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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.
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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.
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It's been a wild freedom check since I've left my rules back home.
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Hi, women. Welcome back for part two of my birth story. This week is going to be all about my postpartum, specifically the first forty days. I have been trying to record this all day, but one of our best friends here free birth to her baby today. Oh my gosh. Such joy. I've been totally wrapped up in that and just got back from seeing this sweet new family of five. And I just love that my sweet sister is beginning her precious postpartum as I am sitting down to record this one on mine. Also, this is the last episode of season six. I will be back with season seven in September, but don't worry if you're hungry for more free birth stories and have already listened to all of the seasons here. Make sure that you're signed up for my newsletter because we email out a new free birth story every single Monday. Wow. Another season complete six seasons that feels big. If you have free birthed and wanna be considered here as a guest, please submit your story on my website at w w w dot free birth society dot com slash story dash submission. And if you are a wise woman who has an interesting conversation to bring to the show please reach out to my team at podcast at free birth society dot com Alright. So the next two things I'm gonna share about before we get going are time sensitive. So if you are listening to this episode past June of twenty twenty three, this isn't going to apply. But we are almost sold out for the twenty twenty three matriarch rising festival. At the time of this recording, it's a month away, and the vibe in the air is just electric. We've done so much this spring to get it all ready for the women and the children that will be arriving. Most exciting is the commercial kitchen that has gone in with the pavilion. It's almost done. The dome is up. The new gorgeous gate is finished. There's a new cleared out spring that you can dip in. I just I can't wait to share all of our hard work for those of you that are coming. And as of right now, we have about twenty five tickets left. So jump on in if you wanna come. We are almost sold out. So matriarch rising festival dot com. Get your ticket, and I will see you oh so soon. Okay. So, secondly, Yolanda and I are doing a fun thing this summer that we've never actually offered before. It's a part of a new program that we're launching this fall called MatraBirth. MatraBirth is a certification program for free birth educators. It's the first of its kind, and we are very confident that it will quickly come to represent the gold standard for truly mother baby centered childbirth education, which really doesn't yet exist. MatraBirth is a childbirth educator program for women who are interested in expanding their offerings to include childbirth education for couples in their communities and online, specifically oriented to home birth outside of the medical system. We've watched the demand for this grow and grow as our radical birthkeeper graduates have spread our work throughout the world. It's something that our grads have been asking for for a long time, and we're just thrilled to begin offering it this coming fall. The program offers a highly structured curriculum and lesson plan that will give you an incredibly straightforward template for teaching that is highly effective, engaging, inspiring, and will also let you, of course, personalize the material to your voice. So it's just gonna be an amazing program for women who want to expand their careers in the birth space. Once you're a certified free birth educator through Free Birth Society's match your birth certification program, you will be on our public directory through our website where we will cross promote your classes. You'll also be given access to our private educator forum where Yo and I will be offering direct and ongoing support. So to get your name on that list to learn more about our free birth educator program, you can go to w w w dot matribirth dot com, m a t r I b I r t h. So today, however, we are launching enrollment for an eight week free birth education program specifically for pregnant women and their partners. It's going to be super special and a one of a kind online program with me and Yolanda personally. So if you are a pregnant mother or you're dreaming of becoming pregnant and you're looking for a childbirth education program to do with your partner that reflects your values and priorities specifically rooted in the idea of pregnancy and birth as biologically integrated life affirming experiences that are not inherently medical. This is an incredible chance to learn and explore with me and Yolanda personally. Enrollment opens today, and our eight week live program begins Tuesday, July eleventh. It's for eight weeks. It's live. It's online. So wherever you are in the world, you can participate. The calls are going to happen every Tuesday, and every call will, of course, be recorded and uploaded for you, and you will have access for a year. Oh, and anyone who signs up will get gifted the complete guide to free birth totally free. The eight week program will be used within our matcher birth program for our students so that our students can see how we teach, answer questions, what we share in real time. So if you're a pregnant woman interested in doing a childbirth education program with me and Yo, join us at matri birth family dot com. M a t r I b I r t h family dot com. And if you're an aspiring childbirth educator or an RBK interested in