Venus Rising Doula Support

07/11/2024

I have availability for in-person and virtual support in 2025. Get in touch to arrange a chat to see if I’m the right fit for your team xx

Www.venusrisingdoula.com.au

06/10/2023

🪷PLACENTA ENCAPSULATION🪷
Consuming the placenta is not a new thing but it is hard to find scientific evidence supporting it, because of issues with ethos and funding, but also historically. Because men have done most of the recording of history, they have virtually exclusively recorded the history of men. Birth and postpartum were traditionally managed exclusively by women, and because women were rarely taught to write, they were rarely written about from a woman’s perspective.

Finding historical references to placenta consumption (placentophagy) is hard. One of the only ‘scientific’ mentions is from a Chinese medical text from 1596, where dried placenta is prescribed to treat premature ej*******on. Sigh. The few modern studies into placental encapsulation are small and limited by funding and population.

There is a wealth of beautiful and sacred rituals from indigenous cultures worldwide regarding the handling and significance of the placenta, but little documentation of consumption.

Humans are now the only mammals, except for marine mammals and some camelids, who do not consume afterbirth. It is assumed that it is an instinct that was lost as we started cooking food and domesticating plants.

Because your placenta was created in your body, by your body, it is assumed that your system will re-uptake the vitamins, minerals and proteins easier than it would a regular supplement. Women who have had their placentas encapsulated report lower anxiety, boosted milk supply, more regulated energy levels and smooth healing.

Booking for PE in the Wollongong area can be done through my website, link in bio ✌🏻

04/10/2023

🌞 2024 AVAILABILITY 🌞 I work with women birthing in hospital and/or at home. I assist with the preparation, mental and physical, required to achieve a normal birth and gentle postpartum. I advocate fiercely in hospital and act as a bridge between miraculous and inspiring act of birthing a baby and the faceless, clinical setting we are given to do this in. I believe in birth, I believe in women, I believe in the deep, juicy connection between a mother, her body and her baby.

I want to help women get what they want out of a system that is supposed to be working for them, not doing things to them.

Slide into my dms or check my website for more details xx

Placenta Encapsulation and Doula Support

13/08/2023

🫶🏻HI🫶🏻 I’m Kate. I’m a doula, a childbirth educator, a birth keeper, a placenta encapsulator and a pregnancy and birth coach. I’m also a mother of two girls,
a matriarch and a good cook.

I am passionate about making birth in hospital work, and standing beside women and families as they navigate a system that values outcomes over the process, and generalised risk management over individual and wholistic treatment.

I act as a mentor in your pregnancy; LISTENING, valuing your opinions, intuitions and abilities, enabling you engage purposefully and confidently in a system that can make you feel like being pregnant is an illness.

I believe that women can birth safely, naturally and powerfully without trauma or a loss of dignity, in a hospital environment with the right preparation and the right support team.

I think the medical-maternity system is absolutely fu**ed, and a no-bullsh*t and questioning approach is vital to getting what you want and need out of it. I am experienced, smart and sensible and I work hard to make sure my clients get what they need, advocating for you at every opportunity.

If you are birthing at Wollongong hospital and feel like no one is really listening to you, if tests and results are not being properly explained to you, if they are trying to book you in for an induction or scheduled c-section, if could use some extra support, please get in touch, my books are open, I am here to help!

09/06/2023

🪐WOMEN DON’T NEED RESCUING🪐 I don’t ‘look after’ women. I don’t ‘take care’ of them. Women know how to look after themselves. They know what they need, what their families need. They know how to grow, raise and nurture children while building empires.

What women need, what we all need, is a solid foundation. A solid foundation that gives us space, that allows us to go from survive, to thrive. But it is often missing, expensive or too temporary to rely on.

The problem isn’t that women don’t know how to birth, or that they don’t know what they need. The problem is that our access to our right to a calm, physiological birth has been taken away. Medicalised, technocratic and generalised systems have eroded our relationship with our bodies and our births. It’s eroded our intuition and railroaded our storytelling and skill sharing.

So no, I’m not here to rescue women from birth. I don’t empower women, I’m not here to fight for them or speak for them.

I’m here to help them get what they want.

I’m here to quieten the noise around them so they can empower themselves.

To help them remember what they already know.

I’m here to help clear the path, so they can reconnect to inner knowing, to hold space while they tune in to instinct.

To bolster their knowledge, supply the tools they need to navigate this crazy system.

To hold the door open while they move through to show this system what a woman can do.

The hospital system doesn’t think you can have a VBAC, but I do.

The hospital system doesn’t trust your body to grow a baby that’s safe to birth normally, but I do.

The hospital system doesn’t believe that you are powerful, brave, determined and able to make educated decisions, but I do.

15/05/2023

🍥PLACENTA POWER🍥
At the end of this financial year I will be upping the price of placenta encapsulation by a tiny bit, cozzie livs etc. BUT, if you book your dates in before August 1st, I will honour the current price of $300, even if your due date falls after the price rise. To book in, send a message and I’ll send you the details!

