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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 feeding 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. It's been
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a wild freedom check since I've left my rules back home.
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If you're like most of my listeners, you are devouring these episodes, fascinated by the women's stories and wondering if you could do this too. Do you
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wish that you had a
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step by step strategy for how to actually plan and manifest your free birth? Our complete guide to free birth is the number one course for free birth, and we made it for women just like you. It's a self guided online intensive course that will teach you everything we think you need to know about how to birth freely and in your power. We'll take you all the way from unpacking industrial care to what DIY prenatal care looks like, how to pick and prep your support team, what to expect, look out for, and how to shift when more support could be needed. Yes. We'll cover the what ifs, how to prevent complications, and how to orient your entire life towards a powerful birth. So head on over to free birth society courses dot com now and take the first step towards the birth of your dreams. Alright, women. My co creator, bestie, e, and big sis, Yolanda Norris Clark, joins me on the show for the who's even counting by now time, sharing her most recent birth of her ninth precious baby, Helio. Yolanda shares the story of consciously conceiving her son, her mind bending, painful pregnancy, culminating in her first ever completely pain free, totally ecstatic, blissful, even orgasmic birth. In true Yolanda fashion, there are countless pieces of wisdom and grace as she so eloquently articulates the choices she was faced with. Her ever deepening allegiance to her own spontaneous healing, and the portal she walked through to choose a birth without any suffering.
Speaker 1
Hi. Hi, Emilee. Again.
Speaker 4
How are you?
Speaker 5
We are here to talk about your ninth birth experience. And I'm so excited to hear it in its full full formation, however it comes out today. Yeah. I'm gonna just pass it to you. What was it like? You've got quite some wild stories from the pregnancy. Were you already what country were you even in at the beginning of the pregnancy?
Speaker 1
I became pregnant in Costa Rica.
Speaker 5
Yes. That's what I thought. Okay. So you wanna just start it there?
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. Well so Helios was actually a very it was a very conscious conception, which was in some ways new for me. As one does when one lives in Costa Rica. My husband and I had had gone on a a couple of plant medicine, animal medicine journey experiences, which is, I know, the ultimate cliche. And, during one of those experiences, I received a vision that there was this baby that was meant for us. And and Lee actually had a very similar vision when we had this experience together. And so we surrendered to that and created this child. And at this particular time, I was also really linking everything that was happening in the world with the way that I had experienced intimacy and sexuality in my life. So I kind of dove down all of the conspiracy rabbit holes and and started to realize that, yeah, all of these larger ideas about sexual trauma and the victimization of children and pedophile culture and rape culture were all energies that everyone, I think, on some level, can't help but be expressing in our own personal lives. I know that sounds a little bit abstract.
Speaker 4
Yeah. You're probably gonna need to explain that
Speaker 5
a little.
Speaker 1
Well, we're just in this collective soup of sexual trauma, and that derives from birth, and I think it's expressed throughout our lives. I'm not talking about people who do overtly terrible things, but the overtly terrible things that exist in the world are felt by all of us individually.
Speaker 5
I mean, even just, like, media, like, how disgusting what we're Absolutely. I tried to find something to watch the other day, and every single thing available was just gore and rape and sex and murder and, like, what you're to your point.
Speaker 1
Yeah. So in short, I've at the time, I felt like I was going through a kind of awakening in terms of what sex really means and, just deepening my relationship with my husband. And, and so this baby was really conceived in a way that felt different than all of my other conceptions, very consciously and, and very ecstatically. And it was really quite special and wonderful. And I got pregnant right away, basically, once we decided that we were gonna welcome this child. And, we also were kind of in a liminal state in terms of our family and where we felt we belonged in the world. World. I really didn't enjoy living in Costa Rica, and so becoming pregnant also inspired me to start to really seriously think about where we were going to settle our family. But in the early stages of my pregnancy, probably just even a few weeks in, maybe I was six weeks or eight weeks pregnant, I started to experience these kind of attacks of intense pain. And at first, it it would it would yeah. It it felt like it came out of nowhere, and I I felt this horrifying pain in my in my pelvic area. And I kind of whined and complained about it and reached out to a couple of people. And, I I wondered if maybe I was experiencing an ectopic pregnancy, or if maybe I was experiencing an ovarian cyst that like, you know, I kind of explored all of the the options options.
Speaker 5
Because you've never had a sensation like that in pregnancy,
Speaker 1
had you? Well, I I had experienced a somewhat similar sensation when I was a teenager, and I had gallstones of all things. And that's a whole story unto itself. But, eventually, I I had my gallbladder removed, which was a really important experience in my life, and it it kind of that's one of the formative experiences that has created the perspective that I have about medicine. So I had my gallbladder removed, and it was a very, very traumatic negative experience. And I've had health related issues, since because I don't have a gallbladder, which is an essential organ that we need in our bodies.
Speaker 4
So
Speaker 1
And that was very, very painful. And so this experience had a lot of similarities. It felt very similar to the experience of gallstones, which I've always heard described as, like, more painful than childbirth. Gall both gallstones and what I ended up recognizing that I was experiencing in this pregnancy, which was kidney stones. So, I mean, I diagnosed myself, because I
Speaker 4
The nerve.
Speaker 1
The nerve. I know. I I didn't never, go and see a medical practitioner. But these attacks were I I can I've also you know, I've never actually experienced being stabbed with a knife or a sword in my gut, but that was what I imagined it would feel like. And these attacks lasted for usually, it was about four hours of just constant extreme pain. And when I say extreme pain, like, I'm I'm a pretty, resilient person, but I was basically screaming for four hours at a time. And, and this continued, and it started to happen every single day. So it was sort of in the evenings that these attacks would build, and I I could sort of feel it coming on. It would sort of start somewhat mildly, and then it would build and build and build until I was screaming, wailing, crying, writhing on the floor like a crazy person.
