Abigail Secretly Hopes No Midwives Turn Up & Gets Her Wish

Betty Shares Her Stillbirth Story

In this season finale, I want to share with you the story of my most recent birth. The stillbirth of my boy, Elis. In November 2024, 8 months ago, after a difficult pregnancy filled with doubt and hope and dread, I freebirthed my baby who had died sometime before birth. I went on to have the most profound experience of love and grief and beauty and sorrow and one that remained, throughout, just about within the limits of bearable. It's a story that isn't often heard, and yet one so important to tell.

Milly's 6 Day Labour For Her Brow Presentation Baby

Milly shares the story of her pregnancy and first birth, in which she realises at 16 weeks that medical midwifery isn’t the support she wants, and that she’d rather continue with a wild pregnancy, freebirth, and finding knowledge and support elsewhere. She speaks about the deep learning and questioning she did around all her fears and unknowns in order to lean whole heartedly and confidently into a home birth without midwives. This pays off when she is later presented with the challenge of a 6 day labour, with waters open, and the long and exhausting pushing phase needed to birth her brow presentation baby. If you would like to take the conversation further, find me on⁠⁠ Instagram⁠⁠ ⁠@birthkeepingwithbetty⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/birthkeepingwithbetty] or join the ⁠⁠⁠Freebirth Folke Facebook Group⁠ [https://www.facebook.com/groups/1332185254452438] If you would like to say thank you for the podcast and help to keep our work going we'd be so grateful for ⁠any donations. [https://pay.sumup.com/b2c/QOHFVU8D]

Elisabeth Self Manages a PPH After The Planned Freebirth of Her 11lb4 Babyy

Elisabeth, a self professed people pleaser, figures out what she feels comfortable saying no to and what she finds herself agreeing to without question. She has the clarity from the offset to refuse to be weighed and have her BMI calculated, which serves her well throughout pregnancy, and goes on to lean ever further into her trust worthy gut feeling, confidently and unwaveringly walking towards the unassisted home birth of her 11lb 4 baby. She then talks us through her significant blood loss after birth, including episodes of losing consciousness, and how that was managed peacefully, lovingly and without medical intervention. As well as the challenge of advocating for her newborn to remain home without monitoring for hypoglycaemia against recommendations and threats of safeguarding triggers.

Abigail Secretly Hopes No Midwives Turn Up & Gets Her Wish

Abigail takes us briefly through her initial birth in which she experienced a postpartum hospital transfer after what she describes as midwifery sabotage, and how doing her research and absorbing from her community led her to hope for a freebirth (albeit secretly) for the birth of her 11lb second born. She also speaks about her experienced with hyperemesis with both pregnancies, her three weeks of prodromal labour, and shares her wisdom around being rhesus negative and anti D.   f you would like to take the conversation further, find me on⁠⁠ Instagram⁠⁠ ⁠@birthkeepingwithbetty⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/birthkeepingwithbetty] or join the ⁠⁠⁠Freebirth Folke Facebook Group⁠ [https://www.facebook.com/groups/1332185254452438] If you would like to say thank you for the podcast and help to keep our work going we'd be so grateful for ⁠any donations. [https://pay.sumup.com/b2c/QOHFVU8D]

Laurie Freebirths With Group B Strep Then Waits 17 Hours For Her Placenta

Laurie shares the story of her second pregnancy, in which she comes to realise that the hospital hadn’t saved her and her baby in her first birth, as she had always believed, and describes the anger she then felt at having experienced such an unnecessary cascade of intervention. She then talks about the life changing inspiration gathered from her community of powerful women, which fuelled her journey to making the decision to freebirth, despite insistence from doctors that her group b strep status was risking her babies life. She describes her beautiful, blissful home birth, and the subsequent challenge of not birthing the placenta until 17 hours later.   If you would like to take the conversation further, find me on⁠⁠ Instagram⁠⁠ ⁠@birthkeepingwithbetty⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/birthkeepingwithbetty] or join the ⁠⁠⁠Freebirth Folke Facebook Group⁠ [https://www.facebook.com/groups/1332185254452438] If you would like to say thank you for the podcast and help to keep our work going we'd be so grateful for ⁠any donations. [https://pay.sumup.com/b2c/QOHFVU8D]