Speaker 0
Into the wild, I'm going into the wild, I am. It's been a wild freedom child, since I left my roots back home. Into the wild I'm good. Into the wild I am. It's been a while, freedom child, since I left my roots back home.
Speaker 1
Welcome to the Free Birth Society podcast. This is a radical space for women who are ready to celebrate their autonomous choices in birth, motherhood, and beyond. Together, we'll learn about wild birth through personal narrative, we'll explore the politics of birth, and we'll analyze everything that relates to our lives as women from a feminist perspective. Here's your host, Emilee Saldaya.
Speaker 0
It's been a wild freedom since I've left my rules back home.
Speaker 2
Imagine dancing under the stars, surrounded by your sisters, barefoot and free, completely immersed in the here and the now. Imagine a place where you can play, laugh, and howl under the big, bright moon. Here, you can let your guard down and come back to the essence of your wild womanhood. If you've never attended a woman only event before, let me tell you, it's pure magic. And so, I am thrilled to announce that the third annual Matriarch Rising Festival will be taking place June twentieth through the twenty fifth in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. The matriarch rising festival is an exclusive women only event that cultivates a sanctuary for mothers, daughters, and sisters to celebrate womanhood year after year. Our mission is to preserve the practice of sharing women to women wisdom and inspire one another to claim ownership over ourselves as sovereign and spiritual beings. Beginning with our closely knit and welcoming staff, our core design of community is woven throughout the entire festival. Matriarch Rising Festival is a coming home to ourselves, a safe and playful arena for the wild hearted woman to let her guard down, to find deep kinship, and return to her daily life renewed. Tickets are officially on sale, and they will sell out, so head over to matriarchrising festival dot com for all of the details and to grab your ticket. See you there, my friends. Today, I bring you doctor Rebecca Cohen's wild journey from indoctrination into the obstetric system to serving as a radical, holistically hearted birth keeper. After almost dropping out of medical school several times during her training and residency, Rebecca finally got through the hazing process and became known as the natural OB. After having her own children, Rebecca decided to step away from her career, and when she was ready to serve women again years later in a different way, she found the radical birthkeeper school. Welcome, Rebecca.
Speaker 3
Hi. I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 2
Or should I say doctor Cohen? I am so glad to have you here. This is really exciting. We've had, I think, one that comes to mind. I hope I'm not forgetting anyone. One other OB GYN turned radical feminist wild holistic woman, a couple seasons ago. And and, yeah, we had you in the RBK program, so I got to know you very well last year. And then you got to come to the festival, so I got to hug you in person. And I'm just so glad to have you here to really articulate this big journey that you've been on that I think a lot of women listening are going to resonate and and really see themselves in. So happy you're here.
Speaker 3
Thanks. Thanks.
Speaker 2
And for
Speaker 3
any of you who
Speaker 2
are watching this on YouTube and see Rebecca's amazing background, I'm gonna just ex I I'm gonna pass it to you to explain it a bit for, the podcast listeners so they don't get to see this incredible red tent that you're sitting in.
Speaker 3
Mhmm. So myself and a dear friend of mine, Amy Wildine, in an office that I had almost a decade ago, took what was then the attic and turned it into red tint and began to have gatherings for women and circles for women and girls in that space and teachings in that space. And then over time, Amy grew red tint Louisville, and I ended up having to shift out of that office. And so we were apart for five years. And then recently, this fall, we, came back together in new office space. And so that was when I was looking for office space. I was looking for space dedicated to be able to have red tint and join with Amy. And Amy has wonderful programs. She's at, red tint Louisville for coming of age programs for girls. She has a whole series called things we don't talk about, which are things like issues with our moms, miscarriage, our first periods, whatever, and women's several women's circles. And I also have other circles that I bring, into the red tent and teachings that I bring into the red tent. And it's a it's so important. I mean, it's just so, so important, and it's so lovely to have a dedicated space for women and a sacred space. And so when you asked me to be on the podcast and I was deciding where I was gonna sit to do it, I was like, oh, I'm sitting in the room.
Speaker 2
In the heart. Yes. In the womb. Yeah. In the womb. So it is literally red. There's incredible birth photos, and then what you can't see behind on the other side of the cameras is a whole, essentially classroom circle y, beautiful, decorated space. Also, I should totally have Amy on the podcast.
Speaker 3
Mhmm. And she wrote my favorite circle book. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. She's awesome.
Speaker 2
Which now I should say the name of so that everyone listening can go get it, but it's called Wild and Wise. Right? Mhmm. It's so good. I rep it hard in the school, and I love that you are friends with her. I'd love to meet her someday. Okay. So where does it all begin, my friend? Where does it all begin for you? How do you wind up? I keep thinking this term for you, holistically hearted. How do you wind up being this holistically hearted woman that then, goes through the the full journey of obstetrics?
Speaker 3
Yeah. So I think I was a holistically hearted child, honestly. Like, I was into herbs and plants young. And when I was a teenager, I was really into fiction, and I read a lot of, oh, like, mist of Avalon. And if I was reading mist of Avalon, then I would become, like, one of the goddess initiates on the island. And then if I was reading about, warrior woman, I would be the woman at the compound who would take care of the woman. Like, in my head all of the time, I just love By the time I really was a teenager, I already loved women. I just loved women, women's bodies. I imagined that I wanted to be, you know, with women in some way. And then I got into the Grateful Dead, and I was on dead tour. And so there's a lot of holistic and not holistic things that happen.
Speaker 2
Sure. Yeah.