Speaker 5
How far into the how many weeks did it take you? Do you remember to figure out it was kidney stones? Because I remember you not knowing for, like, a little while. But how long till you were like, that's what this is?
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, I I guess it probably took a a couple of weeks of sort of wondering if it might be this, that, or the other. But my husband had actually had kidney stones, and he helped me to decipher what was what was happening. And I had other symptoms as well. Like, I I was, like, not really able to, like, pee properly and, like, thick weird. It's just all of the gross weird things that happened, and it just it was totally in alignment. I I was very obvious to me that that's what it was in the end. And I was pregnant, and I knew I was pregnant. And, this went on for it was about three months of this occurring daily. And I definitely think in retrospect I don't know. I I've questioned this actually in in in recent, months and, you know, more recently. But at the time, it was so excruciating and so like, there's something about intense pain that like, I I I wanted to die. I I wanted to die. Like, I felt like I was dying, but but but it wasn't happening fast enough. Like, I was begging for death. And just saying all of these really yeah. It it's just so vulnerable, and there's something kind of humiliating. Like, it like, pain really brings us to this state of, like, in a way, it is very ego obliterating. You know? It's like I I was like, I don't even I don't even care what I am or who I am. Nothing matters. Just please, like please God, please God, please God make this stop. And numerous times, like even maybe every time it happened, which was really every day, and sometimes through the night too. Like, it would sort of vary. There were some really merciful, bouts of this where it would only be like two or three hours, and then in some cases, it would extend for like six hours all through the night. I was just screaming and crying. It was really awful. And each time, there would be a point where I would say to my husband, like, fine. Like, let's just go. Let's just go to the hospital, and they can give me morphine. And I I I also remember, like, talking in this state of delirium frequently about just, like, I just I need to have an abortion. Like like, I I'll kill this child to make this stop.
Speaker 5
You, Helio.
Speaker 1
I know. So it's it's really it was very, very humbling and awful. But it was also there was something about it where it continued to happen so often that that I started to almost become kind of interested in what it was doing for me. Like, interested in in the in in what was happening in in my body, but more more so what was going on kind of in my psyche and the kind of intellectual layer of it of, like, wanting to sort of figure it out and and wanting this to go away. But then also, there was very much a spiritual aspect of it because, like, I had to talk to God. Like, I had to just constantly be talking to God in order to, sort of survive. I I also know that kidney stones don't generally kill people. Like, sometimes, I guess, they do. They could it can turn into, you know, sort of in in in, like a septic situation. But but I I felt like I would either die or it would somehow resolve.
Speaker 4
Guarantee one or the other.
Speaker 1
One or the other. Right. And at every point where I I was almost ready like, really almost ready to go to the hospital. And I I knew too that if I did go to the hospital I mean, we were in Central America, so there was a language barrier and all kinds of kind of complicating factors. But, but I knew too that if I went to the hospital, I would be in this sort of vortex of control and authority that I would have no power over. So I would my baby would pregnant. Right. And so, you know, my baby would be I would be medicated. I would have been medicated. My baby would have been, exposed to ultrasound, certainly. And then, you know, in some cases, kidney stones are are dealt with surgically, and then that would have meant that all kinds of things would happen to me and my child that I wasn't willing to, yeah, I just wasn't willing to take those risks in the end. But, I started to feel like the only way to hand to to sort of resolve this was to just enter into the experience and somehow welcome whatever this was meant to provide for me. And so in these experiences of intense pain, I kind of I I I it's almost devised like an internal strategy for dealing with it, which involved surrendering to the physical sensations of it and forcing myself through surrender, which I know sounds like a paradox, and and I guess it is, to allowing this to simply unfold somehow. I'd also been studying, Germany medicine or the Germanic healing knowledge framework for quite a few years leading up to that. And so, I focused on that again. I kind of refocused on what this could mean about who I am and my internal conflicts. And kidney stones, kidney issues are related to the according to the Germanic healing framework, related to the kidney collecting tubules. And in short, all of that refers to biological conflicts relating to isolation and abandonment and our fundamental existence, and and also what's known as a sort of refugee conflict. And so, you know, we left Canada in the wake of all of the political
Speaker 5
Wait. Kidney stones are a refugee conflict? That's insane.
Speaker 4
I didn't
Speaker 5
know that.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it it it all made sense. And somehow being having having the tools to make sense of this also allowed me to, yeah, kind of accept it. And I started to go through the cycle of, you know, when it would start to when these attacks would start to occur, I would start to, like, dance and move. And and as I noticed the feeling of resistance and pain and humiliation and, like, self obliteration occur, I would say out loud, thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. And I trained myself in a funny sort of way to to trust this and to surrender to it and to allow it and to feel grateful for it. And it was basically within the week, within within a week of disciplining myself, to accept this. It went away. So it was about three months in total. The experience really, it's it certainly tested my, it tested every aspect of who I thought I was, but also it was very much an experience of really stepping fully into my philosophy of wild pregnancy. I assumed that my baby was still alive. Fully knowing that other than just through my internal knowing and embodiment because I never had any kind of,
Speaker 5
Yeah. I guess you're probably real glad at this point you didn't go in and get a bunch of morphine. I guess you were early enough in the pregnancy that you could have not told them that you were pregnant, but your spiritual embodiment evolution makes a lot more sense.
