Speaker 0
Into the wild, I'm going into the wild, I am. It's been a wild freedom child since I left my roots back home. Into the wild I'm good. Into the wild I am. It's been a wild freedom child since I left my roots back home.
Speaker 1
Welcome to the Free Birth Society podcast. This is a radical space for women who are ready to celebrate their autonomous choices in birth, motherhood, and beyond. Together, we'll learn about wild birth through personal narrative, we'll explore the politics of birth, and we'll analyze everything that relates to our lives as women from a feminist perspective. Here's your host, Emilee Saldaya.
Speaker 0
It's been a wild freedom check. Since I've left my rules back close. I left my rules
Speaker 2
back home. Yay,
Speaker 3
Austin, Texas. What's up? Welcome to the very first ever live recording of the Free Birth Society podcast. It's an honor to be here. My name is Devonna, and I'll be your emcee for the evening. How are you all feeling? Yes. It's a gift to be here. I first discovered Free Birth Society when I was at the end of my first pregnancy, and I wish that I had found it earlier. I ended up in the hospital with a cesarean birth. I got put to sleep under general anesthesia. I had oxycontin and fentanyl as my pain relievers, And what that did was it was my awakening into my second pregnancy, wild pregnancy, zero tests, zero doctors, no ultrasounds. I didn't take a pregnancy test, and I had a beautiful, blissful birth in the Austin snowpocalypse. Who was here for that? So it was amazing to have prepared to not leave the house because you couldn't leave the house. People were sliding on black ice. So I'm grateful for the work that Emilee is doing, for the Freebird Society community, for the shift in consciousness that is happening on this planet, to return to our roots. And I also did the radical birth keeper school. Do we have any radical birth keepers in the house? Yay. Yes. So thank you all for the work that you're doing. So needed on this planet. So without further ado, let's get the show on the road. It is an honor to introduce you to the fearless, fabulous, fierce, incredible CEO, mama of two, the amazing, beautiful, hilarious, uncancelable,
Speaker 2
unshakable
Speaker 3
Emily Saldea in the house.
Speaker 4
Love you.
Speaker 3
And thank you, Cap City, for having us here. Be sure to check out the merch, order your drinks, and tip your waiters.
Speaker 2
Hi, guys. This is so fun.
Speaker 5
Hi. I saw some of you today. Okay. So every night leading up to this moment right here, I've been coming up with bits. When I fall asleep at night and I can't sleep and I think about this event, I think about how I'm gonna be at a comedy club, and maybe I'll do a bit. I promise my husband on the way here I'm not gonna do a bit. But this will be the first of many, so we're hoping to bring this to lots and lots of cities around the country. Before we get going, I wanna just thank my manager, Steph. Stephanie, she is who came up with this idea, brought this all together. I would never have done this on my own. I have always done this podcast in my pajamas at my home in a very comfortable way. So this is stretching me out of my comfort zone to be in front of all of you and, yeah, get to see what's here to really create all of this together and listen to this woman IRL. And I'm really excited to meet all of you afterwards. Let's give it up for Steph for a real quick minute. Thank you. Alright. So the only teaser I'm gonna give you about this woman is that towards the end, there is a pretty big surprise. You might even call it a double surprise. So stay till the end, please, and hear her story. Please give it up for Kate coming from Houston to tell her story to all of us tonight. Kate, come on out. I love the tissues queued for you. Let's do it, girl. Just settle in.
Speaker 2
I am
Speaker 5
so happy to be here. Nothing weird about telling your birth story to a whole room of strangers.
Speaker 2
Well, I do appreciate the space, and I know that everyone that's gonna be here is, you know, with the movement. So, Are you with the movement? Okay. If not, you gotta
Speaker 4
go. Yeah. You gotta go. Just kidding.
Speaker 2
But, it is it's intimate and sacred to tell our birth stories, so I'm just I'm thankful for the opportunity, the
Speaker 5
opportunity, honestly. Yeah. Your photo caught my eye, which I know we'll be showing at some point. And your story is, you know, really like all birth stories, magnificent and quite straightforward and simple and packed with a couple of really special surprises. So just start us, girl. Start us at the beginning. We're gonna be telling your third pregnancy primarily, but let's go back to third and fourth.
Speaker 2
You don't want me to start with the third one. Right?
Speaker 5
No. No. Start at the very beginning. Who are you when you first get pregnant with your very first child? And give us just an overview. You know, obviously, we have two birth stories to touch on, right?
Speaker 2
Right. Yeah. Okay. So I am thirty three and I have I have a lot of kids now. My first, I was actually just dating my husband for four weeks, and we found out that we were four weeks pregnant. I yeah. Oh my god. We're still together. He's the father of all my children. Don't worry. But, yeah. So it was a shock to us. We were partying a lot, and we had a lot of party friends, so I was the only person to get pregnant and have any children. So I basically did not have any, like, friends that were free birthing or home birthing or anything like that. So I went to the OBGYN. I went to all my appointments. I was a good girl. I took my ten dollar Walmart prenatal vitamins. It just all sounds so weird now, but, yeah. And I had my firstborn son in the hospital. It was a very easy pregnancy. No complications, but at thirty nine weeks, my OB GYN pulled me in and did the typical ultrasound and said that my baby was small and that I should be induced. And so being the woman that I was back then, I said, okay, get this baby out of me. Like, please oh, that's Logan. That's my first baby.
Speaker 5
And did you go right into the induction or did you go home for the weekend?
Speaker 2
No. She let me come back three days later because yeah. It was an emergency. It was not an emergency. But it it in the mind space that I was in back then, like, I didn't know any better. It's it's terrifying. You're like, my baby's small. I gotta get him out of me. Like, I gotta
Speaker 5
I gotta do what's right. And so So at that time, it you really trusted your doctor. You really trusted what they were suggesting.
Speaker 2
Of course. It's a doctor. Went through all this school. You know? Like, that's just yeah. Of course. And so I did everything I was supposed to do, and I showed up for my induction. And, I arrived at nine AM. They started the Pitocin very quickly. The nurse I had to ask for another nurse because she could not get the IV in my arm. My arm was, like, swelling up, and she's like, it's fine. It's fine. I'm like, no. Like, it's this doesn't feel right. I'm swelling. She's like, I'll just get another nurse in. I will never forget that part of
Speaker 5
the birth.
Speaker 2
So, yeah. Pitocin starts kicking in, and I can feel like has has anyone in here, like, been induced? Yes. Okay. So for those of us that, like, have not, bless you, you're lucky, those contractions are not, like, normal contractions. They are brutal, and they don't feel right, and there's, like, not even a way to get through them. Like, breath, it just doesn't work. Well, they're artificial. Yeah. It's it's brutal, and I didn't I didn't know that. And so, of course, course, after, I don't know, eight or nine hours, I'm begging for an epidural because they kicked up, the contractions kicked up. The anis we we went through this. Anesthesiologist.
Speaker 5
You got it.
Speaker 2
Was busy, and so he couldn't come and, administer it for about an hour and a half. I finally get it, and they have you know, they do the side they put you on your sides a couple times. And then after one of the flips, his heart rate, because I'm being continuously monitored, emergency, everyone out of the room, whole bunch of nurses rush in, and I can feel, like, pressure. I'm like, I need to push. And they're like, no, your doctor is not here, not going to be here any time soon, you can't push. I'm like, I'm gonna. I'm going to push, because the baby's right there. And like, I just remember the doctor running in, and basically ripping, like, not ripping the baby out of me, but like, you know, grabbing the head and pulling the head and pulling the baby. But it was all very, very quick. Once that, like, emergency, everyone out, and nurses in the room, it was maybe a fifteen minute thing. Now I know through all my children that I just give birth quickly, I transition very quickly. But again, like, we're not taught about what to look for or anything like that. So, I mean, for all the stories that I've heard and my son my oldest son is nine. So all the stories I've heard from women in the last ten years, I got lucky with my hospital birth. Like, very, very lucky. I'm very well aware of that. And so it was just I mean, I wouldn't
Speaker 5
call it lucky, but it can get a lot worse.