Speaker 3
But I definitely then at the time, that's when I met a good friend of mine through the Grateful Dead who had had a home birth. So that was the first I had heard about that. And there were a lot of us traveling around, a lot of pregnant young women on tour. And I was, like, with my friend, I'm gonna get a bus, and I'm gonna get it outfitted, and it's gonna have speculums. I didn't know. And so I had that since. And so when, and in the meantime, I was kind of finishing college and doing college. I did a lot of women's studies in college and kind of thought I was gonna go that way for a while. And then spiritual midwifery, like I read spiritual midwifery when my friend had told me about it because she had a home birth, and we're close to the farm. And I started going to farm conferences, and I started reading midwifery today and, the birth gazette, which the farm put out and all of that. And I really was torn whether or not I was gonna go to medical school or midwifery school. And so, you know, my dad sat me down and looked because midwives were not legal in Kentucky. And so I was already thinking, well, I can can travel out west to Birdsong Midwifery School or whatever and do that for a couple years, but I won't be able to come back home and and practice. I had that in my head, and I was nervous. And there were I was in community with the midwives here, and there was one who got divorced, and then her husband turned her into the nursing board. You know? And so there was all this, like, fear. But I didn't know. I still was like, well, I'm just gonna try to get into medical school. And if I get into medical school, I'll go. And if I don't, I'll go to midwifery school, and I'm just gonna leave it to that. By the way, I wrote Ina Mae Gaskin a letter, and I wish I still had it because I wrote her a handwritten letter because it wasn't like email and was like, I'm thinking, should I be an OB GYN who helps midwives, or should I be a midwife? And then, of course, she wrote back follow your heart or something. Like, who's gonna answer that to, like, hopefully, nobody answers that for someone else. Aside from medical school, I got in. Honestly, I was really naive. I didn't realize, like, it was all it's so hard right from the beginning. So I didn't have any, like, normal clothes. So I cut off. I had locks. I cut off my locks. I borrowed a suit from my mom. I did have the grades and stuff, you know, and I and and the heels. And I went in and I interviewed. And when I look back now, putting something else on over, even my medical school interview acceptance interview when I think about it, because I remember it was like I was putting on a quote, like a costume, like my mom's costume. And then I went in there and they interviewed me. And in one of the interview questions, they asked me what book I was reading. I was reading a book called Home Birth. And I remember in the back of my head, it was like home birth, home birth, home birth. But I was like and I sat there in my interview like a duck in like, I a deer in headlights. I could not I did not and I'm like, he's gonna think I'm so stupid. I can't even say and then finally, I was like, woman to run with the wolves, just to name, like, something. But there was already this sense of, like, wrath
Speaker 2
Totally.
Speaker 3
Thunder. And so I got in and I started, and it was rock. Now medical schools are a little bit different where they do do some clinical training their first couple years, but we were all book work. No patient care. No nothing the first couple years. So just intense, intense book work, intense weeding out. Like, we had what was called, Black Friday where we got all of our tests. Our first exams were all on the same day. Every single class we were in, all on the same day.
Speaker 2
That's amazing.
Speaker 3
People were, like, you know, having diarrhea and throwing up in the bathrooms and having panic attack. It's just hardcore. It was hardcore cutthroat. And then I found out, like, my first year that it wasn't just four years and I'd be done, that I'd have to go to residency. Like, honestly, I didn't even have and then I was like, oh, I don't know about this. I don't know if I'm gonna stay in. I might leave. And so I said I was leaving, and then they make you see a psychiatrist. This is This would be a common theme throughout my thing. And I talked with this, the psychiatrist. I decided decided to stay in and then I stayed in. The psychiatrist was like, give it some time, stay in.
Speaker 2
So her role is to, like, keep you. Like, they when you say you wanna leave, they make you see someone? Yeah. I mean, I guess
Speaker 3
you could always say no, but I was sent to the to the, you know, psych person to I think a lot of people say say they're gonna quit, and so they want us to, like and she was, you know, a a co dean of the medical school and a psychiatrist. And so we went and sat down with her, and then I got through and into my clinical rotations. And then that was a lot better because I got to see, you know, actual people and be with people. But there was still this, like, very much shielding, putting on the white coat, not really talking about what I was doing otherwise. And the things that I did do otherwise, like, I used to bead work and make clothes and play guitar. There was no time for any of that. So, like, who I was before, there was certainly no going to dead shows anymore. Like, there was just Certainly not. And I wanted to do good. You know? I wanted to do good. So I got accepted into medical school, and I had a sense that I didn't want medical school to be my first exposure to birth. And so I I wrote, and this was like writing letters and making phone calls from the phone on the wall back then. Right? So this is, like, early in their nineties. And all these midwifery programs, anyone I could find any information of in the back of midwifery today or whatever whatever. And so there's Casa de Nascimento, which was a birth center in El Paso. There were two midwifery schools in El Paso. There was Casa de Nocimiento and Materne de la Luz, and they were typically longer programs. And I spoke over the phone. I I wrote her a letter, and then I spoke over the phone with, Linda Arnold, who was the head of Casa de Nocimiento. And I was like, I've gotten into medical school. I'm going in seven months. I feel like I need to see normal birth first.
Speaker 2
People on the podcast that can't see you have no idea how many air quotes you're doing when you when you say normal birth, when you say midwifery. She's doing a lot of air quotes.
Speaker 3
So I went there, and I stayed there for I think it was, like, three months. And that was where I got to see my first births. And so now I can look back on that and see it as really medicalized midwifery. We did a ton of vaginal exams, at the birth center, but I worked and lived in the birth center. The other thing is is that anytime we would take these twelve hour on, twelve hour off shifts, did tons of prenatals, learned how to do things like draw blood, blood pressure, do pap smears, do all of that, and attend births. So anytime a birth happened at all in the birth center, they would call all of us who are there living in the back in these bunk bed share rooms, and we would come up and we would line the walls. And we would see birth no matter how much it was. So I did get to see, like, a lot of births. They did, I think, thirty to forty births a month there. And so in my time, I got to see a lot of births, almost a hundred zoo. Like a zoo.
Speaker 2
Line the walls?
Speaker 3
We would just lie you know, because we're trying to be unobtrusive.
