The Birth Nest

As a mum of 3 this quote tugs at my heart. In a flash the beautiful baby girl who made me a mum has just celebrated her 9th birthday. I study her profile as she sprawls out across my bed writing in her diary. I'm desperate to remember all the tiny things about when she was a baby, how she smelt, how her babbling voice sounded, how it felt to fall asleep holding her tiny body against my skin in our bed. The truth is that almost a decade on and 2 more children later I have a mixture of hazy memories of tired, no exhausted days and nights, breastfeeding constantly, washing nappies, tidying toys and preparing food. When I cuddle her now, I close my eyes and bury my nose into her hair, breathing in her familiar smell... Ahh yes, there it is, my baby girl now a growing young lady. The days are still long and full of mum duties, folding countless knickers and trying to discern if they fit a 4, 6 1/2 or 9 year old bottom. I'm finally realising THESE are the days, in fa...

Autumn is one of my favourite times of year, leaves turning orange and brown and the nights drawing in. I turn to my doula bag and re pack it for the season. Out come the flip flops and vest tops and in go the woolly socks and cardigan. I love being on call for my clients any time of year and each season has its merits.Winter involves cosy, dark births huddled round open fires or radiators sipping hot tea. Spring is like the ultimate time for fertility and birth as daffodils burst through and there's a feeling of new life everywhere. Su mmer means light evenings and warm morning births by beautiful orange sunrise. Which brings me back to autumn.  I go on call in 3 weeks and I simply can't wait. One of the loveliest parts of being a doula is the wonderful anticipation that in the near future I will get that call. I will soon be part of an amazing birth, watching as another new life enters the world surrounded by power and love.  When clients leave me feedback describin...

We’ve all heard the song lyrics but what has love   got to do with labour and birth and is it all we need? Love comes from a space where we feel safe, supported and confident, that we are respected, listened to and understood. In social settings when we feel loved or when we cuddle up with our partners our bodies produce a hormone called oxytocin. Often referred to as the hormone of love, oxytocin plays an essential role in labour; it is the signal to the uterus that our body and baby are ready for birth. It’s also one of the contributing factors to how you became pregnant in the first place (wink wink). In labour oxytocin works alongside our bodies own naturally occurring pain relief, endorphins, to maintain and build the surges (contractions) of the uterus which, when left uninterrupted eventually birth our babies. Uninterrupted was the key word in that sentence, when a woman comes from a place of calmness and love her hormones support her body and she can birth withou...

I have spent the whole morning on the phone to my car insurance company trying to get somebody to use their common sense, to see my case as an individual incident, to evoke some empathy about my unique situation, to sound like they are on my side, here to support me and finally to listen and do as I ask without baffling me with their accident matrix formula and their total loss procedure. I am left feeling deflated, weary, stripped of my ability to influence what is happening and quite honestly a bit teary. This is not how my Monday morning was supposed to be. I have been thrown into a totally unexpected situation and without understanding their processes and language in advance I feel dis-empowered. I’ve been meaning to write a blog about how I most love supporting my clients for a long time and now in the midst of my car insurance fiasco I am reminded of the last time I felt like this and the countless times I have supported women and couples through emotions like this duri...