Sovereign Birth: How Reclaiming My Power in Childbirth Rewrote My Life
Listen to the accompanying podcast here.
There is a moment in every woman’s life where she remembers herself.
For me, many of those moments came through birth—through the wild, holy, sweaty, primal portals that ushered me into a deeper knowing of who I am. Birth has been my teacher, my undoing, my initiation, and honestly? My f*cking revolution.
I didn’t always know that birth could be sacred. I didn’t always know I had a choice. Like most women, I started out believing that experts knew my body better than I did. That “obedience” was safety. That pain was inevitable. That fear was normal.
But something ancient stirred in me with every pregnancy. A whisper that grew louder:
You were made for this. Your body remembers. You are allowed to choose.
And so I did.
My first daughter came to me in my early twenties—young, naive, trying to find my way in a world that loves to decide things for women. I was labeled “high risk” before I even had a chance to know my own story. But, I was blessed to have chosen the one male OB in town who recommended I'd be happier with a midwive's co-op.
And yet, even in that first birth center experience—far gentler than a fluorescent hospital room—there was still the quiet hum of protocol. The pressure to perform efficiently. The clock counting someone else’s time instead of mine.
It was better than the hospital system—but still not mine.
By the time my second baby came earthside eight years later, I knew I wanted to birth at home. I craved the familiar. The intimate. The sacred.
But even in the sanctuary of my own bedroom, there were still checks and pressure and protocols. Still subtle cues suggesting:
We trust birth… but only up to a point.
I learned that midwives trained inside the medical system are still beholden to it, even when they deeply care.
I wanted more.
I wanted deeper.
I wanted my full authority.
And then there was my third...
The one who came bearing the lesson I didn’t know I needed.
I went into that birth believing I was prepared. I had birthed twice before. I thought I understood how it goes. But, when this long labor intensified and there was no midwife around to tell me what to do, something in me panicked. My mind reached for control instead of surrender. I didn’t yet know how to recognize the holy wild edge between intensity and danger—the place where so many women mistakenly override their own wisdom because we’ve been conditioned to believe:
If it feels big, it must be wrong.
I thought I was having an emergency.
So we transferred to the hospital.
And the truth?
There was nothing wrong.
My body was doing exactly what it needed to do.
My baby was fine.
I was fine.
But I didn’t know how to trust the intensity. I didn't know how to trust myself to be the authority.
I didn’t know how to recognize the blueprint of physiological birth unfolding perfectly.
So I handed my authority over in the very moment I needed it most. And paid the price in control and manipulation and abuse from hospital staff.
So, I vowed, "never again."
My fourth pregnancy unfolded at the beginning of the "pandemic"—when the world cracked open and all the illusions of control spilled out.
Birth centers were closing. Hospitals were locking partners out of delivery rooms. Fear ran thick in the air.
So I did the most radical thing a woman can do in a culture that profits from her disempowerment:
I chose to trust myself.
No midwife on payroll. No institution. No hierarchy.
Just me, my baby, my husband, and my body’s ancient remembering.
I educated myself—not to replace experts—but to dismantle the belief that I needed one.
I studied physiological birth, nervous system support, fetal positioning, herbal allies, and what a true emergency actually looks like.
I found a traditional midwife to join me the day of—the kind who listens and answers rather than instructs, who witnesses instead of manages, who knows birth is holy, not clinical.
And in that space, something in me softened.
Opened.
Bloomed.
I was no longer allowing birth to happen to me.
I was birthing from instinct and power and knowledge.
Birth is not simply the arrival of a child.
It is the arrival of a mother.
Again and again and again.
My fourth and fifth births were not just empowering.
They were ecstatic.
Not because they were easy.
Not because they were painless.
But because they were mine.
Claimed. Chosen. Trusted.
There is nothing like the high of remembering who you are.
There is nothing like roaring your baby earthside in your power.
There is nothing like knowing you did that—because you trusted yourself when the world said not to.
To the Woman Standing at Her Own Threshold
Maybe you feel the pull toward sovereignty in birth.
Maybe something in your bones is waking up.
Maybe you’re scared—and intrigued—and wildly alive, all at once.
Good.
That’s the beginning.
You do not need permission.
You do not need to earn your power.
You were born with it.
You are allowed to choose your birth.
Your body.
Your pace.
Your experience.
Your story.
Birth is not something that happens to you.
Birth is something you do.
And when you do it as the author of your own story?
You don’t just birth a baby.
You birth yourself.
If you are on the path of reclaiming your birth, your motherhood, your sovereignty—I’m here.
This is my work. My devotion. My joy.
You can learn more about my support, education, and one-on-one guidance in conception, pregnancy birth and postpartum at:
You’re not meant to walk this alone.
And you sure as hell aren’t meant to hand your power away to a system that forgot how sacred you are.
I’m here to walk beside you.
With love,
— Nicole
