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 since I've left my rules back home.
Speaker 2
Imagine a land where women and girls run wild and free, where we're supported to feel, encouraged to express, and where we experience true collective healing. A place where we can play, laugh, and howl under the moon. Here, you can let your guard down and come back to the essence of wild womanhood. Your nervous system finally able to relax in the total absence of men and the total presence of sisterhood. Women call this the magic place. And as female only spaces continue to dwindle, securing land of my own for women's festivals has been a lifelong dream come to fruition. So I'm thrilled to announce and invite you to the second annual matriarch rising festival that will take place here in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, June nineteenth through the twenty fourth. This is an exclusive wild woman's summer solstice gathering, a week of dancing, nude sunbathing, communing with the elements, singing, and falling in love with what it means to be alive as a woman. Tickets are officially on sale and they will sell out, so head over to matriarch rising festival dot com for all the details and to get your ticket. Can't wait to see you
Speaker 3
there.
Speaker 2
Anna, a radical birth keeper school graduate, shares with us today the simple beauty of her RBK attended first birth. Surrounded by song, sisters, and silence, Anna talks about being surprised by how easy the whole birth process was, the psychedelic postpartum phase, navigating tongue ties and lip ties, and experiencing breastfeeding grief.
Speaker 3
Welcome.
Speaker 4
Thank you. It's so good to be here.
Speaker 2
Alright. I know you have quite the the special and beautiful story for us. So take us to wherever you feel like your story begins in your mothering journey.
Speaker 4
I guess I would say my story begins with growing up hearing my own mother tell the birth story of me and my older brother. And she birthed my brother in a birthing center with midwives, but it was she had
Speaker 3
a really, quote unquote, easy time. She birthed him in four hours, and and then she birthed me in two hours. She had actually just moved to a small town and wasn't able to find a midwife, but she did find this one Greek doctor in a hospital who was willing to let her birth in the hospital without any interventions or in monitoring.
Speaker 2
Nice.
Speaker 4
So that's where I was born.
Speaker 2
Mhmm.
Speaker 4
And just hearing from her over and over, like, birth really isn't that hard. It's not that big of a deal. It's beautiful. It's powerful, but you can do it. So I I kinda just had that set in me, and I'm grateful for that.
Speaker 2
Yeah. What a difference. That's huge.
Speaker 4
Yeah. Even still, I was really unsure if I actually wanted to be a mother. I felt like the world was really overwhelming, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to bring a child into that. And it took me a long time to come to terms with my own self and my relationship with the world to reach a point where I felt like, okay. I really do want to bring a baby in. That feels right. I feel baby spirits around me. And And I think I also needed to spend a lot of my twenties doing healing work in myself and and being ready to be grounded enough to
Speaker 3
Mhmm.
Speaker 4
Hold motherhood in a beautiful way.
Speaker 2
Do you was it a gradual shift for you into this idea of motherhood, or was there, like, a moment where you were like, oh, there's the yes?
Speaker 4
It was a little bit of both. There was definitely a gradual shifting happening, but then I was doing, this one Waldorf teacher training over the course of a year, and it was all women and all of them except for me were mothers, and it was just the most beautiful wholesome training focusing on the first three years of life. And in that, I came to that realization, like, this is something I need to experience. This is an initiation I need to go through. I am meant to be a mother. I can't wait to do this. And from then, it still took some years to find the right situation. And I really did a lot of soul searching after that to call in my partner, to call in the land where we could live because I knew I really wanted to raise a family out on land. I did the Artist's Way, which is an awesome, beautiful twelve week program to recover your creativity, but I did it really focused on calling those things in.
Speaker 2
Nice.
Speaker 4
And then after that, kind of walked around the world like, oh, are you my man? Are you my man?
Speaker 2
I mean, that basically is what dating is. Right?
Speaker 4
For sure. Yeah. Yeah. And it took some time for that to actually come. And even when I met my partner, I didn't think he was my man at all, but he knew from the beginning.
Speaker 2
Oh, snap. What?
Speaker 4
Yeah.
Speaker 2
Woah. That's crazy. How long did it take you to agree?
Speaker 4
At least a year. So So we met in our spiritual community. I walked into the ceremony, and immediately, he was like, woah. She exists? I love her.
Speaker 2
Oh my god.
Speaker 4
I know. Sweet. But he was younger, and I just felt like he wasn't in a place. And then he went and did a vision quest, like, four days on a mountain in the elements, no food or no water. And I felt like after he came down from that, he would probably be more in himself. So I just wanted to wait and see who he was after that, and it it really did make a huge difference. Like, we really got together after that, and then
Speaker 0
Wow.
