Mindful Midwifery Presents: The Labor Behind Labor

Katie
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From an outsider's perspective, midwifery sounds like a fascinating profession. But what does it feel like to juggle life's demands in a career that doesn't allow you to have a bad day? This is an insider's view of the labor behind labor.  Join Katie O'Brien, Certified Nurse Midwife, for frank conversations with frontline  midwives about the joys, challenges, and politics surrounding the work of midwifery while trying to maintain a quality life away from the job. 

  1. May 31

    Fully Dilated: Season 1 Finale

    Send us Fan Mail In this season finale, Katie reunites with Laurel and Lindsay — two of the OG guests from the very first episodes — for a conversation about what a year actually does to a person. They dig into where they were twelve months ago versus where they are now: professionally, personally, and everything in between. Laurel is leaning into what it means to be a content, healthy, soon-to-be 40-year-old (with a half-marathon on the horizon). Lindsay is navigating a huge family transition with her first born graduating high school this year, steady employment, and the art of embracing a new chapter. And Katie? She's grayer, sharper, and somehow more excited about what's next than when she started. They talk mentorship, motivation, partner support in the birth room, the strange clarity that comes with midlife, and why the best midwives are often the ones who've learned to let people be themselves. Season two drops in October. But first — push. This episode is best paired with a bottle of Whitehaven Sauvignon Blanc

    1h 15m

  2. May 17

    The Labor of Choosing a Hysterectomy: Carrie

    Send us Fan Mail Carrie knows how bodies work. She's spent decades supporting women through some of their most vulnerable moments — and yet, nothing quite prepares you for becoming the patient yourself. In this episode, she joins Katie just two weeks after her hysterectomy to talk about the 30-year road to that operating table: the symptoms she managed, the decision she wrestled with, and the strange experience of knowing exactly what's happening to your body and still not having all the answers. Raw, real, and a little bit funny — this one's for anyone who's ever had to advocate hard for their own health while simultaneously being your own worst enemy in the process.  This episode is best paired with a bowl of berry, coconut and rum punch served in cute vintage glasses.

    1h 20m

  3. May 3

    From Undocumented to Nurse Midwife: Angela

    Send us Fan Mail Angela came to the United States from Venezuela as an undocumented teenager, speaking just enough English to interpret for her grandmother in an ER — and somehow found herself captivated by the people rushing around in scrubs. It took a perceptive teacher, a husband who said, "we'll make it work," and one pivotal moment at a midwifery orientation to unlock a calling she didn't know she had. In this episode, Katie sits down with Angela — one of the few practicing Latina midwives in Delaware — to talk about what it means to show up for patients in two languages, two worlds, and with lived knowledge no classroom can teach. They cover the staggering gap between the 25% of U.S. births to Hispanic women and the 5-6% of midwives who are Hispanic, the quiet weight of censoring yourself in a political climate that feels hostile, and why giving a Spanish-speaking patient your cell phone number is less a boundary issue and more an act of radical trust. They also get into the unglamourous but essential stuff: how Angela funded her entire nursing and midwifery education with almost no debt (yes, really), the loan repayment programs hiding in plain sight, and why the system that needs bilingual, bicultural providers the most is often the least equipped to support them. This episode is best paired with a Venezuelan favorite:  papelón con limón

    1h 8m

  4. Apr 19

    Carrying for Others: Cori

    Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Katie sits down with Cori — nurse-midwife, gestational carrier, and quite possibly the most interesting person you'll meet this week. Cori has spent her career advocating for better birth experiences after her own traumatic deliveries pushed her away from obstetrics and toward midwifery. But her story doesn't stop at the delivery room door. Cori opens up about the deeply personal decision to become a gestational carrier and what it's like to navigate that journey when you actually know what all the consent forms mean.  From unpacking the ethics surrounding gestational carrying to the medicine and the emotions behind carrying a pregnancy that is someone else's, Cori keeps this conversation unfiltered and fascinating.  She also shares how her late mother's memory has quietly shown up at every milestone: in a tattooed handprint, a cherished nightgown, and a calling that started long before nursing school. Cori's story is truly one of the most layered conversations this podcast has had. This episode pairs best with a mango smoothie!

    1h 29m

  5. Apr 5

    Night Shifts and New Horizons: Holly

    Send us Fan Mail Holly never set out to have a career. She wanted to be a wife and a mom — and for a long time, that's exactly what she was. But somewhere between homeschooling three kids, working night shifts as an L&D nurse, and her husband's quiet encouragement, she found herself in midwifery school.  In this episode, Katie and Holly explore what happens when a person becomes someone new — and what that can cost. Holly opens up about the toll midwifery school took on her family, the shock of a marriage unraveling just as she was finally finding her stride, and the years she spent wondering if she'd made the wrong choice. Now on the other side, Holly is exceling professionally, hauling her own camper, planning trips to places like Alaska, and creating weekly challenge lists with friends. She's building a life that continuously surprises her — and apparently, she has a lot to add to her 2027 (yes 2027!) bucket list. This episode is best paired with campfire whiskey (on Holly's list to try!)

