00;00;04;08 - 00;00;31;17
Unknown
Welcome to Free Birth Society. I'm Emilee Saldaya, and this is where we break the spell of medicalized birth. Remember what's been forgotten and rise together into our birthright to live birth and mother as sovereign women. All right. Welcome, Amelia. I'm excited to have you here from Colorado, but currently calling in from Wisconsin. Welcome. Thank you, thank you, thank you. So honored to be here.
00;00;31;20 - 00;00;56;24
Unknown
I'm excited to hear your stories in their entirety as much as we have time for, because I know you have four big stories, and it's just been such a joy to have you in MMI this year. And you know, you've had this like whole you've had this whole process of birthing your business and attending sovereign birth and mothering your for children.
00;00;56;24 - 00;01;37;25
Unknown
So yeah, excited to drop in with you. Likewise. So take us wherever you want. You know, who are you before you become a mom and and take us into the choices that shape that first story. All right. Well, I am born and raised in Puerto Rico, and I have always been erotic thinker. And I always, you know, I kind of abandoned my schooling in high school and just knew that it was a false programing that was happening and have always had this deep gut feeling of something deeper in this realm and something deeper in nature.
00;01;38;00 - 00;02;11;15
Unknown
So I was I've always been like that. So I traveled quite a bit and then landed in California, and I was living in California for some time, and that's where I met the father of my first child. And that relationship was a struggle, to say the very least. To simplify. It was beauty woven with challenge. And in that relationship, I had to just be initiated into understanding really what my yeses and my nose were.
00;02;11;15 - 00;02;40;05
Unknown
And I said yes a lot when I really deep down Mendenhall. And so he was very he was an abusive but he was just like on loyal and it was chaos and I kept staying in it. And there were lessons, deep lessons woven in there, which I needed desperately at that time from trauma in my childhood that had led me to this pattern, and that was the awakening I needed.
00;02;40;06 - 00;03;05;01
Unknown
And I said yes, one final time, and I got pregnant. And and I knew instantly, instantly, within the sensations, I felt like a wind come through me and in my as I'm having an intimate relationship in my mind, my actual thought was something just came in and I was right. And then God, because I love her so much.
00;03;05;05 - 00;03;27;02
Unknown
So I was stayed in in the attempts of that relationship until I was six months pregnant. And then at that point I was like, this is I'm done. I'm not going to waste my time here. I'm going to go have my baby. He didn't want to be part of it. He didn't want me to have. It was like a whole drama, drama, drama, drama story.
00;03;27;04 - 00;03;49;08
Unknown
And so at six months pregnant, I said goodbye. And I went back to Puerto Rico to give birth with my mom and my sisters in my homeland. And I was aiming to have a free birth in a cabin in the woods, like far away from everything. Because I knew in my system that birth was a natural thing and that I could do it.
00;03;49;08 - 00;04;05;24
Unknown
And I didn't fear it at all. 24 years old and I just trusted it completely. It wasn't even a thought I didn't even have a thought of, like, I need to be close to anything. So I got ready in a cabin in the woods. I had everything I needed, what I thought I needed at that time. Okay, wait wait wait wait wait wait.
00;04;05;25 - 00;04;28;01
Unknown
So what? So at 24, which is how old? Your daughter. She's just turned 14 yesterday. 2011? You did like. Did you know the word free birth? Like what? What is your right? Yeah, I would imagine not. So you're just. It was I stood birth back then like that's it. And so how did you even get this idea and how did your family arrange around it?
00;04;28;02 - 00;04;49;08
Unknown
How did you find this random cabin in the woods? Like, I need more context. Okay, so the idea came from just knowing in my heart that the allopathic system was nonsense and that it had nothing for me. I just knew it. I didn't grow up with doing the gynecologist or going to like, checkups. Like I didn't grow up like that.
00;04;49;08 - 00;05;10;09
Unknown
It's Puerto Rico, like you just like drink a tea in the plant from the like. It's you have a cold, like, okay, tough luck. And we just play in the rain like we continue on. So thankfully I wasn't raised like that, which led me to feel really comfortable in my body and with whatever came up. And then my sister owned land where that cabin was.
00;05;10;09 - 00;05;35;13
Unknown
So she was my my source to live there. And so you never did you ever see a doctor in your pregnancy? I did once because I was told I had a lot of midwife friends who were learning midwifery, who weren't licensed and were in their beginning journeys, and I was told that for having an unassisted birth, that when you wanted to register your child that they would give you a really hard time and make it really difficult.
00;05;35;14 - 00;05;56;25
Unknown
So having proof of pregnancy was highly recommended. So I did one blood test, one ultrasound, okay. And just had that in my record and that was it. And so I had everything ready in this cabin to birth there. That was the plan. And at 37 weeks we went to the city to gather supplies. And I felt my first sensation.
