The Renegade Mama – Details, episodes & analysis

Wow - here we are at the last episode of season 3! I was pondering what I should do for the last episode and then I thought - a lot of people have been asking to hear the speech I did at the Australia Homebirth Confernce in November last year. So here it is! The title of the presentation is: Freebirth - Taking Radical Responsibility. For those of you that already understand freebirth - I hope that it is affirming and uplifting. And for those who those of you who are still learning about freebirth - I hope it gives you some insight and understanding! I will be taking a break off the podcast till the end of the year and my energies will be focused on creating my upcoming Freebirth documentary. I will also be focusing on some teaching - so watch this space for classes in person and online. Enjoy this episode of my summations and thoughts on freebirth.

Today on the show I speak to Fiona about about her two vastly different births. For her first Fiona found out via ultrasound that her babies organs were forming on the outside of his body. An elective c-section was strongly advice and she consented under duress. She ponders if these early ultrasound may have contributed to this condition and talks about how the over medicalisation of this pregnancy made it very hard to connect in with her baby. After her baby was born - shockingly they overdosed her baby with drugs when a nurse missed a decimal point while administering. This delayed the surgery because her babe needed to recover from this first. After this experience Fiona knew next time would be different and decided on a freebirth and wild pregnancy. She had no scans and rather tapped into her intuition as her guiding beacon and light. Fiona’s freebirth was a long 48 hour labour with a trip to the hospital in between but the end stage was fast with her baby being born 20 minutes after waking up from a nap. Her placenta took 36 hours to emerge - although she suspects it detached much earlier. Breastfeeding was a dream - again a vast difference from her first where she only got to hold her son 3 days after he was born. Fiona’s story is a remarkable journey from polar opposites end of the spectrum. I just love this stories of where women return to their power despite their previous experiences. Thank you Fiona for sharing your story from such a warm and heart centred place.

More About Fiona. 

Standing as a beacon for heart-centered mamas, I’m cultivating a community of soul-aligned women living abundant lives of ease, standing in absolute power, and advocating for freedom in all aspects of life. Together, we're redefining motherhood, one sovereign choice at a time.

Today on the show I speak to the wonderful Christie about her own freebirth as well as the launch of her children’s book about undisturbed birth - ‘Birth is magic’. Christie tells us how she was physiotherapist in a hospital for many years and consequently ended up with a whole heap of indoctrination through the medical system. For her first she ended up with a traumatic vaginal birth in hospital, that was neglectful, full of medical coercion, screws in her babies head and a vacuum delivery. Knowing better the second time - Christie chose a wild pregnancy and had a powerful freebirth with an amazing, blissful postpartum. We end by talking about how her amazing Freebirth inspired her to write a book. She says she just wanted to scream it from the rooftops of how great it was and so she channelled that energy into her book. I’m really grateful to Christie for creating a children’s book about freebirth, as it is so important what media we consume - especially our children. Through stories we create culture and ultimately our reality - so make sure you tell your kids a healthy story about birth. Below are details of how you can purchase her book and also a discount code for you. Enjoy!

10% off code:  RMAMA10

https://www.birthismagic.com/shop/p/birth-is-magic-hardcover-book

Christie Murray bio:  Christie Murray is a Mother, Milliner, Artist, Writer and Educator. She also practiced as a Physiotherapist for 16 years. Christie is passionate about maternal rights after a traumatic birth in hospital left her questioning everything. She rose from the ashes to birth her second daughter freely and peacefully at home. Birth Is Magic is her story.

Birth Is Magic bio : A magical children's book about undisturbed birth. Chloe is a 4 year old girl with a big imagination! Come on her magical journey as she learns all about having a baby at home.  Whether you are planning to birth unassisted or with midwives, this is the homebirth children’s book for you!  Using clear language and engaging illustrations, Birth Is Magic playfully prepares your child for physiological birth at home. Our bodies and our babies are magic.There is an inherent wisdom in how birth unfolds. Let’s change the birth narrative for generations to come, one story at a time.

Today on the show I speak to freebirth doula and Mama of 2 Olivia. After a traumatic hospital birth with her first, Olivia decided to have a homebirth with midwife for her second. Living in Spain at the time, Olivia had planned to have her Mum attend and was waiting for her to arrive from Germany. The week leading up she had all sorts of sensations and she feels like she was holding off, until her Mum arrived. Literally the moment her Mum walked in the door, the final moments of the birth process started. Thinking she had done a poo - Olivia asked her Mum to check - but alas it was her daughter’s head crowning. Her baby was born moments later into her Mums arms and her midwife arrived after the placenta was born. After moving back to Australia - Olivia undertook doula training and this is where the alignment with her freebirth and where she wanted to go in life started clicking in. After working in the birth space in both hospital and home - Olivia has now decided to mainly work with freebirth clients. We also talk about men’s role in birth, doulas who are too scared to attend free births, postpartum depression and Olivia’s experience attending her Mum giving birth to her younger sibling when she was 19. Olivia is grounded, caring and someone who trusts birth. She sees how simple birth can be and I hope this episode reiterates this to you too.  More about Olivia:  Full spectrum doula / birth keeper. I am a mother, a daughter, a sister, a partner, an environment lover, and a free birth doula. I am the woman behind Conscious Bodies Co. I have two beautiful children that were both born in Mallorca, Spain. There I experienced 2 completely different births, a long hospital birth with interventions and trauma, and an unintended free birth at home. This has cemented to me that I have the ability to support women no matter what kind of birth she wants. I first became in awe of the power of women’s bodies when I watched my sister being born at home in the water when I was 19 years old. Those images are still imprinted in my mind. I offer conscious birthing through supporting women to feel empowered, respected, held and heard before, during and after birth. Business Name: Conscious Bodies Co. Instagram: @consciousbodiesco Website: https://www.consciousbodiesco.com Podcast: Men at Birth @menatbirth Email: consciousbodiesco@gmail.com Phone Number: 0478 640 321

