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'm here. 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 change since I've left my rules back home.
Speaker 2
What if I told you that there was an underground global community of badass women all swapping wisdom, witnessing and supporting each other in total reverence, and birthing their babes entirely outside of the medical system. What if I told you that there was a vetted, private, exclusive space where you could access my personal list of radical birthkeepers? And what if I told you that it's off Facebook, it's troll free, and where most of the women on this podcast are hanging out? If you're in alignment with what we talk about here on the podcast, it's a pretty sure bet that our private community wants you in it. We have eleven monthly circles and workshops virtually, and also have a member directory so that you can find women in your local community too. And this isn't just for mothers. This is for the wildhearted radical woman who is interested in consciousness raising, questioning the systems that harm us, living sovereign holistic lifestyles, and wants to create community to guide our way back to healed sisterhood. Go to free birth society dot com and apply today. I'll see you in there. Whitney joins us today to tell the stories of her two free births in the past two years. Her first with her husband and sister present, and her second in an RV supported again by her family for the slow emergence of her son. Whitney shares the power of witnessing other women walk through through wild pregnancy and free birth in our private online membership and reflects on how grateful she is to have created the life she is living.
Speaker 3
Welcome, Whitney. Hi. Well, let's just dive on in. You got a little twelve week old baby. You free birthed your first kiddo. We've got two stories to tell, and, yeah, just start me wherever wherever you want. You're twelve weeks postpartum. What's it been like? How are you doing?
Speaker 4
Yes. So much. I'm really deep in the motherhood journey right now. I have two babies under two, so that keeps me just I feel like each phase is elongated because one baby goes through it and then getting the restart with the second. But I'm thirty years old now, so I have, like I had all of my twenties to figure out who I was. You know? And a lot of things that just time and experiences can't really replace. You just gotta go through things. And one of those experiences was, you know, I was on birth control for ten years just doing the regular old birth control, living my life. That's how I thought I could have my freedom. But I actually had a mishap on birth control, ended up getting pregnant. And so I went into my doctor, per usual, and found out at that same doctor's appointment that I was also miscarrying. So it just kinda started to spiral this whole, like, waking up, like, wow. This is already a big thing to go through. The guy who I was with at the time was not a good fit for me, so blessing that this was just a learning journey for us. So, yeah, those doctor's appointments with that pregnancy just really turned me off and started to get me thinking alternate routes. Right? And I discovered some natural mothering pages on Instagram, on Facebook. I actually discovered the Free Birth Society, started listening to podcasts after my miscarriage just because birth had now entered the conversation. You know? I had lived my life to this point, and now I'm opening my world to what is what do I want my births to look like, which I never really thought before. I just thought you do the thing. And I just had my mind blown open that there was even the route to not go the hospital way. So fast forward a little bit to meeting my now husband, I had spirit babies talking to me like crazy. And and within the first couple of weeks or months of dating, you know, I let him know that there's gonna be a baby coming through one day, and I hope you know that I plan to home birth. Like, that's the route we're taking here. He was pretty down the whole time. He's like, okay. Yeah. It was never too big of a push. He does have two older children, and those births were both in the hospital and, of course, had some traumatic outcomes with certain things. And we had to do a lot of unpacking for him, a lot of debriefing through those traumas that he went through with his older two kids. But all in all, we were both pretty onboard with, let's just have this baby at home. Now granted this was peak COVID time. Like, COVID had just came out. Twenty twenty, we found out we were pregnant at the very beginning, and then everything got weird. The whole world got weird. So I had a lot of just being a new time mom, a lot of anxieties around that conversation of, no. I'm not going to the hospital. I have my baby. I work as a hairstylist, so I'm around a lot of women, and there's a lot of time for small talk talk, you know? So, of course, they're gonna ask me about my pregnancy and babies, and I had a lot of just, I don't wanna have to go into it with them mindset's dreading, but I believe just putting off that energy, a lot of people didn't really ask me or didn't really fluff about it or dig into it further when I told them, you know, I don't have a doctor. I don't have a midwife. Yep. There was definitely the curious people, and those conversations were actually fun to have, but I didn't get a lot of negative hate. You know?
Speaker 3
But when you when you're saying that you and your man are down to have a home birth, like, do you mean free birth at this point?
Speaker 4
I do. Yes.
Speaker 3
And so, I mean, that's a pretty big jump, right, for a birth control girl, hospital doctor girl, to then, like are you having a wild pregnancy?
Speaker 4
Like I am. And it was Did it all
Speaker 3
just, like, click click click and it was just kind of obvious for you? I mean, that's a pretty big jump.