00;05;56;25 - 00;06;22;28
Unknown
And at that point we were two hours away. And it's like a trek in the up the mountain to get to this cabin. So we were staying at a friend's house, these two bachelors who were just wonderful friends, who let us stay in their house that night. And it was 11 p.m. and I felt my first sensations. And I told my friend, I woke up my sister and told her it was happening.
00;06;23;00 - 00;06;45;26
Unknown
And then we woke up our friend, and then it just kind of kicked in really quickly, like it was a six hour birth total. So it at 11 p.m. and she was born right in the morning. So it was pretty quick, everything. So I was feeling pretty intense when I was waking everybody up. And I was like, there's no way I can check up that mountain.
00;06;45;27 - 00;07;06;00
Unknown
There's just no way, like, I can't even get in this car. I don't even want to think about a car. And so the friend was like I said to the friend, like, how do you feel if we birth here? Thank God. And he was like, totally down for it. So they're like, neither down these two bachelor dudes like.
00;07;06;02 - 00;07;08;16
Unknown
Yeah.
00;07;08;19 - 00;07;31;23
Unknown
They gave me a lot of space and a lot of privacy. But what's really interesting is that this man who was like just a super dear friend, like his touch would just feel so soothing to me and so interesting cosmic way. He just fulfilled the masculine presence that was absent in my story. And every time he would even just like a hand, like my body would surrender.
00;07;31;23 - 00;07;54;04
Unknown
And it was just this cosmic fulfillment that happened. And he wasn't he wasn't an intimate companion at all. So I birth in his bathtub, and there was just this one moment where I was in one of the, like, the guest room where we were staying in, and there was this tapestry that took the whole entire wall, and it had this lion with this lioness just sitting there like fierce look.
00;07;54;05 - 00;08;15;20
Unknown
And I was just sitting there in the beginning of the journey, just looking at this lioness and thinking, okay, this is my primal moment. I'm going to become this lioness. And then I went and got hot and went into the shower and Puerto Rico in July and was in the shower. And then I couldn't stand anymore. So I filled the bathtub.
00;08;15;26 - 00;08;37;07
Unknown
And then I was there for the majority of it. And then my sister, which I don't remember if I had agreed to or not. And it doesn't even matter. I was in my own universe, and my sister was speaking on the phone with my midwife friends, which weren't planned to attend or anything, but they were the just in case.
00;08;37;07 - 00;09;02;00
Unknown
And there I was, 37 weeks I was in this random house. My sister called them and they came. And super sweet woman who I loved. And she came and she thought that the water was really gross looking. And so she said that I had to come out of the water, which was insanely difficult for me, and I couldn't get up.
00;09;02;01 - 00;09;20;04
Unknown
And so my friend, the male friend helped me get up. And so I got out of the bath. I know that's an odd request now in retrospect. So I got up and I, I was going to walk to the guest room, and then I took a few steps and I felt down and I could feel the tip of her head.
00;09;20;04 - 00;09;45;12
Unknown
And I said, I'm not walking anywhere. And I backed up and I sat at the edge of the bathtub, and she wanted to she's like, pulled the Doppler out and she wanted to hear the heart. And right then the head came out. So she just dropped the Doppler like, never touched me. And then the head came out and she popped out and she just put her hands and caught her because I was sitting at the edge of the bathtub, she would have just hit the bathroom floor.
00;09;45;13 - 00;10;12;02
Unknown
Nothing wrong. Of course, but she caught her and passed her straight to me. And she was here. And it was the most beautiful, simple six hours and 24 year old me was just awakened and initiated to have a daughter in this bachelor's house. That was so funny. And then I was there for a couple of days, and then I migrated back to my mom's house and the placenta came.
00;10;12;03 - 00;10;37;28
Unknown
Oh, one interesting detail of this story I'll retract is that I tore and the midwife student midwives at that point. Now they're very experienced. They thought that I had toured a lot. They were alarmed. And then they sent me. They said I should go to a gynecologist to get stitched. At that point, I didn't know much about midwifery.
00;10;37;28 - 00;10;56;29
Unknown
I was just the rebellious, like, I'm going to do things the natural way at all cost. In everything in my life. The way I ate, the way I dressed, the way I what I was in relationship with was all natural things. So I went to this gynecologist and I was in the waiting room, just waiting and waiting and waiting.
00;10;57;01 - 00;11;19;14
Unknown
My sister was in the car with my newborn because I didn't want to bring my newborn into this office. And I was like, oh my God. Get me out of this office. And then they gone to colleges looks and he's like, you're fine, you can go home. So silly, so silly. So then I left and went to my mountain cabin and was there with my newborn baby, just me and my sister.
00;11;19;16 - 00;11;40;02
Unknown
And I was really beautiful and and wonderful time in Puerto Rico raising her. And I was there in Puerto Rico until she was 11 months old. And then I had a dear sister in Colorado. And I knew that Puerto Rico is not the place where I want to live and be. It's just like it moves at a really busy pace that I didn't I don't move at.