Speaker 2
So it sounds like it. This sounds like the epitome of unobtrusive. God. Like a zoo animal.
Speaker 3
I did get to see a lot of women come in and birth their undisturbed almost because it happened so fast. But everybody got vaginal exams when they and multiple vaginal exams. I did, you know, get to see a breech birth there, which I would have never seen. The ones I saw over, in my in the hospital were way different than that. Like, a hands off the breech breech birth there. And so I did have that sense of somewhat of what I thought was normal birth prior to doing my medical training. So back up to third year of medical school, I'm in my OB rotation, and I knew a lot because I already knew a lot about, more than a lot of my fellow classmates who had never done any OB before. And I was anxious to show that because I wanted to be an OB, and so I wanted to do good desperately on this rotation. I want I, you know, I wanted to do good, woman doing woman doing her labor and essentially, like, co coercing her, threatening her, to have a c section, to stay and be induced, all of this. And it was already bothering me. And I can remember very specific incidences and things that I saw. I also was working in a downtown urban, busy emergency type hospital. And so the kind of women I saw sometimes were women that were on drugs and came in and were totally high and popped their baby. And they truly were, you know, high risk women, incredibly obese women that were four and five hundred pounds, and we'd have to, like, lift them up and put almost put them in a trust to do a c say. It was just and it was a zoo.
Speaker 2
You know what, though? I've I've attended births in those kind of hospitals, and I've attended births in the Beverly Hills fanciest riches hospitals. And the treatment is largely the same in terms of the coercion, the inductions. You know? There's a different layer to it that's like, how to describe it. Perhaps like a like a fake illusion of respect. Like, we know that these women are gonna know about informed consent, you know, in the rich hospitals, but it's actually all the same and the same results. You know?
Speaker 3
Yeah. I absolutely completely agree. With the with the fancier hospitals, you intellectualize with them. You give them the stats about why the the I can air quotes stats about why they should make the decision that you wanna make. It's a it's a type of coercion. But I agree. And so there were times when I couldn't almost stand it anymore, and I used to leave and go out and get a breath fresh air and all of that. And, when I got my, evaluation, it was a poor evaluation, and I was devastated. And they wrote up that I would leave, that I just wouldn't be there. And so then I almost dropped out of medical school again. I was back in to see the dean again and all of this. And then I continued and continued along, and, ultimately, I decided that I did not want to do OBGYN, traditional OBGYN. When I found out that you could do family medicine and then that you could train in a, operative obstetrics as a fellowship from family medicine, I was like, well, that's better because family medicine felt more holistic to me than OBGYN, and I wasn't necessarily interested in, you know, hysterectomies and removing ovarian cysts and all that type of thing.
Speaker 2
Going back to your schooling, why do you think it's so intense?
Speaker 3
I okay. Why do I really think it's so intense? Like, systemic level? It's like hazing. Right? So I talked about it's like different clothes, hide yourself, fit in, and you they take away it's sleep deprivation. Now they have rules about how long that you can do, and we're getting into my residency. And my husband and I talk about this because they made actually laws that had to come from laws about rules about residency hours. But we used to work thirty six on, twelve off. Thirty six on, twelve off. Like that. So we would do, like, a twenty four hour shift or sometimes a thirty six, but we would do a twenty four hour shift, sometimes not sleep that whole night, and then come and have a full day of patients in the office, and then get out at, like, you know, five, six at night. And then you have one night to recover and then repeat and do that. And so it a lot of that sense of, like, who I was it's like the military, but it's like a hazing, and it's like a you know, I know Yo calls it a cult, and in a way, it is this cult indoctrination. It's the stripping down. So then, frankly, you can, you don't question anymore. If you're exhausted, you don't question anymore. Wow. And it's just protocols. It's protocols.
Speaker 2
Yeah. The workload is insane. It really it really strikes me when you said I used to do beadwork and make my own clothes, and now there just wasn't time for anything else. Like, that's a that's a pretty unique, you know, element of choosing this path that you don't hear in other careers. You know, know, we could argue maybe there's a couple, maybe being a lawyer or something like that. But but for the vast majority of jobs, you know, in career paths, you're not it's not designed to make you lose yourself in in an abusive environment no less. It's pretty striking. Mhmm. I wanna go back to you mentioning the part where you would leave the room sometimes. Mhmm. It was really bad.
Speaker 0
Mhmm.
Speaker 2
I just would love to hear more about that. Like, did you have language for why you were leaving the room? Like, did you know it was not okay? Did you know it was abusive? Did you know it was unethical? Or or did it just make you sick and you left? And and then when you got a bad report, like, is there more to that story?
Speaker 3
So so, the other thing is is, you know, there's okay. So there's attendings who are the ones who are fully trained and then work in the systems, and there's fellows, and then there's the residents, and then there's interns that are in their first year residency, and then there's medical students. Right? And so anytime anything cool that you'd potentially wanna see was going on, the further you are down that train, the more if you wanna be involved and get to stand in the good case. Like, you know, I had a friend in medical school who was also interested in OB, and I remember as a fourth year student, she got to be there for a c section hysterectomy. You know, that was, like, five and a half hours, and I was so jealous because she got to go see it, and I didn't. And so there is this, like, I don't wanna piss anyone off because they won't let me see the cool cases, because they won't invite me in the room when it's something like a breach or twins or whatever. And so, that pressure was definitely there and remained there, like, as an intern. Was there wording for it yet? No. Not like I have now. It was all new. It was, me wanting to it was just that I knew it was wrong, I guess. I just knew it was wrong, and I would be like, I'm not gonna stand in here and listen to this anymore. And I also we would line the walls too. It was similar, like, okay. We're gonna go talk with this mom for supposedly teaching purposes. Right? That when we go and talk with the mom, it's not only gonna be the resident, but it's gonna be the intern and the students and the nurse on call and the nursing student or whoever all gonna be in there standing around the bed. Oh. So I would listen, but then I would, like, slip out the door. And that was seen and noticed and noticed. Yeah. And a lot of the things that I was actually seeing as a student oh, Emilee, you would just oh, y'all. Like, oh, gosh. There was the people getting put to sleep and then coming to do the whoever's there, the student, however, come do a pelvic exam, feel how the ovaries feel while she's asleep, feel the
Speaker 2
air. So you mean putting her to sleep and then
Speaker 3
Do a surgery. So if I was on, like, a gynecology rotation and a woman gets to sleep to do the surgery and then the resident is in there the the resident would feel before doing the surgery, and then the attending but she's asleep now. She's been put out.