Speaker 4
Yeah. Just kind of slowly kept coming closer and closer until I realized, like, oh, yeah. You are my person. We're gonna have children together.
Speaker 0
Woah.
Speaker 4
And then this land opened up that his parents live on, and they his they have two houses and his sister was moving out of one of them, so it just kind of created an opportunity for us to live on land, which has all the things that I had imagined it would have. So it's really beautiful to feel like, oh, okay. The dream is coming true.
Speaker 2
Wow. And how long have you guys been together?
Speaker 4
Maybe two or three years.
Speaker 2
Oh, it's still pretty new.
Speaker 4
Mhmm. It is.
Speaker 2
Okay. And I love it. I love that he knew first. That's so cute.
Speaker 4
Yeah.
Speaker 2
So cute.
Speaker 4
Yeah. And even though I was kind of holding him at arm's length, he was just really, like, gently persistent. He was like, I know this is gonna happen, but I'll let her think it's not. That's okay.
Speaker 2
Well, he was right.
Speaker 4
He was. He he got it in the end.
Speaker 2
And so then how like, when does, yeah, children enter in, and was this a conscious conception of your your baby? Would that all look like?
Speaker 4
Yeah. So through through ceremony, I definitely felt this one specific baby spirit around me for a while, and I was really excited for the possibility of bringing her in, but also knowing that it, you know, it might be a different baby spirit. And then I knew I wanted to start opening the gates for a baby to come, And my ideal timing was to get pregnant in November or December because I was teaching kindergarten, and that would just let me finish out the school year. But and I wanna say also that I was really scared of not being fertile because I have Hashimoto's, hypothyroid, autoimmune condition, and that really can lead to infertility Uh-huh. And because I just haven't gotten pregnant hadn't gotten pregnant up to that point. I was surprised that that hadn't just kind of accidentally happened. So I was really scared and really just hoping and praying that it would not be a really difficult thing to go through. And at the same time, I had also worked hard to prepare my body. Like, I've studied so much about nutrition and especially around maternal health and childhood health, and so I'd for years been doing, excuse me, a lot of the things to feel like I was ready. And so, yeah, we wanted to start trying in November or December, but the baby snuck right in, and I got pregnant at the end of August. Total surprise. Oh my god. It's actually, like, literally the day that my partner moved into my house where we lived together for a month and then moved on to this land. So baby was very ready to come, and it came at a really intense time too. The we were living in Portland. There were literally riots on the street right in front of my house. There were wildfires, and it looked like the apocalypse that the sky was red. And that was my first month of gestation. Woah. And then we got out of the city, and it felt so much better.
Speaker 2
Yeah. How far into your pregnancy did you move out there?
Speaker 4
A month.
Speaker 2
Oh, pretty quick.
Speaker 4
Yeah.
Speaker 2
You were like, this is good. I'm good. We're just gonna go.
Speaker 4
For sure. Oh my gosh. And we were so scared somehow it wouldn't happen. Like, you know, maybe this land would catch on fire. Who knows what? And we were just praying that we would get out here, but we did, and it just felt so much better to be out of the city. Well, so first, I realized I was pregnant because I had a couple dreams. One was I had a pair of little white baby booties, and another one was my dad saying, tell Nico congratulations that he's gonna be a father in forty weeks. Okay. And I've had my I've missed my period plenty of times. So I was, you know, here I am, like, a week late taking a pregnancy test. Like, oh, I'm sure it's gonna be negative. I've taken plenty of these tests before. I was so surprised when it was positive, and I went home, and Nico had me take, like, two more tests just to make sure. And it was a really beautiful thing, and I hadn't heard of the concept yet of not even taking a test just knowing, but I think next time I would want to try to do that. That sounds really sweet. And then I, I mean, I knew I wanted to have a home birth. That was never a question in my mind that I would birth in a hospital, really, in a birthing center. I knew I would have a home birth, and I had always kind of assumed I would birth with a midwife. I had, when I previously lived in California, my next door neighbor was a midwife, and it was a really small town and closely knit community, so she attended lots of births of all of my friends, and it was a probably a really positive community community oriented midwife relationship. But at the same time, during that time, she attended a VBAC in California at home, and the doctor at the transferring hospital found out and went after her, and she lost her license. So that was my first taste of seeing how limited midwives are by their licensure.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Better just to not be licensed.
Speaker 4
Yes. And so then, about six months before I got pregnant, I a friend of mine asked me to be present for her birth, which was a beautiful honor as the first first birth that I had ever attended. And, in some ways, it was so beautiful, like, they're part of our medicine community and really brought that vibe into it and showed me how, how much of a soul journey birth can be. But at the same time, she had a team of midwives there who had an alarm set for every thirty minutes and checked her baby's heartbeat with Doppler and checked her cervix every thirty minutes and yeah. The midwives imagined? No.