our upcoming childbirth educator program, you can go to matri birth dot com. Okay. That's it for now. I'm always up to so many different things so you can follow along on my newsletter. There's a link to join in the show notes. So where we left off last week was I was snuggled in bed with my family. We had just cut the cord and the baby was nursing. We were all on such a high. Is there anything more special, more loving, more connective, more sacred than welcoming life in our own homes, expanding our families, our hearts, to feel more love and connection? Ugh. It's just so special. We had burned Sunye's cord with beeswax candles, but this time, I decided in the moment I wanted to cut it and had Johnny go get a sterile clamp to put on the baby's side. I know a lot of mothers choose dental floss or other cord ties, but this is one thing that kind of freaks me out or rather I just have awareness around that it is possible for the baby to lose blood through the cord. And in a worst case scenario, it could be fatal. So I feel more comfortable clamping when we cut, whereas when you burn, it cauterizes, so a clamp is not necessary. Anyway, I love those early days when time just suspends in the air, and all you do is lay around naked with your new angel on your chest. For days, I felt speechless. I was so so so rocked by the birth I had just had and just in new waters of awe, really, for motherhood, for what it means to be a channel for life, for souls, for what it means to say yes to motherhood, to allow this expansion. I was in a totally new elevated state of consciousness. I was more whole. I was more healed. I was more connected. I was more alive. It really was electric. In those early, early first days, I found myself chanting to my new son. I claim you. I claim you. I claim you, my son, Sawyer James. I claim you as mine. I claim you. I claim you. It was all I could say or think when I looked at him. It was like I was in this giant oceanic abyss of cosmic wonder and awe, and I just couldn't believe I get to do this this way with this soul, in this time, with this family, in this life, in this body. Just wow. I would look at this baby who who felt familiar. It was definitely like, yes. Of course. You were who was in there. I knew you were a boy. I know this soft, sweet, playful, grounded, bright energy. I've known it for years. It carried through. And now you have a face. Now you have little fingers. Now you look at me, and I can fully claim you as mine. You aren't just a spirit, an energetic field, or an idea. You've really come. You've worked really hard, and you're here, and you've landed fully into this life with me. And I see that, and I fully claim you as mine. And we will learn what that means together in our own ways. I don't know. It's kinda hard to describe now, but it felt really, really good. It felt like well, I guess what it is designed to feel like and what happens between the mother child bond when they really have an intact experience. Right? Like, from beginning to end. I didn't cry after giving birth with either of my children. I was totally happy and relieved, obviously, but I I didn't have, like, big emotional releases right away. I think it was around day two or day three. I was sitting on the couch with Johnny, and this baby was asleep on my legs, and I just finally got it all. It just hit me out of nowhere. I burst into tears, and I looked over at Johnny and was just like, oh my god. I'm so glad we did this. These are the best moments of our lives. I'm just so glad we did this. It was sweet. Okay. So I could do a whole episode on this topic. I wanna make sure to spend some time here because this was one of the hands down best decisions I've ever made in my life. I hired a postpartum chef. I had gone back and forth about it for a while in my pregnancy because, you know, I mean, it just felt so luxurious, almost like too good to be true. For those of you that know me or have worked with me, I am always leaning into where I cap myself. I'm always leaning into yeah. How can I expand? I wanna look at it. I wanna play with it, and I wanna see how I can raise my thermostat setting of how good I can feel, of how good my life can be. So this was a big raise. Ultimately, I hired her, and she arrived about a week before I gave birth. I had her all set up in our top yurt, which is the nicest one with a huge kitchen. And as you know, if you heard my friend Erica's episode a few episodes back, she birthed two weeks before me. So the postpartum chef cooked for both of our families, and it was divine. Okay. So she wound up staying and cooking for two months, eight weeks, three meals a day, five days a week. I mean, really, just, like, imagine that. I still can't believe it. It was literally one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had in my life, baby or not. The chef was amazing. She would make the food up in the yurt and then bring it down to our front porch, drop it off, and then text us what the menu was for that meal. And then she would come back down later, pick up all the dishes. They were dirty. We didn't even have to do them, and it just kept going. And the food was insane. Different every day. Just so amazing, so beautiful, so much love and care. It was like a peak, peak, peak experience for us. Now it's worth saying, I already don't make the food in our family. Johnny does. So it wasn't like this was some big reprieve for me. If I hadn't have hired the chef, Johnny would have just kept on caring for me like he does. But the fact that he didn't have to, oh my gosh, we would get so excited every day to just see what next delicious amazing meal was coming. And, yeah, I really could spend the whole episode on how fun that was, having it like that. And I know a bunch of you are gonna reach out and ask, so I'll