Doing It At Home - The Home Birth Podcast

In today's episode we're answering a listener email. This one comes to us from Hannah who is looking for feedback on how she can amicably part ways with her OBGYN.  Matthew and I LOVE our listener emails. Seriously, they energize us and inspire us to keep bringing you all awesome content. On the days when we’re feeling under the weather (like Matthew is in this episode - notice the deep, raspy voi...

In this episode we chat with mom-to-be Katie about her journey to home birth, and the days ahead. At 39 weeks pregnant, she’s prepped and ready for birth day! And this episode has a surprise special guest - Katie’s husband Chris! He joins us for the call, a first for the show. We were super excited to hear from him and get his perspective on the whole process. Both were heavily influenced by The B...

In this episode we're talking with Megan Kibling as she shares her empowering home birth story with us. Megan is mom to 6-year-old Aurelia and 19-month-old Leonardo Iztali from Denver, Colorado. We connected with Megan via another DIAH mom, Marissa (whom we interviewed a few weeks before). Megan had sent a banner to Marissa to decorate her home in preparation for home birth. The same banner has ma...

In this episode we're talking with Christina Benton - birth photographer, birth and postpartum doula, mom and wife. Christina shares her beautiful home birth and hospital birth stories, from behind the lens, and she shares why moms and families should highly consider hiring a photographer for their homebirth.  This is a first for the Doing It At Home Podcast: an interview with a birth photographer...

In this episode we're commenting on a blog article that Matthew found in Romper, called ”7 Things That Happen After You Give Birth At Home.” The article covers everything from what happens with the mess, to baby's first checkup, to bonding with your new baby. This was such a great article, simple and informative, that it inspired us to do this episode! So Angela Johnson, if you’re out there and se...

In this episode we're talking with Tammy Williams. Tammy is a 38 year old first time mom who chose to have her baby at home. She is an amazing momma who approached her home birth without fear, and had a magic experience. If Tammy could, she would shout from every rooftop about how awesome her home birth experience was and how every woman can give birth without fear. Since finding every rooftop wou...

In today's episode we're talking with Danielle Turk-Bly, two time mom with a third on the way. Danielle is a self described "crunchy mom" (#represent) and we have an amazing conversation on this episode. We talk about all kinds of things from the birth planning to cloth diapering and homeschooling, running while pregnant, facing your fear demons around birth, placenta previa and how that has been...

In this bite-sized episode, I share some realness with you. This week has been tough for me. At any point, I’ve felt frustrated, tired, stressed, over-extended, low, and a bunch of other adjectives you use when everything feels difficult. I didn’t take time for myself and had myself convinced that I wasn’t doing enough - that I wasn’t feeling productive enough. Bottom line: this was my ego playing...

In this episode we're talking to Sara-Beth Reuter about her inspiring journey to home birth.  Sara-Beth is a great example of courage and determination. After her doctor told her that she would not be able to deliver naturally and would need a c-section because of the size of her baby, she and her husband Matthew decided to get another opinion on the matter. They reached out to Matthew’s grandmoth...

In this episode we're talking all about having sex after baby. Yes, this is the much anticipated followup to our episode about sex while pregnant (link below). Postpartum sex can be tricky, and for us it involved patience, compassion and creativity. But now, both Matthew and I can say without a doubt, that we're having the BEST SEX OF OUR RELATIONSHIP, and that's after pushing out a kid! If you’ve...

This episode is part two of our conversation with Christie Andersen, our first-time mom planning her home birth while her husband Ryan had been stationed in Korea throughout the whole pregnancy. And a lot has changed since our last conversation! For one, we had a baby! Little Charlotte has since stepped on the scene, and we get to hear all about her grand entrance. Christie shares Ryan’s homecomin...

In this episode we're talking with Christie Andersen about her upcoming home birth. Christie was pregnant at the time of our recording, just days away from giving birth. We were incredibly excited that Christie wanted to share her homebirth story with us and let us into her experience as a soon-to-be-mom. On top of all of that magic, Christie was excitedly awaiting the return of her husband, who w...

