by Ashli Crew Rodriguez | Jun 10, 2026 | Labor, Parenting, Personal Stories, Postpartum, Pregnancy
You are not the same person you were before you became pregnant. That’s not a metaphor. Your brain is rewiring. Your body is reorganizing itself at the cellular level. Your nervous system is recalibrating, preparing for a profound shift in identity, in time, in...
by Ashli Crew Rodriguez | May 29, 2026 | Labor, Parenting, Personal Stories, Postpartum, Pregnancy
Birth doesn’t always end when the baby is born. For many people, there’s a period afterward where the mind keeps returning to moments from labor and delivery—replaying conversations, sensations, decisions, or emotions while trying to make sense of the experience as a...
by Ashli Crew Rodriguez | Apr 27, 2026 | Labor, Personal Stories, Postpartum, Pregnancy
There is a stretch of time in a person’s life that doesn’t always get named for what it truly is. It begins, for some, with the thought of becoming—with fertility, with trying, with waiting, with wondering, with questions that don’t always have immediate answers. And...
by Ashli Crew Rodriguez | Apr 10, 2026 | Labor, Personal Stories
There are moments in birth where things don’t unfold the way someone imagined. Not all at once, and not always in a way that’s easy to name in the moment. Sometimes it’s subtle. Sometimes it’s after hours of labor, or quiet conversations, or a growing awareness that...
by Ashli Crew Rodriguez | Jan 21, 2026 | Care Providers, Labor, Personal Stories
At some point in pregnancy — usually after the excitement settles — a quieter question shows up. Who can I really turn to through all of this? Not just when labor starts, but now. When your body is changing in ways you didn’t expect. When appointments feel rushed....
by Lacey Morgan | Jul 30, 2019 | Featured, Personal Stories, Postpartum
My birth experience is not uncommon. After 24 hours of back labor, I caved. “I can’t do this anymore! I’m done! I need the epidural.” Broken and defeated with tears streaming down my face, I looked at my midwife and my husband, “I failed. I’m sorry.” I sobbed as the...
