One Positive Birth Story (and how it can change everything)

Sometimes, you hear one positive birth story and it stays with you. There’s something unique about someone else’s experience quietly having the power to change the direction of your own story.

For Nicole Harwood, it was hearing one woman talk about giving birth at home that planted a seed. Until then, birth had largely been presented to Nicole in the way it is to so many of us: something painful to get through, something frightening or even sometimes just as a ‘rite of passage’ that women have to ‘go through’.

But Nicole heard a completely different version.

“Like many women, I grew up with the narrative that birth was something either to be feared because it was painful, or something that simply ‘wasn’t a big deal’. It wasn’t until I listened to a mother share her blissful home birth story that I realised that the stories I had been told about birth thus far were incomplete – that birth could (and should) be an empowering, transformational and sacred experience.”

That conversation would eventually influence the way she prepared for the birth of her own son, her experience of early motherhood and, ultimately, her future career choice. Nicole is the founder of The Grounded Mama and a birth and postpartum doula supporting women around Bristol, North Somerset and Bath.

Opening the door for positive birth stories…

Nicole was already teaching yoga and spending time in women’s circles when she began to feel increasingly drawn towards supporting pregnant women and mothers. She completed Pregnancy Yoga Teacher Training with Uma Dinsmore-Thuli and it was there that she first came across the role of the doula.

“That training changed my life. After years of feeling directionless, I finally felt as though I had found my soul’s purpose – supporting women through pregnancy, birth and postpartum.”

There was just one complication though – this was all happening at a time when Nicole was also thinking about becoming a mother herself. She found herself wondering whether to begin her doula journey or have a baby first and like for so many, Motherhood won… in the first instance.

“I will never regret choosing motherhood first. Motherhood gave me a depth of empathy and understanding that can only come through lived experience,” she says.

And once again, a positive birth story had become more than simply a story. The home birth Nicole had once heard about had opened her eyes to a different possibility for birth and she planned to give birth to her own son at home.

Things did not unfold exactly as she had hoped though. Nicole needed to transfer into hospital during labour, meaning her hopes for a home birth instantly came crashing down. But that didn’t make the birth a failure and it didn’t take away its transformative power.

“Although I had to let go of my dreams of a home birth, I can honestly say that his birth was one of the most transformational and empowering experiences of my life. I met that raw, primal and deeply powerful place within myself, and I was totally humbled by the experience.”

A positive birth story doesn’t have to be a story where everything follows the original plan. Birth can change course and that needs to be acknowledged. Preferences can change. The best antenatal courses and birth preparation experiences will guide you through those changes and what to expect in any eventuality.

Nicole’s own experience helped shape a philosophy that now runs throughout her work as a birth doula: supporting women to understand that they have options, helping them find their own voice amongst the noise and staying alongside them however birth unfolds. It’s a much needed mindset in the era of the national maternity crisis facing so many.

Becoming ‘The Grounded Mama’

After her son was born, Nicole completed her doula training through Conscious Birthing with Samsara Tanner, who she now describes as her mentor. But her experience of becoming a mother shaped more than the birth support she wanted to offer.

Nicole had deliberately prepared for the weeks following birth too, laying the foundations for what she hoped would be a gentle transition into motherhood. She describes her first 40 days postpartum as blissful.

But that protected bubble began to disappear.

“As I slowly emerged back into the world with my 4 month old, contact-napping baby still firmly attached to me, I found it difficult to balance the demands of mothering with the pressure to earn money and show up as a productive member of society.”

It is an experience that will sound familiar to plenty of new parents up and down the country. There can be enormous attention on preparing for birth, followed by a strange expectation that life should rapidly start resembling normality afterwards. Nicole found herself wanting something different for herself and consequently the women she went on to work with.

“I longed for spaces where motherhood could be spoken about honestly, spaces where mothers could feel seen in the enormity of this transition and held within community.”

That longing eventually became the Mother & Baby Circle event and also deepened Nicole’s work as a postpartum doula.

