one of the rarest gifts a woman can carry into her own birth: a mother who *loved* to give birth, and who told those stories with such joy that they shaped how Petronella saw birth her whole life. Long before she was ever pregnant, she was steeping herself in birth. Assisting at her friends' homebirths. Witnessing her sister's birth. Listening to birth stories nearly every single day.

 

In this episode, Petronella shares what it looked like to birth at home in a country where homebirth is deeply uncommon. Finding private midwives outside the system, stepping back from routine checks, and trusting her own knowing. She tells us about her water breaking under the biggest full moon of the year, the moment of fear that turned into the words *you're going to meet your power*, and a birth she experienced not as pain, but as wave after wave of intensity and surrender. And she shares the tender, grounded peace of meeting her daughter, and discovering, as she put it, a brand new heart. You're going to love her presence and the way she tunes inward.

 

Episode Roundup:

 

First…

I keep coming back to the power of preparation.

Petronella didn't start getting ready for birth when she got pregnant. She started years before. She assisted at her friends' homebirths. She witnessed her sister's birth. She listened to birth stories nearly every single day, so many that her husband would laugh, another birth story?

By the time labor arrived, trust wasn't something she had to summon in the moment. It was already woven into her. What a picture of how preparation works. Not as control, but as a foundation you get to stand on when the day finally comes.

Next…

I was so moved by the moment Petronella described as meeting her power.

Early in labor, before things had fully begun, a fear rose up in her. Quiet. Deep. And instead of pushing it away, she got still and asked it what it was. What came back to her was an invitation: you're going to meet your power.

She said yes. And from that yes, the fear was gone. No doubt. No question.

How often do we treat fear as a stop sign? Petronella's story is such a reminder that sometimes the fear we feel in birth isn't a warning at all. It might be a doorway.

And finally…

The theme that stayed with me most was surrender.

Petronella prepared more intentionally than almost anyone I've spoken with. And still, she said it so simply: even when we know, we don't have any control over it. It's a miracle. And a miracle asks us to surrender.

 

 

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/SvtI4BWYfMM

 

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