Mothers Circle -Birth Doula

Mothers Circle -Birth Doula Mother. Birth Doula (20yrs). Childbirth Educator. Writer. Circle-Keeper. Walking beside women through pregnancy, birth, and all thresholds of becoming.

I create spaces for truth, grief, rest and expression. Based in Aotearoa, working worldwide.

What supporting physiological birth looks like ⬆️⬆️Interrupting a labouring woman can activate the thinking brain (neoco...
30/04/2026

What supporting physiological birth looks like ⬆️⬆️

Interrupting a labouring woman can activate the thinking brain (neocortex), which can disrupt the flow of the hormone oxytocin which drives labour.
Even small intrusions can raise adrenaline and reduce endorphins, making labour slower, more intense, and/or less efficient.

Protecting quiet, safety, and flow isn’t passive care, it’s what allows physiological birth to unfold.

Picture One- midwife Courtney is 8 months pregnant attending Tasmins birth.Picture Two- midwife Courtney is labouring be...
14/04/2026

Picture One- midwife Courtney is 8 months pregnant attending Tasmins birth.
Picture Two- midwife Courtney is labouring being attended by her colleague/friend/midwife sister Jasmine.
Sisterhood- one of the most magnificent things about being a woman.

“Motherhood, you cry your way through”I’ve been hearing myself saying this a lot lately.I think I offer it as a kind of ...
06/04/2026

“Motherhood, you cry your way through”
I’ve been hearing myself saying this a lot lately.
I think I offer it as a kind of permission, because our culture isn’t good at crying.
We resist it, avoid it, hold it back, let it build up. 
I believe the world would be a better place if we all cried more.

Crying isn’t a problem.
In fact, it is one of the most tender ways we can care for ourselves.
Letting tears fall acknowledges the enormity and depth of Motherhood and life.
It keeps us connected, soft, moving, able to flow with the constantly changing currents.
It meets the endless letting go,
allowing us to stay here- with this moment.
Tears let our heart be touched. 

Reflection-
How did your parents respond to your tears?
How do you respond to your children’s tears?

Art- Jennifer Parks “Sanctum of the In-Between”

A midwife’s birth- “My labour quickly demanded surrender. At 37+4 I truly thought I had more time. I hadn’t slowed down ...
03/04/2026

A midwife’s birth-
“My labour quickly demanded surrender. At 37+4 I truly thought I had more time. I hadn’t slowed down yet. I’d attended a birth three days before my own. One of four that week…

My body had been asking me to rest, but I hadn’t been listening. Suddenly I had no choice. It wasn’t easy to switch off my midwife brain. Birthing a posterior baby at home was beautiful, intense — relentless at times.

But I chose my midwives well. Friends. Women I have stood beside in birth. I felt safe enough to unravel, trusting they would hold space for me in all the ways I do for my women”. -Courtney

Labour of Love is a 4-month immersion for those walking alongside others in times of deep change.While rooted in birth w...
01/04/2026

Labour of Love is a 4-month immersion for those walking alongside others in times of deep change.
While rooted in birth work, this space is open to anyone working within the terrain of transformation - doulas, midwives, therapists, bodyworkers, coaches, facilitators, space holders.
Birth is a profound teacher.
Birth offers deep lessons of surrender, trust, and wading in the unknown.
And these are the very skills needed in all spaces where life asks us to open, break, and become.
We begin in Winter- late July.
In the dark where we all begin...
If you feel the pull to sit closer to the threshold of transformation
to deepen your capacity to hold, to trust, to stay — I would love to hear from you.
Expressions of interest welcome: info@motherscircle.co.nz

Labour of Love is a 4-month immersion for those walking alongside others in times of deep change.While rooted in birth w...
01/04/2026

Labour of Love is a 4-month immersion for those walking alongside others in times of deep change.

While rooted in birth work, this space is open to anyone working within the terrain of transformation — doulas, midwives, therapists, bodyworkers, coaches, facilitators, space holders.

Birth is a profound teacher.
Birth offers deep lessons of surrender, trust, and wading in the unknown.

And these are the very skills needed in all spaces where life asks us to open, break, and become.

We begin in Winter- late July.
In the dark where we all begin…
If you feel the pull to sit closer to the threshold of transformation —
to deepen your capacity to hold, to trust, to stay —
I would love to hear from you.