just let you know now. I paid her a thousand dollars a week and then tipped her another thousand. So I invested, what is that, nine thousand into that, and she fed my family, including when I had visitors for two entire months. It was worth every single penny. Yeah. So for those of you on the fence about free birth, just free birth, and then spend your midwifery money on a postpartum chef. But for real, it really was incredible. Oh, and one of my best friends here, Julia, was making us weekly fresh sourdough bread, banana bread, and doing medicinal tea infusions, and she would just pop by and drop it off every few days. Just so good. Okay. So back to day one. The day just floated by. SUNY had your school that day, and she put on her big sister shirt and went to tell everyone. And I heard her on the golf cart screaming, Sawyer James is here. It was really cute. Just that feeling of your new baby on your chest, their tiny noises, the expansion. It's all just so raw, so freaking beautiful. To be honest, I don't really remember much else about that first day except that I accidentally ate potatoes and got a migraine. Fun fact, I'm apparently intolerant to potatoes, and they give me migraines. So that was a bummer, but, otherwise, I was totally blissed out. And I do have a picture of my mom whipping her shirt off to hold the baby skin to skin. That's a cute memory. And Johnny and my mom weighed the baby. He was around nine pounds, which I think is two pounds bigger than Suni, if I remember correctly, and I am convinced it's the raw milk. Anyway, I just love those early days. So much nakedness, such sweetness. Nothing to do but stare at your baby and celebrate, and the hormones are rocking. It's just so good. Watching Suniye fall in love with her baby brother was a heart expansion that I wasn't prepared for, and it just keeps going, you know, to this day. And, you know, that is something that really stood out to me about my postpartum, about adding this baby to this family. There wasn't any tough integration with Suni A, adding a baby to the house. The integration was harder on Johnny and I. Suni didn't skip a beat. She was sleeping in our bed up until the baby was born. And all throughout the pregnancy, I told her that once the baby came, she was gonna need to switch to her bed because I don't need four humans deep in a bed. And she promised me throughout the pregnancy, but I obviously didn't know how it was gonna go since she's four. But, also, it's time to get out of my bed. So the day that he came, when it was time for bed, she just hopped over to her bed and was like, cool. I sleep here now. There was literally no signs of jealousy or anything. Maybe it's the age gap. I'm sure it didn't hurt. She was just over four and a half when he came, and she's got her own thing going on. She has friends and her little school and other adults around that love her, so it's a pretty good setup. It was really quite seamless. The first day, I was really stoked to discover that I wasn't having any after pains. Many women from second baby on have them really bad, and I was thrilled that I was somehow escaping that. But spoiler alert, and this is so weird, exactly twenty four hours after he was born, I got them, and it was so brutal. I had them for three days, so from day two to day four. And it it was like labor. It was it really took me by surprise. A heavy heating pad did wonders. I took lots of motherwort tincture and just, you know, dealt with it. Knew it would pass. It was worse often during nursing, which makes sense, of course, because the suckling causes oxytocin release, which causes contractions, which is what the uterus is doing, you know, doing its job to get everything back down to its nonpregnant size, but damn. I couldn't talk through them. I was moaning, had to breathe. Yeah. But whatever. It also passed, and what are you gonna do? I also was insanely sore, of course. It felt like I had given birth out of my butt. You know, some women, it feels like it the baby came out of their vulva and some not. And it definitely felt like the baby had come out of my rectum. It was so sore. Ugh. It was so weird and so so painful for a couple of days. Sawyer had some facial bruising all along his cranium line and had popped capillaries all along his forehead. But, of course, it healed and faded quickly. I didn't, like, do anything for it. Nursing was simple and easy from the get go. I remember feeling a little nervous approaching our first night together. Like, do I remember how to do this? And then I realized that all I had to do was turn on the Himalayan salt lamp, and everything else was the same or intuitive rather. We all slept really well. He barely nursed at night until my milk came in, which was great. Our family co sleeps. I really couldn't imagine not having my baby next to me. It's such a significant part of our bond of how my intuition functions and strengthens. It's foundational to my knowing him and to trusting myself, responding to him, you know, all of it. My baby is me. Right? We share an energetic field as all mother babies do. And so having my baby elsewhere literally makes no sense to me, and I know that I sleep better and deeper because he's right next to me. So I love it. I highly recommend it. There is such sweetness in co sleeping that is only available in co sleeping. While we are on my mentioning things I recommend, I keep fresh flowers in my room for months postpartum. That felt really good to have around. I really recommend that. I bought a bunch of new robes to have on hand and just wore those until I stopped bleeding. And I mean, like, queen robes, you know, and gorgeous flowers. Those are probably my biggest suggestions for postpartum other than actual solid human support, obviously. It just feels so good and nourishing to have