Speaker 4
It was a big jump. It was a continuum of things, though. You know? I had gone I'd always just been into looking at the other side of the coin. Always trying to see, like, what could an alternate route or just, like, what could be some off of the money trail, what is the intentions around some of these practices that we do? Just looking into things deeper and, like, once you hear it, you can't unhear it. Once you understand that you can just have your baby at home and it's no big deal and you don't have to get the monitoring, the IV in the arm, the poking and the prodding, like, that sounds like a dream. That sounds like a big yes to me. And it lit me on fire. Before I was even pregnant, I'm doing my client's hair, like, you know, you can have a home birth and not even have a doctor there. And, like, I'm taking the conversation to, let's talk about birth. And I've never even truly experienced this. Right? But I I like I said, it just lit me on fire as a side hobby of just diving into birth. So when it became my time, I had already listened to so many stories of women just doing it. And it felt like, you know, I can just do that too. So the story medicine is truly that. It is truly powerful to just hear other women doing it, you know? And even without having to listen to a birth pod podcast to hear those stories, where else do you really just hear birth stories? You know? Like, you might hear it once or twice.
Speaker 3
Like, positive
Speaker 4
Positive ones. Means I
Speaker 3
mean, it's easy to find gnarly ones.
Speaker 4
Exactly. Everyone's down to tell you their drama that they went through. So, yeah, I sold it to my husband pretty pretty well. He was down, and I remember one of the bigger things he was concerned about was, who's gonna clean up the mess? I was like, oh, honey, if that's all you're worried about, then we're good. And so for my first birth, we wanted to have my sister there. I wanted to have my sister there. She's my older sister, and me and her are tight. You know? She's my girl. So just to have another woman present. She had had two births, not necessarily rebirths or supernatural at all, but just she'd gone through birth process twice. So just needed someone who could look me in my eyes when the time was getting, you know, a little hazy and just remind me that I can do it. So that first pregnancy was just so magical. Everything is just so unknown and you're dreaming and you're just everything's so just blissful it seems, you know. Even the the annoyances are just magic because you don't know what's coming. Really, I I kept track with my pregnancy as far as weeks goes. Just fun to do. And I feel like that was one of the things that held me up a little at the end because I decided to stop working completely at forty weeks with my first, and I didn't end up giving birth till forty three weeks. So I'm just sitting there waiting, waiting, and it really starts to get into your head. And my sister, at the time, lived in Midland. And she decided, okay. I'm forty weeks along. I'm just gonna come and stay with my mom and be close to you. We can do some, you know, walks in the woods together and just spend some quality time before this baby's here. Well, she got a little antsy too because two weeks go by, and she's away from her family. Alright. And she's like, okay. I need to actually run home real quick and get some things done. So How
Speaker 3
many hours away did she live
Speaker 4
from you? She's five hours away. So Yeah. That's hard. That just, you know, put my husband at his nerves became higher. And we actually went on a hike and to dinner. And she planned to leave the next day where after dinner, said goodbye. And I was just kind of in the whatever phase, like, I'll just call you. I was so me and my husband, we go home, and I am kinda laying around and starting to feel a little weird, starting to feel a little crampy. And I let him know I'm gonna go try to lay down. And that did not happen. I could not lay down. I could not go to sleep because the surges started to pull through, and he was up. I don't know doing what, but he comes in, and he's like, it's happening. And I'm like, yes. It is happening. This this could be the night that we finally meet our baby. We've been waiting so long to meet this baby, it seemed like. So we do a little prayer. We light some sage. We light the candles. We just set the mood, and I just remember ripping all my clothes off. Like, the clothes had to go immediately and just started to ride the waves. Well, this had begun right as, you know, pretty much the sun went down. So I'm tired. I feel like, you know, your girl needs your her sleep. I take several naps a day at this point, and just to be able to be up all night, I'm exhausted. So I keep trying to take naps in between the sensations. And each one, I just wake up, like, angry because it wakes you up from your sleep. So by the end of it, prayer position, end of the bed, and everything just starts to get way more intense. My sister's here. She her and my husband are doing so well holding space. They kind of come in in and out of the room. You know, maybe my husband will be there with me for a little bit, and then my sister. I definitely remember hearing them snoring at one point and kind of being jealous, like, cool, guys. But just to be in that dark space, we kept it so dark and just quiet. I didn't have anything playing, and I was able to just, you know, make sounds as the waves came