Today on the show I speak with radical registered midwife Sharon Robinson. Hailing from the US, Sharon tells us of her training in Brooklyn, New York and how she promptly left, and continued learning on the job, helping serve birthing women in Cambodia. Sharon now lives in New Zealand and is a local community midwife there, but it has not all has always been smooth sailing. She tells us how her registration was threatened and put on hold (unsurprisingly because she is a radical midwife) after some other midwifes reported her to the government bodies. This process for her was HUGE and she ended up leaving the small town where she was living due to the dramas and traumas it all caused. Sharon has recently returned to that district and is now happily continuing to serve the women in that community. Sharon is also known as a travelling midwife and has attended births as far afield as the Amazon Jungle in Peru! I really like Sharon. She is so real and raw and just generally a really good person with a big heart. I hope you see her big heart and her passion for serving women in this interview. 

Sharron's Bio :

Sharon Robinson, originally from the US, trained as a midwife in Brooklyn, New York. She was a physical therapist when she had her own two birth children. It was after their births that she describes what felt like a spiritual awakening to what she believes is her authentic purpose, midwifery. Her clinical training was all done in 2 big city hospitals in the Bronx. While she was grateful for the education and experiences, she felt she was being groomed to be more of a physician's assistant than the midwife she had been called to be. 

Since graduating in 2000, she has traveled extensively and supported women to birth in various countries around the world. Those countries include Cambodia, Tonga, New Zealand, Benin, Mexico and even the Amazon Jungle in Peru! 

She is passionate about women holding the reigns for their own birthing journeys. She knows that “positive” birth outcomes most often occur when space is held for birth to unfold in the ways that Mother Nature has designed. She also knows that “good births” are important and can help women heal from previous traumatic births. She has often gone above and beyond routine guidelines and protocols to support those positive healing births to occur. 

She is a strong advocate for homebirth realizing that most women have been culturally conditioned to believe that birthing in hospitals, even for “low-risk” women, is the “safest option.” She also realizes that the unfortunate truth is that routine hospital interventions, designed to avoid adverse outcomes caused by "risk factors," all too often end up sabotaging women’s own innate birthing wisdom, power and positive outcomes.

She says that when care providers and birthing women are saturated in the hormones of fear it leads to mostly “well-meaning” interventions that unfortunately, all too often, derail the process of normal physiological birth. Sharon is doing what she can, one sacred birth at a time, to welcome our new citizens of the world with the love and respect that, she believes, they all deserve.

Today on the show I speak to Jas - mother of 5 and ex-midwife. Some of you may also know Jas from her popular Instagram account - Chasing The Summerfields  where she showcases her photography and beautiful life in the south west of Australia. Jas has been on quite the journey for her births and has ticked nearly all the boxes from hospital birth, birth centre, an accidental birth in the car before arrival, home birth with midwife and finally a wild pregnancy and freebirth. Jas talks about all the undoing from her training she has had to shed over the years and tells us how she ended free birthing her last babe. What is also interesting about her story is that her freebirth was also a breech birth. We ponder how this could have ended up in the system and how grateful she is, that she chose freebirth, where her birth was unhindered and unsuprisingly - straight forward. I love Jas’ kind hearted nature and her commitment to live her current truth even though she started almost at the opposite end of the street. Enjoy this conversation of 5 wildly different births. 

A short bio:

I’m Jas, a 32 year old mother of five living back home in the deep south of Western Australia.

My journey to freebirthing has been a long one- a hospital birth, birth centre birth, a car on the side of the road birth, a homebirth, and finally our freebirth. Each experience left me learning and adapting, but still taking the long way around to end up exactly where we needed to be. 

I trained as a midwife before all of my own births and had many layers of conditioning to strip back. Learning to trust my ever present intuition was pivotal during my pregnancy and birth. 

After years of not being willing to return to work, I gave up my midwifery registration in 2020. I realised that  I couldn’t re-enter the system and work with the restrictions and boundaries that aren’t at all geared to be ‘with woman.’ 

I’m still so passionate about birth- I know that will always be part of me- but I know that I can’t change the system while working  within it. I’m currently sinking in to all the possibilities and mapping out exactly where my heart lies to find my place back in the birth realm in the near future. 