Positive doula stories…

It must be remembered that ‘doula’ as a concept is still not common-place in UK household general knowledge. So many people, even if they have heard of a doula before, will still regard this as something savoured by the upper classes, or those also choosing private maternity care.  Whatsmore, there is no single version of doula support, just as there is no single version of birth. 

Nicole’s holistic birth and postpartum doula work begins during pregnancy, building a relationship with the woman and her partner before labour starts. For Nicole, that relationship matters because being invited into somebody’s birth space is intensely personal.

Her role is not to make decisions for a woman or tell her how she should give birth, making this accessible to so many women, all with different hopes and desires for birth. Much of the work is about helping women hear their own voice amongst the huge volume of information, advice and opinion that can accompany pregnancy and birth choices.

“Seeing women find their own voice in amongst all the external noise of pregnancy and motherhood, seeing women realise that they have the power to make their own decisions and that they have choice in how to birth and to mother is just incredible.”

During labour, support might mean reassurance, practical help, physical comfort, being alongside a birth partner or simply remaining a familiar and continuous presence as circumstances change. Sometimes those circumstances change considerably.

Nicole recently supported a woman whose induction (chosen after being diagnosed with pre-eclampsia during late pregnancy) did not result in contractions, even at the highest dose of Syntocinon. The situation changed but her support didn’t. That continuity is perhaps one of the simplest ways of understanding what a doula can bring to a birth. Supportive, calm reassurance as well as local knowledge and experience. For Nicole, it’s her dream job.

“There’s that anticipation of how things might unfold and that deep sense of trust in the woman I am going to support and in birth itself, and then entering their home/birth space for the first time and entering the birth portal with them. It’s magical, it’s like you’re entering another world where time doesn’t exist.”

Positive postpartum stories…

Perhaps one of the most interesting parts of Nicole’s approach is how closely birth support and postpartum care sit alongside one another. Having experienced that transition herself, she is particularly conscious of how much attention a new mother may need after everybody’s focus shifts towards the baby. Whether it’s by providing food, a foot bath, a neck rub or simply listening to her concerns, it’s evident that someone needs to be caring for the mother whilst she cares, in turn, for her baby.

“When I visit postpartum, watching new parents find that sense of relaxation and softness when I offer them a foot bath or a neck rub, you can literally see the tension that they have been holding melt away.”

Nicole also brings nourishing food and offers practical and emotional support during those early weeks.

“I love tending to pregnant women and new mothers by bringing them nourishing food and offering them loving touch, really making them feel centred in their experience of motherhood.”

It might seem radical to prioritise care for the mother, not as a luxury but as a non-negotiable, but expecting her to disappear into the practical machinery of looking after a newborn almost denies that she still needs to be held and nurtured.

Why the stories we tell about birth matter

The most striking thing about Nicole’s story is that none of this began with a training course, but with the simple art of listening. Listening to one positive birth story.

One mother spoke honestly about a birth she had loved and enjoyed. Another woman heard her and suddenly realised that birth might contain possibilities she had never previously considered. Years later, that woman is sitting beside other mothers as they give birth themselves, holding and supporting. The ripple effect is huge.

There is no single “right” way to give birth and an empowering experience will look different for every person. Positive birth stories should never become another standard that women feel pressured to achieve. But hearing a wider range of experiences can expand the picture and help women to access support to work towards making her own journey as personalised as she likes. For many, the decisions never feel like their own because the choices were never known to exist. 

Great birth education and support can lead women to not only understand the options available to them on the day but also tap into their instinctive feeling about the preferences they really feel aligned with. For Nicole, this transfers through to early motherhood too:

“My deepest wish is for expectant and new mothers to nurture their connection with their intuition and trust their innate wisdom, whether in the birth space or during those tender early postpartum days. I want women to know how powerful they are, and how worthy they are of feeling seen, heard, supported and cared for.”

Birth and postpartum doula support with The Grounded Mama