through. And I remember using the restroom and seeing a bloody show, and that just really kind of kick starting my adrenaline. Like, this is definitely real. Prepare to possibly go three days. Who knows? I just had that expectation of this could last forever. And seeing the blood, I'm like, oh, shoot. Never felt like my waters break, but seeing that blood and letting my husband know, like, okay. Things are kick starting even further. We didn't already know that by now. At one point, I reach inside, and I can feel the smoothness. And it's my water sack because on that next wave, my body just bears down and begins to push on its own. I have no control of this. And out pops what seems like a little water balloon, and my wave, the contraction stops. And I'm left there with this water balloon in between my legs, and I'm once the wave stop, you know, everything seems normal. You can talk fine. And I'm I tell my husband, like, do you wanna come feel this? And he responds. He's like, no. But I can tell with the way he responded that he had been crying. So he's just over there silently sobbing in the corner, just watching me, which was so sweet to reflect on. One of the things my sister I think the only thing she had said to me the whole time, she had said, you know, on this next wave, I need you to just open up. Just bloom. Don't hold back. And I really needed to hear that from her because I had felt like I was gonna shit myself. I felt like the poop was coming, and I totally was clenching or just, I don't know, you hold back. And so those words really hit me. I was like, oh, okay. And so the next wave came, and the baby's head emerged. And my contraction stopped at that point. But I took over myself and was like, no. I'm not stopping here and pushed the whole baby out. She was born in her stat. The water broke on my husband's hands and sister's hands. They were both behind me at this point. And, the relief, the burst of the waters, it was like like confetti poppers, you know? Like, it was just like, ta da. The baby's here. And I hear my husband say, it's a boy. My sister said, no. It's it's a girl. And I'm just like, hand me my baby y'all. Apparently, you know, my husband's been crying a little bit. It was dark. He didn't have his glasses in, but bless his heart. They passed my baby through to me, and I just she's crying. The baby's crying. Oh, it was such a beautiful release. So, yeah, they helped me up to the bed, and we just lay there and listened to this little baby girl screaming and crying and, it was magic. She eventually latched on. Once she stopped crying, she fumbled around a little latch and oh my gosh. It was just so amazing. It did take a while for my placenta to be born. How long? Total of three hours. So about an hour went by, the cord's white. I was ready to shower. So we cut her cord, and daddy got to snuggle up with her while I went to the bathroom and tried to release my placenta, but no action. So go back to laying in bed and nursing, and we tried again another time, and it took, you know, probably two more hours. So finally, I was I was ready. And I knew my placenta was ready. I knew my body was ready. So I just stared down, sitting on the toilet, stared down and tugged on the cord myself. And as it came out, I just remember desk grip in it so it wouldn't actually fall into the toilet, but feeling the weight of it and everything in my hand was so powerful. It was so neat. My sister hung around and made some placenta prints, and we did some footprints in the blood. And it was just such a beautiful day. She was born at six in the morning, so I labored all night. As the sun came up, she was born, and we got to spend our first day together. Like, the sun and Mhmm. Coming in the windows, like, just made that moment so magical. I'll never forget that.
Speaker 3
How old is she when you get pregnant again?
Speaker 4
She's about ten months, eleven months.
Speaker 3
So how does that go? How's your first year of mothering in two? Your I miss was it an accidental pregnancy? So
Speaker 4
well Kinda, sorta. It was well, so what happened was we actually moved out of our house onto my parents' property in a big stressful, hectic moment of, like, we are moving this weekend. We had been thinking about it. It's been a build up. There had been signs. We had needed to make this jump, but we had just been lingering for some reason. And it hit us one weekend. We made this stressful jump and moved out to my parents' property and really been in the RV right now. And something about just settling here and having our own place and having our, like, being back where my roots are and we're tucked away in this little oak grove, like, surrounded in nature. Something about it just really set my body in a peaceful state once we moved. And I remember me and my husband, like, I think we could have another baby. And just getting excited about, like, yeah. Let's have another baby. Because for a while, we thought Luna Girl might be our only one. Oh, really? Well, it was briefly thought. You know, he has his two older kids, and let's just have one more. And but I don't know. Once it hit us, like, yeah. Let's have another baby. My body was like, okay. Here it is. And boom. We're pregnant. So it just happened super fast once we decided to. You know? But, hey. It it is what it is, and here we are. We're just doing the thing. So
Speaker 3
How was that being going through another pregnancy so quickly and having a baby?