    1h 9m

  6. Mar 22

    My Mentor, the Trailblazer: Kathy

    Send us Fan Mail Before water births were trendy, before fathers were allowed in delivery rooms, before midwives could legally do a pelvic exam in Maryland — there was Kathy. the midwife who wouldn't be managed.   In this episode, host Katie O'Brien interviews her mentor and the mentor of many other midwives in the Baltimore area: Kathy Slone.  Kathy traces her career from an Indiana labor and delivery floor in 1968 to the halls of Johns Hopkins, where she negotiated her own salary with an unflinching stare, pioneered in-room deliveries (no more wheeling patients down the hall to birth!), taught physicians how to fit diaphragms, and testified before Maryland's legislature to rewrite outdated midwifery law.  Oh, and how about the time she accidentally ran a clinic solo for a year while the doctors were in Southeast Asia shortly after becoming a midwife, or when she introduced in-hospital waterbirth to the Baltimore area! With Kim's (Kathy's longtime office manager) legendary memory and Kathy's refusal to take "no" for an answer, they created a Baltimore practice that became the rare place within hospital walls that actually felt human.  Recorded over tea in Kim's cozy Baltimore living room, this conversation is part origin story, part love letter to mentorship, and part field guide for anyone who wonders how much of an impact one midwife can make.  This episode pairs best with a cup of english breakfast, prepared traditionally, of course!

    1h 14m

  7. Mar 8

    Still With Women: Beverly

    Send us Fan Mail Taking a step back in your career isn't always a bad thing or an indicator of lack of commitment or drive. Sometimes it's just plain common sense and self-love.  In this episode, Katie sits down with her self-described "introverted" colleague and friend, Bev — a woman whose career story is anything but quiet. After 23 years as a labor and delivery nurse, Bev made the bold decision in her 40s to pursue her master's degree and become a certified nurse-midwife. What followed was a masterclass in resilience: navigating the financial shock of a salary reset, struggling through an under-mentored first job at the very hospital where she'd spent decades as an expert, weathering the isolation of a lawsuit and grueling depositions, and surviving 24-hour birth center shifts — an hour from home — until her body finally said enough.  Just in time, an opportunity presented itself to return back to floor nursing and Bev took it. But this wasn't personal failure, it was growth. You don't un-become a midwife. Now working as a postpartum nurse, Bev uses her midwifery lens to give new mothers something priceless: closure. She bridges the gap between what happened in the delivery room and what her patients thought happened — a quiet but profound act of healing. This episode features tears, laughter, and hard-won wisdom from a woman who has spent her career listening, learning, and showing up — even when it was brutally hard. This episode pairs perfectly with a cup of oolong tea.

    1h 2m

  8. Feb 22

    From Hospital Halls to Homebirth: Bayla

    Send us Fan Mail Being a homebirth midwife is an all-encompassing, 24/7 career choice. Most homebirth services are offered by Certified Professional Midwives, but why don't more Certified Nurse Midwives offer homebirth services?  In this episode, host Katie O'Brien sits down with her old colleague Bayla: CNM, serial entrepreneur, and one of a small group of nurse-midwives in the United States offering home birth services. What starts as a career retrospective quickly becomes a masterclass in everything nursing school doesn't teach you. Bayla has done it all — cloth diaper store, bookkeeping firm, four-midwife practice, solo home birth CNM — and she's doing most of it simultaneously. She talks candidly about why she left the hospital (spoiler: she had her own baby and sprinted home), why she stays in home birth (the relationships, the autonomy, the lack of someone looking over her shoulder), and why she's finally starting to pull back (the board of nursing called — multiple times). Along the way, the two dig into the state-by-state legal maze of home birth, the fraught reality of hospital transfers, the lost art of breech delivery, malpractice insurance that nearly hit $40K/year, and the gut-punch of going above and beyond for a patient who never speaks to you again. Equal parts inspiring and sobering — this one's for every midwife who's ever asked "why do I keep doing this?" and then answered their own question at 2 a.m. on the way to a birth. This episode pairs well with a chilled glass of moscato.

    1h 20m
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From an outsider's perspective, midwifery sounds like a fascinating profession. But what does it feel like to juggle life's demands in a career that doesn't allow you to have a bad day? This is an insider's view of the labor behind labor.  Join Katie O'Brien, Certified Nurse Midwife, for frank conversations with frontline  midwives about the joys, challenges, and politics surrounding the work of midwifery while trying to maintain a quality life away from the job. 

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