Speaker 2
Yes. Yes. I do think that if I didn't transition as quickly as I do, it would have went to C section, easily. They're telling me not to push a baby out that's right there, the heart rate, the doctor's not there, it's just like, oh, let's do the easy thing, send her to the OR, I'm sure we've got someone here who'll do it, you know? So I'm thankful that I dodged that bullet, but that was no complications. We got to go home.
Speaker 5
And how does it feel for you in those early days as you're learning motherhood and integrating That's hard. You know? Yeah. A birth that you didn't expect. I also didn't ask you before, but what had been your hopes and dreams of that birth? You know, had you thought about that yet?
Speaker 2
No. That wasn't even in my in my realm of consciousness, honestly. It was it was so fear based that it was just, Please let me and this baby live. And that was for a completely healthy, very low risk pregnancy, but that was my mindset. Like, Please just
Speaker 5
let us live. It's the mindset. You know, the bar is survival.
Speaker 2
Yeah. And then, I would say my postpartum after that was is sad. I wasn't taught anything about breastfeeding. Everyone around me was like, oh, just give him a bottle, just give him a bottle, so poor Logan was, he was fed formula, like, right off the bat. And I suffered from post partum depression for probably a year or two, twenty seventeen, two years after that. And it was rough, it was rough. And it also led me to what happened with my next birth, and then birth after that. So I'm grateful for the experience itself, and also I wish that we were taught more.
Speaker 5
Yeah. Taught better. And so how old is your first when you get pregnant with your second? Four. Okay.
Speaker 2
So you have a minute. No. He's three when I get pregnant. They're four years apart. Yeah. And how does this if
Speaker 5
you were to summarize the first two, three years of how you thought about your birth, like, did you relate your postpartum depression to having a birth on drugs?
Speaker 2
Not until after I had my second at home, and it was, like, literally bliss that I was, like, I started to go back and and and go over everything. And I was, like, okay. And I could just piece all of the pieces together because I know myself and I know how I react to certain things. And, yeah, it just all made sense, All of it. Everything that they do and the the standard operating procedures in a hospital, it's just it does not benefit mothers to me.
Speaker 5
How did you start to put those pieces together?
Speaker 2
It was after my second was born, and I was because I had done everything. Comparison. Yeah. It was just it was clear as day. I'm like, oh my gosh. And that's
Speaker 5
what led me to just become so passionate about birth and pregnancy. So at what point with your second do you know you're going to have a home birth?
Speaker 2
Before I get pregnant?
Speaker 5
Yeah. Okay. So it get it becomes on your radar. Oh, yeah. So something prior to that birth, something is in your consciousness going, I want something better.
Speaker 2
Yes. There was two, I would say, like, little catalysts. My oldest started teething, and I was like, okay. He's crying all the time. What do I do? And I'm I'm on Google, like, a first time twenty three year old mom, and it's like, oh, Tylenol. Oh, this. And I'm like, okay. And I just do a quick search of, like, you know, side effects of Tylenol for babies, and it's not like what you wanna see as a mom. And I'm like, okay. There's gotta be something else that's not gonna cause, like, random things in two years with my child. And that just led me down all of the rabbit holes. And yeah, I was just like, okay. Pretty, I can get pretty extreme sometimes, so I was in a mind space of like, whatever they tell me to do, I'm gonna do the opposite. So that was one catalyst. And the other one was, my son's eighteen month well visit. He got his shots and just I I I had, like, this, like, spiritual, just full body, like, chills. I felt very sick. My son was, like, piercing, screaming, and I kept asking the doctor if something was wrong with him because, like, I've never heard my child he's almost two and I've never heard him scream like this before. And they're like, no, he's fine. It's normal. Just take him home. Let him sleep it off. And I'm like, I just you know, like mothers, you know, I'm like, I can feel. I can feel something's wrong. And they're like, no. No. No. And so then I just went down more rabbit holes, and I was like, okay, well, we're done with that too. So it was both of those two things. And then, you know, once you get into these these Facebook groups and talking to other women and people that are on this, like, oh, there's my little second born. You just you get all of this information thrown at you and just whatever intuitively felt right with me is just kind of how I raised my children, but a lot of that did involve stepping away from the system after my first was born.
Speaker 5
So you know you're gonna home birth. Has free birth entered your consciousness yet? It did. Yes.
Speaker 2
So this is my second born, Rowan. At the time that I was pregnant with him, I am so blessed. Every time I've been pregnant, I'm pregnant with my best friend at the time. Like, it's so cool. So my one of my good friends at the time was pregnant, and she was that was her first free birth. She's had two. I think that was her first free birth. And I had a, midwife. And I just I remember just thinking that she was, like, so brave and so just, like, you know, crazy and wild for choosing not having a midwife. Because I have a midwife and I'm going to all my appointments as she's texting me and she's like, what did you do at your appointment today? What did you do? Do they sell a doppler at your midwife's office? Girl, you're crazy. But it was in my it was in my space. I was just not ready yet.
Speaker 5
So what was it like with a midwife? She's obviously a licensed medical midwife, and how does that prenatal care feel to you? And as you head into that second birth,
Speaker 2
is it what's it like? So I was really excited about it at the time. It's this is her with Rowan. That's this is one thing that, like, I didn't know she was gonna do this.
Speaker 5
That's the midwife sticking her finger
Speaker 2
in your baby's mouth. I didn't know that she and she okay. Where do I start with
Speaker 5
this one? Don't look at the picture.
Speaker 2
I was very excited about having a midwife. I was. I had the whole, picture perfect just vision going down in my mind of the water birth and the candles and the music and just everything you see in the cute YouTube videos. And I was very excited about it, our prenatal care. I had I had been leaning a lot into, like, personal growth and development and speaking more in front of, audiences and just really grounding into myself. And so she knew who I was when not not like I didn't have a name, but she knew how I was when I was in her office. I was like, I'm not gonna do this. You're not gonna do this. We're we're gonna do this, you know. And she was very understanding of how adamant I was about certain things. And then so everything is going great. Everything is going perfect. She honors everything I ask for. Like, very I I would do two ultrasounds. I wanted the anatomy scan in the the very first one they have you do, at, like, six or eight weeks or whatever. And then I said no more. I said no cervical checks, and none of the other medical stuff that y'all do or bring or anything like that. Just leave him, like, he's mine. Once he's out, he's mine. And so, yeah, it's frustrating when I see that photo because she knew who I how I was, and I wish that she would have been a little bit more, honest and transparent about the the post birth process. So I would not have been okay with her sticking her bare finger in my newborn's mouth, and then she's like, he has a little bit of a tie. And I'm like, no.
Speaker 5
He doesn't. He didn't. How hip were you to the rules and regulations of your state?
Speaker 2
Not very. Yeah.
Speaker 5
So just
Speaker 2
I just again, I'm in that trusting space. I'm like, well, now I have a midwife and midwives are are with the times. Like, they know people like us, you know? But again, I didn't understand what they were bound to in order to have a license. Yeah. I did I did come to understand at thirty eight weeks when I went into her office, and she requested me to she palpated my belly, like always, and said that baby was breech. And I said, he's not breech. She said, he is breech, I can feel him. Can you sign this affidavit saying that if he's breech when you into labor at your home, you are okay with transferring? And I said no, I'll birth a breech baby. She said, well, I'm not comfortable birthing a breech baby. And I said, well, I am. I'm birthing the baby. And she said, well, then you can find a different midwife to attend your thing. And I said, great, are there any here? Because I already Oh, wait, she didn't call it a thing. Well, I, you know, now I'm getting fired up because this is just like
Speaker 4
It's like,
Speaker 5
that says everything you need to know.
Speaker 2
You know? Maybe she didn't. I don't know.
Speaker 5
Maybe she did.
Speaker 2
She might have. So, yeah. And she's like, can you, you know, maybe you can find a different midwife. And I said, well, we're at thirty eight weeks, and you're fully paid up. So who can do it here? And she said, well, there's only one that's semi comfortable, and even she doesn't want to do it. And I said, okay, what the do we do here? Because I'm not signing your stupid little paper. And she's like, well, there's only one other option, and you can go get an ultrasound right now so I can confirm that he is head down. Okay. Whatever. I'll go.
