My (Abridged) Story
Hello! Nice to meet you! I’m Frankie!
I’m originally from Australia, and I live in England with my Husband, our daughter, and our golden retriever Arlo.
My neurodivergent special interest topic (birth, in case it wasn’t obvious) has led me to discovering a deep passion and excitement for supporting women in pregnancy, birth, and beyond. I just think birth is so neat, and I do the work I do because I want other women to see what I see!
So how did I get into birth work? Well it’s a long(ish) story with many twists and turns, so here’s the abridged version.
In late 2022 I fell pregnant with my son Magnus, and in May 2023 I had my first experience of birth. I had wanted a home birth, but ultimately I had an unplanned cesarean birth at 26 weeks 5 days - thanks Preeclampsia!
On top of dealing with my grief about the birth I didn’t get, I had no idea how to navigate cesarean birth recovery (I was scared to laugh for a long time) and I was trying to handle the daily routine of being in long term NICU residents.
After a lengthy NICU stay, my son died in September 2023, and the grief was all consuming.
Fast forward to 2024 and I fell pregnant with my daughter, Evelyn. I worked even harder on my birth preparation, and pushed even harder to advocate for myself. Because of my history of preeclampsia, and my previous cesarean birth, I was immediately plonked into the “high risk” category, and was funnelled into consultant led care under the National Health Service.
Ironically, I didn’t like this so much. It felt like decisions were being made that I wasn’t privy to, and that my care providers didn’t view me as an active participant in my pregnancy and birth. The active participant.
I spent a lot of time reading the evidence based research, I did a birth preparation course from a provider I trusted, slowly but surely I boosted my confidence, self trust, and ability to advocate for myself.
When my daughter was born in January 2025, it went exactly as I had hoped, much to the chagrin of the doctors that got an earful when they tried to make decisions without consulting me.
When I was explaining everything I’d learned to a friend, she said “wow you know you should really do this as a job” and it was like a little lightbulb went off in my head.
Could I really talk to women about birth every day? How could I encourage women, support women, champion empowering births?
After more conversations, and more research, it felt as though I was getting a lot of signs from the Universe that this is what I was meant to do. And Devon Birth Co was born!
After more conversations, and more research, it felt as though I was getting a lot of signs from the Universe that this is what I was meant to do. And Devon Birth Co was born!
I completed my doula training with The Birth Bliss Academy, and hypnobirthing training with The Birth Uprising, and here we are!
Getting to share my passion for empowering births with other women every day.
I’m an open book! Please if you have any questions just ask.