Birth stories

Caroline birthed her first baby at home as part of the midwifery group practice (MGP) homebirth program at the Mercy Hospital for Women , which was introduced in October 2024.

Jane says the birth of her second baby, Lily, was ‘a healing and very redemptive birth experience’. ‘My first baby was born with a classic cascade of interventions, I was left feeling disappointed, sad and overwhelmed in the postpartum period, along with a sense of “not being able to do it”,’ Jane wrote to Rhea. ‘I withdrew my interest in the birth world for nearly three years until I found myself pregnant again. I then found your work.’ Here, Jane shares more about her experience.  

Jerica describes the recent birth of her daughter as ‘a phenomenal experience’. ‘Luck did play a part in it, but I also attribute a lot of my positive experience to Rhea’s Birth with Confidence book,’ she says.

Alice’s first birth experience ‘left deep scars when it came to trusting care providers’, she says. But research, listening to positive birth stories and reading Birth With Confidence ‘reinforced my belief in my ability to birth on my own terms’, says Alice, who had a successful VBAC for her second baby’s birth.

Were Rhea’s books or workshop part your birth preparation? We would love to hear your story, whether to share with expectant parents here, or privately with Rhea.

After a ‘very much unwanted caesarean’, Amelia made different choices for the birth of her second baby, engaging private midwives and a doula for ‘my beautiful homebirth’: ‘Reading Beyond the Birth Plan made me realise that even calling in the most amazing supportive birth team could only take me so far.’

Suzanne says her experience birthing her three babies was ‘an unexpected ride of self discovery’. Fearful approaching her third labour after two distressing experiences, she read Birth With Confidence and was ‘blown away by how little I knew about the medical system and about birth’.