Speaker 1
I mean, I could have told them that I wasn't pregnant, but there would be no reason to seek medical attention other than to relieve the pain that I was going through. So there was nothing in going there that could have helped me. You know? I mean, there was no there was nothing that the medical Plus
Speaker 5
the morphine would have been very temporary. And then what about tomorrow?
Speaker 1
Right. Yeah. I mean, there's really no there was no no real reason to you know, my one of the the questions that I always have for myself and and the women I'm working with who are feeling tempted or interested in for whatever reason in engaging with the medical system is, like, what what would that do? What would be the benefit of that? And ultimately, there was no there was no real benefit other than, you know, being delivered from the reality of the situation, which, like you said, is only temporary.
Speaker 5
Right.
Speaker 1
So I just had to I had to allow it to to happen. And yeah. And and I I I I know that, it was the shift in my internal state of awareness and being and belief that was the resolution to the physical manifestation of of what was happening for me. And and that that sense of, you know, trusting and surrendering and allowing to allowing that, you know, just the yeah. That that that shift in awareness was the resolution to the fundamental internal psychic conflict that I was going through. You know, this feeling of not belonging in the world, the feeling of being a refugee, in in so many ways in my life, which I've felt for a long time, you know, it's not just it's not just Rona. It's, it's all of it. So, yeah, it was a very, very powerful experience, and it also really shifted my understanding of pain, because when I was able to kind of drill into myself and to allow myself to be present with every fragment of the experience, the pain wasn't it it it it it it shifted completely. It was no longer what I thought it was, and that's also when the whole situation resolved. So it was a very interesting experience, and, we ended up leaving Costa Rica and moving crossing the border with our, like, seventeen dogs and two cats and forty seven suitcases.
Speaker 5
You know, the people that observed that that day will never forget. Never forget.
Speaker 1
I actually have some pictures and it's it is as ridiculous and surreal as it sounds. We we had a full like, we had all of our children, like, in a what do you call that when it like, it's it wasn't like an assembly line. Like, one kid would run a suitcase forward and then, like, run back and pass the other one off, and it was it was quite quite
Speaker 5
A daisy chain?
Speaker 1
It was a daisy chain. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. But we made it. And, yeah, I immediately felt like we belonged in Nicaragua far more so than Costa Rica. Their countries are side by side, but very, very different energies. And, yeah, at that point, I guess I was almost six months pregnant when we moved. And, the duration of my pregnancy was totally chaotic and unsettled. And we we did we did settle into a home, but it has taken me a really long time to actually feel at home in Nicaragua, which I I do now, really, as of fairly recently. But but the rest of my pregnancy was it was kind of weird. I actually I spent a lot of time just working and you and I were teaching and the the teaching schedule was very, very intent, like, kind of ridiculously intense. So I actually was pretty disembodied through the rest of my pregnancy. I was not physically active. I was not really all that healthy. I kind of dissociated a little bit. And, and I would have moments of sort of remembering when I was pregnant and then feeling kind of guilty about, you know, being a shitty mom and, you know, not doing self care and all the things you're supposed to do. But whatever. I also, like, you know, here we are. This is life, and people are resilient, and what are you gonna do? Yeah. So, but I also had moments of, moments of feeling connected. So one of the things that that that I that I did do, you know, I guess my primary form of self care was, being in the sun, which probably is obvious because here I am in the tropics. But, you know, at least once a day I would go out and just be in the sun and feel a kind of sense of transmission from the energy of the sun, and that felt really important. But, otherwise, I was just sort of working obsessively and, you know, I had this idea that I had all these things to do and to complete, you know, before this baby arrived. But we had organized our teaching schedule, I remember, very clearly so that I would have at least a month of being able to relax and sort of recuperate after we finished our round of the radical birth keeper school. So that's great. You know, we were I at least I'd organized that properly. We can
Speaker 5
go in very late later than the average fair.
Speaker 1
So I think it was, like was it the last day of teaching? I don't quite remember, but I think it was
Speaker 5
No. We ended right before America's Thanksgiving. So you had I don't wanna give it away, but I think you had, like, two weeks.
Speaker 1
Oh, maybe okay. Thank you. Yeah. I actually don't didn't really remember. It felt like we it felt like it was sort of right right then, but, anyway, close by. So we finished
Speaker 4
looking screen traumatized by the end of it. I was a little bit. I told you that traumatized. Yeah.
Speaker 1
I was in the residual trauma. Yeah. So, anyway, I was still, I guess, obviously, in my head, you know, still in this sort of, mind state of, of achievement. And I remember being
Speaker 5
Well and just, yeah, just for anyone who might not know you, you know, I think it's worth maybe maybe you're about to say this, but, like, fleshing out your, like, the common length of your pregnancies because that's a piece of this. And, also, you might wanna touch on, you know, the joke of twins just because
Speaker 1
Yes. Oh, I forgot about that.
Speaker 5
You're not that big. In It this pregnancy.
