#17 – Riding resistance, holding the vision: my birth story | Part I

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Transcription of the episode

EPISODE TEASER

 My mom almost died. She lost a lot of blood. I was delivered by C-section. Everything went wrong. Even when she told me the story, my mom didn’t feel supported—it was really the opposite of a physiological birth. And I was scared. I thought, what if my first imprinting is a “failed” birth in the sense of… Of course, you can say it’s not a failure, because nothing is truly a failure, but it was the opposite of the vision I had. So I wondered, if I had this experience as the first birth, how can I have another experience with the birth of my son?

Here, I can connect you to your own project. You might say, that’s how the previous project went; that’s what I wasn’t able to do—how can I imagine I can make it work? This is where you need to do intense rewiring and liberation work. And that’s what I did.

Mentioned in the episode:

• Listen to My 2024 Review (how to not compromise on your desire) HERE
• Discover Freya’s Birth Preparation HERE
• Joining my new mother’s healing art card deck HERE

EPISODE SUMMARY

 This episode about giving birth is in two parts. The first part focuses on preparing for birth, and the second part is about the experience of giving birth itself. I’m going to share my own birth story as an illustration of the work you need to do for yourself—whether in the preparation phase, identifying the key steps that give you the highest chance for your vision to happen, or in the birthing phase, where you meet obstacles and still learn to trust yourself to move forward and make it happen.

Listen to part one, listen to part two—they work best together, and they’re most powerful when combined. Let me know how it lands for you. If you’re a woman, maybe your own birth story will be reawakened by this—perhaps even in a painful way. Remember, you can always heal around your birth. Or maybe it’s your own birth (and this applies to both men and women) that you need to reflect on as you listen. More than that, for all of us, I hope this episode gives you insight into how to give the highest chances for your deepest desires to come true, and how to create the experiences you want in your life. Enjoy.

This episode is for you if you have a new project you want to bring into your life—maybe a new chapter—and you need to “give birth” to something new. It’s a very special episode because I’m going to use my own birth story (more precisely, the birth story of my son) to illustrate the steps I went through to make it happen. And of course, if you are pregnant, preparing to give birth, or have already experienced it, you’ll be able to relate.

If not, that’s perfectly fine. I encourage you to make the connection between your own project and what you want to bring to life. Even—and especially—if you are a man, you may not give birth physiologically, but you are certainly giving birth to many projects. It’s also interesting for you to reflect on your own birth story. That’s a question I return to you, and it may open up new insights. Of course, this applies as well to women who don’t want to give birth.

Birth is the moment we come to Earth—the first contact with the physical reality outside the womb of our mother. This has a big impact, as you will also hear in my story. I hope you truly love this episode. For me, it’s a very special one, because it’s about the birth of my first son. It also closes my 2024 year. If you haven’t listened yet, I highly recommend my “Review 2024” episode, which I believe is episode 2—you’ll find it in the notes for this episode.

In this episode, I share different events and the word—the theme—of my year. That word was self-trust. It was really about trusting myself. As you’ll hear, that theme carried through right until the end of the year with the birth of my son.

Self-trust is also a deeply important word for me and for my clients. I talk about it often in different podcast episodes because I believe self-trust is one of the top three keys to creating a life that feels aligned—one that brings joy, fulfillment, peace, and serenity. Only you have the answers. Only you know how to move in your life. And when you trust yourself, everything becomes much easier, smoother, and faster.

But it’s not like an on-and-off button—yes, I trust myself or no, I don’t. There are areas in our lives where we already trust ourselves, areas where we don’t, and areas where we need to grow that trust. In this episode, as you’ll hear, I had to grow self-trust in something I had never done before. And that’s also true for the next project you’re going to give birth to in your own life.

Most likely, because it’s new, you’ve never done it before. You can rely on skills you’ve built in other areas of your life, but still—it’s new. Otherwise, it would just be a continuation of what you’ve already done. If you feel called to birth something new, it’s because you want a different experience or outcome in your life.

This episode is in two parts. The first part is about preparation—before giving birth. I use my birth story as the framework, but I encourage you to reflect on your own project as you listen. The second part is about the experience of giving birth itself—what happens in the moment. Preparation is often mental: how we envision it, how we imagine it. But we can only fully grasp the reality once we’re in the experience. So, two parts: preparation and experience. I hope you find it insightful and practical—helping you reflect on what inner work you need to do to birth a new project in your life.

