About Faye
Hello!
I am a mother, space holder, teacher, coach and birth keeper living between Austin, Texas and Dublin, Ireland with my husband, our three little ones and our Great Dane, Higgins… not to mention now a cat and lots of chickens!
I am passionate about working with women and love to share my personal story of holistically healing burnout, disease and infertility into a life of thriving, joyous. sovereign motherhood.
I love food and cooking, plants and gardening, the mountains, the sea; herbalism and healing.
I adore the innate wisdom of women and nature; the magic of sisterhood and connection.
I’m also mad for a good night out, famously disobedient, detest outside authority and have tried every conceivable vice - no judgement here!
My coaching style is warm, funny and fierce ~ I can’t wait to meet you!
Read about my journey to birth work below…
My Story
Hi Dear Sisters,
I’m Faye and I’m delighted that you’re here. A little bit about how I came to birth work…
After 12 years based in London and travelling the world in an investment banking career, I met a likely lad with a dangerous Irish charm and moved to his beautiful home town of Dublin to await our first child.
Raised on a farm in rural England and as a trained yoga teacher, spin instructor and keen horse-rider, plus (extremely) amateur triathlete and cyclist, I wasn’t much fazed by the idea of birth. In fact, lambing season is my favourite time of year to go home and help out on the farm!
I planned a natural birth without drugs, read the books and studied Hypnobirthing. Bring on the challenge; I was fit, physical and prepared!
As my pregnancy progressed, my excitement at attending prenatal appointments gradually evaporated, as each one became an opportunity for staff to point out risk-factors, further monitoring requirements and warnings of impending emergencies.
My inherent sense of wellness, connection and intuitive knowing was dulled from life-long authority, to small, shy voice of doubt and there began the initiation into a humiliating cascade of intervention and a far-from-natural birth.
My son, despite the fear-mongering, supposed risks and refusal to allow me to birth freely, was perfectly healthy.
PHEW - they saved us. Or DID they?
Our enforced separation for the first 24 hours gave me plenty of time to reflect on the reality of what I had just experienced, vs the birth-plan I had so carefully detailed.
Postpartum, I delighted in meeting other new Mums and as I shared my birth story with these women, I was astonished to hear that what I experienced was at best the norm, and by no means the worst.
I didn’t meet one woman without some form of birth trauma. How was it possible that not a single one of us was able to give birth without some intervention?!
I continually returned to the nagging question - why is human childbirth a medical event?
Why do we emulate not the mammalian birth by which species propagate successfully in the wild, but instead the conditions of notoriously difficult birth-in-captivity? I set out to find answers.
2 years later, after relentless research and endless hours of study, seeking out and training with the World’s leading thinkers on all things birth-related. I absorbed an understanding of the history and politics of modern obstetrics, and with it a determination to reclaim birth, and rewrite the trauma story into something positive for my family.
Armed with this knowledge and trusting the innate wisdom of my female body, I enjoyed a completely ‘wild’ pregnancy, and freebirthed my second son at home, into his Daddy’s arms.
The most glorious, undisturbed, physiological birth - as nature intended.
It was ecstatic and transformative; I was a goddess and THE BIRTH FREEDOM PROJECT was born!