00;00;03;11 - 00;00;35;21
Unknown
Welcome to the Freebirth podcast, a supportive space for people who are learning, exploring and celebrating their autonomous choices in childbirth together. While unpack truths, share personal stories and claim our ability to birth freely and intuitively. Here's your host, Emily Saldana.
00;00;35;23 - 00;01;03;12
Unknown
Today we have the incredible Rachel from British Columbia, Canada. She walked out of her first OB prenatal, never to return, and went on to birth her four children over the last seven years with her husband on their own land. Rachel shares about her interesting life, raising four children off the grid on a farm in Canada and how she learned to birth her way in the house her husband built.
00;01;03;15 - 00;01;29;14
Unknown
Right now we live in B.C. we lived before as a family, kind of all over the place. I'm actually from Ontario, originally in a big city. And we, me and my husband decided after a long time of wandering around, really? We decided to have a family. And so we ended up settling in Saskatchewan, and we chose to live, like, way off the beaten path.
00;01;29;16 - 00;01;51;02
Unknown
That kind of spurred us to live off the grid and sell our own water, and we raised our own animals, and we try and live, you know, from our own hands as much as we can, which kind of ties into why I chose to free birth. Really. And, so we just moved to B.C. about eight, nine months ago.
00;01;51;04 - 00;02;13;00
Unknown
And we just started building a house here, and, my son was born here, but the rest of my children were born in Saskatchewan, and, yeah, like, the kids are all involved in life here. They know about butchering animals. They know about gardening. They know about what to eat from the woods. They're very, bush friendly children.
00;02;13;03 - 00;02;38;02
Unknown
So cool. I bet you have very healthy children because of it. Yeah, well, yeah, we try for sure. So you're totally off the grid? Yes. So do you have solar or how do you have electricity? We have solar. We have a smaller set up before we live. We're not like your traditional off the grid, families with, like, a huge amount of solar and a dishwasher that runs a solar.
00;02;38;03 - 00;02;59;19
Unknown
Anything. We're very, very simple. So we lived with about 120W of solar for, I don't know, five, five years or so. And we just finally upgraded to about a thousand, which is a huge deal. So ooh, luxury. We just use it for very I know. Right. Use it for very basic things. Awesome. And so you're like on propane too I'm assuming.
00;02;59;20 - 00;03;34;21
Unknown
Yes. Nice. Nice woodsy life. So the most recent child was your son that you had in this house that you built. And yeah. How many children came. But how many kids do you have. I have four. Okay. So. And was just this one the free birth. Yeah. So I guess it depends on what you, define. But for me this was the only free birth that I had because the only people present were my husband and my best friend, and they were just holding space, and that was their purpose.
00;03;34;23 - 00;04;00;28
Unknown
So yeah. Tell us maybe a little bit about the previous three births and what they were like and how that led you to get in even deeper with, with doing it yourself. Absolutely. Okay. So I got pregnant with my daughter, in 2011, and I kind of knew that I wanted a certain way, but I wasn't really sure what that meant.
00;04;00;28 - 00;04;24;09
Unknown
So my pregnancy was pretty restless, and I was trying to navigate the system as most, most first time moms are doing. And I ended up having, a doctor and I went to see him every now and then for my prenatal, and he just, like, didn't know anything really. Like, he wouldn't, he would palpate my belly and then not tell me the findings.
00;04;24;09 - 00;04;47;21
Unknown
And I found that really annoying because, I mean, your baby is you. And so when somebody is touching your body, even with consent, but not really explaining what they're doing, it's really disempowering. And so I was pretty frustrated and I was kept asking to look at my file and he would kind of laugh at me. And there was like a communication barrier there for a couple of reasons.
00;04;47;21 - 00;05;18;18
Unknown
And, so anyway, he ended up referring me to an obstetrician, and I was nervous about this because I wanted her to know that I. This was my birth, not hers, you know. And so we went into the office and inside the office there was a lot of people sitting and waiting. And I remember the feeling because I was sitting there watching in the waiting room and there was this boy and he had he was there with his mom and he was pretty young.
00;05;18;18 - 00;05;52;23
Unknown
So it seemed like it was a teen pregnancy type situation. And he was clutching this picture of an ultrasound next to his pregnant partner, and he wasn't even looking at her. He was just looking at this picture of the ultrasound. And it was like very I don't know, it didn't feel right. Everything felt strange. Anyway, it was my time to go in and I went in and, I was talking to her and I had done a lot of research, at that point, because I was trying to figure out where this restlessness and frustration with the system was coming from.
00;05;52;26 - 00;06;24;20
Unknown
And I have, the negative antigen, RH negative, and hopefully some of your listeners know what that means. But basically, I'm at a risk of sensitization if my baby is RH positive and it's very confusing. But I had done all the research and empowered myself and I knew exactly what I was talking about. And so we went in there and she did some bloodwork and found that I was RH negative, and she had bullied me right from the very beginning and was sort of like dismissive of my comments.
00;06;24;20 - 00;06;44;27
Unknown
And, she was also wouldn't even turn to look at my husband when he had comments. And I think it was, again, maybe a cultural thing as well, because my husband and I are like, we look very different for most of the people that she would have seen there. Like, I have a lot of tattoos, like my husband has tattoos on his face.
00;06;44;27 - 00;07;07;17
Unknown
Like we're very different. We come from an extremely different background. Yeah. And so she wouldn't even look at him and wouldn't even answer my questions. And she told me that if I didn't take program to Natalie, that my baby would die. And just just those words. You are putting your baby at risk. Your baby will die. When she had known me for five minutes, I said, enough.
00;07;07;22 - 00;07;30;09
Unknown
I said, I'm walking out. That's enough. And like, I walked away. And it's a fear too, because you feel like when you're walking away from somebody who's a perceived authority, you have this fear that somehow they're going to reach you out for being a dissenter. Absolutely. Prenatal system. Yeah. So it was this fear that we had because we also live off the grid.
00;07;30;09 - 00;07;50;00
Unknown
And so, you know, it's just like a combination of things is really stressful. But but when I walk down and go on to the street and took a big breath and touched my belly, I was thinking, this is just about me and you like as to my belly, right? Like nobody else is really involved here. And I turned to my husband and I said, this is we need to like, figure out something else.
00;07;50;00 - 00;08;26;06
Unknown
And so we ended up interviewing a doula that, worked in that area, and she hadn't really been doing a lot to do the work, and she didn't seem to know a lot, but was supportive of me and actually listened for the first time. Right. To what I was saying. And she laughed because I was saying, we're going to the hospital, I'm renting a hotel room beside the hospital, and we're going to labor in there until the very last second, and then we're going to go in the hospital, and Mike's going to barricade the door and, wow, we're going to like, you know, turn down the lights was an extreme thing.
00;08;26;06 - 00;08;45;25
Unknown
And she just laughed at me and said, why are you going into the hospital at all? Right. And if I could give her any credit for anything, those words I needed to be told me so badly anyway. And you had to punch for bottle. Exactly. And so she said, that's not a way to give birth. That's not okay.
