Episode 18 with Leah Kershaw from Bodalla. Mum of 4, having birthed in Moruya and Queanbeyan Hospitals and planning a home birth for baby number 5.
Description
Leah Kershaw lives in the coastal town of Bodalla. She is a mum of four boys and has baby number 5 on the way.
Leah has birthed in Moruya and Queanbeyan hospitals and for her final pregnancy she is planning a home birth, enlisting the services of a known midwife through The Nest of Moruya.
She’d met her partner in Mount Isa, Queensland, but moved home in her first pregnancy to the south coast of NSW in order to be near her mum to birth. Her partner continued to work up north but travelled back down for the birth of their first son. Travel was a factor for Leah’s first three births, but she wasn’t the one travelling the 1000s of kms, instead this trek was her partners as he continued to work flyinflyout in rural Queensland. Women who also have flyinflyout partners will understand the significance of this in early motherhood and so after some discussion and family negotiation Leah and her family relocated. They moved before birth number four, to the Queanbeyan area, as her partner found a local job.
Leah shares her previous positive birthing experiences. Every birth was different. She shares her experience using different birthing positions, of induction, preterm birth (membrane rupture) and water birth. Leah appreciates the care and facilities at both Queanbeyan and Moruya hospital, but also expresses an innate desire within herself to seek something different for her upcoming fifth birth.
Thanks to Instagram, Leah has connected with doulas and embraced this birth as an opportunity to rebirth herself. She has worked directly, over zoom, with birth mentor and doula @ripsnorter to delve inside herself and discover her wants and needs for both her pregnancy, birth and postpartum. Leah shares how she didn’t do this same work prior to her other births and that birth more so ‘happened’ to her. She feels strongly about activating space for herself this time. She knows this commitment to self and deep inner work is honouring her rite of passage. She is both opening into, and planning to honour and close, this birthing stage of her life (through things like ‘closing the bones’).
United States