Speaker 5
If you don't yet have our best selling course, The Complete Guide to Free Birth, then you need to get with the program literally and level up your knowledge base. The complete guide to free birth includes everything we think you need to know to feel confident to choose home birth without medical providers. Over ten thousand women and couples have taken our free birth education course and birthed in power. Grab it now by going to our website at free birth society dot com.
Speaker 2
I'll go. Another hundred dollars out of my pocket because everything with a midwife is out of your pocket. And I go, and she puts the thing right there, and she's like, oh, he is ready. Thank you.
Speaker 5
Well and I wanna add here, because I remember you telling me this when we chatted, another, likely, potentially nefarious agenda happening with this is that in lots of situations, the midwife needs to have a third trimester ultrasound to confirm position for the backup doctor. And so maybe she was being honest and actually felt a breach, or maybe she wasn't, and she was doing what she needed to do in a potential transfer because lots of doctors will not take a transfer without the ultrasound. Also, just to stay in good standing with them, you know, know, lots of obstetricians would like the third trimester ultrasound, so I can't speak to this actual woman, but that is a a play that they play.
Speaker 2
Yeah. And that would make sense given how quickly she wanted me to sign a stupid piece of paper. So, that was a red flag that I was very fired up of fired up about in the moment. And then I went again I love
Speaker 5
your feistiness though.
Speaker 2
And, oh, you have no idea how excited I was to send her that text message right away. And I was like, told you. He's head down and he's ready. Mind you, this is at thirty eight weeks, and my son was born at forty two and a half weeks. It also it it's just so
Speaker 4
I mean,
Speaker 5
duh. But it's just so upsetting. I'm just picturing you in this total integrity breach, you know, after you've walked with her your whole pregnancy, you're feeling stoked, you've paid her a ton of money. This is the woman. This is the space holder that you have worked for several months, you know, to create a relationship with. And then at the end, you know, she she fucks with you. Right? And and just the what that does to the energetic field of your most vulnerable time. It's just so you know, these are the deeper things. Because we're always talking about obstetrical violence and kind of the overt, you know, abuse that happens in the system and and with medical providers. But then there's this really deep Sneaky. Sneaky, really deep wounding between the midwife and the woman, you know, the sister on sister wounding to put this into your field at the end. Yeah. How conscious are you? It like, do you notice disconnect as you head into having her be at your birth? Disconnect as you head into having her be at your birth? Because to me, I would imagine that's real damage.
Speaker 2
Yes. Yes. I was very frustrated with her. And I think that she kind of knew that, but I don't think that she was willing to have the conversation with me about it before the birth. Because I had like, once she brought up the breech thing and the transfer, when everything is going perfectly fine and my baby wasn't born for four and a half weeks after that, I just I had I was you know, it hits a wound and you're just like, alright, you know? So that was really the only red flag during our care, and then, my birth happens very quickly. I wake up in the middle of the night, I'm having contractions immediately, a minute and a half apart. I'm I'm chilling, I'm calling her through it, and she's like, okay, well, I'm gonna come over. It sounds like you're in labor. You know, it's about that time. You're a little late. So she comes over, and by the time she gets over there, I'm not talking anymore. I am, like, fully in it, fully heading towards transition. And my husband filled up my my birth pool with cold water, and so I can't get in it. And I'm like, I am barking at
Speaker 5
the middle of the night. And you guys are still together.
Speaker 2
He's not allowed at the births of our children anymore, as I was saying. But, yeah. So just fun fact, you actually cannot warm up cold water like that. Just do it the other way around and, like, have ice or something, because it's snow. And it was a freak snowstorm night in Las Vegas, so it was freezing. And then that second midwife that, like, legally has to be there, knocks on the door as, like, I'm trying to test out the water and like all this, like, snow blows into my house, and I'm just like, what the fuck is going on? But it was an easy birth. I get in that water once it's warm, and he is born maybe five minutes later. It was beautiful. It was amazing. It was my first natural birth experience from start to finish. And, like, literally, this is, like, minutes after he's born. It was, like, four or five o'clock in the morning, and I'm, like, blissed out. I did not sleep for, like, fifteen hours, and I'm just like, oh my, this is like, you know, there's something that happens with natural birth, and we just are like, oh, it's just life changing. And, yeah. So I would say within this forty eight hour period, I start to go back to my first birth, and I'm like, oh my gosh. Like, what did we do? What did I let happen? You know? But
Speaker 5
yeah. And how did you feel about the midwifery team that supported you in that birth besides the finger
Speaker 2
in the mouth? So it like I said, it was very quick.
Speaker 5
What a cute picture.
Speaker 2
Yeah. So that's that little guy. He's well grown and this is my oldest. And that's my last my last pregnancy. No. So the birth itself, she was great during the birth. One thing I will say is that I was I was barking at everybody and I'm pacing around my house and I'm going crazy. And she looks at me and she's like, I need you to take it down a notch because because you're expending a lot of energy. And I was like, well then, fucking check me because I need to know how long I'm gonna be in this for. And what I wish she would have said to me in that moment is, we've had a lot of talks and you didn't wanna be checked. When you start to feel like this, you're probably close to meeting your baby because I didn't know that. Right. I'm I'm in my experience, you're close to meeting your baby when a team of emergency nurses rush in. You know, like, I don't know what it feels like. But instead, she
Speaker 5
tells me to calm down
Speaker 2
and I tell her then, f you, check me. And she checks me and she's like, oh, look, you're at a ten. And I'm like, you know? Like, let me get in the water then. And so they got the water heated up for me and I get in and he's born right after that. And And the the the care right after his birth was, I mean, at that time, it was more than I could have asked for because of my first experience. But there's a few things I would do differently now, like the finger being one thing. And I I personally don't believe that my babies, because I'm low risk and I am just like, I know I have healthy babies, I don't think that they need to be weighed and measured and, like, touched with cold hands right away because I have it all on video and he's just screaming. Like, he's screaming, and it feels like that, like, just that scream where mama wants to step in and just hold them, you know? And I couldn't because she's gotta do all her stuff. And so I I wish that I would have been given more time to, like, you know, nurse him and calm him down, and then maybe we could have touched on that later. Or if she comes by twenty four hours later for the house visit, I would have appreciated that. But who I was back then and what I was looking for, it was it was beautiful.
Speaker 5
Yeah. Again, I mean, the bar is so low if all we're taught is, you know, how we're treated in the hospital. That's what we hear from our mothers. It's very, very easy to gaslight ourselves when things don't feel quite right in our homes because it's so much better Yes. Theoretically. Yes. And it sounds like in some ways, she was more hands off than your average bear. It doesn't sound like she did.
Speaker 2
She literally would have gotten, like, bit or stabbed by me. Like, she she knew. Like, she
Speaker 5
didn't do active third stage management. She didn't, like, give you pitocin, pull your placenta out, like, the normal
Speaker 2
No. I have I actually, thankfully, because I don't remember much of this part, I'm, like, blissed out, like, just on a high in the video. But I do have, a very long video. I was able to sit there for thirty or forty minutes, and then I started to have contractions, and she said, okay, maybe it's placenta time now. That was never forced on me, which I'm very thankful for.
Speaker 5
Yeah.
Speaker 2
I don't even know what happened with my placenta with my first born. Like, it
Speaker 5
got sold. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like a horrible joke. A horrible truth.
Speaker 2
This is not funny. We could really use math.
Speaker 5
Yeah. Oh, it's true though. It probably got sold. Okay. So you're blissed out. Oh my god. I didn't know birth could be like this. So that would naturally cause assessment, and I assume some grief and and, you know, big feelings reflecting on your first birth, like you referenced. And so then just take us into, because I'm not sure what the age gap is then again with the next pregnancy. Obviously, at some point, you You look like a mermaid. Oh, that's so sweet. Look at them. Obviously, at some point, you get you get this crazy idea.
Speaker 2
It wasn't my idea. What? It wasn't my idea. It was my husband's idea.