Speaker 1
It was. Yeah. And, actually, I would say that, you know, this was my, I don't like my twelfth pregnancy, but it this this is my ninth baby. So, you know, I've had some losses, but I've been pregnant a a a few times. And all of my babies all of my previous babies were all born between forty three and forty four weeks gestation. So in my mind, you know, that's the normal length of time that I that I grow my babies. And each of my subsequent pregnancies has felt I've been, like, just more and more enormous, I guess. And I've I've I've thought more sincerely with each baby that maybe I'm having twins. And there's a little tiny part of me that is sort well, no. I think actually being in in Costa Rica sort of fixed that a little bit. I I've always sort of felt a little bit curious about twins, like, that's the most dramatic exciting thing in a way. Right? Like, what could be more like, how can I uplevel my my own commitment to, total intensity? And I guess that would be, you know, having twins. But I actually supported a mother when I lived in Costa Rica who gave birth to twins. And after that, I was like, oh, I don't actually need that to happen for me. Like, maybe that does not need to be part of my story. But this baby and actually part I I didn't mention this, earlier, but part of the kidney stones thing, also involved, like, terrible swelling. So my abdomen was, like, distant. Like, I looked, like, four or five months pregnant when I was actually only six weeks pregnant. As a result
Speaker 5
did. I remember you sending me once you had landed in Nicaragua, you sent me a picture, but you were only no. You're saying you were six months, then it must have still been in Costa Rica. But It
Speaker 1
was in I remember sending you from
Speaker 5
Costa Rica. First trimester, like, the end of your first trimester, and you looked about like you were going to give birth.
Speaker 1
It was really very disturbing and that, yeah, that was another aspect of it that was actually quite quite scary, really.
Speaker 5
Swelling and fluid.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. Whatever was happening as a result of the kidney I
Speaker 5
just figured it's geriatric problems. You know?
Speaker 1
Well, there's that too. You know, I'm super old. Right? I was forty forty forty one at the
Speaker 5
time. Uterus.
Speaker 1
Oh, that poor old uterus of mine. Yeah. So the possibility of twins and I mean, I guess statistically too, the likelihood of twins increases the older you are, the more children you've already had. You know, there's all these factors to where I was like, well, maybe you'll But
Speaker 5
it's also true that you show quicker after you've had a baby or so. Is it true is it true that you show quicker just the more babies you have? Has that been true for you?
Speaker 1
That's definitely been true for me. Yeah. Yeah. It really has. And I don't do any diagnostics. I don't I don't I don't self assess during pregnancy. You know, I I it's not even that I'm you know, there's all this sort of, like, all these interesting political conversations now around the term wild pregnancy. Like like, I don't really even care at all. I don't care at all what that means to anyone else. And if yeah. Obviously, none of us are wild. We've all been domesticated. But I I just don't I just don't engage with the allopathic medical system. Like, it's just not it's not my orientation. It's not my interest. There's nothing that they have to offer me, like, maybe other than morphine. But at this point, I'm I'm really glad I didn't. Totally. I'm I may not ever have gone in even if I weren't pregnant. It's just not it's not what I'm
Speaker 5
interested in. You you'd, like, play with it.
Speaker 1
Girl, if
Speaker 4
you didn't go in
Speaker 5
in three months of daily mind bending pain,
Speaker 4
I don't think you were gonna go in. No.
Speaker 5
I don't I don't believe knowing you. I don't believe it was the baby that kept you from going in. It's, like, just who
Speaker 1
you are. Yeah. I I think that's true. So yeah. I mean, it could have been twins. I don't listen to my baby with a heartbeat. I'm just like, it's there. It's growing. It's alive.
Speaker 5
I also had the opinion, I guess, that you had gotten a lot more famous since you had been pregnant in the previous pregnancies. And so I think that you got a lot more energy from women being like you're so huge because they didn't know how it sounds weird to say, but, like, yeah, like, how big you you can carry because, like, I feel like the photos I saw of you with Xanthi three babies ago when I already knew you was pretty big. And you're a tall, slender woman, you know, and then yeah. Pretty big. So that was another I think there was just, like, more energy around it also because you were more you know?
Speaker 4
That's true.
Speaker 5
But a lot more people knew about you and were, like, following your pregnancy. And
Speaker 1
Yeah. And I did get a lot of comments about that. And, you know, I kind of play with that a little bit, and I because it's just it's sort of it's sort of fun. And I also don't really take it personally because I don't really care what other people think about it. So
Speaker 5
What's so liberating? One of the pieces of that's so liberating about free birth is, like, what's it matter? It doesn't change anything.
Speaker 4
Mm-mm. No.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. So just had to sort of wait and see. But at this point, you know, at thirty nine weeks of pregnancy, there was no doubt whatsoever in my mind that I had another four weeks to get stuff done and to, you know, clean my house and
Speaker 4
Wait. Make sure you talk about the Instagram live we did before you went into labor.
Speaker 1
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4
I just have to put that into this memory bank here, this time capsule that we we lured women to the live by saying that wasn't a birth announcement and you and you, like, throughout it would make we would make jokes that the twins are on your lap below the below the video. And the live is so stupid because all we did was laugh the entire time. I don't even think you could tell what we were saying.
Speaker 1
Oh, that's actually yes. I had totally forgotten about about that. Yes. And and I had that's right. Yeah. I'd made a couple of sort of tongue in cheek goofy Instagram posts about, like, maybe it's twins, and I got a whole bunch of very angry people saying, like, how dare you risk the lives of these babies? You know, you're old and you don't see doctors and, like, they're all gonna die and things like that. So, yeah, I I know I do remember that. That was the day before, wasn't it?
Speaker 5
Or the day
Speaker 4
of. It might
Speaker 1
have been day of. Oh my gosh. I think it might have actually been the day of. Yeah. So had to stay in my office, did an Instagram live with Emilee where we ridiculed the idea that, you know, I might be having twins or did I already have the twins, etcetera. And I went home that night and got into bed and fell asleep. But at that point too in my pregnancy, I was experiencing just like, I I wasn't able to sleep at all. Oh, so many physical so much physical stuff that came up, but I had also because of this experience of kidney stones, that really changed my relationship to just the the the physical experience of having to sort of navigate what happens in in pregnancy. I I I really did notice an immense shift in my, interest in complaining and whining about what it is to be pregnant. And I guess too, you know, I've had so many babies, so I know that it's all temporary. But that stuff really didn't bother me as much. It was there, you know, the aches and pains and the lack of sleep and, you know, just feeling like an enormous beached whale. But I sort of was like, oh, it's not a big deal. And it really wasn't a big deal. So, anyway, I woke up in the middle of the night, and I was waking up, like, seventeen times a night to go pee constantly at that point. And I woke up to pee, and I remember very distinctly sitting down in the toilet and feeling at the top of my fundus, like, a tear. Like, it really felt like something tore. And I thought, that's strange.
