Retreat Recap | God's Design for Birth and His Heart for You

The Peaceful Home Birth retreat was described as a magical and beautiful experience where women gathered to learn about birth, connect with one another, and have fun. The host expressed pride in the attendees who invested their time, money, and energy into the retreat. The highlights of the weekend included coaching sessions, meals together, walks in nature, quiet reflection time, and guest speakers discussing topics such as God's design for birth and the transitions in labor. The host emphasized the importance of community and seeking knowledge and wisdom from others. Overall, the retreat was a success and the host invited listeners to get involved in future retreats and women's circles. Hi, and welcome back to another episode of Peaceful Home Birth. Well, the Peaceful Home Birth retreat was a week ago, and the best word that I have for it right now is just magical. It was such a beautiful time to experience our femininity, learn about birth, connect with one another, rest, and really just have a lot of fun. My heart is so filled up, but I have to be 100% honest with you, I'm physically exhausted, and I napped for like three or four days after that, which is so unlike me, but it was worth it. 100% worth it. Community is worth it. Just seeking knowledge and wisdom from those who've gone before you is worth it. I was so proud of all the women who came, put themselves out there, felt the emotions, invested their time, money, and energy into this retreat. There was so much fruit that came from this weekend together. Today, what I want to do is just give you some highlights and a little recap of what our weekend looked like together. Plus, an opportunity to have you get involved in future retreats and women's circles near you. Listen all the way to the end, and let's dive in. Welcome to the Peaceful Homebirth Podcast, where your journey to a joyful and empowered birth experience begins. I'm your host, Allie McLean, a registered nurse, homebirth coach, devoted wife, and proud mother to four incredible kiddos. I've walked the path from trauma to triumph, and I'm here to guide you every step of the way. This is the Peaceful Homebirth Podcast, where more than just a show, we're a community of dreamers, believers, and fearless mothers-to-be. If you're seeking to reclaim your birth story, to transform fear into confidence, and to embrace the beauty of homebirth, you've found your tribe. My own transformative journey began with a traumatic C-section, propelling me on a quest to uncover the power of homebirth. And now, I'm on a mission to help you rise above your past, prevent needless C-sections, and stand firmly in the certainty of your dream birth. As a devoted follower of Jesus, I believe that His divine design for birth is inherently good. It is a reflection of His love, strength, and grace. If the dream of homebirth has been planted on your heart, know that it's there for a purpose, and I'm here to stand with you as you pursue it wholeheartedly. In a world filled with racing thoughts and doubts, I'm your guide to taking those thoughts captive, making them obedient to Christ, and replacing them with the liberating truth. Together, we'll navigate the challenges that lie ahead, finding not only freedom, but also unbridled joy on your path to motherhood. This podcast is a haven for the woman who has faced the darkness of a traumatic birth, and has questioned whether homebirth is within her reach. Here we shatter those doubts. Join us for illuminating interviews with remarkable birth workers who share our reverence for the sanctity and splendor of birth. Listen to inspiring women as they recount their triumphant birth stories, each a testament to the strength that resides within you. So whether you're just starting to explore the world of homebirth, or you're already on this radiant journey, the Peaceful Homebirth Podcast is your sanctuary, your wellspring of knowledge, and your unwavering support system. Get ready to be inspired, to be empowered, and to embark on a path that leads you to the birth you've always dreamed of. It's time to experience the Holy Spirit's power, to embrace the beauty of birth, and to create a legacy of love and strength. Are you ready to transform your birth experience? Let's dive in. Okay, so I'm just going through my outline of the itinerary, and I'm just going to hit the highlights for you on each section of our day. It was honestly the most amazing thing to see a whole year's worth of planning come together and really go on without a hitch. It was so cool to see what planning can do, right? Nothing, I guess it didn't go perfect, right? There's always room for improvement, but really the intention and the planning that went behind this paid off, and I'm so, so thankful for that. So on Friday, my radiant coaching students started to arrive around 10. I was able to do a coaching session with one of them in person, which was always so much more fun to do those in-person coaching sessions. Then the rest of the ladies started showing around, oh, 11 o'clock, and as any new place that you're showing up not knowing anybody, right? I mean, there's a little apprehension, but also excitement, and it was so neat to see connections start happening. One thing that made this really special was that some of the women had been attending an in-person women's circle that my friend Jamie and I have been hosting monthly, and so there was some recognition of, oh, I've seen you there before, but I haven't gotten to know you yet. So this was a perfect opportunity to make connections with familiar faces, and it was just really fun to see that naturally start to happen. So right after they found the rooms