MyMaine Birth

Send us Fan Mail Emily joins me to share how a positive pregnancy test on a trip to Greece turns into a pregnancy full of big decisions, including letting go of a home birth dream because of a medical complication and choosing the kind of support that actually feels right. We talk about switching providers twice, moving from OB care to the Mercy midwives late in pregnancy, and why listening to you...

Send us Fan Mail Birth can change in a second, and sometimes the part that lingers is not just what happened, but what you did not get to feel or remember.  Teal joins me for a vulnerable, detailed conversation about her first birth in April 2020, when early-pandemic uncertainty collides with a frightening labor complication and an emergency C-section.  She shares what it was like to be rushed int...

Send us Fan Mail A birth can look “low risk” right up until the second it doesn’t, and Emma’s story makes that reality impossible to ignore. She joins us to share her three births in Maine: her first two were at  Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, then a planned home birth that became urgent in a way no checklist could predict. We talk through inductions, Pitocin contractions, epidurals, and...

Send us Fan Mail This conversation draws a sharp line between the idea of free birth and the brand and ideology of Free Birth Society, described by a former inner circle member as a high control group. Serendipiti explains how constant content, binge listening to the curated podcast stories, and a tight private membership can gradually reshape beliefs about maternity care, medical risk, and even p...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we talk with Nikki about her pivot from Free Birth Society circles and birth keeping back into a hands-on midwifery apprenticeship as she works toward CPM licensure.   Nikki Shared her two free birth stories and her experience with the Radical Birth Keeper School and the MatriBirth Midwifery Institute back in episode 122 of MyMaine Birth, you can find that episode...

Send us Fan Mail In today's episode we hold space for Katie Spinks as she shares the traumatic birth of her daughter Jolene, including a Pitocin induction that ends in uterine rupture, delayed care, and a devastating HIE diagnosis.  From there, we zoom out to the bigger questions: what informed consent should actually sound like in hospital birth, why birth plans can be used against mothers,...

Send us Fan Mail Freebirth and unassisted birth are getting more attention for a reason, and the most useful place to start is not with outrage but with curiosity.  When families move away from hospital birth, it often has less to do with rejecting modern medicine and more to do with a loss of trust after feeling unheard, touched without true consent, or treated as “room two” instead of a person. ...

Send us Fan Mail If you’ve ever felt pulled between “trust birth” and “trust the system,” this conversation lives in the complicated middle where real autonomy actually grows.  In this episode I’m joined by Maren Green of Indie Birth, a practicing midwife for over 15 years, mother of 10, and a teacher known for speaking her truth. We dig into the difference between free birth as a personal option...

Send us Fan Mail A home birth plan can unravel fast when fear, deadlines, and other people’s priorities start driving the room.  Katie joins me to share three very different birth experiences that span from Maine, to France, and then Connecticut and what those births taught her about informed consent, and physiological birth. We talk honestly about her first pregnancy during COVID, the move to mid...

Send us Fan Mail A pregnancy can look “low risk” on paper and still feel like walking through a storm. Keely, a nurse and mom of six, joins us to tell the full story of her sixth baby, including why she chose a home birth with an unassisted plan while carefully distancing herself from the most extreme corners of freebirth culture. We talk candidly about the unraveling of the Free Birth Society mid...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I talk with Isabel about how the free birth society's  “sovereign midwifery school” promise turned into confusion, missing transparency, and a culture that punished questions.  We also unpack what it looks like to unlearn judgment, protect informed consent, and support physiologic birth across the full spectrum from hospital to home. In this episode we discuss...

Send us Fan Mail A glossy website, a “world's leading” tagline, and a $12,000 price point can make an online school feel vetted and legitimate.  Then the curtain lifts.  I sit down with Emma Moore, a fellow Mainer who grew up in Bangor and enrolled in the Free Birth Society’s Matribirth Midwifery Institute (MMI), to share what it felt like to walk in hopeful and leave alarmed, embarrassed, an...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we discuss:  Trigger warning for discussion of traumatic birth and maternal death childhood medical experiences that train compliance and silence intuition prenatal care without real informed consent fear based hospital child birth education classes a first hospital birth shaped by interventions, coercion, and postpartum separation postpartum struggles, sleep train...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I talk with my niece Kately about becoming a mom at 19 and choosing a home birth in rural Maine where options are limited. We unpack a rapid, induced labor, unexpected third-degree tears, early breastfeeding struggles, and what it feels like when support stops being transparent and starts feeling like control. In this episode we discuss: finding out she was pregnan...

