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Giving birth was the most amazing thing I've ever done. I'd been living in a Third World country, and I said, 'I'm going to just squat behind a tree.' I basically did that but in a chair in my living room. I didn't want a sterile hospital room. I didn't want doctors. I had a midwife.

When I stopped seeing my mother through the eyes of a child, I saw the woman who helped me give birth to myself.

I ended up in Broadmeadows orphanage - I don't know how that happened - whether she gave me up for adoption or the church was responsible. Whatever happened, she was a single mum.

I wanted to help women and their families.

My grandmother gave birth to 13 children and I come from a long line of women who gave birth in their 40s.

I watched Ricki Lake's documentary, 'The Business of Being Born,' and that led me to call a midwife, and not an ob-gyn, when I found out I had conceived. My delivery was not easy - they call it 'labor,' not 'a vacation!' - but I was incredibly grateful that I did it that way.

I recall an 18-year-old girl named Rachel in Zambia who was given a grant to start a business of her choosing. She decided to breed goats so she could sell the meat and the milk, and donate the kids to orphan children. She herself was an orphan, stepping into young adulthood with no resources, and it was her first opportunity to earn her own money.

When 1970s feminism hit the United States, women demanded the right to natural childbirth and to have their husband or another support person in the delivery room. My mother gave birth to me during this time.

I taught woman-centered childbirth classes for five years and have a particular interest in the history of childbirth practices.

My mother giving birth to me was just like Lady Sybil giving birth, except that there wasn't such a tragic ending.