The 9 Months Podcast Lisa-Marie Wakenshaw

In this episode we hear Kam sharing the births of her girls, Nora & Zoe in Prague, Czech Republic. Kam planned for a home birth with both of her pregnancies and experienced really smooth and active pregnancies leading up to the delivery. Kam shares her journey towards finding the right model of care for her and how she went about choosing a midwife and making a birth plan.

With Nora she ended up transferring to Podoli, and with Zoe she transferred to Rakovník and both girls were born in hospotal after a long labour at home. We talk about the importance of being able to make informed choices and to surround yourself with people who will support your wishes around your birth experience.

Kam really recommends hiring a doula or a midwife to support both you and your partner through the birth. She also really recommends Aperio.cz for all things birth in Prague. Also informing yourself and going for a course, hypnobirthing or other to prepare yourself for labour and delivery.

Visit 9MonthPodcast.com for more stories or if you'd like to share your story with me on the podcast, you can find all the details there.

Follow me on Instagram @9monthspodcast.

*The stories on this podcast are personal experiences and should never be interpreted as medical advice. Always seek out a birth professionals expertise before making any medical decisions. The 9 Months Podcast is in no way advocating for a specific kind of birth, but on the contrary, we believe that all births are beautiful, just as they are.

In this episode we hear Lucie share her second birth, with her son Harry in the UK (Head back to Episode 8 to hear her first birth story with Freya if you haven’t already). Lucie is Czech and her partner is from the UK and she is now based back in Prague where she teaches Hypnobirthing. This pregnancy was a surprise and Lucie shares with us how it was really hard to wrap her head around having another baby while her first daughter was still quite small. Freya and Harry are 2 years apart, almost to the day. She suffered with all-day-morning-sickness for the first 4.5 months of the pregnancy and after that settled she had a smoother time. Harry’s birth started with the water’s breaking and then Lucie went in to a long and slow labour.

After 24h she ended up having an induction and 4 hours later Harry was born. We discuss choice, knowing your options and how incredibly important it is to educate yourself before going through birth so that you know what everything means in the heat of the moment.

If you’d like to reach out to Lucie, or if you are interested in Hypnobirthing, she teaches courses in person and online, and you can contact her on lucie@hypnobirthingbuddy.com or visit www.hypnobirthingbuddy.com for more information.

Visit The 9MonthsPodcast.com for more information or if you'd like to share your story with me on the podcast, you can find all the details there.

Follow me on Instagram @9monthspodcast

*The stories on this podcast are personal experiences and should never be interpreted as medical advice. Always seek out a birth professionals expertise before making any medical decisions. The 9 Months Podcast is in no way advocating for a specific kind of birth but on the contrary, we believe that all births are beautiful, just as they are.

In this episode I speak to Vinuta (you can listen to her birth stories on Episode 18). Vinuta works within the mindfulness realm and is running the Prague Womens Circle alongside her wellness and aromatheraphy business Aroma Laska. We set out to discuss the wide topic of Postpartum Care and talk about our own experiences and what it looked like trying to meet our own needs next to caring for a newborn.

We speak generally about it all and the goal with producing this episode is to follow up by diving deeper into specific topics within the Postpartum realm. If you have a topic that you would like us to talk further about or if there is anything we didn’t mention (probably lots!) in this episode then please reach out and let us know so we can create more useful Postpartum discussion, support & content.

If you'd like to reach out to Vinuta, check out her work at @aromalaska on Instagram, or just send me an email at: the9monthspodcast@gmail.com and I'll forward everything to her from there.

Visit The 9MonthsPodcast.com for more information or if you'd like to share your story with me on the podcast, you can find all the details there.

Follow me on Instagram @9monthspodcast

*The stories on this podcast are personal experiences and should never be interpreted as medical advice. Always seek out a birth professionals expertise before making any medical decisions. The 9 Months Podcast is in no way advocating for a specific kind of birth but on the contrary, we believe that all births are beautiful, just as they are.

This episode is part 2 of Carly’s birth stories and this week we hear about her second birth with Rosie. Check back with episode 46 for the first part if you haven’t heard it yet.

