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For birth givers For Birth Givers is the practice of Hope Hamilton, licensed midwife, in Birmingham, AL.

Please visit forbirthgivers.com for information regarding pregnancy/birth/postpartum home midwifery care, fertility services including at-home IUI, and monitrice services.

‘Let go’One of the most powerfully paradoxical birth affirmations there is and also the mantra of this wee edible flower...
21/07/2025

‘Let go’

One of the most powerfully paradoxical birth affirmations there is and also the mantra of this wee edible flower that has come and gone from the land but is still present in our syrups, teas, salves, etc. Violets are a meditative reminder of the oft times simple, but tenacious work of interconnectedness. When it doesn’t make sense, when fears born from past experience try to inform our present, when we’re scared because it feels all too vulnerable, Violets whisper, “It’s ok. Trust and dare to have faith.”

Violet is cooling and moistening to the body; topically it promotes wound healing. It also plays well with others and is synergistic with herbs that amplify its inherent qualities. Its petals and specifically its leaves are heart-shaped, which aligns with an Andrea Gibson (presenté!) poem I read this week called Royal Heart. Here is an excerpt that gives Violet energy—

“…you can choose to bury your past
in the garden
beside the tulips
water it
until it’s so alive
it lets go
and you belong to yourself
again

When you belong to yourself again
Remember forgiveness
is not a tidy grave
It is a ready loyal knight kneeling before your royal heart

Call in your royal heart
Tell it bravery cannot be measured by a lack of fear
It takes guts to tremble
It takes so much tremble to love…”

This embroidery was for a birth giver who fought hard to let go, and then she did. My goodness; I’ll never forget the power of that. Then she named her baby Violet.

To all the Thick and Tired folks out here this summer tryna thrive and survive this heat, this humidity, and this admini...
29/06/2025

To all the Thick and Tired folks out here this summer tryna thrive and survive this heat, this humidity, and this administration.

Drink water with the grains of salt, and hydrate you and yours ✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽

22/05/2025

🌟 Nominate a Birth Hero! 🌟

Do you know someone who’s making birth safer in Alabama? A nurse, doctor, midwife, doula, or advocate who's going above and beyond? We want to celebrate them!

Submit their story and a photo for a chance to be featured on our page and help us shine a light on the people making a real difference.

📸 Tell us who inspires you
👉 https://forms.gle/S5pU6S1KeTbWAWez9

Submissions are open now!

As Rose season “comes to a close,” it’s fitting that she makes another appearance on the grid in honor of a little baby ...
22/05/2025

As Rose season “comes to a close,” it’s fitting that she makes another appearance on the grid in honor of a little baby who shares a name with the Regal Rose and is so so big now and her mama who wanted and waited so long for her, who lost and then found her and they each other.

As a kid, I disdainfully associated Rose with the overpowering, artificial smell of potpourri, but then there was my mother’s sacred Rose bush at the front door and the essence of my grandmother. Then I grew up and learned about all her botanical gifts—cardiovascular tonic, anti inflammatory, moistening to the body, anxiety helper, aphrodisiac, pain reliever—and about how she opens and holds the heart.

Earlier this year, I had a loss (more on that later …maybe), and in addition to all the tangible and energetic kindness and love, there was Rose—petals in my ‘letting go’ bath and in my grief tincture and in my Rose water made by a dear friend.

Thank you, Rosa spp, for existing and inspiring us to name babies after you.

Ricinus communis (I know we’ve sung its praises but it deserves a spot on the grid at least one a year because it’s the ...
25/04/2025

Ricinus communis (I know we’ve sung its praises but it deserves a spot on the grid at least one a year because it’s the G.O.A.T as the kids say.)

I always think of Castor around this time of year because one of the first gifts I received as a new Midwife is a beautiful print of the plant. It hangs in clinic as a constant reminder of the power and humility of plant medicine and the compact of trust we make every time we enter into a relationship with an herb.

The recipient of this hoop, who birthed her baby with the help of Castor, is to-date the youngest person I’ve ever cared for (a teenager), and yet she was one of the most trusting of birth from the consult onward. I remember thinking, “Oh my. She gets it. Even though she is so young, there’s that ancient wisdom in there, the cellular kind.”

A perfect partner for the ancient wisdom of Queen Castor.

Acupuncture, how I love thee. Thank you, Dr. Lundy, for the healing you are to me and this city, and welcome to Dr. Nico...
25/02/2025

Acupuncture, how I love thee. Thank you, Dr. Lundy, for the healing you are to me and this city, and welcome to Dr. Nicole. Yay for another TCM practitioner in Birmingham!

In honor of our Dandelion friends coming up and reminding us spring is soon to be here (and also to be kind and nature l...
19/02/2025

In honor of our Dandelion friends coming up and reminding us spring is soon to be here (and also to be kind and nature literate and don’t spray or be violent towards these little rays of sunshine and powerful detox botanicals), I’m finally posting the hoop for a survivor of liver challenges in pregnancy.

There are only a handful of pregnancy-safe liver support herbs, and you did ‘em all. You’ve never seen someone so motivated to be well for herself and her baby—with diet, with herbs, etc—than you.

From —

“Dandelion is more than an adapter; Dandelion is a transformer. Loosening compacted soil by growing deep roots, creating a micro-climate that draws earthworms, who’s job it is to change and rejuvenate the soil, drawing nutrients and toxins to the surface for use and transformation, dandelion is symbolic of the kind of magic that gently and firmly changes those conditions that no longer serve its environment. Dandelion magic is the magic of practical, gentle, and intentional transformation.”