Speaker 5
Tell us about it.
Speaker 3
Yeah.
Speaker 2
So, my oldest is nine. Little one is five. So he was four. He was about four and a half when I got pregnant again. And so, we live in Houston, Texas. We have no family out there. And so, when me and my husband were talking about having another baby, it was like, well, you wanna have this big old family out here. We don't have any support. And so we thought we would move to Michigan, where all my family is. So I find out I'm pregnant. Six weeks later, we pack up our house in Texas. We move to Michigan. Because I'm like, well, if I'm pregnant, I gotta find a mid wife. And my husband's like, well, why don't you just do it on your own? I'm like, okay. Well, we'll think about it. We'll talk about it just in case. Let's move so I can be with family.
Speaker 5
Wait. So he just cash says, just do it on your own?
Speaker 2
I wish he was here. He's so casual. Like
Speaker 5
And so Is this just how serious of a suggestion is this? Has he ever heard of any women doing Yeah. Anything oh, wait. Because your homegirl would do it.
Speaker 2
Actually, I didn't even tell you this. Yeah. So my best friend at the time did free birth, and then my sister-in-law, sister-in-law, had a very traumatic first birth. And her second, they tried to highly medicalize her, and she ended up, like, keeping the care up until thirty eight weeks and, like, gave him the middle finger and had their baby in their, like, bathroom by themselves. Nice. So his brother, like, you know, helped deliver that baby too. So, yeah. He's he was dead serious. He was just like, she didn't didn't do anything and you were kinda pissed off at her anyways, so what do
Speaker 4
you think?
Speaker 2
And at the time I was like, okay, I'll consider it. Let me just kinda simmer on this, because that's not something that you wanna just say yes to and then be like, well it's I believe it's something very sacred that gets to come from, like, a hell, hell, hell yes. Because if it's not, I do believe things can go wrong, not from a physical standpoint, but from a a mental or a spiritual standpoint. It's a huge deal.
Speaker 5
Yeah. Any which way you pick.
Speaker 2
Yeah. So he was he was serious. Yeah.
Speaker 5
So you go to Michigan?
Speaker 2
Oh, yeah. We go to Michigan for six weeks. Oh my god. It's terrible. Okay. It's terrible. I I used to live up there, but, when we went up there this this past time, I was so, so depressed. I know part of it was being pregnant, but it was, like, the lack of sunshine. We were up there for six weeks.
Speaker 5
And we ended up But wait, you moved there thinking we're moving here. You bring all your stuff.
Speaker 2
It's a twenty eight foot moving truck on
Speaker 5
the camera. You move there. And then six weeks later, you unmove there.
Speaker 2
Yes. We stay with my mom for six weeks.
Speaker 5
That's intense.
Speaker 2
We have a house under contract. We're clear to close. Two days before our closing date, I call my husband and I'm, like, bawling, and I'm, like, please don't. How do we get out of this? Please don't make me live here. I don't wanna do this. I wanna go back to where the sunshine and it's seventy five degrees every day. Like, please take me back. I can't imagine raising my children here. Like, it's That
Speaker 5
was a hell, hell, hell, hell no. Uh-huh. In your body.
Speaker 2
Yes. Yes. And, like, he's so amazing. Literally anything I ask, he's just like, as you wish. So he's like, okay. And so we tell our realtor we don't want this, and they're like, Well, they could, you know, sue you for lots of money. And we're like, Oh, we buy this house, we're out lots of money anyway. So either way, we're out lots of money. So thankfully we didn't get sued, we pack up, we come back. And at this point, on the drive up to Michigan is when I started, like, religiously playing Freebird Society podcast. Hey. I had heard I had listened to a few, like, my last pregnancy and everything, but, this time, it was just, like I mean, we drove for four days straight up there, and it was just on. Like, every episode. But tell them about your kids.
Speaker 3
If I could find yeah. So they would
Speaker 2
hear, like, the at the beginning of the song, and they're like, mom, another vagina talk? And I'm like, Yeah. So I'm like, Yes. Okay. Another vagina talk, because it's very important I learn about this. And then I said, because that's where the babies come or the bay the the babies come from. I don't
Speaker 5
know which is worse. My dad would always play Alan Watts, which now I can appreciate. He's a famous Yeah. Taoist philosopher, and I grew up every road trip being forced to listen to in your subconscious early. It's perfect. I don't know which would
Speaker 2
be worse. I subconscious early. It's perfect.
Speaker 5
I don't know which would be worse.
Speaker 2
So, yeah, they were not happy about the front butt talks all up to Michigan. But I think they learned a lot. So, yeah, we stayed up there for six weeks. We came back and just more podcast in my ear, and by the time that the six weeks was over, I had tried looking for midwives in Detroit, and just the more that was coming into my space and my consciousness, and the more that I would tune into myself and like my baby and my belly, I'm just like, okay, you know, like, please put someone in my space that will that will serve me like this, you know. No one ever really came into my space except for like, maybe detours to
Speaker 5
this podcast
Speaker 2
or something, but it podcast or something, but it still just ended up back at free birth. So I'm like, okay. Like, let's just do it. And by the time that we got back down to Texas, I think I was seventeen weeks pregnant.
Speaker 5
And what do you choose for your pregnancy in terms of prenatal care? Do you engage in the system at all? You did a test you might wanna tell them about.
Speaker 2
I don't know if this is engaging with the system, but, again, one of my best friends is pregnant at the same time as me and
Speaker 5
That's crazy. It's it's so amazing. Every single time? Every time.
Speaker 2
Yes. It's weird. Like, I have I have a tattoo, a matching tattoo with one of my girlfriends, and we were pregnant together with our first babies. And then my free birth girl for my second baby, and now my Texas best friend for my first
Speaker 5
Oh, different women. Okay. That's less crazy. I thought it was the same woman every single time. I was like, that is wild.
Speaker 2
That would be really, really cool. No. Not that cool. Okay. But yeah. So, I don't know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5
So have you have you at this point I guess you've heard the podcast. Are you doing a wild pregnancy?
Speaker 2
What's technically I have not had an ultrasound. I'm, like, seventeen weeks pregnant. My best friend has me do her gender reveal thing for her, and she's like, please, I need to know what you're having. And I'm like, I'm trying to tune in to my intuition here. Like, let me do this my way. And then, I did feel like I was gonna have my girl finally, and I did really want to, like, prep and just get some clothes and, you know, special stuff like that. Like, we don't have a nursery or or anything, nothing huge like that, but I did want it to be special for her. So I go to CVS and I get a gender test, and it comes back, girl. Simple. Yeah. It does the only thing that I engaged in though. Like, no ultrasounds. Up until the time that I gave birth, there was nothing. I just I knew that I was having a girl and there would be times, like, I'm not I'm not like a robot. There was times that I was terrified and I'm like, am I doing something wrong? Is something wrong with the baby? Like, maybe I should go get an ultrasound. Maybe I should. And every time those thoughts would go through my head, I would just have to kinda sit with myself and and ask myself hard questions like, do you do you feel like something is wrong? Or are you afraid because of everything that's outside and everything that, you know, I've just been conditioned to believe? And most of the time, it was it was always fear. I definitely felt like something was different this pregnancy, like and I thought it was because I was having a girl,
Speaker 5
because there was a lot that was different. So will you speak to your attraction to wild pregnancy? Like, why do it if it's so scary and and, you know, you could just get the ultrasound and they could tell you everything is great and then you don't have to deal with anything at all? Question.
Speaker 2
I would just mainly say because I this is my personal belief, and I don't wanna make anybody wrong, but I just believe that, like, us as humans nowadays, we outsource so much of what makes us powerful and what makes us special to all of these systems. Medical, schools, whatever, we outsource it all, and I just didn't wanna be a part of that. I wanted to experience something different, and I want, like, I just I I just sp like fear spiritually, it felt like if I were to choose anything else, I was choosing fear because that's just how it was for me. Mhmm. And, you know, I just yeah. It was a very spiritual decision for me, for sure.