01/05/2023

❓WHAT IS GOING ON 🙃❓One of many benefits of having a doula is having a reliable hotline to hit up with the questions google can’t answer.

Feel free to ask a question about your newborn-12 months old in the comments ⬇️

04/04/2023

👩🏼‍❤️‍👩🏼A LABOUR OF LOVE👩🏼‍❤️‍👩🏼 I don’t think anyone will say that they got into birthwork for the money or the glamour. Late nights, big feelings, uncertain outcomes, huge highs and dark lows and so, so many different body fluids, it is not for the faint of heart.

I recently was updating my website and writing what my doula package includes using phrases like “holding space”, “nurturing connection” and “nourishing the mother”, and while that sort of rhetoric is very valid and very important in this world, it’s not immediately translatable to everyone. What does it MEAN?

I think of the second time mum who after an intense first birth and postpartum is trying to convince her partner to spend a decent amount of money on a doula. What are you getting? What do they even do? Do we even need someone to hold space?

The answer is yea, you need that space held, but I also understand how easy it is not put value into what a doula does or understand why this investment is actually such an incredible value for money.

So I did a breakdown of a client. This is her first pregnancy, it was uncomplicated with a beautiful, quick birth at the hospital. She lives about 25 minutes away from me with her husband and two cats. We started working together when she was 20 weeks pregnant, touching base weekly, and we will continue to do so until she is 6 months postpartum.

This post is not intended to make anyone feel uncomfortable or awkward about what a doula charges versus what that support is worth. Until the government subsidises our profession it is generally understood that we can only charge what is reasonable for families to afford.

I do this because I fu***ng love it. I do it because it matters and it genuinely makes a difference.

And consider this; to work with someone who is an expert in their field, on call for you 24/7, but will also hold your baby, cook you dinner and run you a bath, you’ll have to pay them much more than $37 an hour 😂

Doulas! Midwife’s! Nurses! I see you, I hear you, solidarity and respect 💕

👩‍❤️‍👩

04/04/2023

👩🏼‍❤️‍👩🏼A LABOUR OF LOVE👩🏼‍❤️‍👩🏼 I don’t think anyone will say that they got into birthwork for the money or the glamour. Late nights, big feelings, uncertain outcomes, huge highs and dark lows and so, so many different body fluids, it is not for the faint of heart.

I recently was updating my website and writing what my doula package includes using phrases like “holding space”, “nurturing connection” and “nourishing the mother”, and while that sort of rhetoric is very valid and very important in this world, it’s not immediately translatable to everyone. What does it MEAN?

I think of the second time mum who after an intense first birth and postpartum is trying to convince her partner to spend a decent amount of money on a doula. What are you getting? What do they even do? Do we even need someone to hold space?

The answer is yea, you need that space held, but I also understand how easy it is not put value into what a doula does or understand why this investment is actually such an incredible value for money.

So I did a breakdown of a client. This is her first pregnancy, it was uncomplicated with a beautiful, quick birth at the hospital. She lives about 25 minutes away from me with her husband and two cats. We started working together when she was 20 weeks pregnant, touching base weekly, and we will continue to do so until she is 6 months postpartum.

This post is not intended to make anyone feel uncomfortable or awkward about what a doula charges versus what that support is worth. Until the government subsidises our profession it is generally understood that we can only charge what is reasonable for families to afford.

I do this because I fu***ng love it. I do it because it matters and it genuinely makes a difference.

And consider this; to work with someone who is an expert in their field, on call for you 24/7, but will also hold your baby, cook you dinner and run you a bath, you’ll have to pay them much more than $37 an hour 😂

Doulas! Midwife’s! Nurses! I see you, I hear you, solidarity and respect 💕👩‍❤️‍👩

29/03/2023

✨NOT YOUR AVERAGE DOULA✨ I have Doula availability in the coming months, and I’m really looking to work with women and families who know what they want.
Women who know they are strong, who know they are capable, women who believe in birth, women who know that are fu***ng goddesses.
Women who know that in order to get the world to bend around them, in order to get the birth they want, that they need the right support in place.
✨I don’t want to rub your feet, I want to help you say f**k off in the nicest possible way to the OB offering you an induction at 39 weeks.
✨I’m not going to say “oh well” when you’re getting pressure for a c-section because your baby is measuring large on a scan, I’m going to gather every scrap of evidence that empowers you have the confidence and power to push back, to listen to your body and your baby.
✨I’m not going to be like all the other care providers that vanish at 6 weeks postpartum. I’m going to hang around like a tropical rash feeding you, helping with feeding and sleep, genuinely and dedicatedly interested in YOU and how you are faring.

So if that sounds like the kind of support you’re after, you should send me a message, or visit my website, my books won’t be open for long.