Sarah’s first labor was over 24 hours long with extreme nausea, an early urge to push, a transfer from birth center to L&D during transition, long pushing stage, and delivery with nuchal hand. After experiencing PPD and PPA, Sarah found help
and connection within her community. A miscarriage at the end of the first trimester while alone out-of-town and poor hospital care followed. After conceiving again, Sarah worked to prepare for another long labor and challenging postpartum. Surprisingly, Sarah’s second labor was a fast and furious precipitous labor, where she ultimately delivered her baby by herself while her husband pulled up to the birth center entrance.
Sarah McGuirk Bio
Sarah lives in St. Louis, MO, with her husband, two daughters, and rescue pit mix dog. Sarah is back in school working to become a board certified music therapist after a decade working as a freelance collaborative pianist and music educator.
Today’s episode is sponsored by Redd Remedies. Redd Remedies has strong roots in the natural product industry and crafts Master Herbalist formulated supplements from premium ingredients, ensuring natural and effective solutions for life’s physical and emotional challenges. Peaceful Mama, one of their star products, provides stress support to all moms, including pregnant and nursing women!
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After several years of infertility, Alexandria and her husband had become pregnant abroad in Okinawa, Japan. Her first birth was a planned induction due health complications. But when intervention takes place, she is left to navigate Postpartum Depression at the start of the Covid lockdown abroad in Japan in 2020.
Her experience leads her on a search to understand what had happened and sparks an interest in birth work. As a result, she and her husband seek support for a second pregnancy on island. However, navigating the military and local landscape is difficult at its best and something else entirely when international relations are experiencing a sudden healthcare crisis.
Her second birth starts as a home birth on base through a local clinic and culminates in a voluntary transfer during the push phase to a local clinic against her team’s advice. An action that ultimately saves her and her child’s life.
Alexandria Parks Bio
Alexandria currently lives in New Mexico with her husband and two daughters. She is an english teacher by trade but currently a stay at home mom to their one and three year old girls. They are a military family and were stationed in Okinawa, Japan when Alexandria gave birth. If you’d like to connect, you can leave a comment for Alexandria here and we will make sure she sees it.
This episode was sponsored by Motif Medical. Motif designs insurance-eligible products for busy moms. With a focus on innovation and empowerment, Motif’s line of breast pumps and maternity compression garments are sophisticated, yet discreet, and made to support mothers as they navigate new motherhood. Discover why moms are reporting more milk in less time with the Luna breast pump, and see how you can get it covered through insurance at motifmedical.com/birthhour.
Amanda overcame a deep fear of childbirth by working to become as educated about labour and birth as possible. Once pregnant, she planned for an unmedicated birth at an independent birth centre.
Amanda went into labor on her due date and progressed quickly. Her midwife, initially evaluating the situation over the phone, did not feel Amanda was far enough along to warrant leaving for the birth center. When the midwife finally arrived at Amanda’s home to assess her in person, she was already 8 cm dilated. Given that the birth center was at least an hour away, Amanda and her husband felt it was safest to transition to a home birth. Amanda’s baby boy was born after 3 hours of pushing, about 11 hours after labor began. She describes the day as being incredibly positive, empowering, and the best day of her life.
Amanda Fonesca Bio
Amanda lives outside of Toronto with her husband, son, and loyal dog. She is a certified clinical research professional (CCRP) and has focused her work in the area of oncology. Her efforts to overcome an initial fear of childbirth has led to a great passion for all things related to pregnancy, labour, and birth. Amanda enjoys cooking, literature, and music. You can connect with her via email at amandafonzie@gmail.com .
Today’s episode is brought to you by the Sleepybelly Pregnancy Pillow which is guaranteed to give you better sleep in 30-nights or they will give you a full refund! Sleepybelly is a three piece, adjustable pregnancy pillow designed to prevent back sleeping, whilst giving you support for your growing bump and helps align your hips to reduce hip and back pain. Being an adjustable set, it grows with you on your pregnancy journey and can be used in 5 different configurations – it is even used as a breastfeeding pillow postpartum.
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Amy had a 24 hour labor that ended in a waterbirth at a birth center that was inside a hospital.
Thanks to this podcast and the Birth Hour’s Know Your Options’s course and a local Bradley method class, Amy and her husband Daniel felt very prepared, but inevitably they had some hiccups along the way.
From 2 weeks of prodromal labor, to 12 great hours of real labor at home to walking the hospital for three hours trying to get admitted to finally getting admitted but not being allowed the tub and having no birth center nurse, it was quite a journey! After 6 hours in the shower, Amy finally had help at shift change and was allowed in the tub.
Within one hour of getting in the tub she was in transition and after 30 minutes of pushing, Amy brought baby Laura into the world! Amy’s water never broke so Laura was almost born en caul! Unfortnately, meconium in the water lead to a short NICU stay. Though Amy wishes they had had a golden hour post birth, their experience was overall positive and they are enamored with their healthy baby girl!
Amy Straiton Bio
Amy is a mom of 1 living in Dayton Ohio with her husband Daniel. She is a stay at home mom by day and by night she makes journals and paper crafts for her Etsy shop!
You can find her on Facebook as Amy Straiton and send a private message or leave a comment here.
Today’s episode is sponsored by SNP Therapeutics, makers of the Genate Test. Based on over 16 million dollars in NIH grants, and more than 30 years of nutrition and genetic research, SNP Therapeutics is leading the charge in the field of prenatal, precision-nutrition genetic testing.
SNP Therapeutics is committed to providing accurate and usable information to help mothers provide the best possible nutrition to their babies through The Genate Test: a prenatal, precision-nutrition, genetic test that offers personalized dietary adjustments and supplement recommendations based on your DNA.