00;08;45;25 - 00;09;08;09
Unknown
You know, like you need to do what you need to do to make this safe. And so I thought about safety and I thought about what that meant. And I mean, to all of us who are brainwashed by the system, we feel like safety is doing what the almighty authority tells us to do, which is the doctors, because we think women used to die in childbirth all the time.
00;09;08;09 - 00;09;36;25
Unknown
And so we need to trust these people to help us from this thing that we know that is, you know, basically killing us or whatever they seem to think it's wrong, and that's not the way it is at all, you know? And anyway, so I ended up talking to this do look quite a bit. And she said she couldn't really help me because she wouldn't I wasn't willing to attend an unassisted birth, which unassisted basically means without medical professionals present.
00;09;36;26 - 00;10;06;16
Unknown
Yeah. And so she said she would ask her friends and ask around and, see if she could get back to me with some ideas. And let's remember, I haven't paid this woman one red cent, and she did it because of that bond that women have sometimes, you know, over these things. And so she ended up phoning me, looking at my number and phoning me back and saying, I think you found someone who might be willing to attend your unassisted birth.
00;10;06;23 - 00;10;23;06
Unknown
And that's kind of where I started turning towards home birth and, not having a medical professional present. And did you feel right? So this is with your first. So who who did attend your first birth?
00;10;23;08 - 00;10;56;18
Unknown
Well, it was a doula. I can't name her. Oh, no. Of course, technically, in Canada, the laws are really strange here, and especially in Saskatchewan, they have these really archaic laws where, nobody can be a present at the birth of a normal, healthy pregnancy. If they are helping, like, it's like the basically the wording of the law is so arbitrary that anyone who basically gives you a teen you, helps you with your labor can get charged with this, impersonating a midwife.
00;10;56;18 - 00;11;25;03
Unknown
And in Canada, midwives used to be, practicing separate from the state. And, in recent years, like, pretty recently, I'm not exactly sure of the exact year, but they the state took over the word midwife, and now all registered midwives in Canada work for the government. Basically, they have an over seeing body. That's the College of Midwives, which is like basically, you know, a part of the state.
00;11;25;04 - 00;11;53;10
Unknown
And so in my opinion, having midwifery that, answers to the state is like saying the word midwives means with woman. It doesn't mean with insurance statistics. Right. With state mean. Yeah, totally. Yeah. So I wanted someone there who was who was working for me only beautiful. And so I met this woman. Yes. And I met this woman and she agreed to come.
00;11;53;12 - 00;12;33;00
Unknown
And we really didn't do a lot of prenatal care because I was doing it myself and learning about my body, you know, and, so she came to my birth, and I ended up going into labor at home, and it was -45 outside. Wow. And, she drove to me in a blizzard and brought someone with her, like, can I ask, did you have did you have any nervousness about doing it on your own for the first time and in a blizzard and not having any medical support there, or was it just always very clear that that was the safest route?
00;12;33;03 - 00;13;02;11
Unknown
It was clear to me that was the safest route, and it was because I had educated myself and empowered myself on what the body does, like the things that make birth unsafe. When there isn't something inherently wrong with the pregnancy or birth, the things that make birth unsafe is interrupting the hormonal cycle of the woman, and basically that would be interrupted for me.
00;13;02;12 - 00;13;31;19
Unknown
Like, some people feel very safe in the hospital and that doesn't like the hospital doesn't always mean that it's the worst place for everyone. It's the place that you need to feel safe, you need to have dark, and you need to be uninterrupted in your hormonal cycle. And that's what those three things is what makes birth safe and learning that and learning that I needed to be at home because I have this intense fear of people touching my body without consent.
00;13;31;19 - 00;14;01;28
Unknown
I've always been very, very, very private when it came to my genitalia or my, cycle or anything because and it wasn't because I was prudish about it. It was because I was so fiercely protective, because I knew how special and important it was for me. Like, it's something that needs protecting. It's something that needs nurturing. And it's like, in this world, it's like, you know, it's really messed up.
00;14;01;28 - 00;14;26;02
Unknown
Like people have their rights taken away all the time, especially, women and people who identify that way. Like, there are a lot of things that maybe a lot of fathers don't understand about that. Like, especially, for being my first birth, my husband was pretty worried because their job in some ways are they feel their job is to protect their family.
00;14;26;04 - 00;14;56;24
Unknown
And that's a very normal and natural thing to feel. But it can't. That fear cannot trump the woman's choices or the, you know, like your choices in your pregnancy or yours. And it's really up to everyone else to support and so on. Complicated why I yeah. What what gets really complicated with that father protector fear stuff is that it's around birth, largely rooted in the brainwashing that a medical provider is safest.
00;14;56;26 - 00;15;25;20
Unknown
So I see a lot of yeah, a lot of conflict there where the partner is not supporting the mother because they're brainwashed to believe something that's not true. But, yeah, it gets really complicated. It really does. And that's why, like, I birthed, I had this birth was assisted in some ways because I had people there, and I was leaning on them to assure me that everything was normal and everything is right.
00;15;25;20 - 00;15;47;19
Unknown
And I think every birthing woman can really identify with that. Right. Needing that reassurance, of some kind. And especially when it's your first birth, it's like all these sensations that are there, familiar in an ancient way, but unfamiliar in your modern brain. And so sometimes we have our modern brains and our ancient brains at odds with each other.
00;15;47;21 - 00;16;15;23
Unknown
I saw that a lot, you know, and my parents and his parents were really nervous that we were doing that. And again, it's like, I'm sure any home birth or unassisted birth or what understand that feeling of needing to shut people out to concentrate on their own body and what's happening with them. And that's kind of what we did, even though they're probably pretty afraid to fight with me at this point, because I have some intense conviction and they don't want to through the plot or whatever.
00;16;15;23 - 00;16;46;29
Unknown
So how long was that first labor? It was about seven hours. I always go into labor in the night time because my pituitary gland, that feedback loop is always, it's so intense and I need the dark to really open up. And so, as soon as the sun went down, pretty much in every labor. But this one too, I went into labor and I labored on my own, for a while.
00;16;46;29 - 00;17;10;00
Unknown
And the person who was coming to be with me to sit with me might do like it was three hours away, because everything super far apart in Canada and especially Saskatchewan. So she's driving and, she gets there. I would get of probably seven centimeters at that point, but I'm laboring on my own. I'm in the bathtub.
00;17;10;02 - 00;17;33;24
Unknown
I'm. I'm finding that these really, interesting, like, figure eight movements of my body was helping to to deal with the sensations. And I'm really coping well, and I'm laughing and joking and and, like, wanting to listen to music, telling her husband to go, give me granola bars, like, I'm totally fine, you know, and I'm laboring in the water.
00;17;33;24 - 00;17;49;24
Unknown
And then I feel this, like, cagey kind of urge after she gets there. And actually she came and said, how are you doing? And I said, great. And she said, fine, I'm going to sleep. So she went to sleep because I did not want her there to be massaging me. You're touching me. You're talking to me at all, right?
