Anna’s Story - From Seeker to Women’s Work Facilitator to Midwife to Midwitch & founder of Sacred Birth International

I love this opportunity to reflect on the journey I have been on to get to where I am today and give you a bit of insight into who I am and hopefully inspire you to always follow your inner calling along the way.

I feel like I have lived many lives in one…

And I’d love to share with you the winding road that led me here, from my early years as a seeker and student, not feeling like I belonged in this time or on this earth, to following my heart and inner compass and eventually becoming the founder of Sacred Birth International where all the knowledge and embodied wisdom I have gathered throughout the years all come together in what I offer today.

Looking back, I realize that my calling to serve women and be at the start of life, birth, has always been with me. I was always a deeply intuitive child, speaking truths from the heart—even when it wasn’t always well received. My search for something deeper began early as I didn’t find it in my family or friendships, and by my teenage years, I found myself sitting in women’s circles, led by wise women and healers. These spaces became a sanctuary for me, a place where I could embrace my intuition and learn from older women who spoke of cycles, feminine power, and connection to nature.

The way society worked and how the school system was set up felt inherently unnatural to me and I was utterly miserable playing the social game at school amongst girls I felt I didn’t have much in common with, so I decided to drop out my last year to seek the alternative, the spiritual and the true.

At 17, I immersed myself in nature medicine and alternative healing modalities which included herb lore, crafting of tinctures, balms and medicine, healing modalities from around the world as well as the basic understanding of ayurveda and chinese medicine. I was drawn to ancient practices rooted in nature and body wisdom, unknowingly walking the path of the wise women of the past. This was the foundation that would later shape my work. But at the time when I was around 19, I felt a pull toward broader social issues and decided to study human rights, determined to help create change in the world.

My time working with refugees, NGOs, and community projects taught me much about service and advocacy. But it also left me feeling heavy and disillusioned. The world’s injustices seemed overwhelming, I got very dark and I knew I needed to step away and find another way to serve.

So I packed my bags at 21 and traveled—to Australia, New Zealand, India, Thailand and beyond—seeking not just adventure but a deeper connection to Spirit and my life’s purpose.

I studied yoga, massage, coaching, women’s mysteries, feminine embodiment practices, sacred dance, women’s tantra just to name a few… 

And started my first company at the age of 24 which was an organic raw food day spa in the centre of the capital of Sweden, Stockholm, and a couple of years later a yoga house in the middle of the forest. But itchy nomadic feet kept pulling me abroad…there was more to learn and to embody. 

So I travelled as a nomadic workshop leader and taught Women’s Mysteries at big festivals, studios and retreat centers around the world. I called them Temples of the Mystical Feminine. 

Finding home in Byron Bay

Until one day, when I returned to Byron Bay Australia at the age of 29 and found myself coming home.

I hadn’t by then lived anywhere longer than a year since the age of 17.

I’d been to Byron Bay before when I was 21, only to pass on through.

But this time was different.

I was quickly deeply integrated into the community and received such a warm welcome that 6 months flew by and when I was supposed to leave I felt in every cell of my being that I should stay, and this was the time that Midwifery became the path for me…

Answering the Call to Midwifery

Living in Byron Bay I was surrounded by a thriving home-birth community and natural minded people similar to myself. 

Midwives there worked more autonomously, supporting women in birth centers and at home—a stark contrast to the highly medicalized approach I had known from my home land Sweden.

I felt a spark of recognition: This was what I had been searching for without knowing I had. 

My women’s work had led me to holding space for women and their first rite of passage (their menarche), and reclaiming their voices, sexuality and body connection and love. And being a midwife just made sense. To walk along side women in claiming their birth as a rite of passage and navigating the maiden to mother transition. 

I decided to become a midwife in Byron Bay.

My education was unique. I trained in a region where 25% of women chose home birth and nearly all the rest birthed in the local midwifery-led birth center.

This allowed me to witness countless natural births and learn from midwives who trusted birth and women’s innate wisdom.

It was a rare experience, one that shaped my understanding of physiological birth and what it means to hold sacred space for women in physiological birth.

Navigating the System

Up until the day of starting midwifery at uni my inner compass had always taken me outside of the ”system” and ”normal society”. I’d lived in the fringes and had a very free lifestyle where I was always able to follow my heart and intuition and not confined by normal society’s norms.

