Birth Story Listening ... healing from a difficult birth
Birth Story Listening & Birth Story Medicine
Sharing birth stories in our world can feel like rocky terrain. With the best of intentions friends and relatives, and even strangers may ask about, and expect to know details of, an incredibly personal experience. It may be easy to share the joys and things that you feel went well. Other times it can be really hard to convey the enormity of your experience, especially when events were unplanned, unexpected, unwanted. You may find yourself telling your story over and over, to anyone who will listen. You may be hoping to find connection, validation, healing, looking for some kind of relief and not getting it, no matter how many times you tell your story. Birth is hard work, a transformation, a rite of passage and it changes us. And sometimes we need help navigating and processing our stories. Integration isn’t always automatic and we need a safe place to be heard. Birth Story Listening is a safe place to be heard, it's a therapeutic process and at its core is deep listening and validation.
When we birth, however we birth, it’s a journey. We ‘go somewhere’ within ourselves to meet our baby and in our postnatal period, our healing time, is our return.
Many women do not return completely. Perhaps you had some unwanted, unplanned, and/or unexpected events that have made you feel ’stuck’ or perhaps they keep going around in your head. They may even be affecting you as a Mother, a wife, a partner, a daughter or a sister, or taking up too much space in your mind.
In Birth Story Listening we work together through parts of your birth/postnatal experience to help you make discoveries and feel deeply listened to. Feeling really heard can help shift things, often moving a Mother from feeling stuck, to a place where you feel you can move and take the next step in a new direction.
Although sometimes those shifts are big and happen in the session themselves, most often sessions can be a catalyst for change, a small seed planted, a pointing in a new direction, with more work to do. Healing is a journey. There is medicine in every story.
If you’d like to have a Birth Story Listening session with me get in touch. I work over zoom so we are not limited by location, and you would need an hour to an hour and a half undisturbed. Are you ready to tell your story?
A birth story medicine session is typically between an hour and an hour and a half.
The session costs £50.
Get in touch x
"Best thing I ever did Jenni! Forever grateful still to this day" K.B
What changed? ...
"It's hard to describe but, before our session I would literally think about my birth trauma daily, but I realised when i saw your email that I hadn't thought about it all weekend. I definitely feel as if my load is lighter if that makes sense? I feel heard. I think before I felt as if I had done something wrong, as if I had something to forgive myself for. But I think talking to you made me realise I don't have to forgive myself because there's nothing to forgive. My whole story has changed.”
What changed? ...
"I was so ready for birth, but when I gave birth, it wasn’t what I expected. I had a c section and I felt, perhaps the first time in my life I had failed. I couldn’t do it. After 23 hours and getting to 9cm I had a c-section, I just couldn’t do it. In the birth story medicine session Jen asked me questions and listened and I saw why I was in so much emotional pain. Birth took me to a place I hadn’t imagined was possible. So much was out of my control. But this was birth, so much was out of my control but I did not fail, I know that now, I did my best. I am still still a brave lioness, I know that now. Everything has changed.”
What changed? ...
"Before the session, whenever I reflected back to my traumatic labour I felt nothing but fear, but after the session everything was different.
In the birth story medicine session I surprised myself with what came up. Jenni really made me feel comfortable. Somewhere in the process I started to come to terms with grief I didn’t know i'd been holding been holding on too. When I look back on the birth of my son now, I see it completely differently now, this session changed everything and I will be forever grateful. K.B"
What changed?
“I had a tough birthing experience during the pandemic in summer 2020. I started the birth story medicine session feeling all kinds of emotions … sadness, anger. Since the birth of my son my emotions felt out of control and I felt a little lost. I had tried speaking to healthcare professionals on numerous occasions but felt no one was fully listening to me. I needed help, but didn’t know where to turn. The session with Jen changed everything. She guided me through the process, asked me questions no one had asked me before and she just listened. There was no judgement, no shame, just a safe space to talk. I discovered I was holding so much from the birth and I hadn’t realised, so many emotions and self judgements. We talked them through and I felt seen, heard, validated and everything changed. I left the session with clarity, and peace around what had happened and a sense that I could start to move on and enjoy being a Mum.” H.A
What changed? ...
"I am feeling so much better since the birth story medicine. session. I have felt so present with the boys for my last week of maternity leave. I honestly thought I’d be dreading going back to work but I feel differently about everything now. So things have changed within me. What i notice mostly is how grateful i feel, and that wasn't how i was feeling before the session at all! I loved our session. Thanks so much Jenni" S.R
If you'd like more information about Birth Story Listening, or you'd like to book a session.
I trained in Birth Story Listening back in 2021.
When I first heard the term 'Birth Story Listener' I didnt' know exactly what it was, but i knew i had to be one!
I trained with author, midwife, artist, storyteller Pam England. She is the author of the book Birthing from Within and the founder of the Birth Story Medicine school.
Working with women around pregnancy and birth, I've heard so many birth stories. It was always a joy when birth was plan A. It was easy to celebrate with a new Mum who was happy. It was harder when birth wasn't plan A, nor plan B nor often, even plan C. Birth is birth, and so many mothers experience events unplanned, unwanted or unexpected. It was harder because in the busy-ness of baby classes or postnatal workshops, stories were often summed up in a sentence of two. I was always aware that birth stories, especially when they are hard to share, need more than this. We as women, as newborn mothers need more than this, our stories need space to be fully heard if we are to heal. Birth story listening is not holding space, or counselling, it's not coaching or 'spiritual bypassing' or giving your story a positive spin, its deep soul work, guided by compassion and skill. There is medicine to be found in every story, but to find it Mothers must be heard.
I've been blown away by Birth Story Medicine sessions. It's a guided process, a conversation. You will tell your birth story, but in a way you have not done before. This is different. It's guided and it's safe and by the end, women are usually relating to their story differently. We cant change what happened but we can re-orientate ourselves in a different trajectory, we can change where we are going ...
I'd love to hear your story