00;17;49;24 - 00;18;08;18
Unknown
I wanted her there just to hold this space. So she went to sleep in the other room, and, I labored a little more. And then I got cagey feeling. And so I wanted to stand up, and I stood up and went over to my bed. And I'm making more jokes and making more jokes and being silly. And then kind of got serious, and then I barfed.
00;18;08;18 - 00;18;35;19
Unknown
And then, you know, you're at, full dilation. Right? And so I go on to the bed that was set up in the living room, and it's next to this pillar. And, I'm, I'm, I'm on the bed on all fours, and I can feel the baby coming down and for me, like, labor was almost more enjoyable because I could cope with the flow and the like intensity of it.
00;18;35;19 - 00;18;58;12
Unknown
Way easier than feeling the giant head like opening me up. That felt so strange and like, gave me so much energy that I was tearing at the wall. Like you could see the the drywall was all responding. Oh my God, you know, I was holding, I was holding on for dear life because I did not make one conscious push.
00;18;58;12 - 00;19;24;23
Unknown
Once my baby came out from the full, pressure of my fundus like it was the fetal ejection reflex to a tee, and I just. My only purpose in this whole birth to me was to just hang on for the ride. Right? And so my friend was basically sitting behind me. My husband was sitting behind me. Nobody really massage me.
00;19;24;23 - 00;19;46;17
Unknown
Nobody touched me. My husband put a bit of counter pressure on my sacrum and the baby like she crowned. And then her head came out and my husband looked and she was crying while she was still inside of me. And I think that first sight of her, like, changed him for sure as a person. And I didn't get to see that because I was just feeling right.
00;19;46;19 - 00;20;10;12
Unknown
But the baby came out and like they basically just guided her onto the ground, onto the blanket underneath me. And then I looked down and I picked her up, and it was like those classic moments that you see when it's interrupted. If you actually look like through my own research, if you actually watch a woman who gives birth uninterrupted.
00;20;10;14 - 00;20;29;14
Unknown
So most always go into a squat or into an all fours position, she will always first ahead and pull back a little bit. Her baby will be born, and she always picks that baby up and brings the baby to her heart. So the heart to heart. And then she'll want to inspect for that curious and look at the baby.
00;20;29;14 - 00;20;50;03
Unknown
And then she'll always put the baby in the crook of her arm right next to her breast. And that's how it is almost every time that you leave a woman on her own. Right. So that happened to me. Yeah. And we fell in love. And then I had one of the ladies that the dealer had brought was an aroma therapist, like, she works with essential oil.
00;20;50;06 - 00;21;11;28
Unknown
And that lady got in there and started rubbing my belly. And I didn't not like that at all, but I was too high from birth to tell her to stop. And she was rubbing my belly with, essential oils. And now, in hindsight, I really wish she wouldn't have because I needed to smell my baby. I need to taste my baby.
00;21;12;00 - 00;21;40;22
Unknown
I needed that connection, and I think it was directly affecting my release of the placenta. So with this birth, that placenta took almost three hours to come out. And, and I think it was because my bonding got interrupted by that small thing, which goes to show you how sensitive the hormonal feedback is. Sure. Absolutely. I mean, I would still very much call that a free birth.
00;21;40;22 - 00;22;05;12
Unknown
I didn't realize it was with like a like an underground doula person. I mean, I know obviously labels and definitions don't really matter in this in this realm, but but definitely sounds like you birth pretty damn free with your with your kiddo. So you didn't you didn't have any. I mean, to me, free birth is that you are managing yourself.
00;22;05;12 - 00;22;33;21
Unknown
You know that that somebody else is not managing your care or deciding, you know, things for you. Which obviously. Oh, yeah, you totally embraced. So. Okay, so that was your first awesome, incredible story in a blizzard. And then you went on to have two more children in that same area, and you. Yeah. So this, my first child was born in the house that we actually owned in town.
00;22;33;21 - 00;23;09;05
Unknown
So we weren't living in the, in the middle of nowhere. And then. But we moved shortly after she was born, to a piece of land, that was quite far off the highway. I mean, it was, like, not really remote because Saskatchewan is kind of like a quilt, you know, like there's people every now and then, but it was it was like out there, you know, and I got pregnant again, actually, between my first, birth of my daughter, which is the story that I just told you and my pregnancy with my son, I had a miscarriage.
00;23;09;07 - 00;23;41;27
Unknown
And that was another big lesson for me, because I think it's really important to talk about free birth, in miscarriage as well, because I did not know I was pregnant. I got pregnant one month postpartum. Oh my gosh. With my daughter. Yeah. So fun. And, so I did not know I was pregnant. And well, actually, as we were moving, I was barfing and feeling pretty sick, like I had a fever and I just thought, oh, whatever, you know, keep on going with life.
00;23;42;00 - 00;24;03;16
Unknown
And then I started to bleed and I thought, oh, I'm getting my cycle back. And then there were clots. And I thought, this isn't normal. So I ended up going to the hospital through the emergency room. And it wasn't fun for sure, because I had to open and spread my legs for some random guy was a doctor and his face went white.
00;24;03;16 - 00;24;24;13
Unknown
I, I don't think he'd seen a miscarriage before. And, he was pretty disturbed and I was just like, what's what's wrong with me? Why am I bleeding like this? And he did a pregnancy test and he said, you're pregnant. And so in that moment of having the miscarriage, I had to understand that I was pregnant. Wow. And also losing a baby.
00;24;24;16 - 00;24;46;09
Unknown
And so for me, I live in the bush. I understand that these things happen. You know, I'm very, very in tune with death. It's for me, death and life is a cyclical event, you know, like one always tends to the other. And there's there's always, a purpose, whether we feel it in the moment or not. And so I thought, I'm pregnant.
00;24;46;09 - 00;25;04;12
Unknown
Okay. That's fine. I'm passing this baby. That's probably a good thing. I just want to be able to navigate this with dignity, basically. And so I went into, they wanted to put me in an ambulance to go to another hospital because I didn't have the proper equipment, whatever that was. And so I said, no, I'm going to drive myself.
00;25;04;12 - 00;25;24;21
Unknown
I'm totally fine. And so we just partner up for a meal. Yeah. Good. And my daughter and we slept for a meal, and then we went to the hospital, the other hospital, and, he gave me an ultrasound, and he showed me the ultrasound and said, there's a little like, basically the sack had collapsed on itself, and it's sitting right at the mouth of the cervix.
00;25;24;23 - 00;25;50;17
Unknown
And he suggested, a DNC, and he suggested giving me side attack. Vaginally and I said no, and I, it was upsetting and whatever. And I but for me I thought if my, if the, if it's right on the edge of my cervix and it's coming out my body dorsum like my body has a period every month and I don't go running to the doctor, you know.
00;25;50;19 - 00;26;12;25
Unknown
And so I thought no, I'm going home. And he said, I really don't want you to do that. And I said, I really don't care. And I'll come back if I have flu like symptoms because, I know what a fever is like. I know what that means. Right? And so anyway, he ended up writing me a prescription for site attack, and, I took that home and I didn't use and I threw them in the garbage.
