Why I Chose a Home Birth: A Reflection Four Years Later

As my son’s 4th birthday approaches, I find myself revisiting a time when the world changed overnight.

Yoga on the beach with my 2 year old boy.

Freedoms were challenged. Voices silenced. Loved ones separated. And in the realm of birth — sacredness was stripped away. (Bombs weren't dropping, but it was biological and psychological warfare. Foundations for more forceful and unfathomable occurrences to take place.)

Women were birthing their babies masked, inhaling their own CO2. Others laboured completely alone, without the touch or presence of loved ones. Inhumane.

Absurd policies replaced intuition, safety, and care.

It was complete insanity.

I wrote a blog post back then — the year my son was born — about why I chose a home birth. But as I reread that post now, I see how carefully I treaded. I was being “polite.” Too afraid to rock the boat or trigger discomfort.

But four years later, I’m no longer afraid to speak the full truth. (I think being out of my tender postpartum period, I feel safer in my body to speak on this.)

Here it is:

No woman should have been treated the way women were during that time in the allopathic system.(And let’s be honest — not much has changed.)

No woman should be coerced, dismissed, or stripped of her rights and autonomy.

No woman should be left alone to birth in a sterile, cold, clinical room where policy is valued more than presence. 

No woman should be made to feel that she must silence her voice in the most powerful moment of her life.

The truth is — women need to know their rights, their options, and that their voice & experience matters.

I chose a home birth because I could not — and would not — place myself into an environment where my intuition would be questioned, my choices undermined, or my sacred experience turned into a medical transaction.

I didn’t want a swab up my nose. I didn’t want anyone touching my sacred body without consent. I didn’t want to give birth on someone else’s timeline — because birth doesn’t follow a clock. It follows the timeless dance of nature, intuition, and surrender.

I knew the hospital was not equipped to hold the unfolding of an undisturbed birth. It wasn’t just about minimizing and/or avoiding interventions — it was about protecting the energetic field my son would enter (which actually lowers the chances of interventions).

I had done the research. I understood the risks and the benefits. But more than anything, I listened to my body and my womb (no, I don't want a medal).

I didn’t want an epidural — not because I feared the needle, but because I trusted the intelligence of my body. I wanted to feel it all. I wanted my son to arrive in a space of trust, warmth, and sovereignty. I wanted to welcome him into the world the way I knew deep in my bones was right.

My contractions were increasing super fast while I waited for my husband to fill my birth pool. I snapped this while laying on my side to steady my contractions.

The truth is, the hospital was never a sacred space for me. Home was.

My home — where I could create boundaries.Where I could choose who entered my space. Where my birth team was invited in, not imposed upon me. Where I could labour with dim lighting, silence, prayer, breath. Where I could trust, and be trusted.

But it wasn’t just a logistical choice. It required me to unlearn everything I had absorbed about birth, safety, and care.

I had to confront the conditioning that told me birth was dangerous, that I needed to be saved. I had to peel back layers of fear and control, and step into something ancient, wild, and unseen. It was deep work. Spiritual work. Womb work.

Home birth post-bliss.

But I did it. Because I knew the truth.I felt it in my bones. And I followed it home.

And had I not done that work — had I not experienced the full power of surrender and trust in the Divine...

I wouldn’t be here, speaking so boldly about birth and its sacredness.

Some may say I was lucky. Others may say I was reckless.

But that’s the voice of a subscribed belief system. One many people unknowingly accept as truth. But here's the thing:

Unless you’ve done the inner work to know your whole self — unless your choice is made from radical self-trust and spiritual alignment —you are not making a decision rooted in freedom. You’re making one based on what has been handed to you — fear, conditioning, and half-truths.

And that’s the difference.

This is what I do in my work as a birth doula and Ayurvedic practitioner. I guide women back to themselves: Back to self-trust, embodiment, informed decision-making, and truth that lives in the body.

I help women peel back the layers of societal programming so they can participate fully in their own birth — whether that includes a home birth, an epidural, or a cesarean.

It’s not about what you choose — it’s about whether you chose it in power, with clarity, and from a place of freedom.

Because if you haven’t explored what’s available to you…If you’ve only made decisions based on fear or what you were told is normal…That is not autonomy. That is compliance.

And birth is too sacred to be handed over to someone else’s story.

Curious to learn how you can reclaim your power in birth? Click the link below.

Reclaim Your Birth with My Birth Planning Intensive

Renata xx