Speaker 5
Wait. From the top, but feeling it internally?
Speaker 1
Mhmm. Yeah. I felt it internally. Like, it almost felt a little like, almost a little bit like a pulled muscle, but but different. And and it really it it I felt like a tear. And it was a tear because when I went back to bed, I walked back to bed from the toilet, and I sat down in the bed to get up on the bed, and my water released. So I was and I knew exactly when I conceived this baby, so I was very clear on, you know, all of my dates. And and that's another thing that I I still sort of I have this funny relationship to it. Like, I can't stop myself from, you know, tracking the dates, but I also especially now, especially after this experience of having a baby who came four weeks early to my mind, like, none of it really means anything. But I I was clear that I was thirty nine weeks pregnant at that point, and my water fully released. Like, it just it splashed all over the place. And I was shocked. And this also felt like it was so exciting because I've always felt attached a little bit to this sense of jealousy towards women who, like, their baby just arrived early because I'm always the mother who's, like, waiting forever. And then when it finally happens, it's like, oh. So I've always, yeah, I've always felt this twinge of sort of envy for for mothers who who get their, like, surprise waters breaking early experience. And it was definitely that, but I was also really, really rattled by it. Like, really kind of like, what is what is happening? And especially for that reason, I I and I also remember in that moment wondering quite sincerely to myself if actually I was having twins because twins tend to be born a little bit early just because, you know, earlier than than other babies. Although the mother who I supported in Costa Rica, her her her two twin births occurred at around forty weeks, so it's not always the case that twins come early either. And early late, all of those assessments are kind of meaningless. Right? But in this moment, in the middle of the night, I guess it was probably around midnight, my water had broken, and I frantically woke my husband up. And we live in a three bedroom house, so we have, like, five babies sleeping in our room. I woke all the babies up. Everyone the the babies that I woke up went and woke the other babies up. So the whole family is now awake. It's It's like one o'clock in the morning, and everyone's just like, we're gonna have a baby. We're gonna have a baby in an hour. Like, of course, the baby's gonna come in an hour because, again, well, Iggy's birth was actually quite a long birth, but I've had several babies born in an hour or two hours. And it that also felt like it was just a given that at given you know, considering that my waters had released
Speaker 5
I love I love, like, I love how you're, you know, one of the the living queens of wild pregnancy, free birth, all of that, and we just don't get out of assumptions and meaning making. And, you know, even within this, like, totally wild, like, nothing to do in in, you know, direct relationships to the medical system and all of that. There's still we still have minds. There's still so much assumption, you know, and patterning and and yeah. It's kinda funny.
Speaker 1
It's so it's it's it's adorable, bull, actually, I think. You know, in all of us, all of all of these just, yeah, assumptions and beliefs that we have. And then there's also parts of these experiences that I think we absolutely do choose and control. So I wanna get into that in a moment. But at this point, I'm like, yeah. Oh my goodness. What is happening? I'm gonna have a baby in an hour. And and so everyone in the household got got really excited and sort of
Speaker 5
I guess I mean that the the desire to control is so is such a survival, like, aspect of us, you know, and that that's still present
Speaker 1
in our And I I think what's also always consistent in a way is that the things we think we control or the things that we think we can anticipate are are never the the things that actually we can control and anticipate in a sense. So, yeah, lots of lots of paradox in there. Anyway, all of the children gathered around, and I sat there, like, waiting for my baby to be born, basically. Like like, literally just like, okay. When when is it happening? And and I wasn't even really feeling any sensations at all. And so after about an hour, the kids started to go, like, well, why are we? What's when is the show? And so I I kind of just had to re recalibrate, and I we redid bedtime, sent everyone back to bed. And I went back to bed and figured, you know, in a couple of hours, I'll be woken up by sensations, and I'll just have my baby. No big deal. Anyway, woke up the next morning. Actually, I remember waking up with sunrise, and, it was actually the sound of the family of howler monkeys that live next to our house who were screaming. That that woke me up along with the earlier. It was cute. It was kind of cute. I kind of enjoyed it. Yeah. It was a nice nice memory from that. But I was still very pregnant and leaking amniotic fluid constantly, like, it was just sort of dripping everywhere. And that day, I cleaned. I just decided I had to clean the house. And there was something really so sensual and fun about just wandering around in this sort of loose dress and, like, blessing all the parts of our house with amniotic fluid that was going everywhere, sort of. I sort of I would like to damage? I would I would like to clean furiously and then, you know, take these breaks where I would just sit, and the amniotic fluid would, like, kind of drip down my legs, and it felt very, I don't know, it felt very free and really kind of nice. And it was such a the it was just so beautiful and sunny out, and I also had several moments of just going outside and kind of being blessed by the sun. So anyway, cleaned furiously, got super annoyed with Lee a couple times, excavated our garage completely like a crazy woman. Like, I just I don't know. I I had I wanted to go and find something in the garage, and I opened the door, and everything was a disaster. So I literally hauled everything out of the garage in this sort of, like, state of it was like a cathartic like, I had to I had to channel my energy somehow, so I just did this this bizarre cleaning binge. And then that evening, we went to the beach. And we went swimming in the ocean, and I took my paddle board. And the kids and I just played. We had such a beautiful afternoon, evening, just playing in the water as the sunset.