And all of the sudden, I was trapped in a rigid university and maternity system indoctrinating me into an old hierarchal system wanting me to become an obstetric nurse and not the autonomous wise home birth midwife I was longing to be.

I was lucky to live in an area where I got to walk alongside home birth and birth center midwifes as my mentors alongside my hospital shifts. And I got to see mostly natural, physiological births. I even had to schedule extra shifts in the hospital to see more caesareans because I never seemed to end up there with the women I cared for. 

I just got lots of normal natural births. Even in the hospital.

And the only common denominator was me.

My fellow student midwives, especially those not living in my area, barely saw any natural births at all. It was all inductions, intervention’s, augmentations, epidurals and caesareans. 

I think why I didn’t have much exposure to medicalization during my 3 years at uni was a combination of where I lived and also the presence I held and what I manifested because of that presence (something I teach in my Sacred Birth Worker Mentorship).

Because I had honed in on the space holding part for over 10 years by the time I started midwifery I understood the influence of my presence as well as that of others and how I could be of service, calm a mother through my voice and presence and what I could do to protect her in the hospital system to the best of my ability both as a student and as a practicing midwife.

But I didn’t last long in the system.

I couldn’t stand being a part of a maternity system that leaves 1 in 3 women feeling that they had a traumatic birth and 1 in 20 with ptsd symptoms after their birth (and that’s just the known numbers, I believe these numbers are higher in reality).

My time working in hospitals brought me face to face with the harsh reality of institutionalized birth. I quickly became disillusioned. Despite my best efforts to support women, I often found myself participating in practices that felt deeply wrong. The system prioritized interventions over intuition, efficiency over individual care, and control over trust. I saw firsthand how women were disempowered and how birth trauma was normalized.

I lasted nearly a year in the hospital system as a registered midwife before I knew I couldn’t continue.

I handed in my resignation, determined to find another way.

The Birth of The Spiritual Midwife

The day I resigned was the day The Spiritual Midwife was born. I started an Instagram account and immediately felt the freedom to speak my truth without fear of institutional backlash.

And for the next couple of years I only attended home births.

Soon after resigning, I returned to Sweden where my father was battling cancer to support and be with family for a couple of months, and this is where I recorded The Natural Birth Course.

My first online course.

This became the start of what now is known as Sacred Birth International.

I returned to Australia just before the world in went into the insane lockdown in February 2020, and I launched The Natural Birth Course to help women prepare for a natural, physiological birth—whether at home, in a birth center, or a hospital.

My goal was to provide women with the knowledge and tools to claim their birth as a sacred rite of passage and to optimize their chances in all birth settings of having a natural birth (if that was what they desired) as I had seen time and time again within the system that women came in unprepared and handed their birth over to the medical professionals, often leading to an over medicalized and disempowering experience for them.

During the lockdown in march 2020 I also decided to start The Natural Birth Podcast which launched on Mothers Day in May 2020. This podcast is now turning 5 years and has become a platform for women to share their natural birth stories and an avenue for me to continue the work I love—educating, holding space, and inspiring women around the world to trust in their bodies and babies and birth.

I spent the following 2 years attending home births, holding women's circles as well as mentoring aspiring women in my Feminine Leadership Mentorship teaching them all I know about sacred space holding in 1:1 and groups.

All this alongside my growing online birth business of course, loving life and thinking, as I had for the passed 5 years, that Australia was my going to be my permanent home.

But life wanted something else...

From Midwife to Midwitch

In April of 2021 I got a strong calling to return to Sweden permanently after living most of my adult life abroad, mostly in Australia.

And in July the same I started my returning. 

And I said started, because it took some time...

Not until 2023 was it a full body yes, which is the time I whole heartedly started looking for my home and felt like I could settle in Sweden.

It wasn’t as easy as it had felt in my vision of returning.

2022 proved to be a dark night of the soul as I integrated back into my nordic home land, meeting ancestral lineage wounds to heal and learn from and navigating a cultural shock even though this is my land of origin. 

Back in Sweden, I also discovered that my midwifery credentials weren’t recognized unless I became a nurse—a path I had no interest in pursuing.

So in May 2023, I made the decision to deregister as a midwife.

This was both practical—I couldn’t practice as a midwife in Sweden without becoming a nurse—and deeply symbolic. The term “midwife,” once synonymous with being “with woman,” had been co-opted by institutions and transformed into something far removed from its original meaning.