00;26;12;27 - 00;26;31;17
Unknown
And I laid there, and I talked to my baby, and I said, hey, like, you need to come out. Like we need to be done with this because you got to get on with our lives. And like, you know, I'm honoring you. I'm not holding you in. I want you to come out and pass. And so, I took a couple teas, and I laid down, laid really easy.
00;26;31;17 - 00;26;50;29
Unknown
And then I went to go to the bathroom. And right at that point, we were, like, sitting in the bush, you know? So I dug a hole, and I as soon as I squatted it fell out and I picked it up, and it was actually the most healing, amazing thing because I got to pull it apart. I got to see the whole thing.
00;26;51;05 - 00;27;21;10
Unknown
I got to really own that. And then my husband and I and our daughter, like, went into the woods and we buried it with the regions of, you know, like deer fetuses that are probably out there, too. And it was an amazing thing to do. Yeah. But after that, after that, I got pregnant with my son and, he his birth was pretty challenging because I was used to this really ethereal, beautiful, like, short, you know, labor for the baby just fell out.
00;27;21;10 - 00;27;40;03
Unknown
And then it was blissful and he was a little interesting because a few days before his birth, I had felt this kind of stabby thing in my cervix. And I actually called the same doula again. And so we didn't really I didn't do prenatal care at all. It didn't take prenatal vitamins. It was a fully unassisted pregnancy as well.
00;27;40;06 - 00;28;01;22
Unknown
And so my dear friend said, yeah, sure, I'm coming to what, no matter what. And so I just kind of got rounder and rounder and did my gardening and all the stuff, but I kept punching in my cervix. And so a couple days before, the punching got really annoying. And so I tried to do some sort of an inversion to kind of pull whatever was in there poking me out.
00;28;01;22 - 00;28;31;10
Unknown
And it didn't work, of course. And so, I go into labor and it's, the solstice, the longest day of the year. So if you're remembering what I said before about me laboring in the nighttime, well, there wasn't a long night time, so I was in labor on and off all day, and I knew that something was a little off, because every time I got in the water, the gravity would pull the presenting part off my service, and I could feel my contractions burst out a bunch.
00;28;31;10 - 00;28;50;12
Unknown
And so my way of getting it going was squatting in the garden and weeding because I hadn't gotten it done before I went into labor. So I was doing that a lot. And then finally, later on in the day, things started ramping up a bunch and I could feel that I was fully dilated, but nothing was happening and it was annoying.
00;28;50;12 - 00;29;19;27
Unknown
Do you do? Sam, I did, and you could feel it. Final exam. And I could feel that his head was crooked and so it didn't like the soft spot was off to the side. It was just a little crooked. And I thought, okay, so baby's probably a bit crooked. And so what we did was we went back to the house because we had a bath house at the time, went back to the house, and I got to do a lot to push on one side and my husband to push on the other side of my hips at the top.
00;29;19;29 - 00;29;41;20
Unknown
And, I told them to do was having a contraction and so they pushed so hard and the baby turned inside because it just gave a little bit more room. And he started coming out and he basically baptized my husband and my friend because the water broke at the same time that he turned into place. And it was just this shooting out of water anyway.
00;29;41;25 - 00;30;05;19
Unknown
Wow. Good intuition. Out where you are. You know? Were you already attending births at this point? No. Okay. So you just knew to do that? Yeah. Yeah. Like I just something didn't feel right. And I thought if something's not right and I'm feeling all these jabs in my cervix, like, maybe this is just a weird spot. Like, maybe it's just not lined up properly.
00;30;05;19 - 00;30;30;05
Unknown
Right? And so pretty much like anything, if anything is not lined up properly, there's a couple things you can do, like I do. You're taught like me chest position. Right. And take some of the pressure off of the cervix of the presenting part and then pushing on. The, the top of the hips, like right where your belly is, pushing hard on that basically opens the pelvis like Compton, right?
00;30;30;10 - 00;30;50;24
Unknown
Yeah. And so there's an extra couple in, there's an extra little bit of room there. So maybe baby can get in a better position. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but it's always worth a shot. Right. And so he's coming out and it feels like the worst thing I've ever felt. I mean I was like, I cannot stretch anymore.
00;30;50;24 - 00;31;18;15
Unknown
Like, this is at my absolute limit. I couldn't figure out why it felt so different. There was a lot of pressure and stuff, but this specifically was burning all down my, vagina. And so he's coming out and my husband sees and he's like, there's hand up there. That's what I was gonna guess. So yeah. So baby was born with both of his hands at the side of his head, and, he was totally fine.
00;31;18;15 - 00;31;41;21
Unknown
He had pooped in there. Probably from being squished and not being lined up properly. Who knows? But it was very fresh, Max. So I wasn't worried. And we kicked him out, postural drainage. And, he was totally fine hollering and everything. And then we measured his hands with his head, and it was basically really similar to pushing out like a 14 pound baby.
00;31;41;24 - 00;32;08;22
Unknown
Oh my gosh. So did you did you experience some tearing with that birth? No, not at all. No. Well, I hadn't had tearing with any of them actually. It's like yeah, it's intact for any I and I, I really feel like that's directly from letting, your babies come as they, as they come. You know, like I said, trying to, like, guide them and push really hard and, you know, and.
00;32;08;28 - 00;32;29;12
Unknown
Yeah, and I have control over my pelvic floor too, so I can feel them crowning. I just don't push at all or even like, I just blow it away or whatever. Yeah. So he was born. He was totally fine. He was born on the solstice. So he's a special little guy for sure. And then a couple of years later, I got pregnant again around the same time.
00;32;29;15 - 00;32;59;02
Unknown
And this birth was really transformative and really got me on the, the, the track that I'm going now with free birth and, like, really leaving people alone and learning to sit on your hands as of care provider to, like, learn to sit on your hands. And so this meddling because what happened was, there was an insane thunderstorm where we were and the roads were all washed out and people were rescuing their cattle by canoe.
00;32;59;02 - 00;33;24;23
Unknown
And it was like really intense time. And of course, I go into labor and that same woman was going to come again. And she on her way, got in a car accident. I was already in labor in a car accident and found me while I was laboring and said, I can't make it. And so in that moment, we had to wrap our heads around it.
00;33;24;24 - 00;33;38;20
Unknown
I mean, I was like, dude, I got this, you know? But my husband was super worried. And so I told him to make peace with it, and he had to make peace with it on his own. Like he had to go away from me and do what he needed to do, because I didn't want him ruining my group.
00;33;38;20 - 00;33;44;09
Unknown
Right. Oh, you're a strong woman, Rachel, I love it.
00;33;44;12 - 00;34;08;02
Unknown
That's awesome. And so he he dealt with it, and then he came back. And like, my husband is an amazing support. He's one of those people who he just knows what to do and what not to do. And he doesn't get upset when you don't want him to do something, you know? And it's great having him around. And he's very in tune with their kids and very in tune with me and very respectful.