Speaker 2
And I'm assuming that before she was put out, she gave full consent to her being, fingered by these people during her surgery?
Speaker 3
So there's paperwork that you sign that says in teaching hospital that says that, you know, sometimes others will be there or be part or be at the start.
Speaker 2
Different than set it raping a woman while she's sedated. Right?
Speaker 3
It's different. It's definitely different.
Speaker 2
Oh my god.
Speaker 3
Whatever resident was in there to do it, and then the attending would come by by to check to make sure the resident's assessment was okay, and then another resident and then a student was there. You could get get in and feel real quick. You know? Yeah. Yeah. And so
Speaker 2
That is so, so intense.
Speaker 3
Even when I did my OB rotations with private doctors, like, sometimes we rotate it out with private doctors. There was one doctor who this was his thing. After every woman delivered, he'd have HEBA cleanse poured in a bowl, which is a clean, and he would take a gauze and put it in the HEBA cleanse and go all the way up and HEBA cleanse outer uterus and outer vagina all the way. Yep. And that's just the way that particular doctor doctor did it, and I saw it. And so when I was on rotation and I was assigned to him as a student, he I would glove afterwards hoping to, like, deliver a placenta or something. And I mean deliver it, like, not, you know, wait on the placenta. But but, you know, if I went to one of the this doctor's first, then I put my hand in the HEBA cleanse and go up and feel around in the uterus. Now I know, like, completely wiping the microbiome that's healthy and established and putting irritating soap up inside there. So in yeah. So you just sort of do what you're told to do depending on who you're with. And, like, you know, after you do enough attending, deliveries with this guy that you're gonna need to do the HEBA cleansing. And then as he trusts you more, he lets you do more. And so if you're there and he's actually let you do the baby now, you're gonna ask for the HEBA cleanse too because you're gonna show him that you know how to do that. Right? And it's so cognitive dissonance. Right? It's like your beliefs and your actions do not match. It's not being an integrity.
Speaker 2
But you can't you can't continue on the journey. You can't without complete compliance like you're saying.
Speaker 3
Yeah. If I wanted to, yeah, if I wanted to get and, you know, I'm a little achiever. I wanted to have good grades and do good and, get good things on my rotation so I could get in a good residency and all of that. And so, Yeah. So that's that. I get into residency. Residency felt better. So so then okay. So then the question is well, we'll get to this in a little bit about so what keeps you in? Because there's gotta be something that keeps you in. And the lies that you tell yourself to stay in. And it's been such a journey and such an unpacking for me, like, looking back, but it becomes normalized. It becomes normal. That's it. It becomes normal. I had this vision that I was gonna have be a have a birth center one day. And so the other thing was somebody else is gonna do it anyways. And so I'll learn. So if I do get, if I do ever have to manually remove a placenta, I'll know what it feels like up there. And that's true. There's some truth to that. I the VBAC thing is a whole another thing that's interesting. So, you know, at first, they did the classical caesareans that were more dangerous with the up and down cut, and once a caesarean, always a caesarean. And then they figured out how to do low transverse. And then when I was doing my residency training, they still, were a trial of labor was in. Trial of labor was now it's no longer once a cesarean, always a cesarean. We're throwing that out. Trial of labor isn't. And sometimes even telling women that it went the other way, that wanted a second cesarean, no. Trial of labor. The numbers are really good. Trial of labor. But what they did was not treat women who had cesareans any different. So they would get high dose pitocin. They would get CytoTech to induce their labor. Right? And then their uterus then their uterine rupture rates would go up. And then now it flipped back the other direction that cesarean is is, or VBAC is dangerous. Right? But I was actually in there when we there were tons of VBACs at the hospital that I trained at for my residency. And another thing that we did was we were taught to go up and palpate the scar if they had had a previous c section, which is to see if it was intact. Because sometimes you can have a dehiscence, you know, where it comes, but it's not a true rupture. So I did that, like, all the time. Deliver the placenta, and it remember, okay, if they've had a serum, I'm gonna go up and palpate the scar, which is so stupid because sometimes we would find holes, like finger shaped holes where we probably just stuck our finger through the thinning there. Like, some of the stuff I can't it's it's absolutely horrifying and unnecessary. But I think over time, birth was less and less it became well, it definitely became something to be managed. Definitely, I saw a lot of complications from the the interventions that we did. And so then thought that those complications happen a lot more often than they do.
Speaker 2
There it is. That's the spiral training right there.
Speaker 3
Yeah. So you have to be vigilant for them and look for them because you've actually seen them. Like, you've seen
Speaker 2
Caused them.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Caused them.
Speaker 2
Right. Agreeable.
Speaker 3
Right.
Speaker 2
Who didn't realize at that point that that's what what you were seeing. Right?
Speaker 3
I, like
Speaker 2
Like, caused the intervent caused the problem, fix the problem.
Speaker 3
No. No. No. Because no. Because I didn't have any home birth experience at this point. I didn't had never seen undisturbed birth. Now I read, like, Michelle Odance, like, birth reborn. I had heard I knew that somewhere. And it's funny because I still thought that was a hospital, which it is and isn't. You know? But, but I had con I had read spiritual midwifery, but they also talk even in that book about checking dilation.