If you have friends who are pregnant and want to be intentional about their birth journey, please share this episode with them.

I also want to mention that I am creating an art card deck, because I am also an artist, specifically for mothers—those who are pregnant, have given birth, or are in the postpartum journey, as I am right now with my eight-month-old son (he’ll be a little older by the time you hear this). My goal with this deck is to support mothers on all levels: physical, energetic, spiritual, and emotional—because pregnancy and birth are such profound journeys. My art is encoded with symbols and colors designed to create shifts on a frequency level.

You’ll find more details in the show notes, and you can always contact me if you have questions or want to benefit from the card deck or my other services.

So—here we go.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

 Are you ready to go into birth preparation?

So—the phase before making it happen. If you listened to my review of 2024, you know that when I was pregnant, I felt I needed to shift location. That’s when we moved to Miami. I also knew I wanted to do a home birth.
And you know that I had already encountered some obstacles, especially with my husband, because we didn’t share the same vision. But it was really important for me—because I was the one giving birth. I had shared how I moved through that. I highly recommend listening to that episode.

So, what was my first step? It was developing my vision. How did I want to give birth? That’s the first step in your project too: developing your vision.
Some of you may say, “Yes, my vision is super clear.” And that might be true—especially if, in your Human Design, you have a Line 6. But if you’re operating from the shadow frequency, that’s actually where you need to work on it. If you’re in the gift frequency, you probably already have a vision. Depending on your Human Design type, it may be easier or harder for you. You can always create your profile online—just Google “free Human Design profile.” I like to recommend Genetic Matrix, but you can use whichever you prefer. That way, you can make connections with what I share.

So—if you have a vision, great. If you don’t, that’s perfectly fine. You are not broken.

I know how horrible it feels when there’s so much messaging saying “start with your vision,” and you’re left thinking, Well, I don’t know what my vision is. For me, my vision came up through a conversation. I had chatted with a friend of a friend, maybe one or two years before giving birth. She was preparing for a home birth. She told me her story—how her first birth went, how she wanted to prepare for the second, the books she was reading.
As I listened, I thought, That’s interesting. I feel drawn to this. I’d probably like to dig deeper when I’m pregnant and preparing to welcome our first child. My vision came because I had been exposed to the topic earlier. It became clearer and stronger as I read books and listened to podcasts. I was already in the energy, already in the process, long before pregnancy.

I had listened to a podcast where women shared their birth stories. And for me, it became very clear: I wanted a physiological birth—one that follows the rhythm of the body. Our bodies are made to give birth. They know what to do. Our babies know how to come out by nature. If we let the body do its work, it can happen.

So, I prepared for a physiological birth—at least on my side. And I also knew what I didn’t want. That’s another good question you can ask yourself as you develop your vision:

What do I want?
What do I see?
What do I desire?
What feels empowering to me?
What feels like the story I’d want to tell later on?

You can also ask: What do I not want to experience? What do I want to avoid?

 Of course, this can bring up fears. You don’t know if they’ll happen, but it’s valuable to clarify them. Because preparation is about maximizing the chances for your vision to happen and minimizing the chances of experiencing what you don’t want.
So, define both sides—what excites you, what feels expansive, and what feels contracting. Write down not only your vision but also the fears and doubts that come up. That shows you the work you need to do so your vision unfolds, instead of the opposite.
Now, maximizing the chances doesn’t mean controlling everything. We don’t have control over all of it—and women who’ve given birth know that. That’s part of preparation too.

For me, my vision was clear—but fears and beliefs surfaced immediately. A belief is like a certainty you hold. And my belief was: It’s easier to give birth in Europe than in the U.S.

I grew up in France, my husband is Italian, my family is from Germany and Austria—I feel much more at home in Europe. I know the language, the rules, the culture. It’s easy. In the U.S., it felt like starting from scratch. If I had given birth in France, I would have known exactly who to contact—a midwife, a preparation course. But in the U.S., I knew no one.

And then we moved to Miami—an intuition that came during pregnancy. But by then, I was already in my third trimester. I didn’t know many people, and my biggest fear was: Will I find people aligned with my vision who can support me in making it happen?
I believed it would be almost impossible in the U.S. I even questioned whether I should return to France to give birth.

This is important for you too: look at your project. What are the beliefs holding you back?

A belief feels real—it feels like reality. And yes, part of mine was true. There are professionals in the U.S. who don’t work in alignment with the vision I had for birth. That’s reality. But I had to leave the door open to the possibility that there were also people who did share my vision, who could support and empower me.