a beautiful robe on since you're otherwise, you know, covered in puke, poop, pee, drool, milk, blood, you name it. It kinda balances it out. Right? I bled for six weeks, which felt a little long, but it's how it goes sometimes. It was definitely not from overdoing. I really stayed in bed until I was done bleeding. Yeah. I was very, very bed bound for the at least the first six weeks. And I choose to freebleed, which I really enjoy. I like to freebleed as much as possible. And so when I would have company over or when I wanted to go outside and, you know, sit around, I would put period underwear on. But otherwise, it just felt really good to freebleed. I just I can't believe that women wear diapers and pads. It feels so wrong to me. You know, it needs fresh air. For anyone new to the idea of freebleeding, you just put a towel down or a big pad or something on your bed, and and that's it. When it's gross, you change it. It's not a big deal. So oh, also in the early days, I took cloth diaper inserts and used that as an extra layer. So, like, powder towel down, then the cloth diaper insert. And then that way, when I needed to get up and pee, I would walk, you know, holding it on my Yoni so that blood didn't go everywhere. So, yeah, I'm not so hardcore as to suggest that I was freely bleeding willy nilly all over. No. But investing in some reusable, washable, large, giant pads is amazing. You will use the shit out of them because you'll bleed on them, put baby on them naked. They will obviously pee on them. It's a great option to do naked time for your baby anywhere in your home, you know, which we do a lot of. So you can just throw this huge washable pad down anywhere you are, couch, rug, and it'll protect wherever. The ones I get, I just got off of Amazon. If you type in heavy absorbency washable underpads, pack of four large bed pads, They should come up. They're pink. I love the the description for it says that it is for it is great for dogs, cats, bunnies, and seniors. They should really put moms on there too. Speaking of p, we started elimination communication immediately this first time. So last time, I had made up that it was gonna be complicated. I think I just felt maxed out, you know, all the newness. And so we didn't really start EC with any actual commitment for probably six weeks or so. But then once I did it and realized how easy it was and how chill it was, I had definitely wished that we had started from day one. So this time we did. It's so fun. Babies are amazing. Babies are so smart, and it's just another thing that I really couldn't recommend more. He's now almost eight months old. He hasn't pooped in a diaper in many months. He still pees in his diaper if I'm lazy, but also holds it a lot of the time and pees, you know, upon being cute almost every time. It's just so fun. You can get one of those top hat potties from Andrea's site at go diaper free dot com, or you can make shift your own. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I will drop the episode I did with Andrea from GoDiaperFree from an earlier season, and you can learn all about elimination communication. It's amazing. You know, a lot of women asked me about tearing, and I don't know if I tore. It kind of just is irrelevant to me, actually. I don't really know because what I do to heal is the same either way, really. So I don't really know, but it's the same. You stay in bed and you take it easy and keep your legs up and rest and your body heals. Right? Not much to say about it beyond that. I, you know, I used to with my first baby, I was much more obsessed with my tear. I had a very, very, very big tear, and that felt, you know, unique and special for some reason, even though it's totally not. And yeah, I think I just was looking for more drama in my first birth because of the newness. There was more I was more prone, I think, to making up stories. Now that I've been through it, it's like yeah. Of course. A lot less dramatic. Something I did wanna mention that was a real joy in my postpartum was that it was early October when he was born. So fall. And fall where we live in the Blue Ridge Mountains is it's really breathtaking. So that was planned quite well, if I do say so myself. The fall leaves are so bright. It's the perfect temperature. It's really idyllic here. And the second day, I had a friend that lives nearby come over. It felt really good to share in the joy and the tenderness of how much my birth had rocked me and how cute this sweet new guy is. I love newborns. They're just they're so in the ethers. You know? They're barely here. They're so sleepy, and it's just pure goodness. So on day two, while Suni was with her grandma, Johnny and I took the baby, and we sat on our front porch, which is one of our favorite things to do together, and just watched the leaves and the cows and the wind and held our baby in total silence. We snuggled and just breathed together. And it was one of those truly euphoric memories where everything in our lives was exactly perfect and full and whole. And then SUNY came out and joined us, and we took a family picture with sun rays coming down on our family, and I just I treasure it so much. It was really awesome to have my mom around that first week with Suniye, taking her to dance, getting her ready for school, reading books with her. It gave me a lot of spaciousness, which I really appreciated. So on day three, just as how the timing worked out, my sister and brother were coming into town to spend a night at my home before they went with my mom off to a family reunion on my maternal side, that just happened to be happening two hours away. So I was a little nervous about having them come in on my third day, but I ultimately did wanna follow through with the plan. So I texted both of them prior before arriving