Speaker 5
And it sounds like you were interested in discovering what a path would feel like
Speaker 2
that wasn't fear led. Yeah. And I was in again, I'm not a robot and I'm not an idiot. I I definitely had to
Speaker 5
We had merch that says that. Yeah. No. Seriously. Not a robot and not an idiot. Free birth society.
Speaker 2
People they they make mothers like us that are so, like, out of the norm to be, like, crazy or, like, we like, we're trying to do something bad. It's like, no. I'm not I'm not a robot. I'm not an idiot. There was times that I was, like, I was terrified.
Speaker 5
Of course. I was literally convinced my baby didn't have a face.
Speaker 2
Okay. Has anyone seen the show Sweet Tooth? It's on Netflix where okay. They have they basically birth, animal, like, hybrid deer baby. I'm like, this is my karma for not you know, I'm like, oh my gosh. And so I did have to you you get to contend with a lot of a lot of really scary things. It's like, what if something happens? What if what if I have a stillbirth? What if something's wrong with my baby? How do you deal with the judgment of people when they're like, well, did you know? Why didn't you get an ultrasound? This is all stuff that I had to contend with, and I was I was willing. I was willing to take it all on because I knew what was possible on the other side of that. And it was magic.
Speaker 5
I can't stop thinking about wondering how many women went in and got ultrasounds after watching Sweet Tooth.
Speaker 4
All of them. Yeah.
Speaker 2
I had nightmares for days. Tell me it's not a deer. I'm like, literally, like, I I had dreams that I was having that, like, deer human baby. And it was like, what the fuck?
Speaker 4
I need to go get an ultrasound.
Speaker 2
That's why we have
Speaker 5
to watch we have to be careful what we watch when
Speaker 4
we're pregnant. Yeah. Seriously.
Speaker 5
Okay. But I really appreciate that and obviously have similar sentiments, wanting to know what's what's in there for me in the mystery and and the magic of not knowing. And it is terrifying at times and I don't think you get out of it. No. You know, I think in some ways, and this is, you know, gonna sound judgier than I mean it, but I do think ultrasound is a cognitive dissonance tool because it gives you an illusion of knowing something that you can't really know. You know, it's very faulty. It's very inaccurate. It's very faulty. And I've seen so many women, be led to believe that their baby was some kind of way because of the surveillance technology that is faulty and and highly inaccurate. And then when their baby is a different kind of way, missing a hand, a boy not a girl, you know, the whole the whole spectrum that occurs, there's there's no space. She hasn't even considered that their her baby could be anything other than what she's been told. Right. You know? Right. And there is something in wild pregnancy. You know, obviously, I can't speak for anyone else, but for myself, and I think it is a common sentiment. The willingness to sit in the mystery, the willingness to contend with the not knowing, as scary as that is, allows you to integrate whatever then happens.
Speaker 2
Yes.
Speaker 5
And sometimes it is clubbed feet. Sometimes it is, a cleft palate. Sometimes it is stillbirth. Sometimes it is, intact, you know, air quotes, normal baby most of the time. But there is something I see in women who choose wild pregnancy that they are more prepared for their baby. Yeah.
Speaker 2
The way you you I mean, you you almost have to be. Right? Or just everyone's fear is gonna come at you and over consume you, and I don't believe that's gonna lead anywhere.
Speaker 5
And But no one no one ever telling you your baby is fine.
Speaker 2
That's one thought that I kept having when I would consider an ultrasound. It's like, why do I need someone to tell me that I'm okay? I feel okay. My baby's kicking. My baby's growing. Like, I was I had the biggest belly I've ever had in my life. Like, everything's fine. Why do I need someone to tell me?
Speaker 5
But I also appreciate desperately wanting someone to tell me. Yeah. You know, I remember my first pregnancy. It was my first pregnancy ever and it was a wild pregnancy and I saw my mom around fifteen, sixteen weeks. And I had this sweet moment with her where, I hadn't, you know, asked anyone. You know, no one could tell me anything about my baby. Right? Wild pregnancy, no one is no one is telling me anything. And I just looked at her and I burst into tears and I said, could you just tell me if there's a baby in there? And she was like, let's find out. And she palpated my my womb and it was my mom, you know, and she palpated my womb and she smiled and she said, I'm pretty sure there's a baby in there. That's so cool.
Speaker 4
And I was like, thank you so much.
Speaker 0
That's so cool.
Speaker 5
But just that that innocence and sweetness and it's so understandable. You want someone to be like, you're doing good. There's a baby. And ideally tell us the baby is okay, which no one actually can do.
Speaker 2
But how cool would that be be if that's like the new norm? You just have your own mom, like Just your own mom palpitating. More merch
Speaker 5
ideas. There's something there. It's gonna be it's gonna be
Speaker 2
it's gonna be it's gonna be it's gonna be
Speaker 5
it's gonna be it's gonna be
Speaker 2
me in the future.
Speaker 5
It's so
Speaker 2
sweet. Yeah. Of course. Should we be so honored?
Speaker 5
Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. So then what happens? You're pregnant. It's a girl. We know it's a girl because of the test. You're feeling good. You're willing to sit in the mystery. You're having moments of fear, but you're really working it as a spiritual practice.
Speaker 2
Yeah. You're happy in Texas. Yeah. Yeah. We moved into, a nice house, and we get settled. It was super weird because when we moved back here at, like, seventeen weeks, my husband, I'm at a park, and my husband's like, oh, I gotta tell you, babe. And I'm like, what? And he's like, we're gonna have twins.
Speaker 5
And I'm like, I'm like, anyways,
Speaker 2
how's your day going at work?
Speaker 5
Yeah. Like, bite your tongue.
Speaker 2
Why would you, like, twins are not a thing in our families. Like, why would you say that? And he says that. And that was one re I was like, maybe I should go get an ultrasound. But I didn't, you know? So but, yeah. So I'm feeling good.
Speaker 5
We're So before you get into the birth, is there do you wanna speak on at all, you know, the the thing that everyone asks women who choose this, what if? Like, how did you navigate the what if within yourself and within your marriage of navigating the what ifs of emergencies, complications? What was your level of education, getting resourced, learning about any of that, you know, just within yourself? And and maybe it wasn't very heady. You know, it's different for everyone. But how did you contend with that? Is there anything to share about that?
Speaker 2
So I'm not a very heady person. I'm more of, like, a feely person. I'm more intuitive. But at the same time, I was in a lot of Facebook groups, and I was asking a lot of questions. I read a lot of books. And for me, like, with anything what if, it was, okay, what if this happens at home? What do we do? What if this happens in the system? What do they do? And which do I believe would benefit me and the baby more? And there's not a lot that that they do there, unless it's, like, a severe, severe, severe emergency. But I do believe that those are rare when you stay out of out of their care. Yeah. You know? Especially as low risk and
Speaker 5
a healthy person. Like, that's just yeah. So anything else you wanna share about the pregnancy before we move into your free birth story?
Speaker 2
I don't know. I don't think so. It was just it was just a normal it's I love what you say on the podcast, and you're just like, you just live your life. You literally just live and that's all I was doing. Yeah. I was just living my life and incorporating being pregnant into that. And so I would make sure that one huge thing that I've accomplished since getting pregnant is that, like, I don't drink coffee first thing in the morning anymore on an empty stomach. I eat, like, a huge breakfast, and then I have my coffee. And I don't know if that's, like, a big thing to anybody else, but it was really big for me. Like, I would just ruin my body and myself and do all jittery and angry and anxious by, like, noon every day. And I'm like, how do I escape this? When I got pregnant, I was like, okay, it's not about me anymore. Like, you can do this for the baby. And I did, and I felt really good for up until about the end of my pregnancy. And then, yeah. I even asked my photographer in these photos. I'm like, Hide my ankles. If I get cankles back in my photos, I'm not paying you. I'm asking for a refund. I'm and yeah. Yeah. I'm sure you
Speaker 5
weren't the first pregnant woman to ever request that. She didn't do a
Speaker 2
very good job of finding her.
Speaker 5
Did you pay?
Speaker 2
I did.
Speaker 5
I did. But you will not be referring her.
Speaker 2
No. Not her, not the midwife, nobody. Just kidding.