You can rest easy knowing that your prenatal nutrition has been optimized by tailoring it to your genetic code. Find peace of mind about your prenatal nutrition with the Genate Test by SNP Therapeutics. Learn more at genate.com and Use code BIRTHHOUR15 for 15% off your order.
Haley Peryer lives in Missouri with her partner, dog, and now 5 month old little girl. She enjoys rock climbing and exercise, yoga, art, and candlemaking. Today she wanted to share with you the birth of her little girl, Apoya. When Haley got pregnant she had been working in the Arizona heat and spending time in beautiful Costa Rica. Her partner, Eli, was only a little surprised by the pregnancy. It was not specifically planned but both of them knew it was possible based upon the previous cycle.
From the start of her pregnancy she knew she wanted a very low intervention birth. However, a home birth was out of question since Haley and Eli live in a non-conventional living space: a 30 foot camper. This is why they turned to a birth center where their daughter was born after 33 hours of labor on July 4, 2023. Connect with her on instagram @trippyxturtlexfawn
Today’s episode is sponsored by Cozy Earth. I first learned about Cozy Earth when their sheets were named one of Oprah’s favorite things in 2018 and I was having a baby in the Fall of 2018 and treated myself to the softest sheets I’ve ever slept on! I’ve been sleeping on Cozy Earth’s best-selling bamboo sheet sets (and their pillow too) ever since. Cozy Earth sheets are temperature-regulating and incredibly soft which is so perfect for all of the life stages we talk about on The Birth Hour. Seriously, if you are a hot sleeper these are a game changer and worth the investment! They’d also make a great baby registry item. Cozy Earth provided an exclusive offer for our listener’s today. Up to 40% off site wide when you use the code “BIRTHHOUR”
Although Mae was super fit, young, and healthy, having maintained a rigorous practice of daily Ashtanga yoga for over seven years prior to her first pregnancy, like any woman, she found herself facing many unknowns. For her first birth, she opted to birth at a small birthing center outside of Fukuoka, in the southwestern region of Japan, where she lived at the time. This was because she wanted to choose “the hand that would touch her baby’s head first.” She was able to have a natural, unmedicated birth with her then-husband, but the experience had her screaming at the top of her lungs in PAIN and left her feeling torn apart–mentally, emotionally, and physically–for weeks afterward. The sense of disconnect left an inkling of a thought in her mind that said: “If I ever get another go at this, I think I can do this a lot better next time.”
Mae went through a difficult divorce from her first husband only six months following this birth, leaving her to be a single parent to her firstborn son. In her mid-thirties, Mae met and remarried a wonderful man. They came together as a family and decided that they wanted another child.
Eight years after her first birthing experience, thanks largely to the keen intuition of her husband, for the second birth, Mae switched from a clinic birth plan to a home birth at 28 weeks. In preparation for home birth, Mae spent a considerable amount of time intentionally repainting the landscape of her mind, from viewing birth as a painful process to a possibly pain-free one. Her teachers were: yoga, meditation, guided relaxation practices, and a whole bunch of wild animals on YouTube that she watched and learned from.
In the end, Mae was able to have an all-natural and almost all pain-free birth in the bathtub at home in Tokyo, assisted by her midwife and husband. Why “almost”? Wait ’til you hear her full story!
Five months after the birth of her second son, Mae lost the love of her life and the father of her children to a sudden traffic accident. The tremendous grief plunged her into the depths of sorrow and isolation for a few years. However, Mae says, “Everything she needs to know about coping with Pain in Life, she learned from childbirth,” referring not only to her wisdom from all of her years as a yoga practitioner, but ultimately from the redemptive birth experience that taught her this: If you can change your mind, you can change your experience.
Mae Yoshikawa Bio
Mae is an author, yoga & meditation practitioner, teacher, and mother. In 2006, Mae became the first Japanese woman to be authorized by the founding school of Ashtanga Yoga in India. Having graced 42 consecutive covers and penning a widely popular column for Japanese Yogini magazine from 2003~2013, Mae helped to spearhead a cultural shift in Japan—making sure that yoga would not be seen merely as physical exercise, but rather as a holistic practice and lifestyle that would restore health and balance to the busy lives of modern people. Currently, she is known as the face of adidas yoga. Her third book (her first in English) is a heart-wrenching and heart-arousing memoir titled Kizuki, which chronicles her experience of finding herself again through grief by metaphorically weaving through her experiences of childbirth and childrearing (coming soon).
Connect with Mae at https://maey.live/ or on Instagram @maeyoshikawa.
Resources
https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/tracyholloway
https://maey.live/
Needed
Today’s episode is sponsored by Needed. Needed is the leading women’s health supplement brand recommended by nutritionally-trained practitioners. While most perinatal supplements include the bare minimum of the nutrients needed during pregnancy, Needed’s products are based on the latest clinical research and in-practice experience of nearly 4000 practitioners. Needed has all your needs covered, from your prenatal vitamin to pregnancy-specific Pre/ and Probiotics, to egg quality support, sleep, stress, immune and hydration support, as well as your protein needs for blood sugar balance and postpartum healing. Needed’s Complete Plan delivers unparalleled nourishment for every phase — whether you’re trying to conceive, pregnant, or postpartum! Instead of having to pair 6 different products together to meet your needs, I love that Needed has simplified things by bundling together four core products you need, in an easy and flexible monthly plan. Save 20% off your first order of Needed’s Complete Plan or any of their other perinatal nutrition products at thisisneeded.com with code BIRTHHOUR.