00;11;40;05 - 00;12;02;23
Unknown
So I wanted to relocate to Colorado. So I moved in with this friend and I flew away with me and my daughter. And when I went to Colorado, I had this gut feeling because I'm very intuitive and I had this gut feeling, I'm going to meet someone there. This is I meant to go there, and I was there for a year, and it was a kind of an interesting journey of trying to figure out if that was meant to be there or not.
00;12;02;23 - 00;12;23;08
Unknown
And I was at the edge of leaving. And then I met my companion at a watering hole, and it was just the most beautiful love at sight moment. And we've been together since. And then we conceived three more after wait. Like a watering hole, like a place to swim. Like a place to gather. Like a well spigot to gather water.
00;12;23;14 - 00;12;39;16
Unknown
That's so cute. From a well you just, like, would go hang out at this well, which I didn't even need water. I was like, what? What era are you from?
00;12;39;18 - 00;13;01;10
Unknown
No, I'm trying to, like, shorten the stories, but basically we do a lot of it of American ceremonies. And my friend had met him at a ceremony, and so she had just with medicine. So she had seen my energy around him during the ceremony. And this is a friend that I have been in relationship for over 15 years.
00;13;01;10 - 00;13;19;01
Unknown
She knows me really, really well and I've lived many places, so she kept seeing me next to him. And so then she told me, you got to meet this man and you got to meet this man. You got this man. And so then we were at a restaurant and I saw him and she said, he's here. And it was just like a glitch.
00;13;19;03 - 00;13;41;29
Unknown
He was getting food and it was just a glimpse. And in that glimpse, I, like, scanned his whole self. And in my mind I was like, that's it. That's him. That was my instant, instant thought. So then I was about I was thinking I had to leave this place in Colorado. And I came back into town and I kept seeing a hawk and another hawk and another hawk and another hawk.
00;13;42;00 - 00;13;57;22
Unknown
And to me, the animals all have a story. I'll have a meaning. So I was like, okay, my attention is here. What? What am I supposed to pay attention to? That's the messenger. And so I drove into town and I was like, okay, he's here. And I drove up. And then it was, no, he's not here. And then I drove down.
00;13;57;22 - 00;14;16;21
Unknown
And then I saw him in the watering hole and I was like, I need water, I'll get water, which I didn't need. And I reached out to him and I spoke to him there in that moment. And we've been together since it's been 12 years now. Do you remember, like what you said to him? I was like, hot.
00;14;16;24 - 00;14;50;13
Unknown
I said, I said, my friend told me about this ceremony that you were in and high. Such a dork. But that was it. We just talked for like four hours right there. And I had my daughter and we were just madly in love. So we were together then for like three months, and I quickly moved in with him to his teepee after that, because I was homeless and he was technically kind of homeless, but he had a TB that he lived in on this land where we did ceremonies and we moved in with him.
00;14;50;13 - 00;15;11;25
Unknown
And at three months I got pregnant. Wow. With my second. So we were three months in and but we were just the type of people we just like dive straight to the core. So there's it was perfect timing. And so then I had already experienced birth once, so I knew what it was like. I knew what my body was, would do.
00;15;11;25 - 00;15;36;20
Unknown
I knew what the type of person in my mind I am with those sensations. So then we free birth the second one and we took a little bit of. There was a radical midwife in this area, and she did a couple lessons with us of what to do if he's blue, or how to rub your baby a little bit, or what to do with the placenta.
00;15;36;21 - 00;16;01;00
Unknown
If x, Y, or Z happens, I should just give us a little bit of unassisted guidelines that just built a little bit more confidence. And we did it. We did it in a teepee. And I felt this one with my first. I didn't have like this whole earlier stage. It was like that earlier stage or the prodromal ish zone was really short with this one.
00;16;01;00 - 00;16;26;07
Unknown
It was all day long. Then I was feeling sensations and then it really kicked in at midnight and I told my husband, this is it, this is the day. And this was right at 40 weeks. And he's like, okay, I'll be right back. And then he goes off and brings like a buffalo skull and all this stuff and like, sets up this whole big altar.
00;16;26;07 - 00;16;45;02
Unknown
And, you know, we do native things. So it loads his pipe and he just makes this whole entire altar and he's like, okay, we're ready. And I was like, great. And I'll get a bucket of water. And so we laid out some things to birth on, and all we had was a bucket of water, no fancy nothing, no fancy scissors, nothing.
00;16;45;03 - 00;17;04;07
Unknown
It was just some blankets on the ground in this teepee. And it's a basket of baby clothes on the side. And I burned right there on the ground. I'm a very stationary birther. Like I don't roam all over the place trying to look for Linux and find the comfort. It's like, I just, like, plant myself somewhere and that's it.
00;17;04;09 - 00;17;23;24
Unknown
So I sat on, on the ground there and rode the waves and at the edge of the bed, and my daughter was on the bed and I had a friend, an elder friend, sit with her there because she was three at the time, and I didn't want her to just sit there alone. And so she sat at the edge of the bed with her and just watched and listened and laughed at me, complaining about my butt.