Speaker 3
Oh god.
Speaker 2
Wow.
Speaker 4
I know. So that
Speaker 2
of fingering. That is a lot.
Speaker 4
And it wasn't even one consistent midwife. It was one midwife and then her kind of random assistant that my friend hadn't even met before.
Speaker 2
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 4
Right. And then the midwife tapped out with another midwife partway through.
Speaker 2
Wow. It never it never doesn't blow my mind. Like, how these women can show up and just somehow, like, think this is okay. Yeah. Okay. So you got, yeah, a real crash course of what it would be like. Yeah.
Speaker 4
So I know I didn't want that.
Speaker 2
Mhmm.
Speaker 4
But so here I am newly pregnant, and I had heard of the idea of free birth. A friend of mine had kind of mentioned it to me. I think I've started following you on Instagram and just kind of had a vague sense. And I was listening to another home birth podcast, and one woman came on and told her story of having a free birth, and I was like, wow. You can do that. That's amazing. I don't know if I have the courage to do that. Maybe not my first baby, maybe the next baby, but that's really cool. So the seed was planted, and then I just started listening to this podcast. And I heard story after story after story of women saying their midwives sabotaged their birth, and then they had a free birth, and it was amazing. So that gave me a lot of courage. Yeah. Yeah. I was just thinking
Speaker 2
it's it's interesting this, like, idea of do I have the courage to free birth? That's, like, a really interesting thing to look at because so many I mean, obviously, you did, but, like, for people listening, so many women, you know, say that to us. Right? Like, oh, that's so brave or, you know, I can never do that or, I don't have the courage. And it's like, courage is the wrong word. Like, all birth takes courage. Right? Like, all unknown big things require some courage, but it's more like, do you have the internal resources to, like, essentially empower yourself? Like, are it's really, like, are you willing to take responsibility and not outsource your power? Which I guess does take courage to do, but you know what I mean? It's, like, even deeper than courage because I'm thinking of, like, women birthing at home with midwives and seeing free birthers as, like, more courageous. I'd say, why? Why? I guess their assessment of risk is different than ours too, but, yeah, it's like outsourcing. Anyway
Speaker 4
And it also requires doing the work of kind of undoing the programming that says that birth is a medical event, and it requires facing your own fears.
Speaker 0
Mhmm.
Speaker 4
If you're outsourcing, then someone else can hold those fears for you. But if you're taking responsibility, you really have to face all of it.
Speaker 2
Mhmm. So when do you start to get your yes in the pregnancy that that's what you're doing?
Speaker 4
So I had a yes pretty early on. Once I once I heard enough podcast stories, and also I had I scheduled a session with you, Emilee, and got to talk through my thoughts and fears, and that helps me a lot also, and you connected me with a few different birthkeepers in my area. So that all of that pretty much gave me a yes, but at the same time, my partner was a little more hesitant because he just hadn't looked into birth at all, was still very much in the paradigm that birth is a medical emergency. Mhmm. And he was really scared of the idea of not having support. So mostly for him, I interviewed a few licensed midwives and asked them, would you let me go past forty two weeks? What would you do if my waters were open more than twenty four hours? Would you require ultrasounds? Would you require a doppler? And, one midwife said, well, we wouldn't require it, but we would explain it all to you. And after we explained it, I'm sure that you would have find yourself wanting those things.
Speaker 2
Wow. That's so condescending.
Speaker 4
Oh, I was like, okay. Thanks. Bye. To you. Bye. And another midwife said, wow. I'm really impressed that you have so much trust in your own body. Yeah. You can sign a waiver and and not do any of those things if you want. So if I had gone the licensed midwife, that's who I would have gone with. But I think just at by that point, my partner and I had watched enough birth videos and talked about it enough that he was feeling calmer about not having a licensed midwife, so and I knew I didn't want to. So at that point, I definitely knew I wanted to birth outside of the system, and we started talking with one birth keeper in the area, and it sounded like she would attend our birth, but we we just weren't quite sure if that was going to happen. And I also purchased the complete guide to free birth and started diving into that. And so I don't know if I had a moment where I had a full, yes, I'm going to birth outside the system, or I think it was more of a progression of step by step things that helps. But definitely going through the complete guide of rebirth helped so much for everyone out there listening. I fully recommend it.
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, I couldn't agree more. And so you're kind of feeling people out all the while, you know, going through a self directed pregnancy. And what's it like for everyone in your life beyond Nico? Are are people kind of involved and supportive, or is it weird? Or how's that all landing?