and got everything situated, we ended up having lunch, and really, there is something so special about eating food with one another, right? I mean, how many times is connection really built over a meal? I just love that we were able to start it off with that, because the conversation just organically started to happen, and, oh, man, we were at such a lovely location. They had a wonderful back porch just surrounded by land and a cool breeze and great conversations. Honestly, we couldn't have asked for a better weekend to hold this. After lunch, we all gathered in the living room, and we had opening session. What I really wanted to do to start off this weekend is start at the beginning, right? I wanted to build a firm foundation so that everything that we learned this weekend would have something to stand on, right? I wrote an opening training or speech about God's design for birth and his heart for youth. This was something really, really special to me, because when I rewired my brain to have this core belief that God designed birth to work, it was like all of the birth information that I gathered fell into the right category, right? I'm honestly just tired of information, and I think there is a transition that's happening out of this information age. I really think we're transforming into a time of being or just feeling and leaning into our God-given intuition, especially when it comes to birth, right? Homebirth Hub, this is the course that I created, it was really birthed out of this place of information is good, but knowing how to know something, tune in, feel something, process something biblically, that's so much better, right? I'm going to actually upload this talk soon into the Homebirth Hub, so if you want access to this talk on God's design for birth and his heart for youth, if you want a holistic approach for preparing for a peaceful, Christ-centered home birth, then click the link in the description below and you can get started today. After opening session, we went on a walk, and I felt like this was a really important aspect of the retreat because really connecting with nature, like God's nature is so powerful. Smelling the cool air is actually kind of warmish, but it was just beautiful. We got to walk in the country on gravel roads and to see all these pregnant women kind of waddling on gravel roads and up hills, and it was just so much fun. It was really, really nurturing to my soul. The conversation that happened, what I did is I gave them all note cards, and so they could write a word down to meditate on for their birth, but honestly, I think the majority of women just chatted with each other, and it was so fun. We got back from the walk, had a little bit of quiet time. Really, there is something important when you're hosting retreats about giving enough time for learning and connection and fun, but also that quiet time and that reflection time. I tried my best to balance it in the two days that we had, but definitely having a longer retreat would be really nice. It was fun to see women honoring what they needed for their body, so some women napped. Others just went on a walk. Really, the connections that were built during the time of quiet time was so organic, so authentic, and really started to see over, in a very, very short amount of time, just true sisterhood was being formed, and that was amazing. I invited a guest speaker to come, and she talks about the two transitions in labor. This is a really interesting talk. Not a lot of people talk about it, and so this is fun to hear somebody else's perspective from it, but she believes that there is a transition a lot of moms experience from early to active and active labor to pushing. I personally can reflect back on two out of three of my births where this was very accurate for me. Also, what I loved about bringing in other speakers is it wasn't the Ali Show, right? It was having different perspectives and expertise come in, share with them, and I believe women really, really appreciated that. Okay, and now it's time to share one of my sponsors with you. After my first birth, which ended in a traumatic C-section, I started researching literally everything, including things that go in and on me and my family's body. 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Just to make it easier for you, Araza is giving my listeners a special discount of 15% off. Go to arazabeauty.com and use the code EMPOWEREDBIRTH at checkout. After the speaker came, we had breakout sessions, and the postpartum moms got a training on diastasis recti, and then the pregnant moms stayed for a training that I did on faith over fear. This is just practical tools to manage fears that come up during pregnancy. What I loved so much about this training was the vulnerability. We worked through the tools, and then there was a time to share. Honestly, what could have happened is women could have been too scared to share their fears out loud, but really where the breakthrough came was with the honesty and vulnerability. Everybody just really loved on the moms that shared their fears, and it was so powerful. I mean, my goodness, the amount of times I teared up during this weekend were innumerable, but fear really loses so much power when it's voiced out loud. I was so proud of the women who were vulnerable and shared, and it was just an amazing time. We went in to dinner after that, and I could tell by this time the women had so much to talk about. There was so much laughter and chatter, and there was a sense of ease. Everybody was just getting along so well. It was amazing. It was so funny. We had lasagna that night, and after most all of us were done eating, there was this offhanded conversation that started happening about