#181 | A Motherless Mother in Recovery Experiencing Birth As the Ultimate Surrender

Melissa Pennel was thirty-four years old when she was pregnant for the first time. She already had experienced significant life challenges: She had lost her own mother a few years earlier, plus she was seven years sober. Her pregnancy presented several health scares along the way, such as a two-vessel cord and a perceived hole in the baby's heart, eliciting words like possible "fetal demise" from her providers and the potentiality of "organs not developing normally". Her baby was also breech ...