The Call of the Midwife: How a Spontaneous Journey to Spain Laid the Foundation for My Sovereign Freebirths

2020 was a turning point for many. I know I sure do look back on it as a profound threshold.

It was the year I walked away from an unhealthy five-year relationship, spontaneously traveled to Alaska, Rhode Island, and Croatia, and—in a turn of events I never saw coming—moved to Spain.

Moving back to Europe (where I was born) had always been a quiet spark in the back of my mind, but I had never explicitly considered Spain. That is the beauty of what they call the "call of the midwife." This thread of fate had been woven through my life in subtle, parallel lines for years. If there is one rule I live by, it is never to ignore my intuition—even when it takes me a little time to act on it.

The Portals of Alaska and Rhode Island

After a lifelong dream trip to the wild expanse of Alaska finally came to fruition, the portals were blown wide open for magic to take root.

While still in Alaska, my travel partner and I devised a plan to visit Croatia. To make the long-haul flights shorter and more affordable, we routed through the East Coast, seeking out a Workaway host in Rhode Island to ground ourselves before crossing the Atlantic.

We got incredibly lucky. Our hosts were generous, gracious, like-minded souls. During our ten-day stay, I got to step into a total dream role: working as a plant-based chef with a fully stocked kitchen, a grocery stipend, and hungry, appreciative clients. It was pure bliss.

At the end of our stay, our hosts held a special celebration ceremony for us. During the gathering, our host, Nicole, looked at me and said she envisioned me as a doula, asking if I had ever considered birthwork.

I was honored and surprised. I had never consciously considered it, but as she spoke, I felt the immediate, physical weight of relevance. It belonged on my path. She told me about a traditional program in the South of Spain, tucked away in a tiny village where she happened to own a small casita. She gave me the name of the program and the director.

That night before bed, I looked it up. Their next cohort was set to begin in less than a month—just two weeks after my time in Croatia was scheduled to end.

Acceptance into Da a Luz

I carried that idea with a grounded, eager inspiration across the sea. By the time we settled into our stay in Croatia, I was submitting my application to Da a Luz, a traditional midwifery program in Andalusia, Spain.

Within days, I heard back: a last-minute opening had come up, and I was accepted into the final slot of their twelve-student annual cohort.

The next couple of weeks were a whirlwind. I sunbathed on the pebbled beaches of Croatia, intently listening to the required audiobooks for the course—immersion texts like The Red Tent and The Fifth Sacred Thing. I was blown away by how deeply the material resonated. Birthwork had never been on my radar, yet suddenly, nothing else made more sense.

Stepping Into the Red Tent

Moving to a foreign country in the middle of a global pandemic to begin a program I knew very little about was a jarring experience. Yet, stepping out of the ash of a toxic relationship into complete unknown territory felt strangely fitting.

Deep down, before I even arrived at Da a Luz, I knew I was going for myself rather than to build a traditional career. Most of the women in the circle were practicing doulas or had formal, university-level midwifery backgrounds. I felt a bit like an outcast admitting that I wasn't there to become a practicing midwife.

Instead, I was hungering for something internal: a deep understanding of feminine energy, the hormonal matrix, and the undisturbed physiology of birth.

I had always known in my bones that I wanted to bear and mother children. But growing up in a modern, westernized culture, I had given almost no thought to the actual experience of pregnancy or labor itself. Modern women rarely have physical circles or "red tents" where life-giving journeys are passed down with reverence. Instead, our cultural birth narrative is spoon-fed to us through media—where pregnancy and birth are almost exclusively portrayed as traumatic, terrifying, emergency events.

Even when women shared their birth stories in passing, they were often laden with fear, medical intervention, or dissatisfaction.

Transforming Fear into Sovereign Power

Arriving at Da a Luz shattered that paradigm completely. Hearing positive, ecstatic, and fully autonomous birth stories for the first time was absolute medicine for my soul. It was also the very first time I had ever heard of—or even considered—birth taking place outside of the hospital system.

It was revolutionary.

Looking back, I can see exactly how those weeks in Spain laid the foundation for my own wild pregnancies and home freebirths. I didn't know it then, but the wisdom I was absorbing was building the physiological trust and confidence required to transform cultural fear into personal power.

What felt like random, impulsive choices at the time were actually divine, intuitive nudges pulling me toward my highest path.

Ultimately, my journey led me from Spain to Idaho, where another intuitive nudge—stopping to fix a broken taillight—led me straight to my husband, Derek, and the home we are building today. But that is a story for another time.

Until then, remember to listen when the Universe whispers a sudden change of direction.