Through The Veil

Are you concerned about how to handle your fear of birth? 

Join birth coach and mother Yolande Norris-Clark—she’ll hold your hand, explain, and dissect the last trimester of her own pregnancy as you move through yours. Witness her 8th birth at home, and learn exactly how she approaches birth with confidence, and deals with her fears.

Do you also feel alone as you approach your homebirth? 

Maybe you’re missing a community or sisterhood of wise women as your pregnancy progresses.

Are you worried about having a successful home birth or freebirth if you have never given birth before, or if you’ve only had hospital births?

Maybe you’re wondering how freebirth or home birth really works in the context of a family?

What if your home birth doesn’t look like all those gorgeous birth videos on YouTube?

What supplies do you really need? 

Are you concerned about managing your expectations, while staying positive and making choices that will optimize your outcome?

If you’re new to freebirth or home birth, or if you are looking for relatable guidance on your path, Through The Veil is for you. 

Through The Veil is a unique third and fourth trimester week-by-week online program, recorded in real-time, that gives other mums an opportunity to discover exactly how an experienced free-birthing mother prepares for the birth process, and an invitation to join her on the journey.

For the first time ever, birth coach, consultant, educator, and mother, Yolande Norris-Clark, will be welcoming women into her home, and her birth space, and sharing her experience of preparing for the birth of her 8th baby, as well as the intimacy of her birth process. 

From Yolande:

"I was so lucky to have had the most incredible traditional birth attendant when I was pregnant with my first baby. She was a wise elder woman who coached me through the most challenging aspects of preparing for my birth, and in her presence, I felt loved and validated. While she had so much knowledge when it came to the physiology of birth and how homebirth works, the most significant value of our relationship had much less to do with the biological or medical aspects of birth, and everything to do with offering me guidance, companionship, and stories from her own life. 

I’m not entirely sure that without her I would have been able to have the births that I had during those early years of mothering.

The truth is that birth can be immensely challenging, overwhelming, and yes, it can be scary. 

How do we face that truth with courage and peace, in a world in which birth is so misunderstood and misrepresented, and when so many women lack a community of sisters who can show them the way?

Through The Veil is an answer to so many of these questions. 

I created Through The Veil for the women who KNOW that birth is within them, and who are looking forward to giving birth to their babies in power, but who also feel alone, alienated or anxious on their journey. 

I offer weekly insights, musings, hints, and feedback, as a mirror for your own progress. 

I also open the doors to my birth room, and invite you to witness not only the candid, unvarnished entirety of my birth, but my critical analysis of that birth in retrospect as well—what I loved, what I regret, how I would do things differently, and how my hopes and assumptions diverged from the reality. 

And I have to admit—because this was my 8th birth, I really did think that it would be fairly easy and relatively short. 

Instead, it was one of my most challenging births. And this makes me even more excited to share that experience with you. 

I don’t have picture perfect births. I don’t have orgasmic births.

My births are wild: blood, sweat, poop, and primal screaming (for real).  And I love everything about them!

This most recent demanding, complicated, formidable birth was so precious, and like those that came before, was a powerful initiation into a new iteration of motherhood. 

I am so thrilled to share it all, including my 43-weeks-pregnant-descent-into-madness (!) and the firewalk that was our 8th baby’s arrival. 

Through The Veil is as close to having a traditional birth attendant, doula, or big sister walking the path with you, as possible. 

Because frankly, authentic midwives are hard to find!

The best birth attendants know that the outcome of a birth is most dependent on a mother’s mental state and her ability to surrender to the waves. Developing the mental fortitude to withstand birth has so much to do with managing our expectations. 

Even if you are lucky enough to have the most wonderful midwife, she may not be available to dissect and reflect back to you the emotional landscape of late pregnancy in the detail that Through The Veil offers. The real value of an exceptional midwife lies not in how many ultrasounds she performs, but in her level of empathy. 

In Through The Veil I do NOT sugarcoat anything about my birth process. It’s real and raw, and painful and gorgeous and true—sacred in its messiness. And it’s something that you will see first-hand, that you can do too."

In addition to a real account of what it’s like to pass through the threshold between worlds, digging deeply into the emotional, relational and physical challenges and triumphs of pregnancy and birth, Through The Veil offers practical information about the tools, supplies, and approaches that will optimize your homebirth or freebirth in concrete ways. 

You’ll gain a radical birthkeeper’s-eye-view of exactly how Yo does birth, including

• Strategies for dealing with fear
• How to choose your ideal birth team
• Whether or not to invite your older children to your birth
• Dealing with marriage/partnership frustrations
• How to prevent and respond to perineal tearing
• The truth about connecting with your baby in utero
• Secrets to getting a good night sleep during the first weeks and months

Preparing for a first (or second or third) home birth or freebirth can seem daunting, intimidating, and even scary—not to mention postpartum recovery and caring for our newborns during those tender first few days and weeks.

There is so much conflicting information out there about how to do it, what’s involved, and wading through the expert opinions (or the opinions of your aunt and neighbour for that matter) can be confusing and frustrating to say the least. 

And yet for so many of us raised in a culture of fear around birth and baby-care, tapping into our intuition can also be a struggle.

About The Instructor - Yolande Norris-Clark