and just let them know, you know, hey. I was really, really rocked by my birth. I'm still very much in the portal. I'll mostly be in my room. I'd love to see you. And, you know, please still come, but just understand that I'm very highly sensitive and not up for much. So, thankfully, my siblings are both just really wonderful and and both totally got it, and it was very fun to have them here. But on the third night, I did venture out of my chambers, and I sat at the dining table for dinner, and I could really notice how that drained my high, I guess you could say, how it sobered me up. It took me out of that trippy, psychedelic, ethereal space that I had been in. Even just having people in my home that weren't at the birth or a part of my, you know, immediate field, talking about the birth to them, it shifted me. I guess I could compare it to, you know, for those of you who've spent all day outside hiking on mushrooms and then taking a phone call from your landlord or your dad or something and just kinda having to shift out of that space. Anyway, I sat at the dining table, and I ate amazing food while my mom held the baby. And then Johnny brought his La Z Boy chair out from his office and put it in the big living room area for me to sit in. Obviously, I'm just not about to crawl onto my couch. And I sat with my siblings and told them parts of my birth story with a hot pad on my womb, my brother and sister taking turns loving on the baby and playing with Suni A, and it was really lovely. I had already cried a lot on day two from something that had hurt my feelings, so I felt more emotionally freed up and balanced as it turns out on day three. So it kinda worked out. My milk came in that night, and it was way less dramatic than with my first. It just came on slowly. Over the nighttime, no real engorgement. It was super chill. Last time, it was like I had gotten breast implants overnight. It was painful, so intense, so uncomfortable, so that was a nice relief. And then my mom left on day four to go to the reunion, so it was just us in the house, and that felt really good. I cried a lot of big sweet tears that first week as we do. I just felt so much love, so much expansion, and I felt real true relief that I was feeling love for this baby. I think somewhere in the back of my head, I had wondered if I would love a little boy as much as my little girl. I don't know. Of course, I did, and I do. But I definitely cried real relief tears when I realized that it was happening. Those first two weeks, I stayed off my computer. If I wasn't in bed, I was on my front porch or laying in a lounge chair in the sunshine, or on my couch in my living room. And I really did stay in my bed, gosh, almost the full eight weeks before we left for Doctor, probably eighty percent of the time, and I loved it. I would open up all my sliding glass doors in my bedroom and all the windows and let the breeze flow through and play mantras, and I would just hear the leaves rustling and falling and listen to all my special music, and it was it was it was bliss. You know? It really, really was. I would say that I accidentally closed the portal too soon by leaving my chambers so early, especially having my siblings over and sitting at the table and then hanging out in the living room. It's not a bad thing either, but a part of me was like, ah, damn. I'm way less high. I'm way more sober. Bummer. I shoulda kept that going. But such is life. I know my friend Nancy stayed in her chambers for the entire forty days and just kept that portal open, and I really need to remember to do that next time. So maybe one of you can remind me. Because part of being so immersed in the portal is that there is a ton of creative energy. There's ideas. There's solutions. There's art. There's new possibilities. It's this elevated state of consciousness, And I could feel distinctly when I created a leak and when it started to leak away out of me, my brain rearranging back to normal. I mean, it happened over time, but it began with the visit of my siblings for sure. And then I distinctly remember at two weeks postpartum opening up my laptop and doing some work. And after I had done the work, I burst into tears and was like, oh, shit. It's gone. I fucked up. No. It felt really different. But then what I figured out was I could get it back. And so I played with this for probably the next six weeks or so where I would do some work or whatever, do something that took my brain out of this psychedelic field. And then if I got back into bed, you know, got naked, got my baby, got back in bed skin to skin, put my mantras on, stared at my baby, no other, you know, stimuli, I could bring it back on, and that was really fun. So that was kinda how I played with it on and off throughout throughout postpartum as I did work eventually. But, you know, it's not like I'm working on my feet or something. I stayed in bed and just worked from my computer. I noticed how good it felt to share my baby with my loved ones, like, right away, as long as I was the one in charge of that. Meaning, as long as I was the one that offered. My mom had offered to my brother to hold the baby on day three, and I kind of freaked out a little. And I was like, how dare you? That's only for me to do. So, yeah, was definitely feeling the primal protection and bonding. It felt like I got to be maybe in a new arena that a lot of women don't get because I had such an intact experience. Right? Like, because nothing was taken from me, because I emerged more healed, more powerful, I felt like I got to feel more layers of subtleties to the bonding, to the design, you know, that was unfolding between us. Because obviously, if a woman is navigating immediate postpartum coming off of drugs and surgery, entirely fractured, having had separation from her