In today's episode we're talking to two-time mom Melissa Thormahlen, about the home birth of her son Tyler. Melissa's home birth story is a beautiful example of trust and surrender to the process of childbirth. Melissa Thormahlen knows how to give me “all the feels.” I knew her story would impact many when her first email to me about her birth story had me tearing up. She experienced most of her b...

Everything is energy - this is a principle that Matthew and I became aware of a few years ago and since then have used it to guide our lives. How we create and nurture our relationships, our businesses and how we make decisions in our lives have all been influenced. And especially our home birth journey. Essentially when it comes to planning your home birth, it serves you well to drop judgements a...

In today's episode we have another home birth story for you, this time from Megan Henebstreit. Megan Hebenstreit is a straight shooter - she’s very real and super clear about her decision to go with home birth and how she experienced it. She’s also known from a younger age that she was interested in home birth - something Matthew and I haven’t heard very often in our conversations with women and f...

How do you get your space ready for your home birth? In this episode we’re talking about ways in which you can prepare the physical space (i.e. your home) for your home birth. For our home birth, Matthew and I were very intentional in wanting to create a peaceful, comfortable, relaxing space to welcome Maya into the world. We were also gifted with incredibly fabulous things like a home cleaning an...

In today's episode we're talking to Anne Margolis - Certified and Licensed Home Birth Midwife, Licensed OB/GYN nurse practitioner, practicing prenatal yogi, home birth expert and creator of HomeSweetHomeBirth.com. Anne believes in a healthy woman’s innate ability to give birth normally, naturally and with pleasure despite the challenges. She is devoted to protecting undisturbed physiological labor...

In this episode we're giving you some powerful affirmations to help you prepare for your pregnancy and home birth. We have 2 affirmations for moms and 2 for dads. We’ve talked a lot about affirmations on the show at different points in time - a little bit in our story and then in the stories of other moms, so we thought we’d create some of our own for you beautiful listeners! I thought it would be...

In today's episode we're talking with Marissa Olivera, a mom of 2 from Utica, NY, with both a hospital birth story and home birth story. Marissa experienced intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) with her first pregnancy. That, along with some early signs of labor made for a hospital birth that included a lot of intervention and fear. The way she sees it, baby Maxwell just wasn’t ready yet. She pl...

In today's episode we're giving you nine questions to ask yourself to decide whether home birth might be an option for you and your family. This podcast is all about providing resources, stories and empowering around the home birth conversation. We personally chose homebirth to welcome our daughter into the world, but we realize that home birth is not the best option for some families. There are s...

In today's episode we talk to mom Lindsay Bonnar about her home birth story. Lindsay planned a home birth for her first baby, but circumstances required a transfer to a birth center. Now pregnant with her second, Lindsay and her husband are planning a home birth again for the second round.  Lindsay is another beautiful face of home birth, sharing her plans for home birth with her daughter that eve...

In today’s episode I’m sharing my postpartum story. I get into the nitty gritty details of the very first postpartum stages after my home birth. I also talk about what I experienced with postnatal visits with my midwives, healing a perineal tear, breastfeeding, diastasis recti (aka ab separation), postpartum sex and more! Offers From Our Awesome Partners: Needed: https://needed.sjv.io/XY3903 - use...

Today we're talking with Maria Mengel about her 2 birth stories. Maria's first daughter was born at a birthing center with a midwife, and her second was an unassisted home birth (also known as "freebirth"). In this episode Maria gets honest about her two birth experiences and shares some of the things she learned during the process. Maria reached out to us after listening to the show and felt insp...

In today's episode we talk about 6 comments and questions that you absolutely don't want to say to a home birth mom or family! We heard these things as we prepared for our home birth and can say from experience that they are not helpful at all. Some things are better left unsaid, and that applies to commentary on someone’s decision to have a home birth. In this episode we share 6 big statement/top...

Continuing our work to bring real and honest stories of home birth to you, we sat down with Debbie Schneider, CPM extraordinaire. Debbie is actually our midwife! She delivered Maya, and has become a very important part of our lives. We’ve known we wanted to interview Debbie since we started the podcast. She’s an amazing and wise source of information and support of all things home birth. Her story...