Content note: This episode touches on abortion as part of our guest’s personal story. Our conversation is really about the body’s response to trauma, nervous system protection, and the different ways healing can look. All experiences around pregnancy and loss are deeply personal, and this conversation isn’t about telling anybody what they should or shouldn’t do.

In this brave and long-overdue conversation, host Heather is joined by Claire Williams of Claire Sophia Coaching — a yoga teacher and somatic trauma therapy practitioner — who shares her story publicly for the very first time.

If baby loss is a taboo subject, Claire points out, abortion and termination are more so. And her story isn’t the one people expect. In her mid-20s, married, buying a house, outwardly happy, Claire was in a relationship that involved infidelity, coercion and gaslighting — and she had kept much of it from family and friends. When she discovered she was pregnant, her mind reeled, but her body simply knew. It was, she says, the first time she really trusted her own instincts and knew her own no.

Losing her husband, her home and her baby in the space of weeks, Claire went through the clinic process alone at 25. She describes a sterile, clinical environment, being asked repeatedly to justify her decision, no leaflet and no mental-health support — and the one question she does remember: did she want it to appear on her GP record? In other words, did she want to keep it secret.

Now in her 40s, Claire speaks honestly about grieving a life she might have had, and about how this has only recently begun to surface — because her body finally feels safe enough to look at it. She and Heather also explore her work in depth: what somatic healing actually is, how it differs from talking therapy and coaching, and why she believes the somatic approach is the next big wave in healing.

• Why abortion remains even more taboo than baby loss, and the shame around it
• A coercive marriage behind an outwardly perfect life
• The first time Claire trusted her body and knew her own no
• Losing husband, home and baby within weeks
• Going through the clinic alone at 25 — and being asked to keep it off her record
• Grieving, in her 40s, the life she might have had
• Why the feelings surfaced only once her body felt safe
• Somatic healing explained: the bottom-up, body-led approach
• Therapy is the past, coaching is the future — somatics is the present
• Titration, slowness, and why the nervous system can’t be rushed
• Community and being witnessed as a missing piece in healing

“Your body knows the way, even when you feel lost.”

Connect with Claire: Claire Williams — Claire Sophia Coaching, Yoga Teacher & Somatic Trauma Therapy Practitioner Website: clare-sophia.com Instagram: @iamsophia

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In this tender and deeply honest episode, host Heather is joined by Louise Fletcher — a coach who helps women become the leading lady in their own life — to share the story of her son Daniel, and everything that came after.

Louise was in her early 20s, in a relationship only a few months old, when a late-night call from her doctor sent her to hospital with a suspected kidney problem. It was there she discovered she was four weeks pregnant. Coming from a broken family, all Louise had ever wanted was a family of her own, and she loved being pregnant — until, at around 25 weeks, she noticed the movements slow and her bump stop growing. Daniel was born at 32 weeks weighing 1lb 13oz, breathing on his own, tiny and perfect. He died at six days old.

Louise speaks with remarkable openness about the details she still carries: asking for the lung-development injection on the way to theatre and being told she didn’t need it; not holding her son because she was certain he’d be coming home, and because she felt she was in the way; and navigating it all largely alone, at 22, with a fragmented relationship with her mum.

She also shares what came later — the discovery that both fallopian tubes had been damaged during her section, the years of trying with her ex-husband that never came to anything, and the kidney transplant she lovingly calls Kate the Kidney. And she describes the moment, decades on, when she went looking for the root of a lifelong lack of confidence and found it waiting there: how can I be confident when I couldn’t carry a child?

Now Louise helps other women uncover exactly those buried beliefs. Her message throughout is that loss is never only about grief — it shapes worthiness, relationships, and business, quietly, for years, until someone helps you look at it.

• Discovering a kidney condition and a pregnancy in the same hospital admission
• Noticing reduced movements at 25 weeks, and Daniel’s birth at 32 weeks
• The injection she asked for and was told she didn’t need — and why she says speak up
• Not holding her son, and the lifelong feeling of “being in the way”
• Facing it all at 22, alone, with a fragmented relationship with her mum
• Damaged fallopian tubes discovered years later, and never conceiving again
• Kate the Kidney — her transplant, and the peace that came with it
• Tracing a lack of confidence back to not being able to carry a child
• How grief quietly shapes worthiness, relationships and self-sabotage
• Why talking helps but deeper subconscious work is what truly shifts it
• The healed, beautiful relationship she has with her mum today

“I’d tell her I was proud of her.” A moving conversation about grief, self-worth, and finding your way back to peace.

Connect with Louise: Louise Fletcher — Coach & Speaker Instagram: @iamlouisefletcher Facebook: facebook.com/louisefletchershines

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In this powerful two-part conversation, host Heather sits down with Samantha Jones — an ex-NHS midwife, acupuncturist, and now a fertility and pregnancy specialist — for an episode that comes at maternity care from both sides.

Samantha always wanted to be a midwife, and after having her own children and a wonderful experience of midwifery care, she went back and trained. But the reality of the job wasn’t the one she’d signed up for. After around seven years in the NHS, she found herself building rapport with women she then couldn’t care for the way she wanted: ten-minute appointments, protocols that didn’t fit the people in front of her, and a system where care felt disjointed rather than trauma-informed. She is candid about the two things she would change tomorrow — the blame culture and the time constraints — and equally clear that midwives genuinely want to be with women. That, after all, is what the word means.

Heather shares her own experience of being sent away after a loss with no leaflet, no aftercare, and a walk back through a waiting room full of scan photographs — and together they talk about what compassionate, trauma-informed support after baby loss could actually look like.

In the second half, Samantha turns to her fertility work. She explains how supporting women through birth trauma led her to women who simply didn’t want to try again, and how that shaped a practice built on choice rather than being pro- or anti-anything. She talks about unexplained infertility as good news rather than a diagnosis, why not everything needs to be medicalised, the “cycle of despair” couples ride every single month, and the profound effect of feeling disconnected from your own body — including one client of ten years who conceived naturally after seven months of working together.

• Seven years in the NHS and why the care felt disjointed
• What trauma-informed care really means — and why being heard matters
• The blame culture and time constraints she would change tomorrow
• The gap in support after miscarriage and baby loss, and what should replace it
• The BRAIN acronym and the 2015 Montgomery case — your rights in maternity care
• “Ignore a woman’s intuition at your own peril” — trusting your instincts
• How birth trauma work led Samantha into fertility
• Unexplained infertility, IVF, and why not everything needs medicalising
• The cycle of despair, and living in the wait rather than waiting to live
• Why preconception care should start 3–6 months before trying
• The mind-body connection as the biggest and least-discussed block
• Samantha’s three practical tips: omega 6:3 ratio, stress, and mind-body work

A moving, hope-filled conversation that ends with both women in tears — and a message that it is okay not to be okay.

Connect with Samantha: Samantha Jones — Fertility & Pregnancy Specialist, Ex-NHS Midwife & Acupuncturist Website: naturalfertilityandpregnancy.com Email: sam@naturalpregnancy.wales

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