In this episode, high school teacher and mother of two Grace shares her contrasting birth stories from Wollongong, NSW. Her first pregnancy was meticulously researched and planned. Grace approached conception with the same precision she'd bring to organising a holiday, using ovulation tracking and basal temperature monitoring to conceive her daughter Frankie. Though she'd arranged a private homebirth midwife, a late-pregnancy scan showing low amniotic fluid led to an unplanned induction and vaginal birth in hospital. Four years later, her second pregnancy with son William unfolded very differently: a slow, gentle build-up of pre-labour signs culminated in an unassisted, precipitous homebirth on her bedroom floor, with three-year-old Frankie as an unexpected witness. Grace's story is a masterclass in informed decision-making, the emotional complexity of losing bodily autonomy, and the profound difference a trusted care provider makes to a woman's confidence in her own body.

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