Speaker 4
It was a lot. Luna was still breastfeeding, and I breastfed her until she was about fifteen months old, I think, until my second trimester or so. And then my milk started to dry up. So weaning her, it was easy, honestly. You know? There was no milk left, really. So she weaned, and there are there's been pros and cons. You know? There's moments where I feel, like, am I missing out on time with her because I have to be with this new baby? But then there's equally as much magic I get to see her with him too. You know? So it kinda just intensifies the goods and the bads. But on all honesty, my second pregnancy flew by. Like, there was days I forget I was pregnant. Just I'm keeping up with a toddler. So or a baby. She was she was still a baby then. She's just learning to walk and all the things. So my second pregnancy was pretty easy in the sense of just I was just pregnant. You know? No doctor appointments or anything. Just I just was growing a belly. And, of course, my babe girl, she didn't understand anything. So we would talk to her about my belly growing, but she wasn't grasping anything. So there's there's no hope for that per se. And now that I'm actually in it, it's beautiful. It's I was stressing before, but, you know, you just adapt and you just you just do it.
Speaker 3
So did you birth in this RV?
Speaker 4
I did. I had an RV birth.
Speaker 3
And was that?
Speaker 4
It was fine. You know? No problem. We cosleep. So I woke up in the middle of the night. I kind of let go of timelines completely, maybe a little too much. You know, my first one, I I had bought the free birth complete guide course and ran through all that. So with my second one, I touched up on a few modules just for fun and really just self care was my only prenatal care in both pregnancies, really. So when I actually went into labor, I was pretty shocked. I I had put myself a few more weeks to go. Oh, woah. Just because Luna's went so long, I put myself in that mindset. And I was still doing hair. I was still working behind the chair. So I had worked that that whole week and had clients continuously still booked for a few more weeks, and it happened on a Saturday night. I remember waking up in the middle of the night and having a dream. And in my dream, I'm cramping. And so when I wake up, I'm like, we gotta go back to sleep. Wake up again, and I'm cramping again. I'm like, oh, shoot. Could this be it? And I'm looking over at my husband and my daughter just sleeping beside me and just soaking in the moment that this could be our last night as just us in this bed. The whole dynamic is about to change, and I love that moment that I got of just the peace of just, you know, while everyone was sleeping, just soaking it in. And I tried to lay there for as long as I could before I needed to kinda move around. The cramps are getting more like contraction. So in our RV, we took out some furniture, so there's just some open spaces. And I made a little pallet there and just tried to get some rest. It's about four in the morning at this point. And they just keep rolling in. The sensations just keep getting stronger and stronger. My husband eventually wakes up, and I let him know, like, yes. This is this is happening. The plan was to have my sister around again. She lives here now, so she didn't have a five hour drive. So Nice. Plan is just to to call her and mostly have her help with my daughter. I live on my my parents' property, but I really didn't want my mother around. So just kinda having my sister to safeguard us. And I I knew I wanted to be a little more private this time. Even though the first time was hella private with just my sister and husband, I even caught myself a lot this time just going in the bathroom all alone and wanting to just completely be alone, not watched. You know? Mhmm. And after going into the bathroom at one point, and I could hear my sister and husband, came outside, and I think they asked me a question. My husband asked where the umbilical cord clamp is. I haven't even had the baby yet, and I was like, yeah. I think y'all can just go outside. Y'all just get out pretty much. And so they did and
Speaker 3
That's a tight quarter. That's tight quarters for sure.
Speaker 4
The walls are thin. So even outside, they can hear what I'm doing in here. So they'll know when the baby's coming. Mhmm. And, oh, it was intense. Birth is wild. It is so intense, but it is so, there's nothing like it. I just remember telling myself, you can do anything for a few minutes. You can do anything for a few hours. You can do anything for a day. That's just one day. You know? I had really tried to manifest for this birth a slower emergence. I felt like Luna's was really fast. And with hers, I experienced quite a bit of tearing, and that healing was a pain literally in my ass. And I just didn't wanna go through that again, and I had the fear of having that much pain with my toddler and a baby. How am I gonna how am I gonna recover? So really trying to call in a slower emergence for my baby this time, and I'll be damned if it wasn't a slow emergence. It was almost too slow at times. It's like he was hanging in my birth canal, and I couldn't sit back. I couldn't move. I had to just stay put in, write out the sensations. He would start to crown and then go back in. And I'm just losing my mind because this is happening. You know? My husband hears me scream, no. And he is concerned. What's wrong? I'm like, the baby
Speaker 3
Have you not have you not allowed them back in yet?