That last sentence. It’s you, mama.

Happy “Due” Weekend to this Mother who brought her baby with the Full Storm Moon last week. 6th baby, 2nd homebirth, 1st...
16/02/2025

Happy “Due” Weekend to this Mother who brought her baby with the Full Storm Moon last week.

6th baby, 2nd homebirth, 1st water birth; this photo journal spans 30 minutes time—>glasses on, smiling, calm, breathing, smoothie, glasses off, working, breathing, baby out, smiling, glasses back on, breathing, sunrise and a new day, new mercies, and renewed hope.

A “You’re So Lovely” Blend, a Valentine’s blend for beloved teachers made by me and my boy. He cut and dried the strawbe...
14/02/2025

A “You’re So Lovely” Blend, a Valentine’s blend for beloved teachers made by me and my boy. He cut and dried the strawberries, and we mixed in the herbs together. You should make this for yourself and/or the people you love. Or let me know, and we can prepare some for you.

5 Parts Hibiscus Flowers
4 Parts Lady’s Mantle
3 Parts Holy Basil
3 Parts Butterfly Pea Flowers
2 Parts Rose Flowers
2 Parts Rose Hips
Dried Strawberries

Steep 1-2 heaping TBSP in 1 cup of boiled water for 10-15 min; strain, sweeten with honey, and love yourself.

St Brigid’s Feast Day— the patroness of midwives and refugees, of hearth and beer, of milk and mothers, of newborns and ...
03/02/2025

St Brigid’s Feast Day— the patroness of midwives and refugees, of hearth and beer, of milk and mothers, of newborns and poets. Her symbols are water and fire, and I honor her this day.

Not sure why I waited so long to fill this birth tub and immerse myself in this holiness, in my little grotto. Thank you to everyone who made this happen—to my beloveds who cleaned and filled her, kept her hot/warm, sprinkled rose petals gifted to me this week, brought me magnesium flakes and refreshments (beer included) and to all the friends who kept asking, “Have you filled your birth tub yet? Have you been in the bath?”

St. Brigid and the Fruit Tree

There was the moment
you could bear it no more.
Your eyes brimming with
great glistening drops
summoned by the hunger of
the world, the callous and
terrible things men and
women do to one another.

Your tears splashed onto
cold stony earth, ringing out
like bells calling monks to prayer,
like the river breaking open to
the wide expanse of sea.

From that salt-soaked ground
a fruit tree sprouts and rises.
I imagine pendulous pears,
tears transmuted to sweetness.

There will always be more grief
than we can bear.
There will always be ripe fruitflesh
making your fingers sticky from the juice.

Life is tidal, rising and receding,
its long loneliness, its lush loveliness,
no need to wish for low tide when
the banks are breaking.

The woman in labor straddles the doorway
screaming out your name.
You stand there on the threshold, weeping,

and pear trees still burst into blossom,
their branches hang so heavy, low,
you don’t even have to reach.

–Christine Valters Paintner, Brought to me by

Some fun stats for a Blessed 2024 Year of Practice—✨The babies that bookend the weight spectrum—winners Margo and Mateo ...
01/02/2025

Some fun stats for a Blessed 2024 Year of Practice—

✨The babies that bookend the weight spectrum—winners Margo and Mateo (alliteration, how poetic :)

✨The moon phases (the waxings/the first phases have it…makes sense…energetically)

✨The future is female this year ✊🏽

And…the most popular day (by far) to have a baby was Thursday✨

Cheers, Deep Gratitude, and a Mary Oliver poem, Moon and Water—

I wake and spend
the last hours
of darkness
with no one

but the moon.
She listens
to my complaints
like the good

companion she is
and comforts me surely
with her light.
But she, like everyone,

has her own life.
So finally I understand
that she has turned away,
is no longer listening.

She wants me
to refold myself
into my own life.
And, bending close,

as we all dream of doing,
she rows with her white arms
through the dark water
which she adores.

🌕The First Full Moon of 2025 🌕Wolf Moon, Center Moon, Cold Moon, Spirit Moon General Wolf Rules for Life from Dr Estes a...
13/01/2025

🌕The First Full Moon of 2025 🌕

Wolf Moon, Center Moon, Cold Moon, Spirit Moon

General Wolf Rules for Life
from Dr Estes and Women Who Run With the Wolves

1. Eat
2. Rest
3. Rove in between
4. Render loyalty
5. Love the children
6. Cavil in moonlight
7. Tune your ears
8. Attend to the bones
9. Make love
10. Howl often

Her words, “For peaceable purposes, I would suggest you begin right now with any point on this list. For those who are struggling, it may help greatly to begin with number ten.”

Inspiration and prayers for you from the Fifteenth chapter entitled Shadowing: Canto Hondo, The Deep Song—

We are in the middle of Winter, dear one.
Dream but be sheltered and hemmed in by your dreams
Be nourished by the dormancy of dreaming
Stay connected to the collective slumber of Nature
Resist the pull to wake, do, drive on, and produce
Shadow yourself and gather information in the darkness
Down yourself and divine who you are and what you are
Sustenance comes with descent; be not afraid
You are darkness and light; you are Dreamer
The Dream is a dream of the Wild and you’re made of Wild
Be lulled by the Lover’s lullaby; You are not alone

Art by Jess McClurg

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