Speaker 5
So, start of the birth, what are your first first signs?
Speaker 2
So this is actually tough because, with my first, I went to thirty nine weeks and I was induced, so I feel like I would have gone further. My second, I got to go to forty two weeks. Right. So with this, I'm fully prepared. I'm like, oh, I'll go forty four weeks, Like, I'll do it. I don't care. Love being pregnant. And then thirty two weeks comes around, and I'm like, I don't know if I can do, like, this is just not feel like it has ever felt before. Like, I do not feel okay. Am I getting old? Am I getting, like, too overweight? What is happening here? Because I did not. Like, I was just like, I need a nap. I'm swelling, like, you know? So, I'm monitoring my blood pressure at this point. That was one prenatal care thing I did. And why was that? Because I was starting to swell and I was worried. I've I've definitely, like, listened to the preeclampsia episode, like, fifteen times, just become, like, a little mini expert with her. But, I just wanted to be cautious and just, you know, on my game, just in case. And, so my blood pressure was perfectly fine. I was just swelling a lot. I was very tired. And then when I was thirty five weeks, I woke up in the morning normal, totally normal. And I go to make breakfast and just some, like, lower back pain brings me down to my knees, like, out of nowhere. And I'm like, oh my gosh. Like, what was that? And it's only a minute. Just a minute. And I'm, like, crawling across my kitchen floor to pull myself up on a table because I or on a chair because I cannot stand.
Speaker 5
You just said thirty five?
Speaker 2
Thirty five. Yeah. Weeks. Yeah. So I am yeah. And I sit in the chair for a minute, and it happens, like, another wave of it, and then it just stops for the rest of the day. And I'm like, okay, that was super weird. And, you know, I'm a little cautious here. I'm like, what was that? And then, the day goes on and I'm starting to have more sensations. The night before, I took a bath, and I thought that I was having, like, prodromal labor because it was just, like, tightening after tightening after tightening, but no, like, no pain or anything. It was just, like, I could feel that, like, I'm towards the end of my pregnancy. And so, yeah, the next day after the back pain, I could start to feel a little bit of cramping, in the lower belly, and I'm like, okay. And so I called my husband, he's at work, and I'm super emotional. Like, I am, like, cannot control my emotions, and I'm like, I think I'm gonna have this baby any day. And he's like, what do you mean? What's going on? And he was there for the back pain thing. And so I was like, well, that happened, and now I'm just feeling very, like, crampy, and this is not, like, normal. You know? This is not how I've been feeling.
Speaker 5
Were you scared about how early it was?
Speaker 2
No. Only because, I have, like, read a lot of stories, and I've heard a couple of stories on your podcast of women delivering healthy babies and staying home around thirty three and thirty four weeks. It was not ideal to me, but it wasn't something I was gonna fight, and it certainly was not something I was gonna step into the system for. I live on the highway of a Texas Children's Hospital, so I was very well prepared in any case of an emergency, but I didn't feel, again, like, I'm very intuitive, I didn't feel like something was wrong, I just felt like I could go into labor. And I did. I called my husband around two thirty and I said, I think I'm gonna have this baby today. And he's like, okay, alright. And we're four or five weeks before my due date. And he comes home around four thirty, and this is so ironic, because again, I'm feeling the pajama labor in the bath the night before, so I finally order my birth supplies. I ordered from In His Hands, which is like a midwife online site, and then I ordered the stuff I could from Amazon. Amazon doesn't sell crap for birth, of course. So I had to order everything from the other place, which was like a seven day delivery thing, and so I'm like, oh, I'll be fine. Thirty five weeks. I'm fine. She was not fine. None of my birth supplies were there the next day,
Speaker 5
of course. And it completely proves that you don't need anything.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Like, one hundred thousand percent proves. So, I, yeah, I have no birth supplies. My husband comes home at two thirty in the afternoon. He was like, Go lay down. You did a lot yesterday. Go lay down. Like, maybe that'll make
Speaker 5
you feel better. Okay. He's mellow about the free birth choice.
Speaker 2
He's, like he he is some sort of robot or something because he was way too cool about it.
Speaker 5
He's into it.
Speaker 2
Yeah. I was like, how are you like, I'll tell this part, but I was like, how are you so okay? You know? And so, yeah.
Speaker 5
It's his job to be okay. Yeah.
Speaker 2
It was in that moment. But, yeah. So, four thirty comes around and I'm laying in bed and I just feel, like, very crampy. And I'm like, I cannot get comfortable. I've a lot of women feel like, know that situation when you're like, I just wanted to lay down and I couldn't get comfortable. And then you know, you're like, oh, fuck. Here we go. This is it. Like, this is it. And so I get up and I'm, like, on all fours on my bed and I start to, like, rock around and just try to get comfortable and I feel a pop. And I'm like, okay. I think that might have been my water. My water has never broken naturally. Oh, fun. With my home birth, he it popped as he was crowning. Like, I felt that. It was really cool. This one, and so I reached down to see if my water had broken, and it's, like, trickled with, like, a little bit of blood. And this is where I start to get, like, okay. Alright. This is kind of scary. Mhmm. Why am I bleeding? And so I'm just laboring in my bedroom on all fours, and it's not very intense at all, but like I can feel a lot of pressure. And I'm bleeding, and I'm like, okay, why am I bleeding? This is, like, very alarming to me. I've never bled during labor before. And so I am just trying to keep my cool. My husband is, like, super cool about everything. And I'm just voicing to him, I'm like, I'm so scared. I feel like something is wrong. I feel like I did something wrong. I feel like I'm terrified. Maybe I should have been the system. This is my karma. Like, I am tear like, I am terrified at this point only because of the blood. Like, literally just because of the blood. How much are we talking? I sit on the toilet and I could wipe and, like, the whole thing would be, like, bright red. Okay. But I'm I'm in also in the water and the water's not turning a color. It's staying clear. But when I get out, like, there's there's enough blood to scare you during a free birth, for sure. Mhmm. And so my I'm just like, what do we do? What do we do? What do we do? And he's like, what do you wanna do? And I'm like, well, I just wanna I just wanna know that I'm okay. Are you I'm like, how are you not scared right now? And he's like, would it make you feel better if I'm scared? And I said, no. He's like, okay. Well, I I, like, I can't be that right now for you. And I'm like, okay. And just that, in that moment, I just felt like a wave of, like, calmness and okayness. And I'm like, okay. Alright. Let's figure this out. He's like, let's call a midwife. I'm like, you can't just call fucking midwife for free birthing. And he's like, let's just I don't care. I literally don't give a shit. And so he call he grabs my phone, because I'm like, no. Grabs my phone, he calls the midwife from our second birth and tells her the situation, and she's like, how much blood is baby moving? And I'm like, I've only felt her move a couple times and I'm panicking, which is true. I had only felt her move a couple times, but I'm also in, like, very active labor. And she's like, well, maybe you should go get checked. And then my fear just completely goes, like, from the blood to, like, I don't wanna go to the hospital. I don't wanna go to the hospital. To the hospital. I'm, like, in this little tub, and I'm, like, just leaning over. I'm, like, please no. Please no. Please no. And then he's, like, well, are you okay? I'm, like, no. I'm fucking terrified. You know? It's just, like, this chaotic five minutes. Right? And finally, he's like, okay, I'm gonna take we're gonna just go get an ultrasound, make sure the baby's heartbeat is going, and then we'll leave. And I'm like, well, I'm ready to fight somebody. I'll fucking leave. I don't care. Like, I'm ready to fight someone at the hospital. Just in that energy, you know, like you know you're about to battle. And he literally leaves the bathroom, and we have, like, a small house, like seventeen hundred square feet. He leaves the bathroom, goes to tell my boys who are watching a move my older boys, watching a movie in, the the living room, go get your shoes on. And I'm like, babe, get back in here. And, like, this is the photo he took as he opened the door. Yeah. I was on the toilet, and I I put a t shirt. I had been naked. I put a t shirt on because we're getting ready to, like,
Speaker 0
go to
Speaker 5
the hospital. The hospital transfer t shirt.