baby in a foreign place, in a hospital gown, strangers everywhere. In a recovery state, you're really in a survival state. Right? It's just so different. I mean, obviously, it's totally heartbreaking, and it's a completely different state of being. So I hope that makes sense. Okay. So I had asked you on Instagram what you wanted to hear more about, and I have a few topics that I'm just gonna spitball about for a minute, and then we will wrap up. So, yeah, life went on and was so sweet and so slow. When Sunni would be at your school, Johnny would sneak into the bedroom, and we would eat lunch in bed and watch Bachelor in Paradise. Look. I'm not proud of it. Did we do it? Yes. Did we enjoy it? Yes. It ran its course, but it was really fun. It was just also fun to not work. I mean, I work a lot, and both of us do. We just have very, very full lives. We run multiple companies. We have, you know, this giant piece of property, and there's just so much going on. And so creating, planning, choosing to have such a slow paced, postpartum with such little to do. You know, I spent the whole year of pregnancy, queuing up how my postpartum was going to go and, you know, off what's the word? Delegating to my team and and, you know, queuing everything up. Yeah. So that I didn't have to do much, so that very little would be asked of me. And it was so worth it, of course, because you just don't get that time back. It's so, so, so sweet, and it goes by so fast. Okay. So, yeah, towards the end of my forty days, it might have actually been on the forty days now that I'm thinking of it. We had a really sweet little ceremony with the women that live locally here. We did a closing of the bone ceremony and buried Erica and I's placentas at my Earth altar over on Moonspring where the festival happens. And yeah. So sweet, so fun, so simple. Just had our group of women together and sang some songs. We actually made up a pretty amazing placenta burial honoring song that I'm not gonna sing, but it was really cute. And yeah. You know, just to mark it. It's it's the closing of the bones is a really well, the way that we do it is a very simple ritual, and the burial with some beautiful plants at the altar. It's just so sweet. So I love that we did that. And then at eight weeks postpartum, we got the baby's birth certificate and we took off, and we went to Doctor, to Dominican Republic for, two months to to spend the winter there and, yeah, to kinda keep keep the postpartum slowness going. It was really awesome. Some of my best friends were there. One of my best friends lives there, and we got to work on the early preproduction of matriarch rising festival and just spent a lot of time, yeah, laying around in sunshine, teaching our little daughter to swim, and amazing. Really grateful that we did that. Alright. So birth certificates. Very common question. And there really isn't a one answer to birth certificates. It really depends on where you live and maybe how savvy you are or what you believe is going to be easy or not. Where I live, it is easy. It's part of why we live here. It's a very relaxed, free, amazing place. I'm obsessed with where we live. And yeah. So for us, it was very simple. We didn't need to show anything from the system, which I didn't have anything to show anyway. Yeah. We just called Vital Statistics or the record, you know, county office, asked for a birth packet, a birth certificate packet, and they mail it to you. You fill it out, and then you bring it in with your baby. They did require that the baby came with us, which, by the way, makes literally no sense because the whole thing they say is, well, we she said something like, we have to make sure you didn't steal the baby. And I was like, bringing the baby in does not prove I didn't steal the baby. Stupid. Anyway, whatever. We did it. So I did I'm remembering that now. We did at three weeks or so because we had to get on it since we had this trip. We did get in the car, take the baby over there. I wore him the whole time. He slept the whole time. No big deal. It's not like they touched the baby or anything. Yeah. And then they send the packet off to the capital, and you just hope and pray that you get it in time if you have a trip ahead of you. We literally got it the day before we left. It was annoying. Yeah. So I know that in lots of places, they would really strongly prefer I mean, they try to say that they require, but they they can't actually require, but they would prefer that you're gonna show some sort of, you know, stamp of essentially recognition from the system, both prenatally and postpartum. On my home birth packet, it actually had an option saying that you didn't do any of that. And I know that in other rural places, I have seen that be an option as well. So, yeah, for us, it was really easy. So if that's not clear, at least I can speak to the country I live in of the states. You just call your vital statistics record keeping. For some people, it's public health. That's what it is here. Your records office. County office. I'm sorry. Everywhere has different different titles for this, but you just call and ask for a home birth packet. They send it to you. You fill it out. You come in. I think you pretty much always have to bring the baby in, and at best, that's all you have to do. Alright. Moving on. Quite a few of you asked about pediatricians and injections and yeah. I mean, I don't mess with any of that, of course. My children have never seen a doctor. That does not interest me. They certainly do not go to a pediatrician. That whole model just doesn't have anything for me. It doesn't hold any interest. Yeah. I definitely cannot imagine that some random stranger pediatrician would have anything to say about my child that, resonates deeper than what I can obviously intuit as the