Expressions of interest welcome: info@motherscircle.co.nz

It’s midnight, and this is the moment when it’s all over and you are tucked into your bed with your baby, and your midwi...
31/03/2026

It’s midnight, and this is the moment when it’s all over and you are tucked into your bed with your baby, and your midwife is about to leave (to attend another birth, mind you)….
And your eyes meet.
The gaze that holds all of the memory of the hardest moments of your life.
“Yes I saw you, yes you did that”.

30/03/2026

It’s an honour to be with you in the dark,
An honour to be devoted to the Mother.

Courtney went into labour on the very first day of her maternity leave! Waters breaking in the morning, -no gentle spaci...
29/03/2026

Courtney went into labour on the very first day of her maternity leave! 
Waters breaking in the morning, -no gentle spacious days to arrive slowly.

She was asked to surrender,
To the timing, to the body, to the great unknown of birth itself.

Labour was hard, baby was posterior, asking her to descend again and again.

And so the women gathered-
The ones she has stood beside in the long nights and tender hours of birth.
Women who know the terrain- the blood, the roar, the power, the silence, the breaking open.
A room full of midwives. Unwavering. Steady.
Time to hold one of their own.

As it does, the moment cane and Baby Teddy arrived, into his mamas arms.

Every birth moves me, but Courtneys birth touched me in new ways.Coutney is our local midwife.As I drove to her home, I ...
26/03/2026

Every birth moves me, but Courtneys birth touched me in new ways.

Coutney is our local midwife.
As I drove to her home, I found myself wondering...
what will a midwives birth be like?...
and how will her midwife colleagues be with her?

We gathered in the bedroom where she was labouring,.
It wasn’t long before it revelated itself-
A midwife in labour is quite simply a woman in labour.

And her midwives tended to her
Just how they tend to every women...
Completely.

I’ve stood at many births with these three incredible women- .mama.nz
Long nights. Blood. Sweat. Ecstasy. Devastation.
All of the shades life can bring-
Birth ain’t fluffy. 

A room full of midwives yes, but underneath that- women, sisters, mothers, friends.
Devotion.
Thank you to all of the midwives that do this vital and often unseen work.
I see you. 

“Labour was such a primal experience! I surrendered more than I ever have before”!Tasmin had early labour signs for week...
24/03/2026

“Labour was such a primal experience! I surrendered more than I ever have before”!

Tasmin had early labour signs for weeks leading up to birth and stayed patient, resting and trusting. 
When the day finally arrived, she played it cool until her big kids were in bed. 

I braided her hair and over the next hours the labour dance deepened.

Tasmin worked hard as her baby slowly moved through the pelvis. After a lot of sweat and determination, Tasmin lifted her head, smiled and whispered “the head is born”.

The room sat in awe as Tasmin birthed her baby gently into water.
I woke the older children so they could find out if they had a baby brother or sister.
It was a sister. All 10 pound 2 of her!

The sky was clear the night Courtney birthed, already roaring when I arrived.The skin of the heavens still holding Blue,...
23/03/2026

The sky was clear the night Courtney birthed, already roaring when I arrived.
The skin of the heavens still holding Blue, but the change was coming. 
You don’t miss it if you blink. Its slower, creeping in on tiptoes.
It seems endless, and eventually you are in the dark and the dark is in you.

There is nothing to do except call out, and call within and wail and beg until a slimy wet body is in your arms and you will never again be the woman you were.

I felt the force underneath my palms as I pressed deep into her hips.
The force that opens you all the way, the blood that remembers what comes from the richest of soil.
What happens in the silence of the night when the midwives gather and the milk must keep flowing?
Ready or not.

“I cant do it anymore”, but she did. 
She tumbled in the dark, round and round until the crescendo, when she lay on her bathroom floor with him in her arms and the creamy coating gathered in the spaces between her fingers.

“I haven’t come back yet” she said.
“Don’t hurry, we will wait for you”.

I left her home after midnight.
There were only stars.

- written for Courtney, our local homebirth midwife who birthed in her power last week ❤️

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Kia Ora!

I am Sophia, mama of two joyous beings, Childbirth Educator, Doula, Bath Connoisseur, Truth Seeker & Speaker!

For over a decade my work has been focused around empowering women to take ownership of their pregnancy, birth and Mothering journey, guiding them to discover, explore and trust their own inner knowing and innate capacities.

I am passionate about celebrating and valuing the rites of passage as women and fostering support and understanding instead of cheapening the experience with outside influences or competition.

These are sacred times for transformation!