Today on the show I speak to the phenomenal Gloria Le May. Gloria is a ex-midwife turned birth attendant after the Canadian government co-opted the word in 1998. Gloria starts by telling us of her own birth story and how she gave up her daughter for adoption when she was 17. Later she met her husband who was a physician and was a stockbroker herself. She never thought she would get into birth work, but how wrong she was. When she had her second daughter - she looked for the ‘best obstetrician’ and when none of them would meet her very basic requests, she sort help from a dutch midwife and had her baby at home. From then, there was no going back. Gloria since then has spent most of her time in birth work and talks us through her career including the very public court cases and 2 months in jail due to the witch hunt for midwives in Canada. If there ever was a picture of integrity - Gloria is it. She walks her talk and has so much wisdom to impart to us all. We end by talking about how she has changed over the years as a birth worker and where she sees birth heading in the future. Gloria is so much fun to talk to and I love how bold and brash she is - just what we need in the world right now! 

Bio: 

Gloria is an author, teacher and grandmother. She has worked in the childbirth field for the past 40 years, (17 of those as a midwife) and has had experience with over 1500 births. Gloria's film “Birth with Gloria Lemay” has sold over a thousand copies. Gloria has written many articles and has been published in Midwifery Today magazine and she is a popular online blogger at www.wisewomanwayofbirth.com. Gloria is a passionate advocate for the bodily integrity of boys and girls. She lives in Canada and travels all over North America in her role as a teacher and speak

Today on the show I speak to the wonderful, mother of 3, Reanne Waddell. Reanne came into this world at 27 weeks via c-section after her mother had a placental abruption. Reanne also contracted sepsis and spent the first few months of her life in hospital. Her start to life definitely wasn’t the best and why I think her story is so amazing. Her first she had in hospital and ended in a c-section at the pushing stage which she says felt really let down about. For her second ,with the support of her husband and a doula she had a freebirth at home after disengaging her midwife half way through the pregnancy due to financial reasons. For her third she had a complete wild pregnancy and a longer (although still straight forward) birth. Reanne also touches on her breastfeeding struggles and how she realised that some of the struggles were related to trauma during childhood - I really appreciated her sharing this as I know it’s not always easy to go there. Reanne is very mild mannered and quiet but really a powerhouse of strength underneath it all. I loved chatting to her and hearing her discoveries along the way. 

Bio: 

Born premature at 27+3, 27th June 1995

1 of 5 children, I'm the 4th child

Born via emergency c section 

1st 6 years of life was in Perth, then 7 years in Geraldton before moving back to Perth, where I've stayed since.

 Met my husband in 2017, he has 2 children from a previous marriage, we married in 2019, had our first son in 2020, second son in 2022 and our 3rd son in August 2023.

Today on the show I speak with Hayley Wilson about her journey to surrogacy. Hayley had two children of her own and decided she wanted to experience having another birth but without the baby at the end. She researched surrogacy and found a family she aligned with to carry their biological baby for them. She had five attempts to fall pregnant with the embryo, and it finally took on the last attempt. The pregnancy as you would suspect was a lot of drugs which she now sees as  probably unnecessary. She said it was a hard pregnancy and in retrospect puts this down to the energetics of carrying someone else’s baby. Even though her and the parents were on the same page and both very respectful of each other - she talks about how there were still bumps in the road regarding bodily autonomy and conflicts in the birth space. In Australia commercial surrogacy is not legal and you can not be paid to be a surrogate, which you many may think is a better system. Altruistic Surrogacy which is legal in Australia and what Hayley did, still has it’s problems though. Hayley ends by telling us why she would never be a surrogate again and in reflection the other reasons why she did it. Hayley is beautifully honest and respectful. I loved hearing her journey of surrogacy and ultimately of her personal growth. 

Bio:

Hayley Wilson is a self-led, matriarchal birth worker and mentor who wants every woman to access her inner depth, intuition and power. She believes in embodying matriarchy and uses a range of heart-led energetic practices to guide women toward their internal wisdom. Hayley supports her clients to unlearn and live in feminine alignment so they can curate the births and businesses of their dreams.

Today on the show I speak to Christie about her home birth and subsequent freebirth on her partners family farm in New Zealand. Although her first birth was overall “pretty great” there were things that she wasn’t quite happy with such as coached pushing, her babe being yanked out and a syntocinon shot for the placenta. For her second, even though her partner was gunning for a freebirth right from the start she was still unsure. She dipped in and out of the system and just a few weeks before the birth she decided to freebirth. This birth she decided to breath her baby out and said she slipped out with the perfect ‘textbook twist’. Her placenta didn’t come out straight away and she called the midwife who gave her the syntocinon shot in her first birth for advice.  The midwife suggested for her to go to hospital but that didn’t feel right and she waited it out with her placenta being born 7.5 hours later. Christie and her partner Ben are such a beautiful couple and I love the faith and trust they have in each other.  

More about Christie: 

A couple of months after discovering she was pregnant covid hit and Christie and her long time partner chose his family farm in NZ to ride out the lockdowns and start their family. In a small hut on the property without power or hot water they water birthed their first child with the local midwife and chose the same spot to have their second. This time a simple free birth with no one but themselves. Their family now complete, they travel around the world following their whims and work.