I came to the birth world in 2019, when my body’s hormones were asking me to find out more about it. Everything I’d picked up in my twenties had a flavour of fear. Fear of pain, fear of damage to my body, fear of goop and blood and needles.

When deliberately seeking out birth stories, the easiest ones to find were the mainstream media. And these depictions always left me very uncomfortable. The way the birthing people were treated just seemed wrong. There was a lot of shouting, telling, and a lack of consent and agency.

This woke me up to the medicalisation of birth, and the institutional violence perpetuated in clinical settings. I realised that theres’s a real need for advocacy of birthing people, to prevent birth trauma and help people trust their bodies again.

So I dug a little deeper. And I found stories of joy, and people trusting in their own bodies. Stories of people giving birth at home, by the fire, unassisted, riding their contractions like waves and catching their babies in their own arms.

Stories of birth being like an extension of making love, with a sensuality, orgasmic energy to it. With partners trusting in the birthing person’s body and unwaveringly supporting them, through all of the goop and the intensity.

And beyond that, transcendence. With birth being a portal to another realm, where they go to meet their baby and bring them Earth-side.

It sounded life changing. Cosmic. Earth shattering. Wonderful.

Nothing like the movies, with people lying on their backs in hospital gowns under bright lights with doctors yelling at them to push.

The amount of hope and excitement I found, once I dug beneath the fear mongering and institutional violence, is ultimately what led me to training as a birth doula. I want to support birthing people and new families in this otherworldly transition. I’m so happy to be finally ready to support others on this incredible journey.