enemas and natural health. It was so great because when you get women together, especially women who have very similar ideas on natural health and healing and home birth, organic conversations like that just pop up, and everybody was learning something from one of the ladies there, and it was just amazing. Women sharing information with women, that's just how it should be. It was so wonderful. I loved it. After dinner, we had another speaker come, and it was an herbalist. She was sharing about herbs that were safe and beneficial during pregnancy. We all jotted down notes. I don't know if you guys have seen us all sitting in this semicircle with our notes, trying our best to keep up with all this information. There was so much given. There really is something about the ability to have options and the empowerment to support you and your family's bodies by the tools that God gave through for us. It's just so wonderful. There was a ton of questions and training, and I personally learned so much. I'm really excited to apply all of that knowledge to my clients, my family, and it was great. After the herbalist came and everybody started to... Some people went home for the day. They lived close to the retreat site. Some people stayed. The women who stayed, we all got in our comfy clothes and made our way to the living room. We started to play this game of pregnancy and birth fishbowl. You guys, I... It was probably one of the biggest highlights of that day for me, and I know for a lot of people. It was just such a fun game. If you've never played fishbowl before, let me tell you, this is how you do it, okay? You hand out three little pieces of paper. You write down on that paper a word or a phrase, and then you collect it in a bowl. So there's three, and we added a first round. There's three rounds where you set a timer. I think we set it for, like, 27 seconds or something like that. And you set a timer. You see how many words you can get through. And the first round, you describe it. The second round, you use one word. The third round, you act. And we added a fourth round on where you act underneath a blanket. It was absolutely hilarious. And, yeah, it was just so much fun. We played another game after that, and then we all went to bed. I crawled into bed, and I was just on a buzz. I could not fall asleep because of the excitement and just the realization that all of the planning, let alone the last four years of dreaming about this retreat, was actually happening. Like, I was living in the midst of a dream I had had for so long, and it was turning out good, right? I had to finally tell myself, like, just go to sleep so I can be ready for tomorrow. And it was so nice to have solid night's sleep away from nursing babies and babies who still come into our beds. So it was really nice to have my own bed. And I could tell that it made a huge difference because I woke up without an alarm at 6 in the morning and felt amazing. I was so rested, and I got ready for the day. Nobody was up yet. So I just got to have the house to myself, and it was really nice. When the women started waking up, I led a early morning stretch, and this was so impactful for me. I had one of the moms came down from waking up. She came to the living room, and I asked her, like, how'd you sleep? And she was due soon, so I wasn't surprised when she said she didn't sleep great. But she proceeded to tell me she had a really bad dream, and I could sense it was demonic. I really wasn't quite sure what to do in the moment, so I just listened. And honestly, I was just going to say, like, oh, I'm so sorry. Like, I hope your day gets better, you know? And it was at that moment that I felt convicted to pray. And what I love so much about the retreat was that these women came together, and many of them, they didn't know each other. But a bond was so strong, and as I was praying for this mom, and honestly, I was crying, and she was crying. And I looked around, and about, oh, goodness, like five other women were standing in the semicircle just praying for her as well. And it was beautiful. It was exactly how it should be. And, yeah, we just, it was so powerful. So, really, it was a good reminder to put on the full armor of God, like, every day and every night. Because the reality is the enemy hates women and babies, and he will do anything to help you fear, push you into fear, to kill, to steal your joy, to destroy your dreams. So be on guard. Like, have a community around you to surround you and pray for you and stand on his truth and his promises of his protection. And I knew if this was how the day was starting out, day two was going to be next level amazing. So we went to breakfast and talked on regulating the nervous system. You know, has your body ever felt like it was just abuzz? Well, actually, just yesterday, I really felt like I wanted to crawl out of my skin. Like, I needed to get away. It was so crazy. I couldn't hear noise, feel touches, think rationally. It was just so hard to keep together. And in this session, I had to go back to it. We learned a technique that really helps our body and our mind come back into balance with each other. So it was really fun to see women feel their feelings and then come back to a place of grounding and security. It was great. We then had a speaker come and talk about nutrition. We had lunch. Another one of my favorite parts of the day was the guided journaling session. I think one of the reasons it was so fun for me is sitting outside. Like, I don't know what it is about just sitting outside and giving yourself time and space to think and process on paper. It really is powerful. So we sat outside around a table with our notebooks, pens, just a breeze blowing