After I had our twin boys, I thought, "Wow, that was crazy. Good thing I’ll probably never have twins again." And then at five months postpartum, we conceived twins again. We lost one twin extremely early in pregnancy. However, I was shocked that it had happened again, and it unlocked a big fear for me. Twin pregnancy is incredibly difficult for my body and mental state, so moving forward, I begged God to let a chalice like that to please pass over me for any “next time.” During the few years...

This fourth pregnancy and birth was a culminating step in a transformation that had been unfolding in my life for the past several years toward a more holistic and intuitive understanding of health and wellness. Once I began to see the body in this new light—the light of God’s design, discernible through human understanding and intuition—it was impossible for my view of birth to remain unchanged. I’d previously had three hospital births without an epidural, and by the third one it became...

Leading up to Wilhelmina’s birth, we prayed every night in our family Rosary for a peaceful labor. Our first birth had been a terrifying and traumatic event. Our planned birth center birth had been transferred to the hospital where I was diagnosed with preeclampsia, and after three excruciating days of labor my daughter was rushed to the NICU. This experience prompted us to choose a home birth for our second pregnancy. The care we received from our home birth doctor was night and day...