Speaker 2
There's no undisturbed birth in spiritual midwifery. You know? It's it's all it's all so so hands on, hands in, pathologized. It just has a nice title.
Speaker 3
And I wanted to do I wanted to be good at it. I wanted to be I mean, for the women's sake as well. It's still, like, love of women, love of birth, all of that. And so then I go into fellowship, and so then I learned how to do the operations, you know, on my own and c sections and all of that. And it was called, you know, an high risk and operative obstetrics fellowship from somebody who's done family medicine residency. And I did almost all of my electives during family medicine residency doing, OB electives. So I just was garnering more and more. And I had issues as well at times in my fellowship, but for there was also a a CNM at the hospital I was at. There was also an older attending family medicine doctor who was really laid off. And so this is where it now flips into my mind that I which I really held for decades after that, that I'm a good OB. I'm a natural OB. And so, like, we got birth tubs and blow up birth tubs in the hospital where I did my fellowship and were made fun of. Like, the other OBs, like, would hang snorkels on our things in the doctor's lounge and stuff because that was so crazy. But I was the one actually doing that and and advocating for that, and so I figured that that was good. I was, and this continues well past graduating. I was the one who would let women take any position that they wanted and stand up on the side of the bed to give birth. And so I was the the good one, the the natural one. I would let oh, these are air quotes. Right?
Speaker 2
You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 3
I would let women who needed to be induced, we'd start the Pitocin, and then I would allow it to be turned off to see if it kicked their body actually up into labor so that they could remain labor free. Because if you're on Pitocin, you had to be monitored. And so if you could kick off and get off the Pitocin for an hour and actually kick into labor, you could be off monitored so you could go take a shower. Whereas others, once they started it, you were on the same all the whole time. And so I felt like I was giving women all of these options. But I did have, you know, in my fellowship time, like, I was told to iron perennials, and I already had the sense you do not need to go in. Oh, always iron perennials. And the the labor and delivery nurses just sitting there ironing, ironing, stretching, ironing, just making them swell before that baby's head even comes down. You know? Yeah. And
Speaker 2
okay. I have never heard the term iron perennials. That is You know
Speaker 3
it. Ironing the perennium. Wow.
Speaker 2
So barbaric and old, like, old school torture.
Speaker 3
I can remember by the end of my fellowship sitting there, and one of my attendings was in the room, and she really wanted me to do it. And she was, like, kind of showing me you need to do this. You need to do this, and I just was not gonna do it. So I kept acting like I didn't see her, and she was getting so angry. But this was at the end. This was when I only had a couple months to go, you know, so I didn't care. But, like, sitting, and I thought, I am not moving from between this woman's legs to let her come do that. So I did have these little sparks of whatever, rebellion or whatnot. I also was pulled in because I had not done enough forceps, and I was told by one of my attendings, you have any excuse for forceps, you put it on because you don't have enough. And when you're out, you're gonna need to know how to do this, and you haven't gotten enough forceps delivery during your fellowship.
Speaker 2
I I went to a neonatal resuscitation thing when I was a medical midwife's assistant, and, you know, she taught us neonatal resuscitation. And then she said, I want the next hundred babies you guys deliver. Just bag the baby. Just baby comes out, just bag the baby because you need to you need to get how to do this. And so all these women go out into the world and just prophylactically are fucking resuscitating babies. It's insane.
Speaker 3
It's a mess.
Speaker 2
You have to abuse everyone so that when you do your actual believed perceived helpful thing, you've, it's so gnarly. Wow. Yep. Okay. Yep. How many years have you been in this? Eight. Okay. That's a long time.
Speaker 3
Eight at this point. And then before I finished my training, and then, oh, I had my child, my first child there, in there. And so
Speaker 2
And did you birth at the hospital?
Speaker 3
I wanted to birth at home, and I had a very yeah, I I really had to do a lot of grieving about this when we were in RBK school, and I was really learning about what what undisturbed birth is because
Speaker 2
so
Speaker 3
I was coming up on forty two weeks. And so and I and I got checked by my medical midwife who did a home birth. So I was already, like you know, I was getting my gumption up to where I was still in residency and fellowship and willing to have a home birth. But then you don't necessarily wanna come too far outside of that anyways. But I also didn't have the framework for what undisturbed birth was. So forty two weeks, I agreed with her. Everything I knew from my midwifery training beforehand and all this, forty two weeks. Well, this is a problem. And she checks me, and I'm long, hard, and closed. And so I immediately went home and took castor oil, rather than be induced. Interestingly, this midwife was willing to give me side attack to take it home to put myself to try to put myself in LA. And so I took this castor oil, and sure enough started having some contractions and had this long dysfunctional posterior baby that was nine pounds and twelve ounces that clearly wasn't ready to come yet. It was sort of, you know, forced into going early. And so that first, I went in it I was gonna have to be induced on Monday. I saw the midwife Friday afternoon. I bought castor oil on the way home, which was such a and took it. Such a rookie mistake. I didn't even give myself, like, the night to sleep. Right? Took it. And then sure enough, started contracting by bedtime. Didn't sleep that whole Friday night, but then did kick into labor. And by the next morning, I was, like, seven, which was awesome. You would think it was awesome. And then a few hours later, I was still at nine and still at nine, and the baby had meconium. And my midwife was supposed to transfer in with meconium, but I think because she you know, my husband and I or whatever, she allowed us to stay at home with meconium. But then, ultimately, you know, I was getting exhausted and transferred in. And then I transferred in and ended up with the whole like, I got stale. It made me create batshit crazy. I agreed to an epidural. I spiked a fever, so I got and and so, you know, we got the full gamut. I got IV and antibiotics, got internal monitoring Oh. Amnioinfusion because of the masonium.