Speaker 4
It was pretty much fine up until the very end. So I I had a totally wild pregnancy. The only practitioner I saw was a chiropractor for the last month or two. And I felt like I know enough about natural health, and I know my body well enough to guide myself through this, and I felt good. I I felt a little nauseous and low energy in the first, I don't know, from, like, weeks seven to nine or something like that. But then I started taking a bunch more organ meat supplements, and it it totally went away, like, pretty immediately, which was amazing. And after that, I really didn't have any complications. Yeah. So I felt I felt confident, and it was a trip to go through a wild pregnancy and not have the external validation. You know, before I was showing, there's that question, like, is is this still happening? Am I still pregnant?
Speaker 2
Oh my god. It's so heady.
Speaker 4
Yes. And then even once I am showing the baby's moving, then I'm like, what position is the baby? And I think it's head down, but I don't know. And, you know, just running through all the things that could possibly happen and then having to do that internal work to face those fears and keep returning to the present moment and trusting and trusting that no matter what the outcome is, it will be okay.
Speaker 2
So was there was there tension in your relationship with him being scared and all of that and you knowing how you wanted to do it? Like He
Speaker 4
was he was actually pretty supportive. He was like, it's your body. I trust you. You know way more about this than I do. He but he really wanted someone present. He did not want it to just be me and him because he was very scared that if something, quote, unquote, something went wrong, that he would be the one to have to figure out what to do. So just the idea that we were gonna have a birthkeeper present was really reassuring to him. And when I was kind of figuring out that that wasn't gonna be the right fit, he was concerned, but I I swooped in with a few other friends and was like, well, here's this one friend who's worked as a doula and is about to finish naturopathic school. I don't want her there as a doula. I want her there just as a space holder, but he really liked that she would be there with that birth experience.
Speaker 2
Mhmm.
Speaker 4
And then another we admitted another friend because they'd had a few dreams that she had been present in the birth, and she is Brazilian and sings and plays guitar very beautifully, so I really wanted her music. Sweet. Mhmm. Yeah. So and then so then towards the end of my pregnancy, I was able to take the radical birthkeeper school. Hands down, one of the best decisions I've made. It was such a beautiful experience to connect with so many beautiful, amazing women from all over the world and to learn so much about birth from a holistic, radical, ancient, wise perspective. So I'm so grateful that I did that. And then through that, there were two other women in the Portland area who were in my cohort. So I was able to meet them and connect with them, and, I just kind of felt them out and decided that I would ask one of them to be present for the birth as the birth keeper. And so she hadn't attended a birth before, but she was taking the same program as me, so I knew that I could trust her
Speaker 2
Mhmm.
Speaker 4
To speak for me. Like, if I was in labor and I just couldn't talk, I knew that she could be a voice for this perspective. And I I liked her presence a lot too. No.
Speaker 2
She's just
Speaker 4
so sweet. Yeah.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Ugh. So cool. I mean, this is the dream. Right? Like, it's it's happening where women are connecting over these values outside the system around free birth and then supporting each other, and it doesn't have to be in a lone birth. And it can be woman held real midwifery. It's so beautiful. Yeah. Okay. So tell us about the end of your pregnancy and then go into the birth story.
Speaker 4
Well, my partner's mom got really scared about our birth plan at the end of the pregnancy. And she took a really beautiful stance on it even though she was scared because she was able to own her own birth trauma experiences and recognize that she was projecting those outward
Speaker 2
Mhmm.
Speaker 4
And own her fear. She wanted a lot of reassurance, and it did help her to know that we were gonna have a support team there. But it was still really scary for her. And
Speaker 2
It's on her land.
Speaker 4
It's on her land.
Speaker 2
Yeah. It's, like, right under her nose.
Speaker 4
Yep. And that being said, she was cool. She didn't interfere.
Speaker 2
Smart.
Speaker 4
Yeah. But, otherwise, I would say my pregnancy was pretty smooth and beautiful. It was really nice quitting my job and having two months before the baby was born to just be home. I sat in the sun every day, did slow yoga, took my dog for walks, slept a lot. So I my due date was due date, quote, unquote, was May twenty second, and I figured the baby was gonna come later than that. I really thought it would be a June birthday. Oh, we also thought the baby was gonna be a girl for lots of different reasons. And I had started having like, in the maybe a week or two before that May twenty second date, I started having just little, like, uterine tightenings. It was really mild. I was like, okay. There's something. Something's happening. And then May, it was forty weeks and four days, and my birth keeper actually came over that day just for a visit. She took a couple's photo shoot of Miko and I, which is really, really sweet. I'm so glad we got that in. And oh, sorry. Rewind. That night before the night before that happened was the there was a full moon eclipse. And that night in the night, I woke up feeling something strong. I was like, oh, okay. This is much more than I felt so far. So I got up and couldn't sleep and actually just sat at my computer watching Radical Birthkeeper School videos. And then at, like, four in the morning, happened to look up out the window and saw this beautiful silver arc of light in the sky. I was like, what is that? Realized I was seeing the eclipse, so I was able to just go out on my porch and watch the eclipse. It was so pretty. I'm so grateful that I got to see that. And then so then the next day, the sensations kind of fizzled out. Birthkeeper friend came over, did the photo shoot. I took the I took my dog for a hike, and finally came home in the evening, we ate dinner, and then I really started to feel something. But I've heard so many stories of women starting to feel something, and then it's still days or weeks, and I've heard enough people say, don't psych yourself out. It's, it's probably gonna be a while. Get rest. So I I tried to keep it really cool. Like, I I told our birth support team that this was happening, but told them definitely don't come yet. I don't want you to be here for days.