mother. So some other people asked about how did I not feel the need to do anything around the house? That's pretty funny. Yeah. Well, I think the true answer is I am pretty good at not self sabotaging. At least, let's say in this arena, we all still have our stuff, but I am really committed to not self sabotaging my postpartum. And so the story that I would need to do something around the house and that that would be more beneficial to me and my baby than the rest and and, you know, slowness of what postpartum is, you know, asking of us. Yeah. Just doesn't doesn't tempt me, I guess you could say. I already talked about tearing. Nothing to do. Just lay in bed and don't trip about it. And if you have a physiological tear, it's going to heal. That's how our bodies work. Yeah. I wouldn't really make it too complicated in your head. It just will probably take longer than you want it to, and that's for you to navigate. A lot of women asked about my relationship with Johnny, like how it changed, how that went, anything to say about that. And I really don't have much to say about it. It was beautiful. It you know, I mean, this baby is an expression of our love. It's an expression of our life and our choices and our hearts. And I guess the only kinda negative thing is that our lives are so damn full. We often feel like we're just two ships, you know, passing in the night, and we'll just kinda look at each other and wave and be like, guess I'll talk to you this weekend. You know? So missing each other, I guess, comes up in the busyness of our of our lives, but it's all from a team place. You know? Everything we're doing is in alignment with each other. Yeah. I mean, it just feels so wonderful. He and I have a very easy and undramatic, loving, team marriage. So postpartum together was, yeah, an expression of that. Okay. A lot of women asked about boundaries, how to safeguard the home, protect your space, and, you know, kind of the the the broad answer to that is that stuff should be going on all the time. Right? We can't wait until postpartum to have boundaries and protect our space. So if you are betraying yourself with people now, start working on it now because it's actually, I would imagine, much harder to have boundaries when you're in such a vulnerable state. So we don't wanna set ourselves up for that. But, you know, boundaries are something that we do with ourselves. You know, we betray ourselves. We we violate our own boundaries, ultimately. That's what we can work on. And so getting really clear first and foremost on where do you violate your own boundaries, you know, what doesn't feel good to you, and where do you betray yourself, and then looking at that and realizing that it's in your hands to do that. So, you know, a lot of this is like, are you willing to say no? Are you willing to ever say no? And if you are someone that has a very hard time saying no or are just flat out not willing to say no, there you go. That's a lot of good work for you. Becoming a mother is going to offer you tons of opportunity to say no, and it's okay. A lot of women I work with who struggle to say no, I put them on what's called a no diet. It's something from the tools that I've learned where, their task is to actively say no multiple times a day for a week, with their allies, you know, with safe people in their life to experience what would become a positive feedback loop that when you say no, nothing bad happens. Right. So as this translates to what we're talking about in postpartum, you know, if you don't want your mother-in-law to come over, say no. Just say no, and practice not believing that you have to explain yourself or that you have to lie. Right? You can just say no. You're an adult. You're an adult person who's allowed to say no. Say it with me. You know, for me, I have very consciously arranged my life in the way that it is, and I don't have people around me that I need to protect myself from. Those relationships have not survived my evolution, we could say. So I don't have a strong need to set boundaries in my life because I have healthy relationships in my life. Right? And if you don't, then you're going to need to exercise a lot more boundaries. Okay. What else should we get into before I wrap? Negative body image. Yeah. That might be worth mentioning. Well, I went to Dominican Republic eight weeks postpartum, so that was a little intense, I think, for me. You know, just being in my bathing suit, dealing with with that, and and it's okay. I have a a line that I say to myself often, specifically around body image or, yeah, anything to do with my body. I will remind myself that I am the living result of every day before me, that I am the result today of every choice I've ever made. And that always makes me giggle a little bit. And, yeah, like, can I be with that? Can I be in presence with the living result of my life and of my choices? And knowing that when I can be with that and when I can come into presence with that truth, not only does it feel lighter, but I also remember that I can make different choices anytime I want. You know? Alright. What else? So what did you do to make your postpartum easy? Well, the first thing I did was get available for it. I mean, sincerely, get available for it. Am I internally available to have a very high vibes easy postpartum? And if you try that question on and you immediately are like, well, that's not that can't be me because of this, this, this, this, this. You are collecting evidence to prove to yourself why you can't have what you say you want. So just stop doing that, you know, or at least start knowing that that's what you're doing. If you are committed to, proving to yourself that you can't have it easy, then you will perceive your life as hard. Okay. That doesn't interest me at all. I want to see how