Speaker 0
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3
All of the things. Slept that night, the second night. So this was the second whole night I had been up and then woke up. And, it was finally complete because he was posterior, and he slowly turned, turned, turned to come out, and he was nine pounds twelve ounces. And then my fever went down. The whole time, I'm feeling lucky. I'm like, I am so lucky that they're not c sectioning me. I am so lucky that I'm still here, and they said you're complete. You can start pushing now. And I said turn off the epidural because I wanted to feel natural pushing. And so they left the catheter in my back, but turned it off. And then it went from, like I was on Pitocin, like, zero to, like, two million, and I lost my mind again. I was writhing all over the bed. I was freaking out. I'm like, give it back. Give it back. So they turn it back on, but I had pulled the catheter out, and then I couldn't get one. So then they tried to come give me a second epidural. It was just crazy. So I felt like in one labor. I, like, didn't want an epidural. When I finally decided to get one, cried and cried and cried. And then I did desperately wanted an epidural, and they couldn't give it to me because the catheter wouldn't work, and only one side went numb. And, I pushed for, like, four hours, and then the attending came in to the midwife. So these were CNMs that had a hospital based and home, home birth practice. So that was actually lovely. I felt like she was able to be at home when my friends were, like, drumming, and we had the whole thing going at home until, like, you know, thirty hours later. Now we're at the hospital getting this done. And the attending said he was gonna go get forceps and come back. And so I just, like, whether I had a contraction or not, pushed pushed pushed pushed pushed out. Had a third degree tear.
Speaker 2
Yeah.
Speaker 3
Had a, broken sir I had a a ruptured cervix. I actually had a cervical tear and, had prolapse, which continues so all so that was my first birth.
Speaker 2
Sad.
Speaker 3
That was my first birth, and I felt lucky. I felt lucky that I had a vaginal birth. And then now what I know about physiologic birth, I'm like so many questions. You know? What if they would've just left me at home? What if I wouldn't have taken the castor oil? All the things. All the things.
Speaker 2
But, like, is it that mysterious? You would have just had a baby.
Speaker 3
Right. No. Right. Right.
Speaker 2
It's not like
Speaker 3
Like, what if I would have said no? Like yeah. No. It's not You would
Speaker 2
have just had a baby.
Speaker 3
I know the answer. Like, what if I would have taken castor oil? I probably would've he probably would've worked his way down into a good better position, and then I would've gone into labor naturally, and we would've all been you know? That's right. Oh, brutal.
Speaker 2
That's interesting too that you're becoming an OB and very much or so you thought desired a home birth. Like, that's just another interesting layer of the cognitive dissonance and the the, like, fracture from you to other women, you know, or how you perceived other women. It's really interesting. It's like when nurses, you know, when when when yeah. When people who work in the labor ward birth at home, it's like, You're not, like, behind what you do?
Speaker 3
Yeah. No. No. Yeah. And so fellowship, I had four weeks off to the day, after my baby. Right? And so I worked every single day. I worked all the way up through that Friday. I was on a rotation where they could have me in or out of the office and head back up for me if needed because I only got four weeks to the day. And so I spiraled down way, way down and had difficulties nursing, I mean, the whole thing. And then four weeks to the day was back to my full work week, which oftentimes was as much, you know, between ninety and a hundred and ten hours What? Including your on call hours. Baby. Including your on call hours. Right? And so I started that and, sort of had this mini breakdown, which I felt embarrassed about, like, at the this is, by the way, family practice residency and fellowship. It was a family the word family, medicine training program. Mhmm. This is how they're treating one of their residents. I had it I had it in my third year in residency. Right?
Speaker 2
Where did your four week old baby go?
Speaker 3
So, we had a live in nanny. You know, I pumped a ton. And when I used to take call in the hospital in my little hospital room with the cot, basically, I would sleep in there with him, and my husband would sleep on the floor so that if my pager went off and I had to go, then he would stay in there with the baby. My husband, by the way, who is in residency himself at the same time, he was actually in his he's a neonatologist neonatology fellow. And so we would schedule our call schedules so we would never be on call the same night. We would be on call opposite night so that he could be there in the hospital with me with the baby.
Speaker 2
Jeez Louise. This is, like, nightmarish.
Speaker 3
It's pretty bad.
Speaker 2
It's really bad.
Speaker 3
Pretty bad. I did a variety of things after training. I was in a family medicine teaching program because I thought that I would go in and take over the OB program in family medicine and teach it how to do better. Not physiologic birth, but better.
Speaker 2
Mhmm.
Speaker 3
And that's really what and then I ultimately did private practice, and I had a midwife who worked with me private practice. And I was kind of thought of the doctor to go to if you wanted to have natural birth in the hospital. So all those things like letting letting women give birth in the position they want, letting them get in and out of the tub, all of that stuff. So I thought I was doing a great service. Then I have five babies in eight years and was going to need to have a live in nanny again and ultimately did not want to do that. Like, something was like, I don't want somebody in my house to take care of my children all day while I'm gone. And so I made the decision at that time to step away, and it was really, really hard because I loved OB, and I loved working with women. And I stepped away, and I knew I would come back. Like, if I knew if I thought that I was stepping away for the rest of my life, I never would be able to do that. So I knew I would come back, and I thought, well, I'm gonna be the granny midwife when I come back. I had that in my head. Like, I'm gonna when my kids get older, I'll come back to birth. And so I did office only work, and then I delved back. My practice name is Full Circle because in order to heal, I had a horrible prolapse, and people told me I had to have a hysterectomy and because my body was torn up, because I did things being the expert OB I was, like, I was back running on concrete two to three weeks after having my babies. Like, because it felt fun, and I thought that was fun. And now when I understand how I created that, all the pushing and the all, I had three I had three babies that were born at home after that. And then, my fifth, there was some complications and was and was born in the hospital. But so I stepped away. I did a holistic health practice, and then I adopted four more children. And so I had nine children within nine and a half years of each other. And then now it's been five years since that, and my kids are between eleven and twenty one. Getting ready to turn twelve and twenty one. And so my kids are at an age where I'm like, I'm gonna do births again. And I knew I didn't want to go back in the system to do births. And so I met with some home birth midwives in my area, and by law here, they've just made legalized in Kentucky. I think it was twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen that they need to have a second. They need to have an assist at their birth. And so I fulfilled that role because I took NRP and and did that and, was trying to see how could I return to birth in the way that I wanted to return to birth. And I honestly hadn't really heard of you. I had heard of you. I heard you on, I heard you on the medicine stories podcast. So I'd heard of you, but I was taking a trip, by myself, which is pretty amazing
Speaker 2
to
Speaker 3
to Hawaii and just delving into a lot of podcast and all that and saw you and Yo last year. It's been less than a year, which is hard for me to believe, and heard it about RBK School and looked and read about RBK School. And I was like, I'm that's it felt resonant to me. It had those questions. Those all those great questions you have on there. Like, are you wanting to help women, but it's not quite right? Or all everything you said, I was like, yes. Yes. Yes. I listened to every single one of those video testimonials and all of that, and I made the plunge and went in. And I still had no necessarily clue. No clue. K?