Speaker 5
And I have a logistical question.
Speaker 4
Yeah.
Speaker 5
How do you get on a paddle board that pregnant?
Speaker 1
So that was part of what was so fun and hilarious about it because it was very, very difficult. And I only succeeded in getting up on the paddle board a couple of times and was just so enormous, and it was goofy, and we were falling over. And it was it was super fun. And and and I also remember, like, I I every every cup few minutes, I would have very mild sensations. At this point, you know, I was my my uterus was starting to sort of tighten just a little bit, and and I would feel the warm gush of amniotic fluid coming out of my own knee and, like, intermingling with with the ocean. It was just really, it was so it was so beautiful. It was so sensual and so fun and and so exciting, you know, just that anticipation. And at this point too, in my life as a mother, I really have actually worked through, processed, discharged my fear of pregnancy and birth. Like, I I wasn't concerned. I wasn't scared. I wasn't worried about my baby, because there's nothing to be worried about, really. I just it was not a not a problem. Yeah. So we just we just had fun in the water, and it was great. And, and then we went out for dinner, and I ate an enormous meal. I, like, ordered, like, a full surf and turf, and I ate everything. It was ravenous. And then we went back home, and then I fell asleep again. And then I woke up the next morning, and then I was still pregnant. And then that day, we went to this resort that has, like, a weekly kind of expat foreigner meetup thing. And that was really fun because I was starting to kind of move deeper in like, through the veil and into the psychedelic world of of birth.
Speaker 4
So let's go to
Speaker 1
also sorry? So yeah. So let's go to the party. So let's go to the party. Yeah. And and, you know, I I don't know. I I guess it's just my personality, but, like, I'm sort of up for the the drama and the ridiculousness. Like like, how can we make this kinda more more hilarious and and weird? You know, let's go to the party. So so we went up there to this very luxurious resort where everyone hangs out every week. And, and I'd I'd I also remember it was pre Christmas. It was, like, it's, like, the eighth or ninth of December. So everything was already decorated for Christmas. And I remember walking in, and it was just like I dropped, like, five hits of acid and suddenly showed up at this glamorous party because the light lights were everywhere, and and I was really starting to feel out of it. And I had connected with this woman as a friend, but I didn't know her very well. And, I remember going up and chatting with her, and she was, you know, asking me how I was feeling because she knew I was I was gonna give birth soon. And I said, well, actually, my water's broke, like, two days ago, so I'm kinda, I guess, gonna have a baby soon. And she said,
Speaker 4
you can have a water birth.
Speaker 1
You just hop in right there. And it was so funny that she said that and and so sweet and it really, like, it kind of that that just that comment sort of solidified our friendship. So I was like, oh, you you get me. You get this. It's it was very sweet of her.
Speaker 4
Can you imagine if you had just hopped into the resort pool?
Speaker 1
Yeah. Maybe that would make it quite the vibe. Anyway, I couldn't stay long.
Speaker 4
Up a notch.
Speaker 1
There. It was it was too much. It was too much to be there, so we left left pretty soon. And then we got home, and I and and Lee and and things were actually kind of starting to happen sort of, but but but I didn't really I didn't really get it because it had now been so long that I'd been in this kind of liminal state that I was sort of starting to just feel like, well, who knows if like, who knows what is gonna and and birth does funny things to your mind too. Like, it it actually quite literally is a psychedelic trip. It is an experience of of total, altered reality. Right? So I'm feeling very psychedelic. We're at home. Things are starting to sort of happen, but I've tricked myself into believing that that I'm probably never gonna really probably have this baby, maybe. I don't know. I was sort of out of it. And Lee came in and said, we have to sign this document from the for the lawyer because we're doing all this buying our house stuff and, you know, lawyer stuff. And he asked if I could just tap into the truck and go to the lawyer's office. It was two minutes down the road. And at first, I was like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I so and then right away after I said that, I was like, actually, no. I I really can't. I don't think I can. So he invited the lawyer to come over, and our lawyer was a very sweet one. It so happened that she was like twelve or fifteen weeks pregnant herself. And I remember her poking her head in and handing me these documents, and I was at this point, fully naked except for a kind of kimono. And I remember her just being like, oh my god. What is happening? And, you know, Nicaraguan culture is super conservative, very, very much in alignment with the industrial medical system and so but also very live and let live and I I lots of things I love about it. And so she was like, you're nuts, but okay. Whatever, gringo, Gringa. And I signed the document. And somehow that experience in my mind of signing this piece of paper was another sort of demarcation point. And, yeah. And then, I guess, at this stage, it's yeah. It was around, like, three o'clock in the afternoon, and that's when I really just descended into the space of birth, and I started to really feel irregular sensations. And there was a moment right after I signed that document where I experienced one big sensation. And I remember having the thought that this is this is intense. And then at the very moment that I considered that, that I sort of made that assessment, there was a sense of, I I almost stopped myself, and it was very much parallel to what I experienced with these kidney stone attacks over that three months. It was like, wait. Wait. Wait. Is that intense? Or or is it something complete? Or is it just or is this just incredibly