For this birth, Carly decided to go down a completely different path when it came to preparing for birth. She changed OB, hired a doula, took hypnobirthing and spinning babies classes. She got gestational diabetes in this pregnancy too but with a little one at home it was harder to manage this time around and she had to really focus on breathing and her stress-levels to make it work with.

In the end she managed to have a successful VBAC, with assistance of her wonderful doula and she shares with us how important it is to do your research. To read up on everything to be able to make informed choices.

Listen in for a very informative episode this week.

If you would like to reach out to Carly, you can send me an email at the9monthspodcast@gmail.com and I’ll forward everything to her from there.

Visit 9MonthsPodcast.com/directory for more stories or if you'd like to share your story with me on the podcast, you can find all the details there.

Follow me on Instagram @9monthspodcast.

*The stories on this podcast are personal experiences and should never be interpreted as medical advice. Always seek out a birth professionals expertise before making any medical decisions. The 9 Months Podcast is in no way advocating for a specific kind of birth, but on the contrary, we believe that all births are beautiful, just as they are.

In this episode, we hear Carly share the birth of her first baby, Santiago in Prague, Czech Republic. Carly is American and her partner is Czech. and they were planning for a birth at a Prague hospital. Carly had a good and calm pregnancy with the exception of finding out that she had gestational diabetes quite late in the second trimester. She was able to manage it herself without medication for this pregnancy and talks us through how it was to manage it day to day. She shares how she was in the mindset of ‘Women are meant to give birth’ and decided to go with the flow when it came to planning for the birth itself. Carly ended up with a long, stalled labour with the waters breaking on their own as a starting point and getting induced 18 hours later. After a long time with different interventions the labour stalled and she was offered a c-section which she welcomed at that point. The c-section and postpartum in the hospital ended up being a great experience and she was able to rest a bit and slowly step into motherhood with the help of her partner, the nurses and staff.

We also discuss paternity leave, which is the route they went down as a family after Santiago was born and it is a choice that is available for all families in Czech Republic.

This birth story is part 1 of 2, so next week we will continue on to hear how Carly went down a completely different route for her next pregnancy and birth and how she managed to have a successful VBAC.

Visit 9MonthsPodcast.com/directory for more stories or if you'd like to share your story with me on the podcast, you can find all the details there.

Follow me on Instagram @9monthspodcast.

*The stories on this podcast are personal experiences and should never be interpreted as medical advice. Always seek out a birth professionals expertise before making any medical decisions. The 9 Months Podcast is in no way advocating for a specific kind of birth, but on the contrary, we believe that all births are beautiful, just as they are.

In this episode I share my own second birth with Avi. I was fully set on having a home birth this second time around too and was very intimidated when I found out the rules around working with a midwife here in the Czech Republic. Mind you, this was in 2019, and many things might have changed since then (I hope!) but my journey was pulling me between the fear of having to go through with a system where I didn’t feel supported at all and the hope of having everything play out as I wanted with a supported home birth. I found a couple of fantastic midwives who supported me, Trygve & Avi through this journey and the birth turned out to be all that I wanted, and full of magic.

Postpartum was a different story, the first little while was wonderful, then lockdown happened and going from one to two kids while being home 100% of the time was difficult. It was really hard to find my place in all of this, while going back to work, worrying about the world, wearing masks and caring for two little ones. Avi also didn’t sleep well his first year and it’s hard to remember those first few months because I was so tired.

I truly hope that this story can help someone else out there looking for a different kind of birth experience and I am always happy to answer any questions so please reach out.

Visit The 9MonthsPodcast.com/Directory for more stories or if you'd like to share your story with me on the podcast, you can find all the details there.

Follow me on Instagram @9monthspodcast.

*The stories on this podcast are personal experiences and should never be interpreted as medical advice. Always seek out a birth professionals expertise before making any medical decisions. The 9 Months Podcast is in no way advocating for a specific kind of birth, but on the contrary, we believe that all births are beautiful, just as they are.