Speaker 2
Nobody does. Nobody does.
Speaker 3
And so I remember it was, like, the very first get to know you session because you have the breakout group. So we were in small group session. I think it was myself and, like, six other women and you, and you asked me, like, so are you ready to give up your license and and do birth outside the system? And I was like, what is she talking about? Like, I was so offended. I'm like, are you saying that that's what I have to do to be in this school? Like, I totally didn't get even what you were talking about. And I, like, fumbled around and, like, I just and I'm so grateful for the school. I'm so grateful for the learning about physiologic birth and what it truly is that I've come out of that experience so much more clear about how I'm meant to serve women. And I worried before, oh, if I do home births, how am I gonna get women understand that I'm a doctor, but I'm in home births and not expect me to save them at the home birth? And I was worried about what what I was gonna say or how that was gonna look. And now it's actually really simple because they were these they were these conversations that I never thought to have with women, but they're the essential conversations to have with women. Like, how do you feel about your what's your responsibility and what's what are you expecting me to do? How do you feel about death? How do you feel about, what your even what's your ideal birth? And it took me out of this position where I knew I was kind of wanting to come in. Like you say in the school, it's not it's not fifty fifty. You're each giving your hundred percent. And so I knew I wanted to come in with that full hundred percent and have the woman with her hundred percent, but I was like, how how am I gonna do that without and and, really, I've been given the tools to be able to do that because it's actually super simple. I am there to serve the woman, and the woman is in charge. I am there to use as the woman to use as a resource, if she chooses. But she is in charge of her birth, and I also understand what physiologic birth is. I never saw physiologic birth in the hospital ever. It's impossible. Birth by definition does not take place in the hospital.
Speaker 2
You also didn't see it back at that birth center.
Speaker 3
I did not see it back at the birth center. I did not. And so whereas I had fancied myself a good natural birth doctor that I didn't I I was good I'm a good natural birth I was a good natural birth in the hospital, doctor for what people thought natural birth was.
Speaker 2
Right.
Speaker 3
But it's but it's not
Speaker 2
Yeah. It's not good.
Speaker 3
I didn't know anything about physiologic birth.
Speaker 2
Yeah. But how could you? Nobody taught it to you, and you had never seen it. Have you seen it now?
Speaker 3
I have seen it now, and I have, the con something changed about the tie the conversations with the women that I that see me now. Something something changed where, women would say, I I had I used to have one and sometimes say to me, well, I would give birth at home if you were there. And then I would just know that's not right. Like, for me, but now I'm able to have that conversation and come back and say, you know, what are your reasons for wanting to give birth at home? Would you give birth at home by your if nobody was there? What's your conviction there? And have true heart to heart about that and then be able to enter into a relationship with them, honestly, of not even it's not even partnership, but service but service to them. And just to be more clear and to get that clear, yes, that I'm wanting that I'm that we're ready to move forward, that we're on the same page. And, honestly, being, in the Free Birth Society membership and being on the listing of RBKs, it's so much easier. Like, the women there who are educated and know what they want, they already are real clear about what my role is, so we don't have to get into this savior stuff. It just, like, poof went away. It's it's kind of fun. And so the education and the understanding really helps. But the other part that really helped me with the school from the school was I really was more clear about my offerings and what I had to offer women. And so the helping with the birth trauma debriefs, and I was already doing that in my postpartum care work with women, but not necessarily calling that. That's exactly what I was doing when I see women for postpartum care, of course, because so many of them have had traumatic births in there. And so to clarify that and articulate and articulate my languaging around that, I was recently on another, podcast, the Rheumatology podcast, and she asked me that classic question, like, what advice do you give to women if they're speaking with doctors, like, about except she tangled the question. It was if they're speaking with doctors about how to advocate for themselves. So that's one question that I answered, and I said, you know, use your doctor like you would a library book. Like, you pick it up, you look at their information, it either resonates or not, and you put it back. Or maybe you keep it down and delve in deeper if you're interested in a doctor's thing. But it's not the one there's a whole library of books out there. But she also said, what is your advice for, advocating yourself if you give birth to the hospital in the hospital? And I was like, my advice is to not go to the hospital. And I don't think that I could have said that because I would have had some other quippy answer. I would have talked about informed consent.
Speaker 2
Informed consent. Yeah. Of course.
Speaker 3
We'll ask this question and this question and this question.
Speaker 2
Oh, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3
And it's just flat out I can't give that anymore. I can't give that. It's like the blinders have been lifted.