Speaker 2
So so your two sister friends and then Christie.
Speaker 4
Yeah.
Speaker 2
Okay. Perfect. I love that setup. And so the sister friends were just, like, additional womanly support. However, one had the music going. Okay. Love it. That's a beautiful setup. And those two women were obviously super down with what you were doing and were just, like, here for it.
Speaker 4
Yes. They were. And I think the one friend who is the doula and the naturopathic student told me later that if it she was like, if it had been anyone else, I probably would have had a little pause about your plan with you. I just never had a snag. I kept checking in with myself and just found total trouble and over. So let the birth support team know, got all our birth supplies out, and then I was like, okay, Nico. Let's go to bed. We need to sleep. This could be a long time. So we got in bed, and it became very clear, very fast that we were not going to sleep, like, it sensations really picked up. And I wonder how much that was from just finally being in a dark room and, like, bringing that quiet in because that happened a few different times throughout the labor. So so now we're together in the bedroom. I'm on hands and knees. He's I'm just kinda grabbing on to him through the intensity.
Speaker 2
You're already on hands and knees. Mhmm. I mean, spoiler alert, but how many hours was your birth again?
Speaker 4
So somewhere between three and four.
Speaker 2
Okay. So this is at what hour of your
Speaker 4
This is crazy short birth? Hour one.
Speaker 2
Wow. That's crazy. Hands and knees, like, right out of the gates. And your mom had really fast labors too.
Speaker 4
Totally. And I will say from talking to you and hearing Yolanda, I really had prepared myself and prepared Nico that we have a three day labor.
Speaker 2
That's why you got the short one. Yeah.
Speaker 4
So okay. So we're in the bedroom on hands and knees. Nico's supporting me. It was really intense. And after a couple of contractions, he's like, so should we call the birth team? And I was like, no. No. It's still gonna be a long time, three days. Like, it's just gonna keep getting more intense. And he was like, okay. But I could see the fear in his eyes. Like, I'm alone here. And so after a couple more contractions, it got even stronger, and I was like, okay. This really is happening. Let's call them. And so the at that point, it was eleven PM, and we two friends, the doula friend and Christie were coming from Portland. They were gonna come together, and they're like, okay. We'll be there within an hour. And then my other friend, was actually coming from Bend, which is three and a half hours away.
Speaker 2
And when
Speaker 4
we texted, she was like, great. I'm an hour away. So then we got up and kind of went into this flurry of getting the house ready. Like, we turned off all the lights, lit candles everywhere, got out more supplies. I made all the beverages I wanted to have, like an electrolyte drink and lemon water, bone broth, all the things. And then finally and in the midst of that, every so often, I'd have to just, like, run to our guest room, get on the bed on hands and knees, like, go through the wave and then go back to getting everything ready. We finally got everything set up, and then we sat down at our altar, prayed, and started to sing some hymns from our spiritual lineage. And that was very beautiful. And after just a few minutes, our two friends arrived. And I felt really shy once they were here. Like, I felt like I couldn't go through everything in front of them, and they were really sweet. They came in very quietly and just started to get settled into the house, and I actually did get up and just give them a little orientation to where everything was. And then Nico and I disappeared into the bedroom, and I felt much better again once we were back in the dark quiet cave. And then it picked up fast. Like, then it was very much going. Somewhere in the midst of that, my other friend arrived, and she just started singing and playing guitar, and it was so beautiful to hear that. That. It was so calming, like, in the pauses between contractions to hear her beautiful voice. And then and then during contractions, I would just be I was definitely vocalizing loudly and but still, she's just singing and playing so calmly all the way through. So I had anticipated labor being long and me being able to have this, like, wild psychedelic journey, and I was really excited for that. And it actually was pretty quick, and I didn't get to journey that much. That's kind of the one thing about my birth that was different than I anticipated. But the I did have a few cool moments. I guess one thing is that I just could hear Yolanda's voice in my head over and over saying, there's only ever this one sensation, you know, so calmly. And but it did help me just keep diving into each contraction as it came, and and it did feel like I was kind of diving deeper and deeper into this dark hole. And at one point, I really felt your presence there, Emilee, and just kind of this, like, cheerleader. Yes, girl. You can do it. You're doing it. You're awesome.
