Every story is worth telling
Every story is worth telling. Birth Stories on Stage has been and gone and will almost certainly will be an annual event in Murwillumbah. This event was a reminder that human birth matters — for families, for culture, and for the future.
Women used to prepare for birth by listening to their mothers, grandmothers, sisters, and friends. The success of Birth Stories on Stage is a testament to how much this type of ancestral information is needed. On a cold winter’s evening in June, there was standing room only at M-Arts Precinct as thirteen women and one man took to the stage and shared their personal stories of birth. The audience was transfixed as they heard stories of raw and powerful births. They laughed and cried as the storytellers shared their fears and triumphs and described how they met their babies for the first time. Thank you to everyone who came, ate pizza and held space. With your support, we raised vital funds for the upcoming Birth Wellness Festival. The ripple effects are still being felt.
One of the highlights of the event was the giant pink vulva installation—a whimsical and symbolic gateway through which every storyteller entered the stage. We designed and created it in our minds, and on the day, a group of enthusiastic women layered pool noodles with folds of soft fabric in varying shades of pink, mauve and red sari, topped it off with a sparkly clitoris and fairy lights. It created a visual and uplifting statement, one which we hope to create on a much bigger scale for the festival. If anybody is an artist, sculptor, set designer or someone who knows how we could achieve this, we’d love to hear from you!
What’s Next: The Birth Wellness Festival 2025
With the success of Birth Stories on Stage now behind us, the spotlight turns to the main event: the Birth Wellness Festival 2025. Momentum is building, and the Birth Wellness team is excited to be carrying the energy forward into spring!
Alongside the festival preparation we have the launch of Birth Wellness, the Podcast. We also have introduced Birth Story Circle at Heart and Soul of Wellness, this takes place in a cosier setting with cake and chai. The first Birth Story Circle was held last this month. Unscripted, unrehearsed and deeply moving, the afternoon showed once again how healing storytelling can be when women share their story in a safe space. Listening to stories is different to birth preparation workshops or watching YouTube videos. There is wisdom to be gleaned that no textbook can teach.
The next Birth Story Circle is for Men on Saturday 2 August at 2pm. This is for dads to share their story about witnessing their baby being born, and the emotions they felt/feel about becoming a dad. This is a men’s only gathering and will be facilitated by Jamil, a new dad himself.
Restoring the Human Habitat
When a group of concerned human citizens get together, we become a force for change. I recently saw in one of the local newspapers a call-out for volunteers to plant trees to restore koala habitats. The article commented on how powerless people feel when it comes to helping the environment but that when they work together as a community, they can make a difference.
I have to say my thoughts turned to birth. It’s admirable that people care about restoring habitats for wildlife and are willing to give up their time to plant trees. What about a call out to restore the human habitat for babies? What about humans working together as a community to change birth? Koalas need eucalyptus trees. Babies need well-nourished mamas.
Supported mamas, sacred births
Human babies need calm, connected mothers. To support those mothers and restore the human habitat, we need to restore the conditions for safe, supported, and sacred birth. We need to ensure that the optimal environment is provided for every baby to be born into.
I feel grateful to live in a community where we have a whole ecosystem of care; individuals, groups, and collectives that are making every effort to bring this vision to life. I love our collective spirit, where women come together in pregnancy and postpartum circles, mama support groups, and community gatherings that offer not just practical help, but instil a sense of belonging. Where mamas-to-be can be guided by women who teach prenatal yoga, prenatal pilates, hypnobirthing and calm birth to name a few. Women can learn and unlearn from practitioners who work with birth imprinting, EFT, and other healing modalities to help clear trauma and step into their birthing power. In our midst we also have chiropractors, Chinese medicine practitioners, nutritionists, womb massage therapists and pregnancy masseuses who ease the physical discomforts and prepare the body for birth.
For postpartum support and healing, we have dedicated practitioners who tend to the health and wellbeing of new mamas, using acupuncture, moxa, herbs and healing hands to restore vitality and bring the new mama back to balance after birth. Where else do women, in the postpartum days after birth, have meal trains organised, and have nourishing food delivered straight to their doorstep?
Where else do we have women’s festivals, birth festivals and community days? If there aren’t enough people talking about how birth shapes our world, we are making up for it! The way we’re born impacts everything: our nervous systems, our connection, our sense of safety. The way we’re going to change the world is by welcoming every baby in with love, respect and dignity.
Rewriting the Birth Narrative
How can we change the narrative around birth? When women have been deeply conditioned to mistrust their bodies — to see them as faulty, dangerous, weak, and unable to give birth without medical intervention, how can we offer a different perspective?
Sharing positive, empowered stories is one way. Fear is passed down through the tales we tell. The narratives we most often hear about birth come from TV sitcoms or negative birth experiences. It’s essential to hear real stories—stories of women who gave birth on their own terms, following their intuition and trusting both the process of birth and themselves. This does NOT mean that every birth is rosy, without challenges. A positive, empowered story often includes dark hours (or minutes) of despair and fear and tells of the transformation that occurs when this rocky ground is navigated and transcended. A positive, empowered story does not mean a vaginal birth. MOST births require every ounce of strength, self-belief and a willingness to surrender that is not easy for us human beings. Whether baby arrives via the vagina, with the help of suction or forceps, or through a caesarean, every mother is heroic in my eyes.
Women who “end up” having caesarean births deserve extra acknowledgement for being willing to do whatever is necessary for their baby’s safe arrival Earth side. It takes deep courage, surrender and letting go of the dream for a different birth, one that they might have been dreaming of for some time. There is an unfortunate undercurrent of these times and in our area, that applauds women for vaginal births but damns them for birthing with medical intervention, including caesarean birth. It is even more unfortunate when a woman deems herself a failure.
I have seen many conscious, motivated women do everything right, eat well, exercise, read all the books, go to classes, receive acupuncture, massage and chiropractic care, tune into her baby and still find herself in a long, exhausting and unexpected labour. When birth didn’t unfold the way she hoped, words are totally inadequate. There is no value in offering meaningless platitudes like “Oh you got the birth you needed”, or “the baby got the birth they needed.”
There is no such thing as a “failed birth”. Whether your birth was at home or in hospital, with intervention or without, joyful or traumatic, smooth or complicated, you did not fail. You are not broken. You birthed. You transformed. You are powerful. Your story is worth telling.
The Zen Goddess water births inspire us and who wouldn’t want to have an orgasm while they’re having a baby, but Its actually the hard birth stories that women need to hear, the long, messy, unexpected ones. the ones where women had to dig deep and find strength they didn’t know they had.
This is how women learn about birth through storytelling. Down the generations birth stories have been shared around fires, in kitchens, and while women gathered at the well. After observing the rapt attention of the audience on the night of Birth Stories on Stage, I absolutely know how important this continues to be.