Speaker 2
Sounds like you've stopped lying.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. Lying to myself, lying to others, all of it. And, yeah, I even listened to that. I didn't remember saying, and then I listened to the recording, and I'm like, that was the clearest thing I said on that. Oh my gosh. Was don't go. And, interestingly, there was a woman who had come and seen me for, like, care. I do body work and my therapy, and I do holistic pelvic care and all of that prenatally. And she came to me after she listened to the podcast, and she said, why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you tell me? And so that part of me this is what I was referring to earlier that I wanted to come back to this. That part of me that's like, I don't wanna be too pushy. I don't wanna scare people. How do I bring people in and educate them without It was really humbling to have her. And at the time when I saw her, I didn't know to say that. And I remember thinking, because I
Speaker 2
know she wanted to have a natural
Speaker 3
birth, and I know she midwifery hospital based practice in town. And I know, I knew where she was going, and I and but I didn't feel like it was my place to tell her what she should or shouldn't do. But having her come back to me and then hear me say that and hear me say, why didn't you just tell me not to go, makes me realize that there's more work to be done, you know, on my part, and then I'm not gonna hold back. But it's not
Speaker 2
it's not that you need to tell someone what they should or shouldn't do. You just need to tell the truth. So for example, if a woman tells me I'm planning a a natural birth at, you know, good Samaritan, I'm I'm gonna say, love that you want a natural birth. It won't happen. It's not possible there. That's right. I'm not saying don't go. Do whatever you want, but, like, have the actual information because the are they you can, like, full decisions if you don't know anything? You know? Like, you know, it makes me there's something that had gave me courage to start speaking about this stuff a very long time ago as a doula was really thinking because so many people wanna keep you hush-hush about the doctors and and the abusive doctors. And I had been in these doula circles where we would all be, sharing, like, war stories about these rapists, OB GYNs that were doing, really, like, unspeakable things to the moms that we were, you know, paid to serve and to protect. Right? And so we would be, like, in these trauma circles debriefing it, and I would be the one that's like, okay. But, like, what do we do? Like, can we leave Yelp reviews? Can we, like, pick it the front of the hospital? Like, what do we do? Can we stop taking clients with these motherfuckers? Like, how do we actually make a difference? And they would all be like, no. I mean, you don't wanna rock the boat and like, you don't wanna piss them off. Anyway, all this is to say that, I remember driving home from one of those meetings feeling so frustrated and I was like, why am I acting like this is any different than a rapist in my social community or an abuser, you know, in my social network? Like, if I knew, which this has been the case, you know, in in my life, if I knew that there was a a a male who abused his girlfriends and my friend was gonna go on a date with him, I would definitely let her know that I knew that about him or if he raped women on dates. I would definitely let her know that feels love that feels like loving, that feels dutiful, that feels like what I would want, that feels sisterly. And so I had this just major epiphany of, like, why am I treating this any different? Because the stuff that I'm seeing is absolutely as horrific as if it's happening in their own homes, you know, just because it's in a hospital. So fucking what? And as soon as I framed it like that for myself, it gave me a lot of permission to, like, sound the alarms, but it is different than saying I mean, if it was my friend, I probably would say don't you dare go on that date. Like, we know this about him, you know, but, like, if it's a stranger, yeah, you wanna be a bit more graceful, I guess, about it. But, yeah, I hear you. And I think a lot of women sit in that place of, like, it's not our business and who are we and we don't know what's best and, you know, don't hero them and and and women get confused about truth telling versus, like, being in someone's business. And it really comes down to are are you like right with yourself? Are you right with what you're saying? And this is true for birth attending you know. If I'm at a birth and I'm feeling like something doesn't feel right or I'm feeling like I want to say whatever. I I'm trying to think of a quick example. Like, like, if I wanted to say that I I don't think this is within the realms of normal or if I wanted to say I really think you need to get out of the tub, it would be very easy for me and I did this for years to not speak because you're not supposed to interject or whatever. But there's this whole other side, you know, in maturity and practice where you trust yourself to speak, and that's actually when we get into the realms of what is sisterly. Because when I trust myself to speak, I'm also trusting you that you can handle what I have to say. Because if there's no hierarchy between us, if I say, hey, you know, I think I think you should get out of the tub, I also know that she can say, no thanks, I'm good, And it's fine. It's not a big deal. And I've absolutely been to those kind of births where I make suggestions all the time where they're like, nah. Okay. Great. You know? And then there's like wider, more intense, you know, circumstances. But you get my point. Right? Like, the real sisterhood, the sisterly move with all of us in any context is to be right with what we're saying and to speak the truth and know that our sisters will handle it.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's just it is that simple. That was what what there were so many reasons RBK School helped me on both professional level and then personal level, learning the tools of self mastery and all of those things. But it kind of is that simple that I am able to articulate it, and the energies then is different. Yeah. And so it's this thing that I worried about, like, how am I gonna explain or this or that? The energetics are different, and it's it's it's more clear to myself. And I think for that reason, it's more clear to the women. And so it is, brought me into what I feel like is that authentic midwifery, and hopefully, I'll be able to be that granny midwife that I said all those years ago. And I'm so, I'm so grateful for the transformative experience. Yeah.
Speaker 2
That's awesome. Just takes so much, so much courage to be that indoctrinated. And from, you know, one of the strongest cults on the planet and to really step out and question it and find a more integral way. It's just, you know, I would say in some ways, it's, like, more courageous than because you really had to go to the other side. You really saw what else was out there. Oh my god. But that's how we find our nose. Yeah. And now you're sitting in your red tent serving women.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2
Well, how can women in your area find you? Any any last minute things you wanna share?
Speaker 3
My website's full circle louisville dot com, and I'm on Insta at full circle holistic. Stick. And, yeah, you can find me there, and feel free to reach out.
Speaker 2
Awesome. Thank you. I know we could talk for hours more. Thank you. Appreciate your willingness to share your story.
Speaker 3
Okay. Take care.
Speaker 2
See you at the festival. Yeah. You too. Bye.
Speaker 3
Bye bye.
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 Redd.
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 way down. We reject your fear.
