Elsa Hosk Shares the Story of Her ‘Magical’ Outdoor Water Birth

The giant tree in Elsa Hosk’s backyard was in full flower the night she went into labor with her second daughter. “The blooms only last a few days,” the model and brand founder tells me. “But this year, it was blooming like it never had before. You could smell it through the entire garden.”

Hosk actually has a long-standing relationship with this particular tree. When the model and her fiancé, Tom Daly, decided to move from New York to Los Angeles in 2021, it was only a month before their first daughter, Tuulikki Joan (whom they call Tuuli), was born. Until then, Hosk had been planning to deliver via a scheduled C-section, but their new space, coupled with a viewing of the 2008 documentary The Business of Being Born, inspired her to pivot to a home birth. She was referred to her doula, Carson Myer—whose other clients have included Gigi Hadid and Mandy Moore—while shopping at The Elder Statesman in West Hollywood.

Hosk describes Tuuli’s birth as “intense.” Though the tub was set up inside her bedroom, she ended up giving birth in bed. “I couldn’t think about the experience for the longest time because it felt too traumatic, too sensitive,” she says. “My husband took these beautiful photos. To this day, I have not been able to look at them. I have heard from people who have these beautiful, calm births, but that’s just not how I labor. I’m screaming at the top of my lungs.”

All the while, the tree was in view—and when it came time to make a home-birth plan for baby number two, Hosk knew that she wanted the tree to be part of that story too. The difference this time? The birthing pool, they decided, would sit directly beneath its canopy.

“I started active labor around midnight. I was laboring outside on a rock, in bed, on the floor. I was everywhere. I also had this really amazing moment in the shower where I was able to tune out all the outside noise—it was like I was in a cocoon,” she says. “At the last minute, we went into the birthing tub. Then I think it took 12 minutes to push her out. She was really fast.” At 6 a.m. on July 22, Flora Blue was born under the blooming tree in Hosk and Daly’s backyard.

“It was the most magical birth ever,” Hosk says of the experience. The moment was so enchanting that it inspired Flora’s name: “What could be more dreamy than the flowers coming out right at the time I go into labor?”