Lauren – Yoga teacher, intentional conception, positive induction, dream water birth, navigating grief in pregnancy, two births

This is a rich, layered episode that weaves together Ayurvedic wisdom, nervous system regulation, the power of breath and sound in labour, and the importance of choosing a care provider who truly sees you. If you are newly pregnant, preparing for a second birth, or simply looking for an episode that reminds you of the profound intelligence of the birthing body, this one is for you.

Lauren had been on the contraceptive pill for roughly ten years, primarily for acne and hormonal imbalance, when she made the decision to come off it in May 2018. What followed was far more than a physical transition. “It was such an incredible journey. It was really challenging at the time and a lot of the symptoms that I’d kind of had been masked from the pill came back,” she reflects. Rather than reaching for an app to track her cycle, Lauren turned to temperature charting, cervical mucus observation, and the teachings of holistic practitioners, including a deep dive into Lara Briden’s Period Repair Manual. It took six months for her first period to return, and her cycles remained irregular for nearly two years. Rather than viewing this as a setback, Lauren used the time to build an embodied understanding of her own rhythms. “I’m just so grateful that I’m not trying to actively conceive at the moment because it would have been more loaded,” she says.

When Lauren and her husband James finally felt ready to try, after building a house, getting married, and navigating a rubella vaccine delay, they conceived on their very first cycle. Lauren describes the experience as deeply intentional, marking the first day of her cycle with candles, journalling, and grounding her feet outside. “We are ready when you’re ready,” she told the soul she hoped was coming.

Choosing the right care provider

Lauren had always assumed she would go private, but after attending prenatal yoga training and learning about midwifery-led care, she briefly considered the MGP (Midwifery Group Practice) model. Ultimately, the familiarity and safety she felt at her local hospital, one she had visited since childhood, guided her decision. She booked with a private obstetrician, but her instincts quickly told her he wasn’t the right fit. He was dismissive of water birth, and Lauren knew that wasn’t going to work. “The old Lauren probably wouldn’t have done that,” she says of her decision to walk away. She called the hospital directly, asked which obstetricians supported water birth, and found Dr Peter Wood, a low-intervention, physiological-birth advocate who also supports breech vaginal birth. “He just made me feel like I wasn’t taking up his time,” she recalls of that first appointment.

Joel’s birth, a positive induction at 41+4

Lauren had hoped to go into spontaneous labour, but at 41 weeks and four days, she agreed to an induction. She had spent the preceding weeks in a controlling rather than surrendering energy, curb walking, drinking raspberry leaf tea, willing her body to start. It wasn’t until a session with her acupuncturist, where she worked through layers of disappointment, guilt, and fear held in her body, that something shifted. “I honestly think that is what contributed to such a positive induction experience,” she says.

Once at the hospital, Lauren’s waters were broken and she was given time before the syntocinon drip was started. When Joel’s heart rate showed signs of distress, the drip was paused and Lauren found herself at a crossroads. “I remember thinking, this baby’s health and wellbeing is the most important thing. If I need to have a caesarean, I’ll have a caesarean.” The drip was restarted on the lowest dose, and a perceptive midwife helped Lauren shift her environment, dimming the monitor, moving the screen, giving her space to drop in. Labour progressed. She used the humming breath, Bhramari pranayama, throughout, and James provided soft touch massage. By the time she felt the urge to push, she was fully dilated. Joel was born in a kneeling position, with James capturing the whole thing on his phone. “There was no waiting, five to nine, look at you,” the midwife said. Peter arrived two minutes later.

Postpartum with Joel, prolonged jaundice, a sensitive baby, and the “calm mum, calm baby” myth

Lauren is refreshingly honest about the early weeks. Joel had prolonged jaundice, likely related to delayed cord clamping, and was a sensitive, wakeful baby. A poorly delivered phone call from their first paediatrician sent Lauren into a spiral of anxiety. She changed providers, found a paediatrician trained in the POSSUMS method, and slowly found her footing. She pushes back gently but firmly on the idea that a baby’s unsettledness is always a reflection of the mother’s state. “The temperament of the baby has a lot to do with it. Joel was born with literally eyes popping out of his head.” She now sees his sensitivity as a strength, one he helped her recognise in herself.

Grace’s pregnancy, grief, ritual, and the cycle of life

Lauren’s second pregnancy was conceived intentionally around the winter solstice, with Joel involved in a beautiful bedtime ritual of choosing a star and placing it in “mummy’s tummy.” But this pregnancy was also marked by profound loss. Lauren lost three women who were deeply important to her, her Auntie Kim, her mother’s cousin Viv, and a beloved yoga student, all within the space of the pregnancy. She sat with her dying aunt, placing a hand on her heart and breathing alongside her. “It was bringing out this parallel, birth and death beside each other,” she says. “The similarities in it as well. That liminal space, the waiting, not knowing, the trusting, the surrendering.”

Rather than allowing grief to derail her preparation, Lauren used it to go deeper. She went off social media in the final weeks, spent afternoons in the park with Joel, and followed a nine-day Navaratri email series honouring the divine feminine. On the night she went into labour, she received an email about the goddess Mahagauri, she who is pure, luminous, and free, with a subheading that read simply: Grace. At the bottom: Grace descends. “I literally had full body goosebumps,” she says.

Grace’s birth, a dream water birth in the early hours

Labour began in the early hours of the morning. Lauren’s waters began leaking, and rather than labouring at home and wondering when to go in, she made the intentional decision to get to the hospital early, to set up her space, drop in, and let her body do the rest. The birth room was transformed with fairy lights, a birth altar, and photos of Joel, James, her grandmother, Viv, Kim, and her paternal grandmother, a midwife she never got to meet. “It almost felt ceremonial to set up the room,” she says.

She arrived at four to five centimetres dilated. Labour was fast and intense. She swayed through contractions with a heat pack on her lower back, softening her lips and using a long, slow exhale. When a cervical lip threatened to pull her into her head, her midwife Renee caught it immediately. “Deepen your breath,” she said, and Lauren came back. Her waters broke with a loud pop, and shortly after, she climbed into the birth pool. She reached down and felt Grace’s head, a full head of hair, and lifted her daughter to her chest. “I could just see her under the water and it was just the most incredible thing. She was suspended between these two worlds.” Grace was born at 3:31am, to a Sanskrit mantra about wholeness and non-duality. Lauren looked up at the photos of the women she had lost and said, simply: thank you.

Lauren reflects on the difference in love between her two children, not lesser or greater, but different in quality. With Joel, all-consuming and heart-cracking. With Grace, peaceful, calm, like a remembering. “Neither is lesser or more,” she says. “It’s just different.”

This episode is a gift for anyone preparing for birth, navigating loss, or simply trying to find their way back to trust.