Birth Stories from a Midwife, Mother and Birth Alchemist! We are joined in this podcast with Registered Nurse and Midwife Faye Reed from SoulBirth. This episode really drills into the deep connection and soulful nature of what birth is with four beautiful hospital, birth centre and home birth stories.
This episode is great resource for many listeners as Faye, in between her birth stories, talks about her experiences as a midwife. Faye talks delayed cord clamping, natural endorphins, birth plans, the importance of being the first to touch baby, and the use of drugs in birth and how to keep the hospital room in a sacred space and more like home.
Firstly we hear about her journey into midwifery and some enlightening tales of her time spent in Papua New Guinea, including a story of a woman that went on her lunch break and come back with a baby in arms!
During her time in Papua New Guinea Faye and her Husband become pregnant with their first child, they flew back to Perth to birth their baby and resume life in Australia. This birth was at a hospital and Faye describes the lessons she learned from this birth and how the experience that she had in Papua New Guinea really shaped how she perceived birth and solidified the meaning of ‘listen to your intuition’. The birth was a 16 hour labour and Faye changed after this birth as a woman and midwife. She then goes on to describe how as a midwife she believes in ‘holding space’ for the birthing mother. We hear how Faye explains that school talks are so important for children as with the barrage of media in our modern world we are faced with children growing up not only disconnected from their own self, yet that they all see birth as a horrible and painful event.
Her next birth was in a ‘Free Standing’ Birth Centre, where all her care was centred around the woman in the centre. Faye describes meeting a midwife that is doing the work that Faye is doing now, this midwife took her thought a deep session of connecting with her baby where she found and met her spirit guides and her baby that she already connected with in a past life. Faye describes this as an unfolding of her intuition and describes that her daughter in utero gave her messages of healing. Faye birthed at the birth centre in a massive storm with the labour lasting 8 hours. This labour was active where Faye got to move around and submerge herself fully into warm water. Her daughter was born en caul (still in her sac). Faye describes the incredible moment of connecting with her daughters eyes while she was still under water. This was a very spiritual brith experience for all.
In between the birth stories Faye gives us a great insight into the importance of (if possible) delayed cord clamping, she tells us that resuscitation can be done with the cord still intact. She describes that in the US they are now bringing our resuscitation units that can be attached to the bed.
Not long after her birth she got messages for another being to come. Faye become pregnant 12 months later. At first Faye had to get her head around having another baby as they were certain they were to only have 2 children. At 16 weeks Faye went though a miscarriage, in speaking to her intuition she was told that the body was not the right fit. Faye learned allot about imprinting and wondered if the negative feelings she was having early on in pregnancy had a effect on baby and the messages she was receiving. One month later she was pregnant again and this pregnancy went to full term. Faye describes how she has always had her family at the birth, and when they all arrived he was born in a hour, she describes this a very fast experience and how the room was full of love and peace. From this brith Faye learned that women can catch their own babies if they want to and her belief in the imprinting process leads Faye to believe that the first person to touch the baby should be someone that loves he...