In this first part of a powerful conversation, Laura Guinnane sits down with her teacher and friend, Jess from The Matrona—a former labour and delivery nurse turned holistic birth educator. Together, they explore the sacred journey of healing, sovereignty, and self-trust in womanhood and motherhood.

Jess is first and foremost a mother, and she loves mothers. Jess is a teacher, homeschooler, homebirther, home healer, homesteader, home cooking, home learning … I think you get the point. She’s found that bringing things back home potentizes  them.  

Jess has been at the feet of birth since 2007, she started as a nurse assistant in the labor and delivery unit while getting her RN license. Jess worked as a labor and delivery nurse for 10 years, her career was dramatically ended when she was terminated for following the law of informed consent. She has since let her nursing license expire, realizing that most hospitals do not care about mothers and families. 

Jess is the director of programs at The Matrona, she loves sharing her stories and helping students understand all the options available to families. She takes students on a journey from the most medical based interventions to the most holistic. She loves to witness families design the perfect birth for their unique family and wants to see every family ask themselves..

Is the hospital really the best place to have a baby? 

Find Jess birth work on instagram here

Find Jess on homesteading on instagram here

email matronajess@gmail.com

🎙 Topics covered:

• Jess’s path from hospital-based birth work to holistic, embodied healing

• Healing from PCOS and infertility through food, rest, and emotional awareness

• The importance of language, belief, and the stories we tell ourselves

• A deeply vulnerable account of her first hospital birth as a nurse and new mother

• Navigating birth trauma, postpartum anxiety, and the medical system’s limitations

• The sacred necessity of rest, cyclical living, and listening to the body

• The difference between managing symptoms and truly facilitating healing

• Nature, homesteading, and herbs as allies in women’s wellness

  
  

📚 Mentions & Teachers:

• The Matrona (Quantum Birth & Holistic Midwifery) https://www.thematrona.com/

• Wild Power by Alexandra Pope & Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer

• Spinning Babies, herbal medicine, homeopathy

✨ This is Part 1 of a deeper unfolding. Jess will return to share the rest of her story, including her empowered freebirths, reclaiming birth outside the system, and more radical wisdom on living in alignment with nature, truth, and the feminine body.

Find me on Instagram at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

You can follow my musings on motherhood on Substack ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.⁠

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Laura x