00;17;23;24 - 00;17;49;19
Unknown
And and he was born, and he was born super blue, like an but like so blue. And it was perfect and it was beautiful. And we rubbed him a little bit in his color shifted. And no, there was no suction. There wasn't. It was just him in our arms, just me and my husband. He caught him and passed him quickly to me and born right there.
00;17;49;23 - 00;18;15;01
Unknown
Super beautiful. A son. What was it like to be pregnant? Living in a teepee. Wonderfully chaotic and challenging. I mean, it was totally off grid. And I mean, at this point it's almost 11 years, so there's like, blurriness around it. But we had a little trailer on the side that had like the kitchen, and it was a really tiny trailer that we gutted and then remade ourselves.
00;18;15;01 - 00;18;37;14
Unknown
And we put a wood stove and, you know, pretty ghetto, honestly, with like, whatever random piece we could find. But it worked and it was great. And so we had the kitchen there and then the teepee. And then we felt like through the winter we were didn't do the winter okay. Like we did a bit in the winter until my son was probably like six months.
00;18;37;17 - 00;19;05;17
Unknown
And then we got a rental, and then we were in a rental for another few months. And then we were very honored and blessed by help with from amazing parents and helped us get a house. Cool. How does that birth and start of this family shape you at this point? Well, the first one was like my my grand initiation, like into at least a layer.
00;19;05;18 - 00;19;36;27
Unknown
Like they all have initiated me into different layers. But my first was this huge, big pull into who am I in this life? What is my power? What is my individuality? What is my yes, like I am done saying no from this. Like childhood trauma where allow things to happen to me and just freeze. And so birthing her was like the big catalyst to claiming my path in this time, and then meeting him and carving a family together.
00;19;36;27 - 00;20;06;11
Unknown
He was my answer prayer, because I was a single mom with a two year old and and I knew in my heart that that wasn't my path. My path was my family. My path was my beloved. I knew it in my guts. So I prayed and prayed for my beloved to find to find him. And so we I did, and we found each other, and we birthed the son and and prayed and continued praying and doing ceremonies for our life at that point was very ceremonial.
00;20;06;13 - 00;20;42;21
Unknown
He is a dancer, and we did Native American teepee ceremonies and salt lodges. I did sweat lodges, pregnant and and ceremonies pregnant. And so at that point in time, like I wasn't the person, I was 24 years old getting pregnant in this chaotic relationship in California. I was Colorado version of like doing, doing ceremonies and tending to the hearth all the time and having two children and a companion, the loyal companion who were were still finding each other because we were only together for three months before we got pregnant again.
00;20;42;26 - 00;21;03;16
Unknown
So, you know, all that dynamic was there of learning who we are and who we are to each other and grounding into a family of four. And so we took a pause there and it was really nice too. They played together all the time. They were best buds, like it was wonderful. It was so easy to have to.
00;21;03;18 - 00;21;27;23
Unknown
So there's a big gap between my first two and my second two, which now in respect, like there was fear to have a third. There was even a little bit of ideas of like, oh, two of the girl and the boy. That's perfect. And then three is maybe too much like these weird little like stories in my mind that now, in retrospect, I would have had like ten kids at this point if I hadn't let go of that sooner.
00;21;27;25 - 00;21;52;25
Unknown
So my I got pregnant with our third when my first was nine and my second was seven. And here's where the story kind of shifts in an interesting way. And at that point, I had already trained as a doula. I was really diving deep in my mind of the path of midwifery and serving women in that way. I had done women's ceremonies for a long time and blessing ways.
00;21;52;26 - 00;22;22;20
Unknown
At that point, I had done a lot of blessing ways, and so I was already really, really deeply woven with working with women in ritualistic ways and in ceremonial ways. And I felt the pole and the call to midwifery. And so in my humble Puerto Rican poor mind, I thought, well, the best way I could learn about midwifery is I'll hire a midwife myself and I'll be the guinea pig, and I'll learn from receiving that type of support.
00;22;22;21 - 00;22;45;14
Unknown
Plus, I'll say yes to being cared for, which I'm the I'm the like the rock who cares for everyone like. And I never say yes to someone caring for me. So in my mind I thought this was my motive. I'll study midwifery through being served in that way and supported in that way. And I'll say yes to being cared for.
00;22;45;19 - 00;23;09;15
Unknown
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00;23;09;17 - 00;23;29;15
Unknown
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00;23;29;17 - 00;23;55;00
Unknown
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00;23;55;00 - 00;24;21;11
Unknown
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00;24;21;12 - 00;24;47;18
Unknown
Go to Matcha Birth Mentor Institute to learn more and claim your seat. Let's change the world together. One birth, one woman, one community at a time. But this pregnancy and this type of care, and this is like a very dear midwife that I love. And I have assisted her in births multiple times, and she's just very witchy, witchy enough for me to say yes to.
