Brandon Grant

I'm Brandon Grant.

This hour is all about turning points and new horizons.

Hannah Brennan told this story at a Moth community engagement program showcase in Brooklyn.

The evening was presented by our friends at the Kate Spade New York Foundation.

Here's Hannah, live at the Moth.

Hannah H. Smith Brennan, Ph.D., is a sociologist, educator, and author who focuses on childhood, youth, and families.

Hannah's storytelling skills were mostly honed while growing up in London, late on Friday nights around the family pool table.

Hannah and her midwife are now working on a book of birthing stories and are developing an educational program together.

She says, quote, the birthing person and the baby are at the center of this process and that when we care for this process as a community, we can make a culture that is healthy, strong and thriving.

I was in the crowd the evening that Hannah first told this story.

I was transfixed.

It made me think about witnessing childbirth myself.

One of my sisters decided on a natural birth for her first child.

I was there throughout the entire birthing process, and I have to say, I was amazed at how strong she was in the face of something that I found so utterly daunting.

I'll never forget the look on her face as her son was placed into her arms for the first time.

Everything shifted for all of us at that moment.

She became a mother, I became an uncle again, and this little human entered the world.

In a moment, surviving heartbreak and hurricanes, when the Moth Radio Hour continues.

This is the Moth Radio Hour.

I'm Brandon Grant.