By embracing the title of midwitch, I reclaimed my sovereignty and reconnected with the lineage of wise women who came before me. The term “witch” may carry negative connotations for some, but for me, it speaks to healing, wisdom, and deep connection to nature’s cycles. It felt expansive, allowing me to honor not just my work with birth but also the circles, ceremonies, and rites of passage I’ve facilitated for years.

But there was also a grieving period…for about a year I did feel naked without the word midwife in my name and as who I was.

I still identify deeply with the title midwife and feel in my heart and soul that I am a midwife true to the original meaning of the word.

But I’ve let the title go so I can truly Be with Women and Speak Truth.

Expanding into Sacred Birth International

Today, my work focuses on mentoring women who want to become or already are birth workers like midwives, doctors, nurses, doulas, mothers, and birth nerds—who want to hold sacred space for women during one of the most profound transitions of their lives.

The Sacred Birth Worker Mentorship is a year-long journey of learning, embodying, and deepening into the art of space holding and sacred birth advocacy.

It’s an offering born from everything I’ve learned, combining ancient knowledge with practical skills and deep personal growth and transformation.

I am in awe of the incredible women who have joined me on this journey, each of them committed to weaving a new earth birth culture that honors the sacred and protects the physiological process of birth.

Sacred Birth International also offers a Business Course for Birth Workers to help the ones who serve their community from heart and purpose to also thrive from that service. It is a heart project I feel very passionate about. I want birth workers to thrive where so many don’t. Birth workers are often altruistic and over givers and bend over backwards to serve women and their families often to not make more than to make ends meet.

I want a world where we reward those people and I have found a way of doing business the feminine way that serves all. The family, the mother, the baby, the community, the world AND the birth worker.

And I am very proud of this offering.

Thirdly we of course offer the original courses The Natural Birth Course & The Nourishing Postpartum Course as well as our amazing sisterhood community The Maiden, Mother & Maga Village. 

Serving women throughout the conception, pregnancy, postpartum & motherhood journey as well as birth nerds and birth workers. 

And we are constantly expanding what we offer.

I only offer a few IRL exclusive spots a year for a few select families to work with me one on one as well as online coaching as time permits.

A New Paradigm of Birth Work - The New Earth Birth Rebellion

As I reflect on my journey, from the young woman not feeling like she belonged in the world she was born in to, to me now having founded a business that draws from all of the experience I’ve gathered since being that young seeker I feel humbled and grateful.

If you are currently seeking… maybe even feeling the calling to birth work or to become a mother or birthing naturally all I can say is Trust Yourself.

Follow that nudge, that calling, that intuitive feeling.

You don’t have to know the end result. You just have to take the next step.

If I think about all my nudges and intuitive feelings I’ve followed, none of them made clear sense as to what they would lead too.

Move to this country, take this training, live here, work here, quit your school, be a nomad, leave your spa, leave your yoga house, travel more, start uni, stay at uni though you hate it because there is something bigger at play (I did know that, but not that I’d deregister and start a birth worker training), turn in your registration (f**k that was scary!), return to Sweden (wtf?), buy a cottage (wtf?)… yes the list goes on…

And finally, create a mentorship to educate and mentor the new earth birth worker.

Wow.

Did NOT see that coming!

How bloody cool.

Just by following the nudge.

And you know why I did so?

Because it was excruciating staying in a situation or place and NOT following the nudge.

Hence why I had to leave school at 17, I was dying and deeply depressed in captivity of an institution that did not see me or my gifts.

Maybe you've felt the same?

I am grateful for every step of this journey—the highs and the lows—for they have brought me to this place.

And I am endlessly inspired by the women I have met along the way, students, and clients, each of them a reminder of the strength, resilience, and beauty of the feminine.

If you feel called to walk this path of a new earth birth worker, know that you are not alone. Together, me and my mentees are weaving a new way— a reclamation of birth as a sacred rite of passage and a return to true women-centered care. 

It’s time for a new paradigm, one rooted in trust, connection, and the wisdom of our female bodies and the innate wisdom of birth.

If you are feeling the calling… then follow it and join the next round of The Sacred Birth Worker Mentorship.

So much love to you on your journey...

Thank you for being here reading mine.

I hope it gifted you what you were seeking...

Kindly Anna