She’s the chick who helps moms and babies, the one and only Nina Spears, founder and CEO of The Baby Chick®, is hereeee! Nina is a certified baby planner, birth and postpartum doula, childbirth educator, newborn care specialist, infant massage instructor, and perinatal nutrition expert who has worked with more than 800 families in person, thousands virtually, and has supported over 350 births over the past 15 years.

She’s also the host of Chick Chat: The Baby Chick Podcast and the author of The Baby Chick Guide to Positive Pregnancy, which just published June 2026. She says it’s, “essentially what I’ve been wanting my clients to have for the last 15 years”.

And what does it mean to have a positive pregnancy?

Nina says it’s all about feeling informed, supported, and empowered.

But, it’s also having conversations about the realities of pregnancy, birth, and postpartum that just aren’t happening…until this episode.

What we aren’t talking about enough that we take a deep dive into today:

• The invisible load of motherhood that starts DURING pregnancy
• Not just holding the baby, but also holding the mama
• Patrescence and the hormone shift of dads
• What actually helps women feel prepared and supported for a baby
• Why peace on earth begins with birth
• Villages are never free
• Deciding to VBAC and honing in on what YOU really want
• The pressures that VBAC moms carry
• Debunking the superiority of birth

Nina is an absolute joy! We promise this episode is SUCH a good one.

The Baby Chick Guide to Positive Pregnancy: How to Prepare Your Mind, Body, and Partner

The Baby Chick Website

The Baby Chick on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok

Chick Chat: The Baby Chick Podcast

The Ultimate VBAC Prep Course for Parents

Online VBAC Doula Training

Hannah's first labor began at 40 weeks, the day after a membrane sweep. She opted for an epidural but due to fetal tachycardia, had an unplanned cesarean. It was a lonely and confusing postpartum not coping well with the emotional trauma of that birth.

Hannah prepared for a VBAC and planned a home birth with a midwife hoping for a different experience. She felt peaceful about transferring to the hospital when labor stalled at 9cm. She talks about what made that transfer feel empowering, including the sweetest affirmations from her cute husband.

She also shares about her baby girl’s diagnosis with Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis (LCH) at just 7 weeks old and how walking through a rare childhood illness (quite literally 1 in a million!) changed her perspective on birth, motherhood, and life's hardest seasons.

Hannah was a TVL podcast listener herself long before she had her own VBAC. We hope you can find the same inspiration and love that Lily, Paige, and Hannah did when prepping for their own births!

To Lily, she said, “The way that you and Paige honor women’s birth stories is just so beautiful. It’s such a powerful service you provide. It was so inspirational and hopeful, and I still listen every week.”

Our birth stories are meant to be held and shared communally. And this is why we are here.

Keywords: VBAC, planned HBAC, hospital transfer, cesarean birth, tachycardia, membrane sweep, epidural, PPA, birth trauma, husband, birth advocacy, Histiocytosis, infant cancer

Hystiocytosis Association

The Ultimate VBAC Prep Course for Parents

Online VBAC Doula Training

One of Paige’s dearest friends and fellow doula in South Korea, Ali Craft, joins the pod today sharing her incredibly inspiring (and hilariously narrated!) seven birth stories, including four cesareans and three vaginal births. Ali was able to advocate for not only a VBA2C in Korea, where it is extremely uncommon for hospitals to offer VBAC support, but she also had TWO VBA4Cs.

Ali’s stories remind us that every.birth.is.different. From long labors to short ones, planned cesareans to unplanned CBACs, induction, epidural, spontaneous labor, and so much more in between, we know you will take away so much inspiration from her stories.

“I love supporting moms now because in labor when they’re dying, I can say, I KNOW. When it’s taking forever, I KNOW. When they end up with the C-section they didn’t really want, I know.”

VOTE for The VBAC Link

Craft and Co. Doula Services

The Ultimate VBAC Prep Course for Parents

Online VBAC Doula Training