00;24;47;25 - 00;25;13;10
Unknown
But still, it medically minded and reclined as a midwife is. And so that was woven in. And it's not the type of care that I personally thrive in. Some women may need that, but I didn't need that. Now, in retrospect, I didn't need to have like food journals or check my blood pressure so often, or do blood tests or any of that.
00;25;13;10 - 00;25;36;26
Unknown
And I still navigated that with declining a lot of the normal standard care. That just would happen with the midwife at your home. But it's the same kind of allopathic care. So I declined a ton of it and did the absolute minimum, but my blood pressure was all over the place in this pregnancy. At this point, I'm 37, which doesn't matter, but it's just information.
00;25;36;28 - 00;26;04;11
Unknown
And so I developed all. Yeah. And there was all of it. There was the there was the protein in the urine. There was the swollen legs. There was the blood pressure fluctuating all over the place, the whole shebang. I had it. And so that type of care shifted greatly because then blood pressure was being checked more often, like it was.
00;26;04;11 - 00;26;23;08
Unknown
This whole story was there. And at that point, my husband, who was a firefighter, he was hot shot. So he was going along. He would be gone. He would be gone for six months, and you'd be gone for like three weeks and then come for two days and then be gone and again for 3 to 4 weeks, and then come back for two days.
00;26;23;08 - 00;26;48;10
Unknown
So it was it was like that most of the pregnancy, which interestingly enough, in NM learning through MMI with Yolanda, that has to do with like abandonment issues. So who knows what layers were happening there in my psyche of feeling alone. And there's definitely moments that I did feel alone and holding a lot with two kiddos and pregnant.
00;26;48;15 - 00;27;18;00
Unknown
So fast forward into 42 weeks. That's when it started. Labor started, and I had done one final blood test because she wanted to do one final one to make sure everything was good, and we didn't get the results of that until after I had gone into labor, which I'm glad because it would have been a whole other energy potentially in the room I would have.
00;27;18;03 - 00;27;45;12
Unknown
I mean, I'm just the type of person who I'd like. I got to be like passing out dying costume blood out of who knows where to take me to the hospital. So it wouldn't have mattered to me, but it could have been a different energy in the room. So those test results were wild and certain numbers there, which I don't know what any of it meant, but numbers that in the normal pregnant person would be 100 and something I was like in 700.
00;27;45;14 - 00;28;13;25
Unknown
So that would have been a just a different presence in space, and not that she would have induced me or sent me to the hospital to be induced, but it would have potentially been a recommendation. But I went into labor naturally and did my own thing, and she came like around two. And she was born at four. And this was a I didn't know I hadn't seen an ultrasound, what the gender was.
00;28;13;26 - 00;28;37;28
Unknown
And I was so sure that it was a boy because I kept dreaming and dream. And it was a boy and it wasn't, you know, I was so thankfully surprised. And I gave birth and it was just beautiful right there in the living room. And it was in December. So the Christmas tree was up and, and this was another six hour labor just riding the waves there.
00;28;37;28 - 00;29;03;29
Unknown
And again, I'm the type of birther that just kind of gets stationary. Like I had a playlist set up and it was just altars around and my two kids watching, and there's beautiful pictures of them fanning me with feathers and burning sage. And I really love having my children around while I birth. I think it's really beautiful, and I think it's really important for their minds to witness their siblings to be born.
00;29;04;06 - 00;29;38;06
Unknown
So I'm just the type of person that that we wake them up and they come down super excited and and then they witness it and very, very straightforward birth of being there at the edge of the couch and riding the waves and being in the intensity and being in the mystery and being in the wildness and intensity and and surrendering to it as best as, as best as I could in the in the how much it claims the depths of you.
00;29;38;09 - 00;30;01;16
Unknown
And she was born at the edge of the couch. And yeah, there's not major highlights of that birth because it was just so straightforward. Contractions came and a baby came out and the midwife was chill. She just she was like, I mean, she came for a two hours there before baby was born. And what she does is she sets up like her station.
00;30;01;17 - 00;30;26;05
Unknown
She has like a hidden in the corner resuscitation stuff that she has rarely, rarely used, but always brings and sets up. And she had things on the side of me which all of it kind of just disappears. And I'm really good friends with her. So her presence wasn't disturbing in any way with with me, nor were those the gadgets at that point.
00;30;26;06 - 00;30;54;28
Unknown
None of it mattered at that point. You know, I'm in the in the deep waters and none of it in the way I birth. None of it disturbs me because I'm just like, I'm going to birth my baby, and you guys all disappear and I'm in in my whole other zone. And so baby came out and she did at that point, what she really wanted to wipe her her face while the head was coming out.
00;30;55;00 - 00;31;17;05
Unknown
But she couldn't because my, my husband has this prayer that he does when the head is coming out where he puts the palm of his hand right, very gently on the top of the head, and it's this just a prayer that he does of like recognizing his children. And he just gently puts, of course, touches the palm like it's not trying to hold the head or anything.