Speaker 2
Totally.
Speaker 4
And then the I guess the most, like, quote, unquote, psychedelic moment I had was seeing my baby's spirit traveling down from the heavens to the earth and just seeing the beauty of that spirit, and then I kind of saw all these dark entities around him trying to make it hard for him to get here. I was concerned, and then it shifted. And I just saw all these, like, all this light around him, all these beings of light just guiding him and protecting him and heard a voice that said, don't ever be scared. The darkness is just an illusion that makes itself look really big in order to scare you, but it's not what's real. The light is what's real. That's the only thing there is, and just keep remembering that and coming back to that. And then and and so with each contraction, it felt like a cannonball, basically moving down through my insides. And I didn't push at all. It just kept moving downwards. And when it got far enough down, even between contractions, it still felt really intense. And then all of a sudden, I was crowning, and I could not believe that that was happening.
Speaker 2
That's crazy, Anna.
Speaker 3
Wow.
Speaker 4
And I couldn't speak either. I was far enough in that I just like, I knew it was happening, but I couldn't tell Nico that that's what was happening. But my vocalizations definitely changed. The ring of fire is real. That was so intense. And the when I first started crowning, I just felt like my baby's head was so huge. I didn't know how it was ever gonna come out, but I felt like it needed to come out so I could feel some relief. So that was the one moment where I pushed. I pushed just a little, and I felt myself tear, and then I was like, okay. Slow down.
Speaker 2
And where are you? Like, what position are you in? Where in your house are you?
Speaker 4
Still in the bedroom, on the bed, hands and knees. That's pretty much all I did. Mhmm. The whole time. Oh, actually, at one point, I got up to pee, and it was really cool because my mucus plug, like, shot out at that time. And I, like, had the little bloody show, and I'm, like, in the middle of a contraction, like, roaring, and then I'm like, oh, cool. But other than that, I was just on the bed. So now the baby's crowning. I pushed once and then was like, okay. Slow down. So then I had a couple contractions where the head would crown. It was really intense, and then the contraction would pass, and the baby's head would kind of come back in, and I would get some relief. So I was like, okay. I can do this pulsation. And at the same time, my friend, my Brazilian friend stopped singing and playing and came into the bedroom because she could hear that something different was happening. And she told Nico because Nico couldn't see what was happening. He was just supporting I was holding on to him, and so he was kind of in front of me. And she told him, oh, I see something. The baby's coming. And he thought to himself, okay. It's still gonna be a couple hours, though. No way is the baby coming right now. And then a minute later, she's like, time to catch your baby. Oh my god. And then the baby just shot out all at once. It it was an amazing feeling. Such a relief.
Speaker 2
Wow.
Speaker 4
That was when my waters released too. So Nico got totally baptized in the baby waters and
Speaker 2
Wait. Because now he's behind you. Yeah. Because he went back to catch.
Speaker 4
He kind of scrambled and, like, put his arms through my legs and caught. And he was, like, dark.
Speaker 3
I love it.
Speaker 4
It's dark. The baby's so slippery. I don't know where's an arm and where's the leg. They, like, figured it out. Got the baby upright and then handed him, like, threw my legs to me, and I sat up and just brought him right to my chest and was just holding him. And he was already pink and breathing, and his eyes were open. He was totally calm. He didn't cry at all. He just held him to me, and then it seemed like maybe he was having a little trouble breathing. So I just kind of, like, tipped him a little bit. I I kept checking in with myself to see if I should try to suction his nose, but I kept getting a no about it. So I just kinda tipped him and rubbed his back, and then he seemed fine. Just I mean, a baby
Speaker 2
coming that fast, I would assume could easily be just a little stunned. Not not that that is bad or he's not recoverable or anything, but, like, I would expect, like, a woah for a minute there. Yeah.