Send us Fan Mail Are you a soon to be mom, a seasoned mother, or simply interested in the world of birth?  You’re in the right place!  In this episode, we discuss: medically managed breech pregnancy care and a C-section experience processing disconnection after birth and rebuilding bonding through breastfeeding planning a hospital VBAC with a doula and staying hoe longer in labor how hospital coac...

Send us Fan Mail Are you a soon to be mom, a seasoned mother, or simply interested in the world of birth?  You’re in the right place!  In this episode, we discuss: Home birth in Maine Hannah's Three Birth Stories  - from a COVID-era hospital birth with the midwives at Maine General in Augusta, to two powerful home water births with care from her loving midwives from MotherSeed Midwifery - we...

Send us Fan Mail Are you a soon to be mom, a seasoned mother, or simply interested in the world of birth?  You’re in the right place!  In this episode, we discuss: Choosing the midwifery team at the hospital in Ellsworth amid MDI OB unit closure and high costs of home birth midwifery services supplementing, acupuncture, and anemia infusions securing the FreshTest and challenging default policies h...

Send us Fan Mail Are you a soon to be mom, a seasoned mother, or simply interested in the world of birth?  You’re in the right place!  In this episode, we discuss: home birth in Maine finding a midwife after moving up the coast pregnancy while finishing a home build in winter early labor signs that felt like prodromal labor practical setup at home for birth water breaking on the toilet and rapid p...

Send us Fan Mail Are you a soon to be mom, a seasoned mother, or simply interested in the world of birth?  You’re in the right place!  In this episode, we discuss: Home birth in Maine Midwifery care in Maine The benefits of working with home birth midwives and a supportive OB late-pregnancy bleed, monitoring, and reassurance labor beginning at work and rallying the team rapid active labor, meconiu...

Send us Fan Mail Are you a soon to be mom, a seasoned mother, or simply interested in the world of birth?  You’re in the right place!  In Episode 145 Hannah is here to share her three births that move from a long induction and cesarean to an empowered VBAC and then to a breath-led hospital birth with a midwife where Hannah catches her own baby.  Along the way, we unpack postpartum mental health, p...

Send us Fan Mail Ivy, a labor and delivery nurse shares four births that shaped her faith in her body and her care team, from a cleft diagnosis and cesarean to a healing VBAC and a swift boy-girl twin birth with a footling breech catch from her supportive doctor. We unpack preparation, provider choice, and how calm leadership keeps complex births safe and human. In this episode, we discuss: cleft...

Send us Fan Mail In this Episode I'm joined by Alannah and her husband Cam as he shares how a traumatic hospital birth shaped their early parenthood. They then trace the long road to a calm, unassisted twin home birth where Cam caught both babies, including their daughter who was  breech.   The conversation turns to consent, repair, and what real partner support looks like before, during, and...

Send us Fan Mail Are you a soon to be mom, a seasoned mother, or simply interested in the world of birth?  You’re in the right place!  In this episode, we discuss: Twin Home birth in Maine - *after the new 2020 Midwifery Licensure Laws and Restrictions Twin reveal at ten weeks and immediate loss of her dream home birth being supported by her loving midwife  finding voice through birth photography...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode Alannah shares her first three birth stories—one traumatic hospital birth marked by separation and silence, a fast unmedicated second that rebuilt trust, and a pandemic‑era third where advocacy met policy. The theme is voice: consent, clear communication, and support change outcomes and memories. • membrane sweep at 40 weeks and unintended cascade • birth plan igno...

Send us Fan Mail Are you a soon to be mom, a seasoned mother, or simply interested in the world of birth?  You’re in the right place!  In this episode, we discuss: Whapio's approach to birth as a presence of reassurance and a fountain of information  All about the Monitricé   Midwifery care and doula support ….and a whole lot more! Show Resources Connect with Whapio and her incredible Program...