Speaker 2
I have nothing either. Yeah. This t shirt smells like blood bleach stains on it. It's like an iconic item in our house now. But this is what he walks into and I'm just like, she's here. And he's just like, oh my gosh. And so I'm holding her, and her cord felt like it was really short. Like, this was about as high as I could lift her up. And I look at my husband, and I'm like, there's still something hard in my belly.
Speaker 5
It's gotta be the placenta.
Speaker 2
He goes, it's the placenta. He's like he's like an OB GYN. He's like, it's a placenta. And I'm like, give me your hand. And I put his hand on my belly, and he's like, oh shit. I said,
Speaker 5
that's a butt. And he's
Speaker 2
just like his whole face. He was like, you know how I told you guys that he said we were gonna have twins? In his face, it was like this mixture of like, oh shit, and like fucking shit. I knew it. And so I'm like, I need you to hold her because I'm starting to get more contractions, like, right away. And you're just with it? What are you gonna do? I
Speaker 0
don't know.
Speaker 5
I could never fit in this situation.
Speaker 2
You barely can't do anything.
Speaker 5
We were on our way to
Speaker 2
the hospital. We were gonna do things the right way. I don't know. Wow.
Speaker 5
So, I guess the integration comes later.
Speaker 2
Yeah. You just Yeah. No. Well, okay. At thirty two weeks, I did feel, like, two sets of hiccups, but I convinced myself that it was, like, not. I was
Speaker 4
like, no.
Speaker 5
No. No. No. No.
Speaker 2
No. And so, yeah. I had a second baby come out after my first, An unexpected second baby. Can we give it up for Kate really quick?
Speaker 5
An unexpected second baby. Can we give it up for Kate really quick? An unexpected second human? Yeah.
Speaker 2
Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 5
They were very small. Very few women on the planet today will have that experience. You know, it's it's quite unusual It was for these times.
Speaker 2
It was really cool. Like, it was crazy. Because, like, again, my husband's so cool that for him and I, it was just like this moment of, like, of course. Like, why wouldn't this happen to us?
Speaker 0
You know what
Speaker 4
I mean?
Speaker 5
And then what was the sex of the second baby?
Speaker 2
Oh my god. He told me right away. So I pull her up and we're like, you know, I'm like, I need you to hold her because I can't, like, the cord is so short. It turns out she had been her cord had been wrapped up behind other baby's placenta or something. I'm not sure. But, it ended up being normal length and so was his. It was two placentas. But, yeah. I mean
Speaker 5
And it was a boy.
Speaker 2
Yeah. And I yeah. I pull him out and immediately, I mean, I'm pulling him out. He's like, it's a boy. And I'm like, what do you mean? Like, Like, it's a boy.
Speaker 5
A CVS gender test was wrong?
Speaker 2
Yes. You guys
Speaker 5
God, I want my money back. The way
Speaker 2
that that test work, it says it on the box, it says on their website, it says everywhere that one, if male DNA is present inside of you, it automatically comes back male. Wrong. It cancels out girl. Okay. Wrong. Two, if there's multiple sets of DNA, it comes back inconclusive. Mm-mm. It came back girl. So I was just like, oh my god. And now people ask me, they're like, oh, I bet you're just never gonna engage in anything anymore. And I'm like, I hope I Hopefully. Yeah. And like, I hope I don't have to.
Speaker 5
So it's baby, then baby Yes. And then placenta, then placenta? Like, tell me about the placental plural birth.
Speaker 2
So I've actually been thinking about this a lot, and I'm curious is what I'm curious about is if with my son who was born second, if Look
Speaker 4
at that. Oh my god.
Speaker 2
If his placenta had, began to almost, like, prematurely detach because that could have explained the bleeding. And immediately after he was born, like, I'm pulling him out and I'm sitting on his placenta. Like, it's out with him.
Speaker 5
How how was he? How was his transition?
Speaker 2
It took him a few minutes. It took him a few minutes. He came out. He wasn't moving, and he was he was not the same color as her. He was, like, a bluish gray color.
Speaker 5
So she was vibrant and red?
Speaker 2
She was scream I mean, you could see her when she came out. She was screaming. And, yeah, when he came out, he was he was he was chilling for a minute, but I just held him close to me. And I had heard stories on your podcast that I had to sit with for a while. I heard one one woman, I think she said it was seventeen or eighteen minutes. Fifteen. And just me trying to tell my husband about that story I had heard, I was crying. I'm like, I don't understand. And that story,
Speaker 5
when we unpacked it with sister Morningstar at our retreat, sister brought up something that it hadn't even occurred to me that it everything that she describes in that birth tracks with a partial abruption. Okay. And so it's interesting that you're suspecting the potential of that.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Because, that back pain that I had had too, that just came out of nowhere, like, I I sometimes I wonder, like, did did that start it? Did I overdo myself the day before? I mean, either way, yeah, he came out and he was not, he wasn't he wasn't awake right away, but he did come too. And what were their birth side, weights? So when we weighed them, I cried. I cried and I cried and I cried. She was three and a half pounds and he was four point one. Wow. And all I wanted at that moment was to just put them back inside of me and, like, grow them more because I'm over here telling everyone. I'm like, I think they're five pounds. I think they're five no. No. And they couldn't even yeah. So that was rough, but they latched right away and,
Speaker 5
and And you stayed at home. I mean, these are
Speaker 2
I guess, in your home. One other thing I wanna say about staying home too because I just found this miraculous, and you and I have talked about this, is Isabelle, my girl that was born first, she was screaming and crying when she came out, but after brother was born, she had, she had had some sort of, like, breathing, humming issue. I think in the system, they would call it, like, respiratory distress.
Speaker 4
Oh my god.
Speaker 2
And I just remember I kept looking at my head.
Speaker 4
They seem fine.
Speaker 2
Yeah. They are. They're huge now. I wish they were here. Like, they're so cute.
Speaker 5
The side smirk.
Speaker 2
He's so good.
Speaker 5
So she showed some
Speaker 2
potential distress. Yes. Yes. She was humming and she was breathing very quickly, and you could tell that she was in a bit of distress, and I just kept telling my husband that I was worried. I was worried, and he's like, I'm not worried about her. And he like, that first picture we had of that he they actually did skin to skin with him, both of them, before with me. Just because of how chaotic the birth was and everything. Then he got that opportunity first.
Speaker 5
How many days until she settled and you were no longer worried about her being
Speaker 2
Oh, it was not days. It might have been thirty minutes. Oh, okay. Which I think is crazy. The only reason I know she had respiratory distress is because I came across a YouTube video Mhmm. That showed another baby in the system, like, with all these things, and it was doing the same thing as her. But we stayed home, and she
Speaker 5
was fine. And there was something about him that you were concerned about as well?
Speaker 2
Just how he came out.
Speaker 5
Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2
Because but I mean yeah. We weren't really concerned about that just because of what I've learned from other women's stories. This was just the other night.
Speaker 5
Right. So how old are they now to catch us up?
Speaker 2
They just turned four months on the seventh. Yeah. And he is like thirteen pounds. So four, eight, twelve, he's he's doing good.
Speaker 5
Steph, how how are we on time? Do we have a minute to talk about the thing that happens next? Yeah. We can just start
Speaker 2
to wrap it up. We got a couple minutes.
Speaker 5
Okay. Cool. Because we have to talk about this next part.
Speaker 2
It just it just keeps getting better.
Speaker 5
It just keeps getting crazier and crazier. So, obviously, I have to first ask, how does one integrate a surprise second baby?
Speaker 2
I'm pretty sure it's gonna take a year. Gotcha. Because we are not
Speaker 5
We're not on our way to four months in.
Speaker 2
No. I'm serious.
Speaker 5
Four months in. I'm serious.
Speaker 2
Like, sometimes I tell people, I'm like, I feel like I've been, like, body napped and I'm living in some, like, alternate reality because it's crazy. Like, we need to get a new car. Right. Right.
Speaker 5
It's just a lot. The practical. There's the just literally having no idea. It's such a big deal.
Speaker 2
Yeah. I think it'll take us a while to fully integrate, but we're doing about as good as we can be.