00;34;08;09 - 00;34;28;09
Unknown
And so it's great, right? It's like I have two lives in a way. And anyway, so she says she can't come and, after she hangs up with me, I didn't know at the time that she was arranging another vehicle to come anyway, and so she was on her way to me. I just didn't know. And so I had just decided to have the baby.
00;34;28;09 - 00;34;51;27
Unknown
Because. What are you going to do? Right? It's not just going to get up and go to the hospital. That sounded like hell at the moment. And so and another friend doing anything, she wasn't doing anything medical, right. She was just literally there. Yeah, she's holding space for me, which is really important. It's almost equally important of some of the medical things that people feel they need to do.
00;34;51;27 - 00;35;14;01
Unknown
But like I also realized that maybe I needed to just do it alone. And I think the reason why I thought that is because as I mentioned before, my placentas take a really long time to come out. And so I think that's directly related to people chatting to me and fussing around the cord. And you know, just more people in my space.
00;35;14;01 - 00;35;38;26
Unknown
And I think I almost need more of a quiet environment to get my placenta out. Sure. And so basically, I'm in labor with my son and I go right into the water. This is the first time that I've used the water a lot. And, so we have this bath house and it's off grid and it's run by a woodstove, and it's like using convection heat, and it's beautiful and amazing, and it's just like lanterns lit everywhere.
00;35;38;28 - 00;36;08;13
Unknown
And so I'm laboring and it's going really well. And then actually at the last my baby's coming down, I can feel and I checked my own cervix because I always get this really funny infant to check my cervix at full dilation. I think it's just a natural response to feeling that almost adrenaline rush when you're when your cervix is fully open and so I check, I'm fully dilated and I can feel my baby rotating and coming down.
00;36;08;13 - 00;36;30;07
Unknown
And again, like I didn't push my body, just pushed him and actually, the last few contractions, my friend showed up and, I was like, hey, how's it going? I'm pushing or whatever. And so then the baby comes out, the head comes out underwater, and my friend is a flashlight. And the baby tried to breathe underwater. And so she got me to stand up.
00;36;30;10 - 00;36;49;10
Unknown
And then he just came out into my arms. But, again, like some sense, it took a long time to come out because I was making a big fuss. Oh, he's so cute. Look at look at all these toes and his, you know, and trying to impress everyone and feeling like, you know, really energetic. And I should have kept the energy really low.
00;36;49;12 - 00;37;11;00
Unknown
And, so he was born, and he was born one day before my other son, which happened to be the solstice again, I think it was that year, or close to it anyway. So that was that birth story. And then, he basically is his personality is exactly like the day that he was born. I mean, he is a stormy little guy.
00;37;11;01 - 00;37;27;13
Unknown
He's crazy and running around all the time. He's a wild man, you know? And, so now we have three kids at this point, and we're moving. We decided to move to D.C., and I'm heavily pregnant with all the kids in the car, and we're driving, and I've got this huge trailer behind me. It's way too big for the vehicles, and it's going on.
00;37;27;13 - 00;37;50;01
Unknown
The mountain passes and it's terrifying. And we get here maybe five days of driving later and we again move to land. But we have this bus, our tour bus that we used for when we were on tour because we're musicians as well. And, so we're living in our tour bus and, I'm super pregnant and my husband's building a house.
00;37;50;01 - 00;38;07;18
Unknown
We ended up actually getting the show the house, like, livable enough in six months, which is kind of a big deal. He's rushing, you know, trying to beat the growth of my belly. Wow. And, yeah, for this birth, I mean, I mean, we're in a different province. I wasn't sure if I wanted to get to know another doula.
00;38;07;20 - 00;38;30;10
Unknown
I just really felt like I wanted to keep it within the family. And so I asked my friend to come to watch the kids and to help me in, like, cooking all the stuff. And I wanted them to be there to hold space right. And so I go into labor again and, basically it's going so fast that I'm like, it surprised them even in labor.
00;38;30;10 - 00;38;50;09
Unknown
And every time I stand up, it's a constant contraction, like just one long contraction. And I'm thinking, okay, this is super weird. I'm really not in distress. But this won't stop. Like, and so I got on my hands and knees and that slowed it down to maybe a minute apart. And this just was like overnight. As soon as the sun went down, it was like an instant labor.
00;38;50;12 - 00;39;12;29
Unknown
And then so we went, we decided to go to our bath house. We built another one. And I'm just, like, laughing the whole way there because I'm dilating so quickly. So I get into the bath house and I lay on the bed and I'm dilating and dilating and it's so fast. And I remember thinking in my head, if this is all it is, is it pretty okay?
00;39;13;02 - 00;39;33;27
Unknown
Like it's going so fast. It's only been about an hour, you know? And so then I get into the pool, the tub again, and, I'm laboring a bit more, and all of a sudden his head's just on the perineum, and I stand up. And while he's crowning, because I remembered the last time. And I just didn't want that to happen again.
00;39;33;29 - 00;40;04;20
Unknown
And so I set. He's crowning, and he shot out like a like a bullet from a gun and almost hit like he almost bungee cord on from his arm below. Oh my gosh, I like, what did he land? I caught him mid-air. Oh my gosh, I caught him mid-air about like two inches above the water. Like he basically just shot out and we were all laughing and I kept my and I purposely kept my energy really low and I made everyone be super quiet.
00;40;04;20 - 00;40;28;28
Unknown
I inspected him and went over to the bed and ate a banana and inspected a bit more. And literally ten minutes after he was born, my placenta just fell out of me. Cool. And and then we just slept on the mattress there. And then in the morning we came back and I had another friend watching the kids, and he was really nervous because he had never been around birth before, and the kind of like, new to the whole thing.
00;40;28;28 - 00;40;49;27
Unknown
And he was really worried for us. And I was like, you just gotta stay out of my way, buddy, you know? And anyway, we walked back. I walked back with my prize, and he just burst out crying because he had never seen that before. And that's kind of what it's about, you know, it's like total transformation. You know, you get people like, people get teary eyed who never thought they'd even want kids because of the transformation.
00;40;49;27 - 00;41;13;12
Unknown
You know, it's so powerful. It's so nice. Wow. Yeah. I love the image of him shooting out and bungee cord. Yeah, it was really intense. And my husband was trying to call me because he learned certain things. We do a ritual where he touches certain parts of my body that he sees are tense during contraction, and then I respond by loosening them.
00;41;13;12 - 00;41;42;29
Unknown
Right. And it's kind of nice. It's like a pattern that we can do. It keeps me really loose. Except he's trying to do this while the baby's crowning. And I was like, no man. Yeah. Oh, wow. And and so was breastfeeding. Easy peasy for you with all the kids. It was. Yeah it was. I had, some pretty engorged breasts and some really uncomfortable, slight mastitis for my first daughter.