easy, how flowing, how how ecstatic my life can be, and that is how I orient. So, yeah, how did I make my postpartum easy? I chose it to be, and I spent a year arranging my life to support a postpartum for me and my family. I enacted it. I invested in it. I prioritized it. I thought a lot about it. And, also, when things come up that don't feel easy, I don't see that as a big problem. Right? Like, what even is a problem? It's just in the eye of the beholder, really. So taking things in stride. Did I take prenatals? Definitely not. First baby first bath with baby, that that's probably worth mentioning because I think a lot of people think you can't get the baby wet or the cord wet while it's still healing, like, while the stump is still on there, and you totally can. Yeah. The baby loves water. It just came from water, and so you should be in the water with your baby whenever you want. I have no idea when I took my first bath with him, but I did it whenever I wanted. Belly binding. I don't have an opinion on belly binding. I think if it feels good to you and that idea attracts you, you should do it. It does not appeal to me, and so I haven't done it. What else? Did I do warm versus frozen? I didn't really do either. I guess the food I ate was mostly warm, but I'm already such a hot person. My constitution is very, very warm. I don't need to, like, bundle up and wear socks and do all of that. That sounds terrible to me, but I didn't put, like, padsicles on my Yoni or anything like that either. What to purchase for the baby that was helpful? The baby really doesn't need anything. I already said the pee pads. I think that's probably one of the best things. And then what else? You know, baby carrier, eventually, when you fill up for walking around and carrying the baby, which I didn't really feel able to do until probably eight weeks or so. I don't really think they need anything else. Sincerely, some cloth diapers, you know, don't overthink it. Eventually, they need some stuff, like a high chair or something is helpful. But when they're new, new, new, they're just very, very simple, little sweet babies. What did you learn? Yeah. I think the biggest thing I learned since bringing this second child into our family is to take our time to set to set our family up for success when we leave our home, never be on a tight schedule, really, really what's the word? Allow for a lot of space for taking breaks, for whatever whatever it is. You know? Someone pooping in the diaper, you know, all of that. Someone. It would be the bait. Yeah. Our first time leaving our home, we went to Asheville, which is two hours away, and it was a total shit show. And it was so stressful to us, and we were on no time frame. I think I went to see the Cairo. I don't even remember. But it was so stressful to us. Well, we live very rurally, we live a very quiet life where we are, and so to get in a car and go to a city where there is billboards and stoplights and traffic and parking is difficult, that is overwhelming to us at this point. It's so overstimulating. So, yeah, just finding parking, finding a place to eat. And then we had this totally embarrassing parenting moment where we showed up to this at this place, super long line, everyone was hangry, Got out. Got in the line. It was just not good. And then we realized that the baby had pooped. And it was all over Johnny and the baby and the carrier, and then we went back to the car, and then we realized I had left all the doors open. I had left the doors open to the car, and there was poop in the, car seat. And Johnny and I just looked at each other, and I was like, are we first time parents? Like, what is happening right now? How do we not know how to do this? So, yeah, that was embarrassing. And traveling with the baby, the customs line, realizing that I need to travel with snacks Not for the kids, by the way. I need to travel with snacks for me. It's for for real. I almost lost my shit in customs being so hungry. I was shaking, and I took Sydney's granola bar. Yeah. Traveling with snacks, giving ourselves a lot of time, those are the two things I've learned. You're welcome. Okay. I feel like that is enough for now. Yeah. I feel complete. Thank you for listening. Thank you for supporting this podcast. I will be back next season with another amazing collection of women, lots of of epic stories. In the meantime, join the Freebird Society membership for community. You can learn all about my offerings at freebirthsociety dot com. You can join the mailing list for free birth stories, come to the festival, sign up for matcher birth, and I have a very small amount of openings every month for working one on one if you're needing that. Alright, women. Stay strong. Choose health. Choose yourself. Be sisterly. Claim your dreams. Till next time. Lots of love.
Speaker 3
And that's it for today, my sisters. Check out everything we do, including one on one and group coaching. Learn about our private membership, in person retreats, and more on free birth society dot com. Our online courses are on free birth society courses dot com, including our flagship course, the complete guide to free birth. Don't miss the radical birth keeper school if you're ready to become the authentic midwife that women are searching for. Together we rise and the revolution starts inside each of us. I'll leave you with our free birth society theme song, Wild Woman by Aruba Red.
Speaker 4
I honor you for the wisdom you held, the ancient traditions of plant medicine and womb magic. I feel the spirit of the ancestors as I place my hands upon my belly. This sacred portal 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 all your poison. We reject your fear. We choose love. Everything with intention. Death, ascension. I will fly and bring her back to the star.
