My name is Zoe and I have worked for the NHS since 2012 and been qualified as a midwife since 2015. Working in both community and inpatient settings, gaining vast experience in both low risk midwife led care and on high risk obstetric units and theatres.

Becoming a mother in 2022 opened my mind to the other side of the service and the process of becoming a mother was the most transformative period of my life. Attending mother and baby groups postnatally, my mind was blown with how many women would recall their birth storied including the sentences ‘I wasn’t allowed to…’ or ‘I had to…..’. Having spent my entire career priding myself on providing evidence-based care to my patients for them to be able to make their own informed choices, I could not believe this wasn’t the standard most women were experiencing.

I am lucky enough to have had two very positive birthing experiences (albeit not in the stereotypical way) with my first birth being a very straight forward and empowering emergency caesarean section after developing pre-eclampsia and my second birth becoming a not so straightforward elective caesarean section and experiencing a large haemorrhage. Both times I felt so safe and in control with my team keeping myself and my partner fully informed prior, during and after both deliveries.

Having been a qualified midwife for over 7 years before the birth of my first baby I was well versed with all things pregnancy and birth and very happy with what my options were throughout. But what I was not prepared for was what came after. The days, weeks and months postnatal I felt like I had been broken apart in every way possible- physically, emotionally, psychologically and existentially. Time warped into a blur of feeds, interrupted sleep and an aching vigilance. I was simultaneously overwhelmed by love and this new version of myself, but also struggling with a deep sense of loss. Loss of autonomy, of certainty, of the version of myself I’d spent a lifetime constructing.

I remember thinking ‘why didn’t anyone tell me about this?’ Not the logistics of caring for a baby- but the internal upheaval. The identity shift and the strange grief coexisting with joy.

It wasn’t until I came across the concept of ‘matrescence’ that something began to settle.

Matrescence- the process of becoming a mother-offered me the language for what I was experiencing. It reframed my distress not as a failure but as a transition. Just as adolescence reshapes us from child to adult, matrescence marks a profound psychological, hormonal and social transformation. It is not a single moment, but an unfolding.

The truth is that until you experience it, no one can fully articulate the process of matrescence, but I know having a friendly hand to guide and reassure you along the way, focusing and caring for you as the mother so you can focus on caring for baby, can make the process much smoother.

I am privileged to have seen thousands amazing mama’s bring their babies into the world under all sorts of circumstances. I truly believe all births can be beautiful, positive and empowering, and no matter how your little one makes their entry, if you felt informed and confident in the process, you will be able to experience the right birth on the day. I look forward to working together.