00;41;42;29 - 00;42;07;20
Unknown
But actually, all of my children had lip five, and I didn't know, until recently when I was doing research on lip ties for, some of my do the training, and it just dawned on me that they all did, and I didn't even notice, really. And it's just worked out. But yeah, like pretty much seamless. Like everything was totally fine and babies all healthy and normal.
00;42;07;20 - 00;42;32;02
Unknown
And you didn't get that like wee snip of the lip tie. No, no I didn't. There's like some debate about that even like there's still. Yeah absolutely. It can stretch. And yeah, I think that what happened is just stretched enough, for them to nurse and yeah, everything was totally okay. Awesome. Those are good stories. Speaking. Yeah. And speaking before.
00;42;32;02 - 00;42;53;04
Unknown
I just want to touch on the, the fact that I mentioned I was RH negative, for those moms out there or anyone like, who has RH negative but is pregnant, like, I had to do so much research to come to my own decisions, but I kind of did a bit of everything. And for me, prenatal program was like, not an option.
00;42;53;11 - 00;43;10;22
Unknown
I wasn't into taking a blood products like in my pregnancy. If I'm going to, you know, I want to keep it holistic. And so I just made sure that there was no trauma to my body and no, no way that the baby's blood could mix with mine and my pregnancy like, I didn't fall. I didn't, you know, stuff like that.
00;43;10;25 - 00;43;31;05
Unknown
And then in my birth, I basically by blood type the baby on my own. You can order a blood typing card on the internet, and I blood type the baby on my own with the cord blood. And then I would only approach Rogan if I wanted to, if the baby was RH positive and my first two were not.
00;43;31;07 - 00;43;52;03
Unknown
And my third baby was, and I ended up taking the Rogan and I'm not even sure if I would have if I should have, but I just felt like it was the right thing to do. And then with my last baby, he was also, RH positive. But I decided not to take the Rogan. So yeah, you got a little bit of everything.
00;43;52;06 - 00;44;12;02
Unknown
Yeah. Well, I mean that that's what it's about, educating yourself and then doing what feels right and really coming to your own, you know, and you're such a good example that each baby is different and each baby presents a different. You know, you might get a different intuition. Intuition of what to do with each pregnancy or each postpartum, for sure.
00;44;12;02 - 00;44;39;04
Unknown
And no birth is perfect in some ways too. Like, especially with my last baby, I actually got an an gastrointestinal sickness like a really bad one when I was about seven months pregnant and I actually had to go to the hospital because I was fainting, and so I didn't end up getting an idea or anything, but they watch me and check the baby, and I was fine with that because of the fear of like, you know, I was not nourished.
00;44;39;04 - 00;45;07;14
Unknown
I was taking care of everyone, and I wasn't eating enough because it wasn't, you know, it wasn't absorbing into my body. And actually when like. And there's the test too, right? Like when I was in labor with my baby, my water broke and it was tinged a yellow color, which is really old MEC. And what happened was the baby had gotten the sickness as well, in utero, and he had pooped in the womb.
00;45;07;16 - 00;45;27;29
Unknown
And so for me, in that moment, I'm alone. I'm down a hill like there's no easy way for me to get help, but do think things just because, like, everyone has such a fear of these things, right? A fear of neck, a fear of the cord around the neck. These things are sometimes very normal and benign.
00;45;28;01 - 00;45;46;19
Unknown
And for me, I just thought in my head, okay, this doesn't look like the right color. And so I'm going to remember. So when he's born I'll just keep him out a little bit, like really gently just so he can drain his lungs and his nose like very easily. Right. And so I just did that and he didn't even need it.
00;45;46;22 - 00;46;07;19
Unknown
Like, we need to empower ourselves to know what to do in those situations if we even need to do anything and just stop assuming every little thing that doesn't look like, quote unquote normal to us is an emergency, because it often isn't. Totally. It's like preparing yourself for everything to be okay, or preparing yourself for everything to be a disaster.
00;46;07;21 - 00;46;36;21
Unknown
It's like a totally different. Yeah, and preparing yourself for everything to be okay doesn't mean you're going to ignore any possible flags or ignore you know what presents? It just means you know that you're going to approach things calmly and with a level head, and with logic and intuition and education and yeah, it's a whole. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, it's sort of like you're not preparing yourself for a for a good outcome or a bad outcome.
00;46;36;21 - 00;47;07;05
Unknown
It's like you're preparing yourself for birth. Yeah. And birth is messy. And it's not sometimes that you expected and all these things. And I feel like though, like sometimes first time moms will ask me like, how did you deal with the pushing stage one, did you know how to do this? How did you do and do this? And I always tell them, it's like your only job is to listen to your body, listen to your baby and let it happen.
00;47;07;08 - 00;47;53;26
Unknown
That's it. You don't have to push. You don't have to micromanage your body like it's a really a lesson in surrender, you know? Yeah. Unless they're, you know, under timeframes and worry and regulated care and all sorts of, you know, environments that would require them to push because they have to control it. Exactly. And, you know, if anybody ever like, questions the safety of unassisted birth, I was just, I it just clicked into my memory that there is a study, by this woman, Katie Jenkins, and a call she's on Facebook and I'm sure, it's from her specific practice.
00;47;53;26 - 00;48;21;07
Unknown
And they did a study of unassisted birth, and it showed the safety of birth unassisted, like, totally alone. Because what happens is, in mainstream statistics, they lump accidental, unassisted births with planned ones. And so you get this skewed perception of the safety of it, because they're also including all the ones in the car, all the ones in the Walmart bathroom, like all these ones too.
00;48;21;10 - 00;48;41;01
Unknown
And those are not planned. That's not the same thing. Mom is in the same headspace. And if you do any research in birth, like basically your mind is connected to your body, right? And so her statistics are really, really awesome to look at because it's something you can even give your, you know, the in-laws basically who think you're doing a dangerous thing.
00;48;41;01 - 00;49;05;16
Unknown
It's like, yo, here's the science, you know? Yeah, yeah, I know. I would love there to be more and more studies on this. So one thing I did want to ask you before we go is, how did you navigate the conversation with yourself around death in, in free birth and in being so far away from any in your in an issue?
00;49;05;16 - 00;49;32;00
Unknown
And how did you and your husband navigate, you know, kind of just the, the reality that some things would be out of your control and you know that that it is possible to have an outcome that you wouldn't want. Did that come up much in your heart or in your conversations? Absolutely, absolutely it does. And and I think it's like a responsible thing to consider and a responsible thing to talk about.
00;49;32;00 - 00;50;10;09
Unknown
Cuz like there there are no guarantees in birth and there are no guarantees in life. Things happen all the time. And it doesn't mean they're going to happen to you tomorrow, but it's ignorant to just assume that nothing will ever happen to you. And I think it's a it's a really big picture thing for me. And for me, it's sort of like we are so as a society, like detached from death and detached from struggle, that we feel like we're entitled to be, absolved from sickness.
00;50;10;09 - 00;50;35;19
Unknown
So we're entitled to be absolved from feeling anything that feels bad for us. And that's not really the natural state of humans. Like we it's really important to sometimes go back and be like, wait, for example, like let's just say a headache or something like that. Your head is trying to tell you something like just numbing everything all the time doesn't actually it's like numbing the message as well, you know?
