When Pain Reveals the Mother
Shalee came to me as a referral from another client. That’s usually how it happens. I don’t do any marketing—my work moves through word of mouth, either from someone I’ve supported directly or through someone I’ve worked alongside. There’s something about that kind of arrival that already carries trust.
She had just found out she was pregnant and wanted to learn more about her pelvic floor. As we talked, she shared that during her first birth she felt she had a hard time relaxing. This time, she said, she wanted to be more proactive—to do it without fear. I always love hearing this. To work with me is to begin with curiosity: a desire to understand something in your body, to soften a pattern, to learn how to meet an experience differently.
My role is not to “fix,” but to offer supportive tools and somatic simulations that help women prepare—whether for conception, birth, or the postpartum window. I believe preparation is less about control and more about relationship: learning how to listen, how to respond, how to trust sensation instead of bracing against it.
Preventative care is especially vital after birth. The womb, after all, has done something extraordinary. Even in the most beautiful births, it can experience a kind of necessary trauma in the service of bringing life through. This is where gentle, informed care matters. My work as a STEAM practitioner deeply informs this portion of support—helping the body remember how to soften, release, and restore after holding so much.
Shalee’s journey began not from fear, but from a desire to meet birth differently. And that, in itself, is already a form of preparation.
Her due date was January 30th. Shalee’s son was born on that same day, and she came to see me for her final session on January 23rd. When possible, I like to meet with clients about a week before their due date— helping the tissues soften, helping the nervous system trust what it already knows, and offering the body a final experience of safety and ease before the intensity begins. There’s also something ceremonial about this timing—a gentle threshold until the next chapter begins. The session becomes less about preparation and more about permission: permission to trust, and to let the body take over when the time comes. Shalee was quietly holding a hope for an earlier birth, wishing her son and daughter wouldn’t have to share the same birthday, or arrive just days apart.
Her final session ended around 3:00 pm on Friday, and she left feeling refreshed and ready. I don’t think she really expected things to unfold so quickly, but she was in a good head and heart space when she left—one that I truly believe her daughter felt. It was as if they were both quietly preparing for her arrival.
Shalee’s water broke at home around 9:30 pm, something that hadn’t happened with her first birth. She arrived at the birthing center around 10:30 pm, and her daughter was born at 1:18 am on Saturday—6 pounds, 9 ounces. What was astounding was that she was born sunny-side, and Shalee did not tear.
First, I want to acknowledge her husband, along with her birth team—a skilled midwife and doula—all moving in concert and performing their roles beautifully.
Before getting into the tub, Shalee experienced significant pain in her hips, which helped explain where much of the intensity was coming from—her daughter was arriving full moon first. There is something deeply symbolic about that kind of entrance. In many traditions and stories, to come into the world showing the full moon is to arrive unhidden, instinct-led, and unapologetically embodied.
It brings to mind the wild feminine energy Clarissa Pinkola Estés writes about—the soul that enters already fluent in instinct, moving by inner rhythm rather than instruction. I couldn’t help but feel that Shalee’s daughter may carry some of that Wild Woman spirit Estés names: perceptive, intuitive, and deeply rooted in her own knowing. I imagine her life will read like a page-turner. By the time she comes fully into womanhood, I’ll be 75 years old, witnessing from the edges, smiling at the story still unfolding.
Once in the water, as the pain deepened, fear began to creep in. In that moment, Shalee quietly turned inward and returned to a promise she had made to herself, in case this happened: I release all my fear and trust my body.
From there, the release of her daughter was smooth and fluid. She doesn’t recall actively pushing—“she just came out,” she said. It feels almost miraculous that she didn’t tear.
Shalee credits the work we did together—preparing her body to soften and relax into the contractions, and creating new associations with fear and bracing, especially through her adductors and psoas. I remember telling her daughter that I was creating a fun slide for her to glide down, making it easier for both her and her mother. Of course, there’s more to it than that—but sometimes that image says exactly what needs to be said.
When Shalee later told me, “It was the birth experience I was hoping for,” I felt deeply grateful. Birth is not easy, but there is something significant about its pain. As Ina May Gaskin so beautifully reflects, birth is powerful not because it is painless, but because a woman meets the pain and discovers she is bigger than it. In this way, the pain doesn’t erase her—it reveals her.
Yoni massage is one of the only ways I know to help the body soften and remember its own opening. And yes—I like to think babies come out the way they came in… through a kind of “yoni massage” of another sort. All the puns intended. If you’re blushing, it’s okay. Blushing is just the body’s little way of saying, something tender is being named. It’s a sign you’re alive, human, and still connected to the mystery or I like to think you have a good sense of humor!!!
Every birth leaves an imprint. Shalee’s reminds me that when the body is prepared with care, the experience can be not only survivable, but meaningful—something you carry with pride rather than fear. Revealing the mother she is becoming.