Speaker 5
Sounds like it. Yeah. Okay. So you have these two babies. One of them is a surprise. Little girl is adjusting well after about thirty minutes. So you guys are all just probably in total shock and awe. Yes. Even even if it had just been one baby. Yeah. You know, still your first free birth. Yeah. Such a big deal. Oh my god. So cute. Super mom.
Speaker 2
That was my first time getting him on the back, so I felt really, like, very accomplished.
Speaker 5
I love the little one and the boy in the back.
Speaker 2
I cannot get a picture of my twins without that guy just like Yeah. So then what happens next? So the day before, I had been very busy because I was prepping a bunch of stuff. We were supposed to get a hurricane. We've lived through a couple hurricanes out there. They've never been too bad. This one happened to be bad. The twins were born on sevenseven at seven PM. So by ten AM the next morning, the hurricane had made its its way up to North Houston, and, I mean, we're thinking trees are gonna snap in the backyard. Thankfully, everything was fine, but we did lose power, and we lost power for four days. Five days.
Speaker 5
Four and five days. And it
Speaker 2
was hot as shit. It did get up to a hundred degrees in my house. Yeah. That's intense. So it was it was that that was very scary. At first, it was fine, because, like, right after the hurricane, the weather was gorgeous. I mean, we opened up all the windows, the power's out, we're fine, you know, like, seventy five, eighty degrees, windy. It was nice. By the next day, it was ninety five degrees in our house. I mean, the floors are, like, slippery. It's so humid. And And I'm worried about the babies at this point because I'm like, okay. Like, I know they're supposed to be warm, but I feel like I'm getting too warm and they're on me. And, you know, thankfully, with them being preemies, like, we got that opportunity to just be naked and warm for a few days. Better hot than cold. Yeah. Yeah. But it did get alarmingly hot and so,
Speaker 5
and just uncomfortable just picturing nursing bleeding postpartum mom.
Speaker 2
I was so disgustingly smelly.
Speaker 5
I was
Speaker 2
like, this is so gross. This is so natural.
Speaker 5
Just like our ancestors. I will
Speaker 2
never forget that smell. I'm just like, oh my gosh. So, but yeah, so that was it was really scary. By the second day, I was in tears and I'm just like, we gotta do something. We didn't have a generator. So I'm like, we have to do something. And it was to the point where there was millions of people in Houston without power, so it was like, We're not getting power back any time soon. It was clear it was gonna be over twenty four hours, which is basically all we had prepared for, which is bad on our part, especially me being pregnant. And we couldn't leave because we didn't have an extra car seat, and we didn't have a car big enough for my whole family at the time. So I'm like, we're literally stranded. So I post on Facebook in this big neighborhood group that we have, and I'm like, I just had surprise twins at home. I have no power. Anyone with restored power, I would love to just, like, rent your generator for money. Like, please. Thankfully, a nice gentleman, he's like, come pick out my generator. So we do. He gives us five gallons of gas, and he, my husband brings it back home, hooks it up, and we start running a fan, and I'm like, this is not enough. Like, I'm like, you're just blowing hot air at me, and I'm like I'm I'm like about to freak out because I've got two babies on me that I don't know how to hold at the same time. I don't know how to nurse at the same time. We're slippery. We're sweaty. I'm like I'm like, I'm this is too much. Yeah. And so, I'm I'm like, you work for an air conditioning company. Can't you go get an AC unit or something? And he's like, oh, yeah. And I'm like, oh, usually you work so much better than this, but I'll give you a pass. So he makes a call at eleven o'clock at night. And at this time, we also don't have cell service. And so he's trying so hard to talk to his boss, and his boss is like, what? I can't hear you. And I'm just like, oh my god. Please. Like, I'm like praying. I'm like, Please, please, please, please, please. We need something. So he goes and picks it up an hour away, waits in line for an hour at a gas station. Finally, at like one AM, gets it there, and we hunker down the six of us for three more days in one little bedroom. And my husband was the only one to leave the bedroom and just, like, make me food and bring me pounds and pounds of food because I was like an animal after having the food. That is
Speaker 5
a true family story. That story needs to get passed down to your grandchildren and that your great grandchildren are gonna be telling this wild birth story in the hurricane.
Speaker 2
I'm super thankful I got to birth my girl in a free birth, because I hope that somehow, some way, this just is like a ripple effect for the future because, like, from me, the generations up, like, it's not there. Yeah. Well, just a couple.
Speaker 5
Yeah. Before, it was all there.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Well, my dad's side of the family, my his mom is adopted, so we don't know like that.
Speaker 5
Well, I mean but we've only been working in the system for a couple generations, so guaranteed Yes. All of our
Speaker 2
What is that? You say you say every woman is an ancestor of a woman who's a reporer somewhere. Right?
Speaker 5
That's true. Yeah. No. Like all of them. Yeah. All of them up until very recently. Literally all of them. So it's a nice thing to think about.
Speaker 2
So we're really not that cool. No.
Speaker 5
It is so cool slash totally totally normal. Right? Yeah. Okay. So I want I would like to close with a question I've been asking everyone on this season. And, yeah, I'd like to know we just have a couple minutes left, but I'd like to know how I know it's only been four months, so you're still really fresh. Like you said, you're four months into what will surely be a year long integration. But can you speak to how free birth wild pregnancy and free birth has changed you as a woman?
Speaker 2
I would just say that I feel more confident, and I just feel more connected to, like, the magic that it is to be a human and a mother. Like, a mother is so special, especially right now on this planet. Like, we have such big work to do, and we have such big things to teach our children, and I just feel honored on a much deeper level. Like, it's like, I feel like with my second, it was just like almost there was a hint of ego behind it. Like, that's why I have that picture with this Born at Home shirt, like that shirt was so important. Everyone had to know he had to be born at home, you know? But now, it's more of just this, like, I don't even know how to explain it. But, yeah, it's it's very powerful. And I hope that, like you said, these stories can just be told for generations to come because I know technology ain't going nowhere, so it's really important that we Yeah. Keep this at the forefront.
Speaker 5
And your story shows such a important and beautiful arc, you know, of what is possible. And, I mean, it's really important, you know, because women will hear your story and still be in their first birth spin like you were. You know? And stories like yours help shorten the path for a lot of women where they can find, aligned, you know, hopefully internal freedom quicker. Yes. You know, knowing that other women are doing it. Yeah.
Speaker 2
And that's how I that's what happened with me. I just listen to other women's stories and it's like she's a woman, I'm a woman. More merch ideas. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5
Well, thank you so much. Let's give it up for Kate. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 3
That's a wrap, y'all. Thank you so much everyone for joining us tonight.
Speaker 5
Thank you. So much. I hope you enjoyed the show today. 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 Sovereign Birth. Don't forget, you can watch our podcast interviews on YouTube and see the women as they tell their birth and power stories. And you'll also find our viral free birth collection of epic raw birth videos on our YouTube. Make sure you're subscribed to our channel. We've always got a lot going on at Free Birth Society, and you can find out all about it at free birth society dot com, at free birth society on Instagram, and opt in to my newsletter below. We offer courses on free birth, authentic midwifery, the blood mysteries, as well as one on one coaching, in person retreats, and of course, our annual women's gathering, the matriarch rising festival. Our exclusive private vetted membership, the lighthouse, is definitely something to check out if you're looking for a community of wise sisters 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. This is the living revolution, and I am so grateful to be in it with all of you. I'll leave you with our gorgeous free birth society theme song, Wild Woman by Aruba Red.
Speaker 6
I honor you for the wisdom you held, the ancient traditions of prince will be honored, Eons upon light beams of survival, withstanding the eradication of our power by design. I will not allow the separation of our young to be forced upon me. My sisters will no longer birth in captivity. The picket line redefined from burning our wild women to paralyzing us and drugging our babes. Strapped down in a clinical white bed, drying up the milk from our breasts, keep your needles. My family will never again be doomed to chase those dragons or your poison. We reject your fear. We choose love. Everything with intention. Death, ascension, I will fly and bring her back from the star.