00;50;35;21 - 00;51;05;26
Unknown
And for me, like getting in touch with my own feelings about death was absolutely like a prerequisite to birth. Because, like, in some ways, it's a gateway, right? It's like the gateway to birth is this is really similar to the gateway to death, like similar things happen even. And, just because we're giving birth doesn't necessarily equal, a perfect child or a life baby.
00;51;05;26 - 00;51;34;17
Unknown
Like, totally. In the case of my miscarriage, you know, like, I could have been fearful and sad and stayed at the hospital and not found some way to be empowered by it. And that would have done that would have been a huge disservice to myself and to be able to own that and have my miscarriage and inspect my baby and like, really touch the miscarriage and to touch the tissues and not dance around it like it's this taboo subject.
00;51;34;17 - 00;51;55;19
Unknown
And I'm a disgusting person for, you know, like I was able to do that. And I think the reason why I was able to do that, as I mentioned before, I grew up in a giant city like just outside Toronto. And so now I live in the bush in the middle of nowhere. So I certainly was not raised butchering my own animals and dealing with death and all these things.
00;51;55;19 - 00;52;21;08
Unknown
But it came the hard way in some ways, like raising animals. Anyone who raises an animal knows sometimes those animals die and there's literally nothing you can do. Or sometimes an animal gets hurt and you have to kill it and put it down. And like understanding that death doesn't always have to mean trauma and death doesn't always have to mean negative, that you can kill something with respect and love.
00;52;21;10 - 00;53;01;25
Unknown
You can even name it and kill it. You could even name it, love it, scratch its chin and then eat it. You know these things like, I learned those things and I learned respect. And that mentality really helped me to, like, get in touch with my miscarriage and get in touch with death. And so did you do I mean, did you feel like you were, like, able to take whatever outcome happened, like you were just willing to be open to whatever the, the path was of, of your children's past, that's for sure.
00;53;01;25 - 00;53;32;27
Unknown
And that's where the, the, the question of safety comes in too. Right. It's like I know that I'm doing the safest thing because I am a healthy woman with a normal pregnancy. And if my baby passes, I have still done the safest thing possible. But it's so powerful and I mean for sure. And it like the thing about birth for me and the lessons that I learned is that nobody else should ever take the responsibility away from you, and you should never let them.
00;53;32;29 - 00;53;59;23
Unknown
That's your body producing a person regardless of the outcome. And that's your body's biological function and no one else's. And it's no one's business. And even in death, even in miscarriage, like some people would say, you could have done this and this and this. And it's like you people have to understand that babies die at the hands of doctors all the time, and the person who get blamed is the higher power instead of the doctor.
00;53;59;23 - 00;54;20;02
Unknown
And when the when in a home birth, when something happens to the baby, they just blame the mother or the midwife. Is that fair? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And then those poor people are not only having to deal with the the death of their child or the something that happened to the child, but they're also having to deal with being blamed for it.
00;54;20;05 - 00;54;51;22
Unknown
And that's extremely unfair. And it has like I said, it has it ties in with people just frankly being uncomfortable with death and needing to blame. I mean, look at our society and our society and the ground filled with chemicals. Yeah. You bury people in the ground filled with chemicals because we can't wrap our heads around the fact that we need to return to the Earth, because as a modern society, you know, you like gauge how progressive and, and how like higher class the society is by how far away they get from nature.
00;54;51;24 - 00;55;16;24
Unknown
And that's not doing us, it's a very good thing. Oh. Is it? It's so sad. That just, like, is so painful the further. Yeah, it is. And it and especially with birth, because that's the one thing or one of the few things anyway, that brings you back to that ancient brain. And like I said, sometimes it's difficult to, resign that ancient brain.
00;55;16;24 - 00;55;38;25
Unknown
Besides your modern brain, you know, your modern brain gets in the way and says, when I am in pain, I shouldn't be feeling pain. Because I'm a modern person and we don't have to do that anymore. You know, like, for example, you think of this like, way back when, and, like feminism included epidurals. It included having gas and in labor.
00;55;38;25 - 00;56;07;01
Unknown
And they thought that that was a liberating. Well, yeah. I mean, coming out of a patch that said, you know, with religion that they were dirty, slutty little sinners, you know, that to all of a sudden get to and that they were being punished for, you know, the pain of childbirth was, was there like religious punishment of being a dirty woman, you know, and now, you know, in the 50s and birth control and, and getting to say, no, we don't have to feel that anymore.
00;56;07;01 - 00;56;28;18
Unknown
You know, we get to make decisions for ourselves. We don't need this pain, you know, but it's still under the same patriarchal paradigm of even though we're being punished, where we can at least take medicine to alleviate some of that punishment. Yeah. Such a trip, man. That's the last like 100 years it is of birth. And in Western culture is just like, so fascinating.
00;56;28;20 - 00;56;55;22
Unknown
Well, for my grandmother, my grandmother used to work in a mental institution in Toronto way back when. And she told me stories of anybody, any woman that came in that was schizophrenic or had like specific mental illnesses. They would sterilize them against their will. And there you go again, where it's this, you know, you're not good enough. You're not you know, you're not, meant to be a parent deeply.
00;56;55;22 - 00;57;26;10
Unknown
And in taking the fertility away and the power away from women again. And like I, I just can't resign myself to that. And, you know, there are genuine emergencies that require, hospital care. But a normal, healthy pregnancy obviously isn't one of those things. And I wish so bad that we could have a world in which women can make those choices, and if they need that care, they would get it without question and without ridicule or anything.
00;57;26;10 - 00;57;46;27
Unknown
You know, like if you have a mom who needs to transfer to hospital for whatever reason, for her own intuition, or let's just say she has a care provider, that isn't recognized by the hospital, and that care provider could get in legal trouble for attending. This woman like that is not ideal, obviously, for anyone. I want to keep people healthy.
00;57;46;29 - 00;58;09;17
Unknown
So we have to keep people healthy. Well, that's home. That's what I was saying. Much as we can. That's what I was thinking at the beginning of our conversation around kind of what what led you to your first birth choices? And it's similar to what led me, you know, to be preparing for my first birth, which will also be, you know, this, this free birth outside the obstetrical paradigm.
00;58;09;17 - 00;58;35;15
Unknown
And it's largely it's not that I don't want people there. It's not that I don't want love. And support and all of this stuff. It's that the only systems available in our society, regulated midwifery and and obstetrical care, are so oppressive and so painful. It's sad that there's not this third option of what the traditional birth attendant would be.
00;58;35;15 - 00;58;54;28
Unknown
You know, of someone who is does have medical background, does know how to deal with stuff, but, you know, but also knows how to sit on their hands and doesn't have to be married to the state by their license and put their license before, you know, the individualized care of a mother and baby. And there really isn't that third option, at least in the state that I'm in.