I had to work through my beliefs about what was possible in America—and how quickly I could find the right people, especially so late in pregnancy when many doctors won’t take on new patients. For you, it might not be about location, but maybe you think: Where I live, people don’t work like that. There’s no one here who can support my vision. If that’s your belief, challenge it.

And then there were my fears. Birth comes with so many stories—stories that say it’s unbearably painful, that you can’t do it without an epidural, that home birth is risky. If you tune into those stories, you won’t make your vision happen—it’s too scary. And if your partner shares those beliefs, it’s even harder.

That was my situation. For me, it was my son, but of course, also my husband’s son. I couldn’t decide for him. Yet it was my body, my experience. That was a huge challenge to navigate.

So, if we sum up so far:

You have your vision (what you want and don’t want).
You have your fears.
You have your beliefs.
You have people who either stand with you or against you.

And that last one is especially hard. It’s painful when the people closest to you are not aligned with your vision.

I remember getting support during my birth preparation. I spoke with Freya, who supported me. Her program, Embodied Births, is all about preparing for birth on every level and creating the experience you most want. I’ll link it in the notes.
I remember telling her, I don’t know if I can make this happen—how can I do a home birth if my husband, the main person supporting me in this journey, isn’t on board?

I can’t remember what she said. I just sat with that and really thought about it. At first, I was struggling, trying to make him shift, trying to convince him, then sharing how emotional it made me feel to think that he might not be into it. For me, it was a super important project. For him, it was super scary to do a home birth. I guess many other people would also recognize themselves in his position. But for me, I felt it in my body—it was impossible to do it the way he wanted. I was deeply connected to my body, and I knew this was super important for me. I couldn’t do it any other way.

So, I stayed true to myself. I stopped putting pressure, asking questions, or challenging his perspective about how I wanted to give birth. I simply moved on. From that moment, I gave him the space to move at his own rhythm. I should have known—because I know his human design—that this was the best way. And interestingly, once I stopped seeking his support, once I gave him space and just focused on myself, things began to shift.

I had also planned to have a doula with me, so I thought, Okay, I’ll work with her, and we’ll see if he joins or not. But that was not easy—really not easy. I remember very hard, emotionally loaded conversations. You can imagine why: it’s about the life of someone we already cared deeply for, our baby. It’s not a light or innocent conversation. But it’s the same with life projects. Sometimes it’s about leaving a stable job to create your own business, which can affect family finances. Or maybe it’s wanting to travel for a month. These are big choices that bring big conversations.

As for the team I created around me—I had believed it would be super hard to find people aligned with me where I lived. You have to imagine, I gave birth in Miami. The U.S. already has a high rate of C-sections, and Florida, especially Miami, has an even higher percentage compared to other places. I thought, This is not going to be easy to find people who align with me. So I started with the few connections I had.

I spoke with women who had given birth and told them I wanted a home birth without an epidural. Immediately, I was asked, How pain sensitive are you? And I admitted—I am quite sensitive to pain. That simple question planted doubt: Will I be able to do what I envisioned? It wasn’t easy. But again, this is the same with any project. People will question you, not necessarily to test you, but as an invitation to stabilize your own desire. Still, it’s hard to hold your vision against all that feedback.
So I started researching doulas online. I wasn’t even sure I wanted one at first, but I thought, Let’s see. I began chatting with different doulas, always staying connected to my baby, watching how he reacted too—because he was part of the team, and he also had to feel good with the person. After several conversations, I finally connected with one doula who felt right.

It was funny—she had a painting behind her that I loved. I asked about it, and she explained that her grandfather, who was involved in medicine, had painted it. Suddenly, it all made sense. For me, it was a clear sign. After half an hour of talking, I trusted my intuition. And it turned out to be the right decision.

She gave me contacts of people I could work with when I arrived and guided me to the midwife we eventually worked with. This is how it happens—you follow your intuition, meet one person, and they lead you to another. At some point, you have to open yourself to the idea that things can work out, and then aligned people arrive.

Part of my team was also Freya, who worked with a group of other women giving birth. With her, I worked deeply on my fears, especially around my own birth. As I mentioned earlier, when we work on giving birth, we also work on our own birth. It seems obvious when preparing for physiological birth, but as I went deeper into my own birth story, I realized everyone should do this work.

