“I am obsessed with the magic of instinct; your ability to know what to do and when is awesome!”
Hi, I am Gemma: mother, wife and all-around birth and baby nerd. I also love biscuits, but this isn’t the time or place for that.
Instead, let me tell you a little about me and the amazing journey I’ve been on to create my business-baby: Born to Birth Cornwall.
It’s fair to say that my journey into motherhood was neither extraordinary nor smooth. With my first baby, we followed the well-trodden path of antenatal classes, pregnancy yoga and birth books. I made a Spotify playlist, decorated a nursery, did some pelvic floor exercises and imagined my new life as a mother: coffee, cake, playdates, onesies and hilariously food-splattered kitchen surfaces.
And then I had my baby.
The reality of newborn life smashed my imaginations into pieces and, as the pandemic took hold, so postnatal depression and anxiety took hold of me; self-doubt and self-criticism undermined every decision I made. I believed I was a failure as a mother.
Therapy helped me to regain my strength, not because my therapist told me I was awesome but because she forced me to see my own awesomeness.
With her guidance, I began to see the powerful accuracy of my own instincts and trust them above the noise of social media and others’ opinions.
She instilled in me a love of ‘why?’ and I began my obsession with evidence-based literature on everything birthy and baby, finding confidence in scientific support for my instinctive decisions. I found my tribe, a group of other equally obsessed Mama-bears, and we shared our collective knowledge, supporting each other as we raised our babies in a strange world of masks and vaccines.
I began to smile and love being Mummy again.
And then, I discovered my second pregnancy in 2022. Although this was planned, the thought of unravelling again was absolutely terrifying. While I was so much more knowledgeable, informed and experienced about what was coming, the prospect of doing it all again really got me and I knew that I needed to take a different path through pregnancy and birth.
And so, I hired a doula.
She changed my life, not by doing anything necessarily, but by being there for me. Constantly. With her by my side, I felt totally safe to use my knowledge, trust my instincts and take control of my own birth experience. As with everything, it didn’t run smoothly but I navigated every bump and corner my way because I knew, believed and trusted in my ability to make the right decisions. It was incredible.
Honestly, I thought that would be the end of it: had my babies, learnt a lesson about life, Boom. Done….
But, no, Apparently, now I know how amazing it CAN be, I HAVE to share this not-so-secret-but-underappreciated formula with birthing people and parents everywhere.
I truly believe that each birthing person already has everything within them to birth and raise their baby: their physicality, their logic and their instinct are a team which, when understood, nurtured and respected, can achieve amazing things.
If ‘Born to Birth Cornwall’ can help spread this message, I will be a happy little ginger.