through. And we journaled about our birth and God dreams that he's laid on our hearts. So if you want those journal prompts from the retreat, go over to Facebook.com slash group slash peaceful home birth and search for retreat journal prompts. In the group, I will make a post of that, and you can go and you can do that yourself. It's really, really powerful to set some time aside and to do that journaling. So that will be over in the Facebook group. So the next thing that happened after that was a group training on vaginal tearing. And I think after everything I heard from people, I think this was a highlight training for the retreat. There was just raving reviews because the perspective shift that we all got from this was so incredibly powerful. So I had a wise woman come in and share just how fear can contribute to tearing. And we've been brainwashed to fear tearing, right? So she started out by saying we need to erase everything we've heard and just start with a fresh belief system. So she explained how even the suggestion for, like, a duo or a midwife to push, like, are you ready to push now? Do you feel pushy? Can throw a woman off from working with her body and finding her own way. First-time moms especially need more privacy and less suggestions from people. So there was a reframe that we needed to have. And instead of fearing tearing, we need to rewire our brain to believe that our body stretches. Our body was meant to expand and stretch. And it was so great. So the next thing was the mother's blessing. And when I was planning this retreat, my main goal was that mothers would leave with a new sense of confidence, a feeling of belonging, and that they would be so incredibly blessed by this weekend. What a better way to do this than have a mother's blessing. So if you've never heard of a mother's blessing, this is kind of in place of a baby shower, which you could do both. But this is a time of ceremony, really, to just honor the mom, bless the mom, and give her encouragement and just love on her before she has her baby. So we really, it started out by tuning into our femininity. Okay, everybody brought fake flowers, and we cut them up, and we made flower crowns. It was so much fun to just see everybody's creativity come out in a different way, and they all matched, like the crowns matched them. And that was so fun to see that coming out. And then we each gave every pregnant mom a bead of blessing to put on a bracelet for when she's out in labor to look at and just remember how many blessings that have been placed on her and her birth and how many women are praying for her during her labor. It was so precious and so powerful to see these women listening to the Holy Spirit for a word or a blessing or a picture for this mom. I was just really amazed to see women who, at the very beginning of the retreat, like either didn't know anybody or didn't want to open up to anybody, resisting the emotions that they were having to just letting them go, being vulnerable and soft and responding to the words from the Lord for them. And it was impactful for me. It was impactful for everyone involved, and it's something that I definitely want to do more and more of. So the evening started coming to an end with our last session and probably our most fun, and that was a dancing for birth. This was a workshop where we learned about the cardinal movement of baby and how baby goes through a certain movement pattern to come through the mom's pelvis and how the mom and the baby can work together through dancing to help bring the baby down. We all got coin skirts, and just really with our flower crowns and our coin skirts, we just had so much fun thinking about how dancing was bringing the baby down. There was so much laughter, and it was just a great time. So the last part was dinner. We all had dinner together and said goodbye, and honestly, this weekend was near perfect. I'm so excited to do it again, maybe in a town near you. So here's the deal. If this retreat sounded amazing and you want something like this in your hometown, email me, okay? Go to PeacefulHomeBirthPodcast at gmail.com. Let me know your name, where you live, and let's have a conversation about what this could look like. The movement of Christ-centered, holistic, peaceful home birth is spreading rapidly, and it will not be stopped. Are you going to be a part of it? Let's connect. See how this movement could be brought to you. And one way to start is by being informed, right? Not just learning information to have knowledge, but to have it so you can look at the creator and know, wow, he's so powerful. He is in control. He created birth to work. And Home Birth Hub was created to give you the information you need to know as you prepare for home birth and to think rightly. So check out this home birth course today by clicking the link in the description below. Use the code PHP10 for a 10% discount as a thank you for listening and sharing this episode. As always, peace be with you. I hope you loved today's episode and found it so helpful and encouraging. If you did, would you take 30 seconds to leave a review on the Apple Podcast or send this episode to a friend who has been praying for a peaceful home birth? Lastly, make sure you get my free download of my complete home birth essentials checklist. Make sure you have everything ready to go so you're able to feel at peace and confidence leading into your home birth. This printable checklist has all of the important but less glamorous or thought of items that I have found to be so incredibly helpful to have at a home birth after working with many clients in person. Now get it by clicking the link in the show notes and as always, thanks for listening and peace be with you.