When I support my clients, I always say: Your body remembers. People often think we don’t have memories of our birth. But we do—at a cellular level. Through meditation, visualization, and body work, I revisited my own difficult birth story. My mom had almost died. She lost a lot of blood. I was born via C-section. Everything went wrong. Even when she told me the story, she didn’t feel supported—quite the opposite of a physiological birth.
That scared me. I thought, What if my first imprinting was a “failed” birth? Of course, nothing is truly a failure, but it was the opposite of the vision I held. So I wondered, If that was my first experience, how can I expect another outcome with the birth of my son?

This is just like projects—you may say, That last project failed. How can I imagine the next one will succeed? That’s when you need deep rewiring and liberation work. And that’s what I did.
One night, after doing body work with Freya, I woke up with the most intense sensation in my body. Suddenly, I remembered what it felt like to be left alone after birth. Because of the emergency, I was separated from my mother for at least four hours. Alone, no father with me, no comfort—just fear, loneliness, and uncertainty about whether I’d see my mother again. That memory had stayed in my body all along.

Releasing it was so intense. I had to let myself fully feel it, safely, supported by my partner and by Freya. But once I released it, I understood so much more about myself—why it’s sometimes hard for me to initiate projects, how my first experience of “birthing” had shaped me. That initial imprint of both death and love gave depth to my soul and to the way I now work.

This is why I invite you to reflect on your own birth story. It may help you see the hidden imprints that shape how you approach new beginnings. For me, once I worked through my own birth story, I was ready to create a new one with my son—free from the fears and burdens of the past.

This is the depth of preparation needed sometimes. Beyond vision and beliefs, you may also face deep questions: Will I find support? Will I repeat the past? Am I strong enough? That’s the inner work you must face so that when the time comes, you’re ready for your next phase, your next project.

In the end, I found an incredible team. My doula was amazing. She connected me to a midwife who supported us. Even my husband, though he kept doubts until the end, began to shift slightly as he heard different voices and perspectives. Together, we went on this journey.

I was preparing for the home birth. But as I was preparing, I told Freya, who supported me, “It’s weird. When we first started working together, I had a very clear vision: I want a physiological birth. Ideally, I want him to come without an epidural. That’s how I want to experience birth. But the closer we get to the end, the stranger it feels. I have a blank page when I imagine it happening. My vision is super strong, but when I connect to the actual event, it’s just blank. I almost can’t see it happening at home.”
She told me, “Prepare an altar. Prepare some images that will support you. Create a space where you’re going to give birth.”

But I struggled with that. It felt strange. In the second part of this episode, you’ll understand why. At that time, I didn’t know.

As we got closer to the end, a little issue came up—our baby was breech, meaning his head was up. As you may know, the best physiological position, or at least the one most professionals consider ideal, is head down. That’s the case for over 90% of births. Breech births are only about 3–4%, if I remember correctly.

So, my midwife told me, “You know that legally, I’m not allowed to deliver a breech baby at home. You would need to go to the hospital.”

I asked, “Okay, but how do we do this?”

She said, “We’ll keep checking until the end. He might turn around. If he’s still head up when labor begins, then you would need to transfer to the hospital.”

That’s when the stress began. I thought, Oh no, he’s not in the position that would make my vision possible. We did one ultrasound, and he was head up. Later, when my midwife checked, he seemed to have turned again. But I remember that first ultrasound so vividly—the moment I saw he was head up, I felt a deep sense of disappointment, almost like a heartbreak. It really stayed with me.

My husband reassured me, “He still has time to turn around. Don’t worry.” But deep inside, I already sensed that it might not be possible. Still, I held on to faith.

We tried so many things to help him turn, and he did turn again. He had a lot of space and was moving around, but my vision of a home birth remained shaky. We worked through that. My doula was pretty confident, reminding me, “Let’s keep preparing for home.”

So that was the work I did to prepare for the birth.

EPISODE CONCLUSION

 What happened on the day of labor is a story for another episode. It’s the climax, I would say, of what I want to share with you in this episode. More than just my birth story—which I hope is giving you clues and insights—it’s really about showing you, for your own project, the difference between preparing and then living the experience, and how we adapt and react depending on whether things go as planned or not.

I’m looking forward to meeting you in the second part of this episode. Please share this episode with any mother you think it could help. And beyond that, if you know people who are in this project phase, invite them to ask themselves the right questions as they prepare. We’ll see each other in the next part, where we’ll dive into the experience itself.