pleasurable and lovely? And and there was sort of this, like it was almost like God or whomever or whatever, like, showed up and, like, offered me this path. Like, I would I had this I could see I could see in my mind these sort of it was like these portals had opened before me. And one of them one of the paths, one of the possibilities was intensity and struggle and work and resistance. And the other was like, oh, I just get to choose. I can have this be completely, utterly blissful and an experience of no resistance whatsoever. And and I just walked in that direction. I just moved in that direction. And and then there was, like, that gorgeous rest that happens between sensations. And then the next sensation, I could sort of, like, feel it like a wave, you know, coming coming from the middle of the ocean towards you. And and and there was a moment of, like, considering, like, bracing myself against the wave and, like, trying to protect myself. And then I realized that I don't have to do that. I can just allow it to come and become part of it and entirely surrender to it and open every portal of my existence and allow my entire consciousness and being to dissolve and become part of whatever it is that's happening. And I don't know. It's very hard to describe, but I just chose that, and and I chose it every single time. And and, you know, the one of the sort of revelations of this experience was was absorbing or or becoming intimate with this paradox of what surrender is. I think a lot of us believe that to surrender is just to kind of it's it's sort of a a, just a sort of a a a floppy thing that you just like, to surrender is to kind of just roll over and, and that it has no structure. But it was very, very different than that. It was absolutely a discipline and a form of continuous choosing. And, you you know, it also made me realize even in the moment, there was, like, almost a part of my consciousness that was like, oh, wow. I I I get this. That all of the other birth experiences that I'd had, I just created this drama. Like, the the feeling of pain and even intensity was was just a drama story. And and and I also think now, you know, after having had this experience, I I realize now that I I actually truly believe that the idea that birth is painful or that it's inherently intense is it's a cultural artifact. I don't think it has to be that way for for anyone. So, anyway, I just continue to to go through this process of
Speaker 5
Well, we know that we know that it doesn't have to be because plenty of women don't experience it as painful and intense. You know? The majority do. Sure. But plenty have been on this podcast talking about its pleasure and its
Speaker 1
Yeah. And and, you know, I one of the one of the stories that I had absorbed until Helio's birth was that it takes a special kind of woman to have an orgasmic birth. Right? That you have to kind of have the right personality or you have to have the right past experiences or you have to have meditated for, you know, x number of years or you have to have been been in therapy here, like, for a long time or whatever.
Speaker 4
Turn down. Just get kidney stones.
Speaker 1
Just get kidney stones. That's all you have to do. That's right. But but, you know, I really felt like I was not the kind of woman who would have that, you know, and it's not available to me because, you know, I'm neurotic and weird and resistant to everything and, you know, all of that stuff. And in the moment of birth, in these consecutive moments of being of of as my baby was passing through my body, all of that was gone. All of that was gone, and it was an ego obliteration of a kind that I hadn't experienced before. All of birth is. I think birth always does that. It always sort of brings us face to face with the core beingness of of who we are. But, oh, I I absolutely know now without any doubt whatsoever that orgasmic blissful birth is a choice that any woman can make to have. And there's lots about it too that, you know, I think context and environment really is important. I don't I wouldn't say that I don't think that it's possible to have that kind of experience in a heavily mediated or medicalized environment, but much, much, much more difficult and and maybe kind of impossible. Anyway, there's lots of
Speaker 0
stuff there.
Speaker 5
But If it's happening there, wouldn't it be more so, like, disassociation?
Speaker 1
Yeah. I I I think so. I think there's different
Speaker 5
Yeah. I mean, I'd say that's been my, like, personal observation. It I have seen women look like they're having, let's say, pleasurable births in the hospital while they're intermittently being fingered and monitored and talked down to and interrupted. And, like, I'm pretty sure that was disassociation. Because how could you not?
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, I suppose it could be argued that what I experienced was a kind of disassociation, but it was it it,
Speaker 5
Why? How would that be argued? That was you're describing, like, a total intact, like, immersion.
Speaker 1
It it was. It was. But there was it was like it it was like I I've I felt like I was in total communication with God and my baby, and and I don't really remember any part of, like, being I was very much internal. It it was almost like a dissociation through extreme presence, if that
Speaker 5
But that's like that to me is is, like, the core traveling or, like, part of of an undisturbed birth is being getting to the getting to the center, let's call it, of where it is only you and God and this baby. That's not diss I mean, I get what you're saying. I get and it's your, like, compulsion to argue every every, different angle, but I get what you're saying. It's very beautiful that you were able to be invited there and then say yes to it and had created the, you know, opportunity for your life as you do to
Speaker 1
have an
Speaker 5
undisturbed birth so that that could be that spiritual traveling and choice to go to that center gooey center of of godness and of consciousness and and of your baby's soul retrieval and whatever words we wanna use for it, that is like, the the juice or the goo of an undisturbed birth. Right?
