19/12/2025
Sharing a Birth Story + Birth Trauma Awareness
Nine years ago, I believed I was preparing for birth.
What I couldn’t have known was that I was standing at the beginning of a long and humbling journey of healing.
The months that followed my son’s birth were not what I had imagined. In the immediate postpartum period, I developed a life-threatening digestive disorder. Within a year, I was navigating chronic illness, PTSD from medical and surgical procedures, repeated misdiagnosis of my son’s lip and tongue tie, and significant loss - a dear friend, three beloved animals, and the security of knowing where we would live. Soon after, we undertook an immigration journey to Spain, parenting abroad without family, familiarity, or a support network.
Somewhere along the way, my nervous system went into survival.
I dissociated - though I didn’t have language for it then. I only knew I felt distant from myself, frightened in my body, and constantly bracing, while still showing up each day as a mother.
When I celebrate my son’s birthday, joy and grief coexist.
Birthdays, in many minds, are meant to be clean - purely celebratory, uncomplicated.
But for many mothers, birthdays are also anniversaries. They are layered, embodied, emotional markers that live in the body as much as they do in the calendar.
I grieve not being able to enjoy walking outside with my baby, meeting other parents, or feeling ease in early motherhood.
I grieve the loss of breastfeeding - not because my body failed, but because of misinformation and lack of informed support.
I grieve the memories I cannot fully access because dissociation protected me by tucking them away.
I grieve doing it without family or familiar faces close by.
I grieve a lot of things......
And still, I celebrate him - fiercely.
Both things are true.
This is birth trauma.
Not always dramatic. Not always visible. Often quiet, cumulative, and carried silently in the body.
Birth trauma doesn’t end when the birth does. It can live on in the nervous system, in chronic symptoms, in parenting patterns, and in how safe we feel - or don’t feel - in ourselves and the world.
My healing did not come from one single path.
Body-based healing has been a saviour for me - supporting my nervous system, restoring a sense of safety, and gently reconnecting me to my body. Practices such as craniosacral therapy, trauma-informed bodywork, embodied movement, and breath have played a central role.
At the same time, I deeply believe in a holistic model of care. Talk therapy, relational support, and working alongside skilled, ethical practitioners from different disciplines have also been vital parts of my healing. I value collaboration, and I actively recommend practitioners when support beyond my scope is needed - because no one approach holds the whole story.
This lived experience is the foundation of my work.
I took time - years - to meet my own blocks, shadows, and unfinished healing. Not because I was avoiding my calling, but because I believe deeply that holding space for mothers and babies requires presence, regulation, humility, and integrity.
I do this work because I want to be a present parent.
I do this work because I believe mothers deserve care that honours their whole experience - body, mind, nervous system, and story.
I do this work so that fewer women feel alone, confused, or dismissed in the aftermath of birth.
As I move forward into 2026, my intention is clear:
to raise awareness of birth trauma,
to support healing through ethical, trauma-informed and holistic care,
and to create spaces where mothers and babies are met with gentleness, respect, and collaboration.
If you are here, you are welcome.
Your story matters.
Your body remembers - and it also knows how to heal