00;58;54;28 - 00;59;20;09
Unknown
And it's it's sad because free birth is a pretty radical option for a lot of women who are cool with the home birth or are cool with the birth center birth. They want nothing to do with the hospital, but then, oh, their baby's breech, they're fucked. They have to go get a C-section. It's like. And the only other option is this pretty radical side of, well, you could just have this breech birth at home with no one around, which honestly would probably be what I did.
00;59;20;09 - 00;59;44;13
Unknown
But that's that's a pretty crazy pill to swallow for most people. You know, it's just. Yeah, I think, the unassisted birth community is sort of like there's there's what you speak of those people that fall between the gaps that don't want a certain thing and or can't access it. Like, you know, there's people who maybe don't have health care and they say, I can't afford this.
00;59;44;13 - 01;00;05;03
Unknown
I'm not going. I kind of want some support, but I can't afford it. And so they decide to do it that way. Or there's people who have trauma from the hospital and feel like they still need support, but can't go to an unsafe space. And then there's people sort of like me or I don't fit into that. I think even like in Canada, everything is paid for, right?
01;00;05;03 - 01;00;41;27
Unknown
So it wouldn't be a financial issue. And like, I could probably find an attendant here who works underground, right? Somebody who who because women are awesome like that. Because there will always be people going against the grain and doing the right thing versus the legal thing. And I could probably find that, but I really needed to not. And I think that's kind of where I think lumping everyone in, to that sort of like there is no options there for free birth is like maybe not 100% true, although it is an option.
01;00;41;27 - 01;01;11;25
Unknown
It's like some people just really like to be with their families, and that needs to be a legitimate, respected option, you know, 100%. Oh my gosh, of course. Yeah. It's it's yeah, there's just, you know, because it is this default model that is so, you know, put on a pedestal and been so, brainwashed into us. Any other choices seem like they're crazy and dangerous when.
01;01;11;25 - 01;01;27;13
Unknown
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I work with, you know, I used to work with Orthodox Jewish people and in Los Angeles who just, you know, wanted to be at home with their families. They're very private people. And, and, and, you know, it can be complicated with all of the holidays and all of the, the stuff that they have to do.
01;01;27;13 - 01;02;10;22
Unknown
It just is easier to just be at home with their family, especially when they're on their six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11, 12 kid. You know. Exactly, absolutely. And and it's unfortunate too, that like, some people go to free birth after being traumatized because that's also a thing, right? Where a mom gets pregnant, goes through all the hoops, with the hospital, has an abstract obstetric medicalized birth, is traumatized by it, and chooses next time to have an unassisted birth or a midwife assisted birth at home or something to alleviate the fear of having birth in the hospital, and that it saddens me because it wasn't my experience.
01;02;10;26 - 01;02;34;08
Unknown
I chose that first off, and it's sucks that so many women come to that afterwards. Like, I wish that we could make these choices not out of a reaction prevent anything bad that happened. Yeah. Like if we could make our choices like, like offensively and says defensively, that's what I wish for every, well, nothing. You know, nothing about, nothing about our society works that way.
01;02;34;08 - 01;03;02;26
Unknown
You know, like for no one's trying to prevent alcoholism. We're just setting up AA chapters everywhere. You know, like one of my, one of my most favorite, little fables that I learned when I was in India was, the story that was told in this town that I was in, where they said, you know, this is as like an example of what's wrong with society is they said, you know, there's this story in our town of all of these cows are jumping off this bridge, and it's all of our village's cows.
01;03;02;26 - 01;03;19;07
Unknown
So they're very valuable to us. And we realize all of these cows are walking up to this bridge and they're jumping to their death. And so the whole village gets together and says, well, what can we do? Well, okay, we can make trampolines. You know, we can figure out ways to catch the cows. We can resuscitate the cows once they've fallen.
01;03;19;09 - 01;03;43;08
Unknown
And so they're all scratching their head trying to figure out what to do at the bottom. Once the cows have jumped. And the problem is, nobody is going up to the bridge and figuring out why the cows are jumping and trying to get the cows to actually not jump, you know? And I love that because that that just is so telling of how we approach things in our society that it's like you said, it's all this reactive defensive response.
01;03;43;08 - 01;04;07;06
Unknown
And, and birth is it's exactly that. I mean, how many women do we work with who have been so traumatized in the obstetrical model? And that's how they're finding their way to midwifery care. And yeah, it's absolutely it's sad. It's really sad. Yeah. And it's also like you have all these women who are reacting out of like, fear and all these things.
01;04;07;06 - 01;04;35;00
Unknown
And, and then it's like for me anyway, as like, doula and somebody who sits with this, a lot of women during their birth, like that stuff plays out in their birth too, you know, like the point in which they got, you know, a obstetric assaulted comes out in their birth and it's like, this is the part that I think is annoying to me about people who are against free birth, or they're against home birth because they think it's dangerous.
01;04;35;02 - 01;05;04;10
Unknown
They believe that you're literally arguing a side of politics or arguing some thing that doesn't matter, but it really does matter. Like if you are a woman giving birth to a baby boy, think about what that does to that boy. He is now birth. He has been birthed and accepted by his mother and is born looking into the face of an empowered woman.
01;05;04;13 - 01;05;23;16
Unknown
Right? What does that do for the future? Like what does that do? Why do we have so many shitty people wandering around doing terrible things to each other we're born out of? I wish I could go well, sure. And I wish I could go back to each one of those people and ask how they were born, because it matters.
01;05;23;23 - 01;05;56;00
Unknown
This isn't like some debate over, you know, left or right, or who wants to have this kind of rights or this kind of it's like, this is exactly what we need to be talking about in order to change the crappy paradigm that we're stuck in. I mean, like, birth sets someone up for their entire life. That first hour after birth, in the few moments after birth, there is never a time in a baby's in a person's life that their limbic system is being changed that much.
01;05;56;00 - 01;06;19;11
Unknown
It's being imprinted for the capacity to love for their entire lives. It's being imprinted for their capacity to trust and respect for their entire lives. And if that doesn't matter, then what does? Yeah, right. And so sad. I hear you, girl. It's nice talking to you because I feel like I don't even have to talk because you say all the stuff that I say all the time.
01;06;19;13 - 01;06;39;03
Unknown
I just feel I appreciate. Oh, we're in an echo chamber. That's true. Hey, it's kind of nice to go to one of those every now. Well, we got to round on them and say suitcase. Yes. All right. We got to wrap up. But thank you so much. This has been really fun to record and to connect with you.
01;06;39;03 - 01;07;01;08
Unknown
And it's so it's so helpful for me, you know, to connect to other women of, of these like minded themes. And I just have so much respect for you. And I'm so impressed by your maternal wisdom and the choices that you've made. And so fun to hear all your stories. So thank you so much. Oh thank you. It was awesome.
01;07;01;11 - 01;07;19;17
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. All right. Have a good day okay. Yeah. Right. That's it for today. Everyone. Join us next week for another episode of the Rebirth podcast. Thanks for joining us. And remember your body your choice. Lots of love.