Speaker 1
Well, it it was. And and the the the lack of disturbance was absolutely essential for me in in that experience. I do also feel like I kind of cracked a kind of code in my own understanding of myself, and I I feel like probably I could do that again even with other forms of disturbance after the fact, if that makes sense. But but this was my first experience of actually experience of actually having an undisturbed birth. Because in all of my other births, I'd invited people in and my kids were around. That was another aspect of this too. By the time I kind of really entered into the, the active stage of this birth finally after all these days of my waters having been opened, I basically banished my children and my husband. Like, I didn't want any of them around, whereas in the past, I've really wanted my kids to be there. But I think my kids and my husband and, you know, various other people And I don't wanna call it self sabotage because I loved all of my other I love all of my other births so much. But I do see now that in my belief that I needed to have the presence of other people kind of right there, I did prohibit this deeper experience of full embodiment and full presence. So I guess maybe what I'm saying is that it was really the opposite of dissociation, so I'm totally agreeing with you. But anyway, at this point, yeah, I was just in this completely altered state of psychedelic bliss, and there was absolutely no physical pain or even intensity whatsoever. I was in a state of complete bliss. So I was naked, and most of my birth experience, I was sitting on the edge of my bed. Like, it felt good to kinda have my tailbone, supported with my knees open, like, water and pee just flowing. I remember just, like, peeing all over the side of my bed, like, onto the floor and, like, amniotic fluid. And I I spend a lot of it like this, like, with my arms open. Just and I would I was saying things over and over again, like, like, yes, god. Thank you, god. I love you, baby. I love you, god. Like, just it was so incredible. It was it was the absolute apex and culmination of the organic blissful sex that my husband and I had had to create this baby. And it it really, I mean, this is again, this is one of those things, like, it's so obvious. Right? Like, duh, sex equals babies, but birth is sex. Like, it was the most intense, blissful, pure, just devoted divine experience of orgasm that I've ever had. And, yeah, it was just so fun and so easy. And and then and then, actually okay. I'm gonna finish this up here. This is the story. Okay. Alright. So all that great stuff is happening. Psychedelic blah blah blah, feeling total bliss, connected with God. Yay. Yay. Yay. And then there was a moment where I was like I remember thinking, I'm tired. I'm a little bit tired. So I lay down, and at this point, it's dark, so I guess it was probably around, like, six in the evening. Yeah. He was born actually around six. So it's, like, maybe, you know, five forty five or something. And I'm like, I'm I'm a little bit tired. There was no sense of time whatsoever either. Like, I had no idea. Absolutely no attachment whatsoever to time. And this is so like, in my actual life, you know how I am just like all the time and none of that existed. So I remember thinking, I'm a little bit tired. So I lay down, and, I didn't realize this at the time, but Lee came in, and he there was, like, a little light on in the corner. Lee turned the light off because he saw that I was sleeping. And I talked to Lee after, and he was like, yeah. I just figured you're gonna go to sleep, and we're gonna do this again tomorrow. And there was a little bit of a thought for me too that I'm just gonna go to sleep now. So I did actually go to sleep lying down on my side. And I know now in retrospect, because I I do have a video and I looked at the time stamps, I slept for ten minutes having no idea that my baby's birth was actually imminent. And I woke up because his head was emerging from my body.
Speaker 4
Oh my god. And
Speaker 1
he was born in, again, just complete total bliss. And I did like, I woke I was extremely quiet through the entire birth. I didn't yell or scream, which is so unique for me. Like, I've never had that experience before. I'm a total yeller, screamer, like, all the drama, blah, the whole thing. And I was almost completely silent through the entire birth. Not silent, but, like, in toning in a very peaceful way. And as his head emerged, I I I cried out. I vocalized once, and Lee came in. And I remember I remember this because it was so cute. Like, Lee came in and he was like, hey. What's up? Oh. Oh my god. Oh my god. Like, Lee was completely, totally shocked that I was giving birth. And our baby was born, and he just emerged so easily and so simply. I kind of started out, like, on my side, and then I kind of hold myself up onto my hands and knees and then sort of upright, and then he he came out of my body. And I caught him, and, oh my gosh, Emilee. He he he his eyes were wide open and so dark and so magical. And I remember just looking straight into his soul, and he was looking straight into my soul. And he reached his hand up, and I grabbed his hand, and we just, like, held hands like, hi. You're here. And it was so perfect and and just so perfect and so easy. And everything about the birth was just, like, nothing I ever thought was true about pregnancy and birth is actually true. Like, it's it's the easiest, sweetest, like, it's so not a big deal, and it's also the most mind blowingly divine process in the world. And I can't wait to do it again. So I gotta get these books done so that I can have another baby.
Speaker 5
Great. It's good motivation.
Speaker 4
Yeah. Beautiful.
Speaker 5
So were you standing when you called?
Speaker 1
No. I was on bed. On the bed, like, kind of hands and knees, but I sort of brought myself up, like, on my knees. Yeah. Okay. Got him.
Speaker 5
Yeah. So sweet.
Speaker 1
I mean, in the in the months after Helio was born, I actually I felt this total compulsion to create something from this experience. And, and I ended up really delving back into what I went through and breaking down all of these elements, like looking at how pain itself is actually such an incredible gift and a technology for us to access our inner power and and knowing. And I have a completely different relationship to pain and healing now. It just totally transformed everything for me. So, yeah, I created this program called portal, which emerged in a sort of as a transmission in a similar way that that the experience of of Helio's pregnancy and birth did. And, yeah, it's I'm I'm offering it. I'm gonna kind of launch it in, I think May. Yeah. May. So it's gonna be available for people in May. And I did one round of that program already, and, you know, it's always vulnerable to release something into the world, especially something that's so connected to, you know, our own lived experience. But the women who did the first round of it, the feedback was absolutely incredible. I've had so many women write to me to say that moving through that course totally did prepare them for having, in some cases, completely blissful orgasmic births, and in other cases, births that were, you know, intense but also glorious and and lovely. So, yeah, I'm really, really proud of it. I'm also turning part of the experience of being pregnant and birthing Helio into a book that's also coming out soon. But portal, the course is basically a blueprint and a map for how women can access what we all possess, which is the capacity to give birth without any effort whatsoever. And I'm seeing that being real for a lot of women.
Speaker 5
Beautiful. Well, thank you. Loved hearing it from start to finish.
Speaker 1
Alright. I love you. Thanks for this.
Speaker 5
Love you.
Speaker 1
I'm actually hanging up right now.
Speaker 4
Okay. Bye. No. You hang up. No. You hang up.
Speaker 2
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 3
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 greater. We reject your fear. We choose love. Everything with intention. Death, ascension, I will fly and bring her back to the star.