Speaker 4
And then we didn't know if it was a boy or a girl, and I was holding the baby so close to me, and he was so slippery that I just didn't want to, like, pick him up to check. So I kind of tried to feel, but I really couldn't tell. So we didn't know for a while, but eventually, I held them away, and we're like, oh, wow. It's a boy. We didn't have any boy names picked out. We were very surprised, and I just had this moment of like, oh, who are you? Totally. I don't know. And so right when he was born, we our two other friends, Lisa and Christy, came to the bedroom because they had been out in the living room the whole time. In the meantime, my dog had been by my side the whole time, very calm. And when the friends came to the bedroom, she really growled at them, which showed me that she understood what was happening, and she knew she needed to protect me and the baby. She did let them come in, and we they sang there's, like, a traditional hymn that sung when a baby is born in our lineage, so they sang that. That was really powerful, but otherwise, just held silence for a little bit. And then they kind of piled blankets onto me and helped me settle in, and I just held baby and brought him to my breast, and he latched pretty easily and started to suckle. And then about forty five minutes after, Christy checked in and was like, okay. Let's try to get your placenta out. So I squatted over a bowl, but it wasn't coming. So I I laid back down, and we tried again maybe fifteen or twenty minutes later, and it still wasn't coming. But I really felt like I had to pee, and I was like, if I could just pee, I feel like the placenta would come out. But I couldn't pee as hard as I was trying, so I sat on the toilet, and immediately, the placenta just, like, rolled out into the toilet. I was like, oh, man. And then all the pee released.
Speaker 2
And I remember you had some nervousness, awareness around that immediate postpartum, and I'm trying to remember now that you had, like, fainted in the past or there was some nervousness around that, which is so common, of course, and none of us know who we are in immediate postpartum until we're there. I was wondering if you wanna speak to that at all because I know so many women per project or hold that fear also of, like, will I be okay if no one's there to check on me or save me?
Speaker 4
Yes. That was probably my biggest fear going through pregnancy was what if I pass out? What if I bleed too much? Because I have I have low blood pressure, and I've fainted a lot in my life, especially in ceremony. And I'm it's a really intense feeling to know that I'm losing consciousness, not be able to voice it, but know that it's happening. It's really scary and intense.
Speaker 3
So
Speaker 4
I was definitely afraid that that would happen, but but I had kind of confronted that fear in myself and talked with you enough about it that I felt like, okay. I know what to do. I explained to my birth support team what I wanted to have. Like, after the baby was born, I was just gonna get burdened with blankets, have bone broth, which someone did bring me right afterwards, and stay really calm no matter what was happening. That everyone should just stay really calm. And, of course, we did all of those things, and I'm sure that helped, and nothing happened. I never felt terrifying. Yeah. And even standing up to squat over the bowl and to go to the bathroom, all of that, I didn't feel even the smallest bit faint, which was such a relief. I was so grateful.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Well, it makes sense. Right? Like, birth is meant to work alone in the woods. Right? Like, your body wants to take care of you at that time. It doesn't want to betray you, you know, that that that's not in alignment with, like, life. You know?
Speaker 4
Well, just having the birth go as well as it did definitely surprised me. Like, I hoped and prayed that it would go just like that, but I really didn't know if it would, and I was prepared for all the different possibilities. And so having it happen exactly how I had written it out, the only thing that was lacking was it was a little shorter than I anticipated, and I didn't journey as much as I thought I would. I was really surprised and so grateful for that. And another thing that surprised me was so the baby was born at two in the morning, and then we all of stayed up until dawn just talking and being. We burned the cord, all of that. And in that those first few hours, I didn't feel that overwhelming outpouring of love for my baby. It almost felt like this is still, like, part of me, and it's I don't even, like, know what this is yet. So I was I was surprised that I didn't feel that because I know that that's common, especially when you have an undisturbed birth. But then the next morning when we woke up, I felt it so extremely and to the extent that it surprised me how much I felt it. And, I mean, from that moment, I felt just tremendous love for my baby. And people I've heard people say, like, you have no idea what it's like to love your baby until you have a baby, and it's true. Like, I had no idea how much love is possible
Speaker 2
and how
Speaker 4
good it would feel just to have that little being right on my chest. One thing that I did get to feel afterwards was even though I didn't have that much of a journey during the labor, the next days, I felt very much in an altered state. And just it felt like the the veils were so thin. The heavens were right there. Like, I could almost hear a choir of angels singing over my baby. Oh my god. I really enjoyed that. Yeah. And then psychedelic. Yeah. So beautiful. I did wanna just touch on my breastfeeding journey. So in the first couple days, I had no idea, like, how much colostrum there's supposed to be. I got really scared that maybe there's not enough, maybe we won't be able to nurse my baby well. Went through a whole trip, but then on the second night, my milk came in and there was just lots of it and has been lots of it ever since. So then I was like, okay. We're fine. But over the weeks, just kind of had little hints here and there that led me down the rabbit hole of looking into a tongue tie. Mhmm. That has definitely been a really difficult journey. So my
Speaker 2
What were the hints?
Speaker 4
The first one was that he developed white on his tongue, and I first thought that that's what I thought at first, that it was thrush. But it actually can be milk residue that's left on the tongue that when the tongue isn't able to reach up to the roof of the mouth
Speaker 2
Mhmm.