00;31;17;05 - 00;31;45;14
Unknown
It's just like an, an a and anointment and, and so she was trying to like rub her face, but his hand was there, so she, she couldn't. But my sister was there because I wanted she was with my two kids. And so she recorded, which I had never recorded anything before, any of my birth, or seeing myself birthing before, which I have different mixed feelings about.
00;31;45;15 - 00;32;10;00
Unknown
And and then baby came out and was like, right here. And you can see in the video, which I couldn't tell in the moment because I'm just so in the moment of it. And so in the, in the then I saw and realized that that she was rubbed her and then sectioned with her mouth babies face, which I trusted her so deeply.
00;32;10;00 - 00;32;34;17
Unknown
And I have such a bond with her that I now, in retrospect and through the MMI journey, like it would have been preferred that I did any of that at the in the moment. That was my sister doing what she thought was necessary and it's okay. And she was she was fine, though. She didn't need any of that.
00;32;34;17 - 00;32;56;17
Unknown
She was fine. And she was here and she was in my arms and she was great color, and she was a little purple. And maybe she just didn't breathe right at that, right at that emergency moment. But she did quickly after and she was perfect. But all of those details, you know, I have no regrets. And I learned through all of it.
00;32;56;17 - 00;33;17;24
Unknown
And all of it is woven in this necessary path of choices I've needed to make. And has this happened so it can't be undone? And so I pick what, why, why all the wise I picked them all apart. And all of the things that need to be integrated so I can choose differently or learn from it or grow from it.
00;33;17;25 - 00;33;42;25
Unknown
And so all of that story really showed me one. I don't really need a midwife like that type of midwife. I don't need need that. I didn't need it for that experience, and I didn't need it for any of the other ones. And it was an interesting place to kind of analyze in my mind where I chose that why I welcome welcomed it and why I navigated that path in that way.
00;33;42;28 - 00;34;12;00
Unknown
Maybe it's because my husband was courting and layers there of solitude. There was genuine. What will that space for me? Yeah, but that type of midwifery care is not my personal preference. And it's not what I. It's not what I need. So then my fourth, I was like, no one's coming and we got this. We got it. It's our fourth.
00;34;12;01 - 00;34;34;26
Unknown
Like this is going to be beautifully hours. Yeah. That that journey I taught me taught me a lot with her. And it's interesting like so many women will choose like the first midwife, the first allopathic wild story and then go into this like reclamation. I was like, no, I'm going to burden this bachelor dude's house, and then I'm going to blow birthing a deep sea.
00;34;34;28 - 00;35;05;27
Unknown
And then third one. So a little backwards the way I got the message, but nevertheless I got it and claimed my space. And then the fourth one was like a full claiming. He rocked me to the bones and he really came to with a samurai sword like, oh, you think you got this? Let me teach you a new layer of intensity, or a new layer of the depths of your being that you haven't seen before.
00;35;05;29 - 00;35;28;23
Unknown
So I got pregnant with him. My the same exact pattern as the first two. My daughter was three years old and then a boy came. The first two was to have a three year difference. A girl, then a boy. So that's that's our pattern, I guess. And, you know, pregnant with him. And it was just so beautiful, such a beautiful pregnancy.
00;35;28;23 - 00;35;55;24
Unknown
And all of the pregnancies have their own know. I haven't touched much on that, but they've all had their own nuances of beauty and intensities and beautiful blessing ways and and vomiting and nausea or tons of acid reflux, which is more of my common theme. And just like his dad, which was really rough, nevertheless, he came into this world and I was ready for that whole pregnant adventure.
00;35;55;24 - 00;36;22;11
Unknown
However it needed to happen. And his birth. I give birth at 37 weeks and it was the day before I blessing way, which was like the total cosmic joke for me because I was like, I already had a reputation and I still do the blessing way priestess who had just come, you know, and facilitate the ceremony for women.
00;36;22;11 - 00;36;53;04
Unknown
And I had just the most beautiful, epic plan, like with the fire and honoring ancestors. And it was I had bought a new dress. It was this beautiful plan. And he came that night before and I had to have this moment of morning. Morning. Just so suddenly, the the shift of potentially my lost pregnancy where feel a little our cup feels full with for and morning not being able to do the blessing way which meant so much to me.
00;36;53;05 - 00;37;18;17
Unknown
And I just had this moment before the fire, and I just had to cry it out and let it go. And then I've made some offerings to the fire and welcomed the ceremony as it had to happen. And again, we had our three children. They had this like court on the floor in the living room to witness it all, and our altars and our candles and the music playing.
00;37;18;17 - 00;37;44;22
Unknown
And I had really worked on a playlist for this one throughout the whole pregnancy, just like putting a song aside and and this one was a four hour labor total and that really rocked me. It was just so fast, feeling like very little time to kind of adjust and integrate and just thrown straight into the pit. Just go for it.
