Welcome back to Moony Birth Stories | New host

Welcome back!! In this short episode, meet your newest host, Ali Vitrih. Ali shares why she wanted to re-boot the podcast and what to expect from the podcast going forward. 

Find us on Instagram @moonybirthstoriespodcast

Share your story: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfHO2h71MgbFL8X3gniQTm5lo60tBpKIfo9p9VgZFBH3-frpw/viewform?usp=header

Transcript

 Hi everyone. Welcome to the podcast. I am so excited to share that Moony Birth Stories is back, and we will be sharing brand new birth stories of families here in Canada. I am a new host. My name is Ali Vitrih, and I want to thank Teagan, the previous host for allowing me to. Take over the podcast. She has now moved on to other ventures and she has so graciously allowed me to continue going with this podcast.

So if you were a listener before, welcome back. If you are new, then welcome. I hope you all stick around with me as I learn the ropes, and there may be some bumps along the way as I learn what I'm doing, but the format of the podcast will remain the same as it previously was. To tell you a little bit about myself, I live in Saskatoon with my husband Matt, and our two children, Jackson and Charlotte.

I am a doula and I'm also an indigenous birth support worker here at the local children's hospital. My motivation for getting this podcast going again is that it played such an important role in not only preparation for my own two births, but also in my early learning as a doula. In 2020, I attended the birth of my best friend's daughter and I absolutely fell in love with the work.

I quickly took my doula training and then was thrown into the birth field and I was see searching for any way to learn, and that's where I started listening to birth stories and specifically Moony birth stories and. It was an incredible way to learn the terminology and to learn just the twist and turns that birth can take.

I had two very different births, my first birth. Was a planned home birth that ended in the OR with a C-section, and then my next birth was a planned VBAC in the hospital that ended in a nine day NICU stay. So I am very aware of all of the twists and turns that birth can take. I will be sharing my own two births in a later podcast.

I want to acknowledge that this podcast is recorded on Treaty six Territory here in Saskatoon. Our births are so heavily impacted by our physical and social location, our background and culture, and our beliefs, and I hope to bring all of that into this podcast and share birth stories from all walks of life.

I will be focusing on Canadian stories just because our medical system is a little bit different than other parts of the world, and so I wanted to keep it a little bit more local. And yeah, we'll just be focusing on Canadian birth stories. What you can expect from the show is pretty similar to how it was in the past.

it will share the. Pregnancy, birth, and go into postpartum as well with each person that I talked to. So in the past with the podcast, Teagan had a few questions she would ask to every person at the end of the interview, and I am going to be continuing on with that. But I am going to be asking just two questions that I think are a little different.

So the questions are, what is a piece of advice you would give to someone heading toward labor? And what surprised you the most about postpartum? I will ask at the end of every interview just to get a little bit of, uh, just extra little nuggets that people want to share with you. So yeah, it will follow the same format as it did before.

I want to share all the parts of birth, and I think every birth story is unique. So right now where I live in Saskatoon, the current hospital. Is very understaffed and overwhelmed with the amount of people coming in that sometimes. There is hour long waits for a bed, and I think that's important to acknowledge because the best thing that we can do for ourselves is to go in educated and prepared to advocate for ourselves and so that we know what we're getting into.

If you are interested in sharing your own birth story, that you can head down to the link in the show notes to fill out the form, or you can head over to our Instagram at Mooney birth stories podcast and you can send me a message or the form is also there in our bio there. Every story, no matter how long it's been, no matter if it was five years ago or if you gave birth yesterday.

I want to hear from you. I know that it can sometimes take some time to process on your own before you feel ready to share. So whenever you are ready, I am ready to record your story And yeah, Thank you and I'm have so many plans and I am very excited to start sharing all your stories.