Speaker 4
No. Yeah. I think it's maybe the very, very end. He he was like, oh, my sister stayed out. I'm just pissed every time he goes back up into the birth canal, but I had asked for this. I had known this was this was okay. So, eventually, I am down on all fours, hands and knees, and the baby's head emerges. And just his head, the head is just hanging there, and the contraction stops. And I stop, and I'm just chilling. I I can hear my husband commentating in the background. He's like, you're doing good, baby. You know? This is good. The head is out. And I'm just commenting back like, yes. Yes. Next contraction. We got this. This is good. It's okay. All is good. And the next wave came through. The little body just started to emerge out. My husband's like, oh, we got an arm. We got a baby. It's a boy. And this time, he was right. It was actually a boy. And, oh, it was magical. He hands the baby through my legs again, and I just snuggle that little baby up. He starts to cry right off the bat too. And there's something about that first cry is such a relief, it just fills you with bliss because you know the the job is done. You've got your baby here, and the baby is alive and well. So he helps me to bed and, yeah, we just snuggle up. I feels I felt good really quickly after that one. Already knowing that, pretty sure we avoided tears, and my placenta came a little faster this time. It was still about an hour and a half, but I knew to just kinda give it a little tug and get that done. And, yeah, we let little sister come in, and she was like, baby. You know? She knew it was a baby. She was new to be gentle.
Speaker 3
And so how old is she now in that in when he was born?
Speaker 4
She's about a year and a half. Wow. About eighteen months. Yeah. So she pretty little. She was very sweet. I had thank thankfully, I had lots of help with my mother being close. So, you know, my husband stayed home from work, and then whenever he went back to work, my mom took my oldest so that I could just lay in and rest. And, again, I didn't tear with this one, so it was such a easier recovery, I think. You know, just being blessed in that way because it was a lot easier to get around with the babies. Mhmm. But, yeah, birth just cracks you open, and you become, just such a whole new woman after these experiences.
Speaker 3
How would you say it's changed you the most?
Speaker 4
Oh, it's changed me in every single dynamic you can think of. I used to bleach my hair. I had rainbow colored hair, you know, full face of makeup twenty four seven. Now I don't even use soap or shampoo or like, there's just it's radically shifted every single thing, and it continues to.
Speaker 3
That needs to be the ad for our membership.
Speaker 4
Pretty much. Like from free birth
Speaker 3
to no soap. But I I mean, what you're saying is, like, your your dependence on all of these industries. Yeah. Oh, it goes eradicated. It goes forever.
Speaker 4
You know? You think you stop one thing. Why would you stop using why stop looking at one department? You know?
Speaker 3
And how's it been in your marriage with two littles?
Speaker 4
Oh, it's been it's been so fun. Honestly, it's it's a lot. We we have a lot going on at all times, but it's both where we want to be, and I think that's a big part of it. You know? At the end of the day, we just sit around and are grateful for this lives that we created together. You know? And all the little faces of everything are just ooey and gooey still. So it's Are all four of you in one bed? Yeah.
Speaker 3
In a queen or a king?
Speaker 4
It's a queen, and it's a little tight in the RV. We're gonna have to get something figured out, especially once the little guy is more mobile. You know? I don't know what that move will look like, but we're figuring it out as we go. Awesome. Love it. Yeah. Surrender is my motto, and it's all you can do. Surrender to everything. It's the only way to make it.
Speaker 3
I always think like, okay. Yeah. Guys totally go hike into the Himalayan mountains and meditate by themselves for years, but, like, try having, like, two babies in an RV, you know, and finding finding your zen and finding your peace and and making lemonade and, you know, that's that's, you know, saying yes to life in that way. So there's so many gifts in it and there's so much, like you said, you know, to at the end of the day to just, like, really realize how much you're choosing this and how inside your own life you are is so potent.
Speaker 4
Absolutely. And I think that's the only way that it keeps us thriving in this situation and not just surviving. Totally.
Speaker 3
I mean, any situation. Right?
Speaker 4
Absolutely. Awesome. Do you have
Speaker 3
anything else you wanna add?
Speaker 4
I'm just so thankful again for the communities that have been built around free birth or birth in general. When women come together, the community is truly medicine to the soul. Joining the free birth membership just to have sisters to lean on, just to witness other sisters at that. Just witnessing all these women and their power and knowing that that is me too. We are all this power together. You know?
Speaker 3
It's like that sister morning star quote, what one woman can do, all women can do.
Speaker 4
Oh, and it's yes. It's humbling and powerful all at the same time.
Speaker 3
Love it. Oh, thank you so much.
Speaker 4
Thank you, Emilee. You are a treasure. So grateful for you.
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 Freebird Society theme song, Wild Woman by Aruba
Speaker 4
Red.
Speaker 5
I honor you for the wisdom you held, the ancient traditions of plant medicine and womb magic. 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 our wild women to paralyzing us and drugging our babes. Strapped down in a clinical white bed drying up the milk from our breasts. Keep your needles. My family will never again be doomed to chase those dragons or your poison. We reject your fear. We choose love. Everything with intention, death, ascension. I will fly and bring her back to the star.