00;37;44;22 - 00;38;13;00
Unknown
You got this. And that one was a wild experience in my mind, more than all of the other ones. And with that one, this was right before RBK, actually in 2024. Just a fun little detail art I burned on Friday and RBK started on Monday, and this one just took me in a wild journey in my mind and I requested it from spirit.
00;38;13;00 - 00;38;39;12
Unknown
I prayed about it. I was like, I want to know how deep this well goes. How show me how deep this portal goes of given birth, because I know it's endless and we can navigate it so deeply and so beautifully, and it requires so much surrender and trust. And that portal is so profound, and it can show us so many layers within our hearts and our souls and our path and our psyches.
00;38;39;16 - 00;39;05;16
Unknown
So I knew that, and I felt that. And I heard that call of the deep wells, the deep waters of the womb, what's really capable within our minds and our bodies when we give birth, when we're faced with that threshold of becoming. And so I was in this journey navigating that in my mind throughout the whole pregnancy, welcoming it, welcoming it.
00;39;05;18 - 00;39;33;23
Unknown
And then I saw it. And I didn't see necessarily or claim to see the bottom of the pit or have, you know, profound inside of this, about this portal. But I saw the layers within me given given birth to this, to my fourth. I saw the layers in me that pulled back the layers of me that are scared of my own power, of my own beauty, of my own brilliance in this life.
00;39;33;26 - 00;39;55;08
Unknown
All of the ways that I hold myself back. I saw it, and I would go through the sensations and I would surrender into it. And as I would surrender into it and surrender into the power, I could feel sensations coming through my body, and I could feel my yoni expanding, and I would just breathe it with a super sharp focus inside of myself.
00;39;55;08 - 00;40;22;25
Unknown
And then other moments I would retract and feel the mighty of the power and be like, oh my God, this is too much to hold and hold myself back. And in that flow of like the surrender to it and then the like, whoa ness of it, I caught the message of like, oh, in those moments that you retract and you hold back and you fear it, this is how you hold back in your life.
00;40;22;25 - 00;40;50;08
Unknown
This is how you manifest. Not standing in your power in your life. This is exactly it. This is the the same layer. The same seed in your psyche is was just like a magnifying glass showing it to me. And I would fear it. And I would hold back and I would want to like retract and hide from it and then come back and breathe and feel the surrender and feel the energy moving through my body.
00;40;50;09 - 00;41;01;17
Unknown
Very, very detailed. Feel it all the way through my spine and feel my stomach. And then I would breathe it and it would be this like ancient moan that came through like.
00;41;01;19 - 00;41;34;16
Unknown
And that one really, really showed me all these layers and how I can stand tall in this life and stand in being, being the witch and the wizard and the the medicine woman in a way that I'm, you know, not in an enlightened, superior way, but in a grounded, embodied, present, beautiful way that I'm meant to be in this life and this beautiful son and this birth showed me those layers, and I'm so grateful.
00;41;34;22 - 00;42;05;21
Unknown
And then he was born. Just perfect. And all of my babies have had the cord around their neck, all for which has never been an alarming thing. You just take on, unwind it and continue on. And so I was like, I was sitting back in the corner of the couch and then I, like I did that moment that Yolanda talked about where you raise yourself up, you get this like energy boast, both boost.
00;42;05;21 - 00;42;24;11
Unknown
And so I was doing that and my husband was like, his neck is going because his head was already out, his neck is going crooked. And he said that. And so I just like propped on my, on my knee. And he was just like his neck was a little like that. So he just got a little nervous about it.
00;42;24;11 - 00;42;48;19
Unknown
And so I propped on a knee and I turned. And so then I was kind of on all fours, but on the edge of but on the couch, like, prop differently higher up against the wall. And then he came out, my husband is catching him. And I did the turnaround with my leg over the baby and sat at the edge of the couch, and I just held him and looked at him.
00;42;48;19 - 00;43;10;15
Unknown
At this point, we were really deep in him in mind, really deep in all the beautiful we had already done sister, Morning Star and on these newborn first breaths. And I just looked at him and he was just so beautiful and so perfect, and he wasn't breathing and and I just kissed him and sucked and breathed into his mouth.
00;43;10;15 - 00;43;31;10
Unknown
And it felt beautiful. Like I just I just kissed him and I'm just holding him like this and just looking at him and I. And I rubbed his back just like this, holding. Not like trying to turn him over or anything, just him facing me. And he let out a cry and everybody sighed and relief. And my husband started crying.
00;43;31;10 - 00;44;00;24
Unknown
And it was just this beautiful moment. And. And then I just held him and he was here. It's beautiful. There we go. Oh. For here. That's kind of the I mean, the gist of it all. This is why we this is why we free birth that story, you know, the the ceremony that you allowed birth to be. It just can't happen with medical providers in the room.
