Cuerpo Celeste

Pregnant for the second time, Julia arrives with embarrassment and scepticism at a support group of women who have lived through traumatic births. She works in a hospital emergency room, and that holistic world feels foreign to her. But in those women's stories she begins to recognise her own: episiotomies performed without asking, epidurals placed without waiting for an answer, caesareans decided on the doctor's schedule and labours rushed as if giving birth were a formality. Julia discovers that what happened to her has a name and happened to many others: obstetric violence. That clarity leads her to a sovereign decision: her second child will be born at home, with a midwife.

What follows is the battle. Those around her don't understand, her hospital colleagues question her, and the system around her reads her choice as a risk or as madness. Julia has to defend something no one should have to defend: the right to decide over her own body. Throughout her pregnancy, accompanied by the midwife and the women in the group, she builds the confidence and certainty that this time will be different. This time the decision is entirely hers.

Her second child is born at home, with the midwife she chose, the way she decided. This time, no one made any decisions for Julia.