00;44;00;24 - 00;44;38;26
Unknown
It just can't, you know, like what you just described with your fourth can only happen in free birth. And that doesn't mean all free birth are like that. Not at all. But I know what you're talking about and that that, you know, we use this term mother led all the time and it's almost diluted. But like really like mother led, you know, the pacing and the the welcoming of him and the, you know, just I'm like, picturing that woman trying to wipe your kid's face while your husband welcomes and praise on this half born baby.
00;44;39;03 - 00;45;10;24
Unknown
And it's just so weird and so disruptive, you know, versus what you described in this, like, family whole beautiful emergence of of your son. Beautiful. Yeah. It's it's I wouldn't have it any other way. And I just love it so much. I love just being in our home and doing doing our weird things and just being uninhibited in that way.
00;45;10;25 - 00;46;00;16
Unknown
It's so precious and so sacred and and so necessary to heal these times, to heal the the disconnect of the domestication that people have from the natural realm. And I find that to be a healing, desperate necessity for us to claim our birth. I know you, you know this very well, but I just feel you in this prayer and this and in this devotion to support this, to for women to claim their births, for all the beautiful, intricate layers that that happens for the humans in their own relationship, for the collective healing that's happening, all the intricate layers, the things we see and the things we don't see if we're not claiming our births, what
00;46;00;16 - 00;46;29;05
Unknown
are we doing? What are we doing? It does not matter. Nothing else matters. Nothing else matters as much as that. It's where it all starts. Yeah. So how has this shaped your clarity around birth work? Who are you now? Will close with that. I am now standing as me who can offer this type of support to other women, which all of my journey has really cemented into my being.
00;46;29;06 - 00;46;58;19
Unknown
That birth is a very natural, very natural. I mean to say very is almost like disrespectful to the birth itself. It's like words kind of limit how natural it is. Like we are biological humans of this earth, just like the trees and the plants, and birth is among that realm. And I have no doubts whatsoever in the birth process or in the human body, the female human body and its capacity to birth.
00;46;58;19 - 00;47;48;20
Unknown
And after doing RBK and then doing this MMI journey, and here at the periphery of its completion and birthing my business and have been supported a recent sovereign birth and, you know, a couple births in a weekend and I just standing proudly in what it means to support women in a sovereign way. And I'm so honored and so grateful to have come to this place and be available in this way, to believe so deeply in the human body and in birth, and in our capacity to claim our sovereignty and our wildness, and to be able to, even if just a little glimpse, transmit that to someone else, even if it's just just a speck that
00;47;48;20 - 00;48;22;29
Unknown
gets transmitted to someone else, then great. That's that's something to claim a spiritual reverence onto this earth and, and help in any possible way alleviate that fragmentation. So that's my prayer. That's where I stand now. That's where I'm passionate for now. That's how I've been shaped by not just the birth, but all the things in between and the pregnancies and the ceremonies and in the mothering of four children and in all the lessons that come woven with just live in our life one day at a time.
00;48;23;05 - 00;48;49;27
Unknown
And all of this beautiful midwifery, schooling and learning from all of the other women, and from you and Yolanda and Sister Morningstar and just I feel so blessed and honored to to be here now and excited that this is just the beginning. This is not some culmination. This is a new chapter and beginning of offering services and and supporting and beautiful here, here, sister, some weirdness.
00;48;49;28 - 00;49;05;23
Unknown
I'm honored you're in the same lineage as me. It feels good. Proud of you. Thank you so much. From the bachelor pad in Puerto Rico at 24.
00;49;05;25 - 00;49;27;04
Unknown
That's a beautiful arc. Awesome. Thank you so much for your time. And we'll make sure to leave in the show notes where women can follow you and find you. And yeah, it's been such a joy to have you travel with us through MMI this year and get to know each other. Thank you so much. All right women, I hope you enjoyed the show today.
00;49;27;04 - 00;49;48;17
Unknown
You can support this podcast by donating to it through the link in the show notes below. And of course leaving an awesome review on whatever platform you listen on. The more reviews, the more visibility the show gets. So let's spread the good word of free birth. Don't forget, you can watch all of my podcast interviews on YouTube and see the women as they tell their birth and power stories.
00;49;48;17 - 00;50;09;21
Unknown
And you will also find our viral free worth collection of epic Raw Birth videos on our YouTube channel. So make sure you're subscribed. We always have a lot going on at Free Birth Society, and you can find out about all of it at Free Birth Society. And I am at Freiburg Society on Instagram. Please opt in to my newsletter below so that you don't miss a thing.
00;50;09;24 - 00;50;35;19
Unknown
We offer courses on free birth, sovereign birth work as well as one on one coaching, women's retreats so much. Our exclusive private vetted membership. The Lighthouse is definitely something to check out. If you were looking for a community of wise sisters to get guidance from and to meet in real life, together we rise. Sisters, we must speak our stories, fully, claim our lives, and support one another.
00;50;35;20 - 00;50;41;18
Unknown
This is the living revolution and I am so grateful to be in it with all of you. Till next time.