Speaker 4
The milk residue stays on there. And in the end, I do think that's what it is. A a cranial sacral therapist friend came over and examined his mouth and was like, oh, he does have a really high palate. And, again, that is from can be from the tongue not being able to reach all the way up to the roof of the mouth because it's the tongue reaching the roof of the mouth that really informs the facial bones and the to kind of spread out and be broad. So those were the first two hands. So I ended up, well, consulting with a friend here in Portland a lot about it. She's knows tons about it, and then had an a lactation consultant come over and examine him and but it's it's led us down a whole process of how to best work with this. So he does have a posterior tongue tie, so the his tongue is basically, like, too attached to the floor of his mouth. Mhmm. And an upper lip tie and cheek ties. Mhmm. And I've had a lot of grief about that. Like, oh, no. I didn't form my baby right. This is hard for him. All of these things that I've really had to work through. And it's it's heartbreaking, but it's also helped me to learn that this is extremely common, that most babies are being born like this right now and that it's usually that constellation of tongue, lip, and cheeks. And and then we just kind of decide how to best support it. So we've just been doing lots of exercises with him every day. We are giving him bodywork every day from ourselves and then taking him to get bodywork every week or every other week. And then we have an appointment with a specialist to potentially do the revision, but we just wanna hear what he says.
Speaker 2
Do the laser?
Speaker 4
Yeah. The laser. Yeah. It sounds like the the laser revision in and of itself is not a big deal. It takes two to three minutes. It's very close to painless for the baby, but the big deal is that to get it to heal properly, you have to do oral stretches every four hours for four weeks around the clock, and babies hate it.
Speaker 2
The other thing I don't like about it is in most places, I guess, there could be some variance, but in most cases, you can't be with your baby.
Speaker 4
No. They don't let you go in with your baby.
Speaker 2
I don't think I could do that.
Speaker 4
I know.
Speaker 2
That would be but, like, why not? Why can't they let you in there? I don't under like, really why not? But, of course, we know why. Yeah. That would be rough. But but is he nursing and gaining weight and is fine?
Speaker 4
Yes. So why do it? He's peeing and pooping, all of that. But so it's kind of weighing out this, like, we don't wanna put him through any unnecessary trauma right now.
Speaker 2
First.
Speaker 4
But if we do it, then potentially his tongue does reach through of his mouth, his palate broadens out, His teeth can form straight. There's no risk of or there's less risk of developing any kind of speech difficulties. He's more likely to be a nose breather versus a mouth breather. And then being a nose breather stimulates the vagus nerve in a certain way, so it gives you that parasympathetic rest and digest calm feeling versus constantly having the fight or flight feeling. So there's all these different complications that can develop long term, and we don't know if they will or not. But this is the window to do it to be able to set him up for that success. You can have a revision later, but you've missed out on the facial bone for
Speaker 2
you to performable. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. And so why have you waited three plus months? Just like the He doesn't wanna do it. He doesn't? Oh, yeah. That's tough. He just wants to see how it goes.
Speaker 4
Mhmm. He has a really similar mouth, and he says he turned out fine.
Speaker 2
Oh, interesting. Well, and he does look like a mini a mini Nico.
Speaker 4
He really does.
Speaker 2
Interesting. That's tough. Yeah. I could see it in both directions for sure of just, like, do it and set him up for more success or just stay hands off, and it'll be what it is.
Speaker 4
Yeah. Mhmm.
Speaker 2
So who are you now? How does it how does it feel to be this wild mother now?
Speaker 4
Motherhood is a big adjustment. I've worked with families pretty much all of my life
Speaker 3
Mhmm.
Speaker 4
And probably was as prepared as I could be to become a mother, and still I had no idea what it would really be like. It's been kind of a constant roller coaster of the most, like, peak of delight. Like, I can't believe how wonderful my baby is and how much I love him, and then this incredible weight of responsibility. This precious being is in my hands, and I have to make sure everything is good for him, and the world is crazy right now. So it's a a big task. So and it also just never ends. Like, there's never a moment where I'm not a mother now.
Speaker 2
Mhmm.
Speaker 4
And I just have to keep kind of diving deep into it no matter how tired I am or Yeah. How stressful it is. Or
Speaker 2
And then as soon as he gets a little more independent, you're gonna have another one. Yeah. So we keep being, like, our kids really independent now. We're like, we're really about to do this again. Mhmm. Alright. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty full on.
Speaker 4
Yeah. I wouldn't trade it. I love it. Yeah.
Speaker 2
It's the season. It's like the new archetype of life that we're in. I love it. I love being a mother with you.
Speaker 3
Yeah.
Speaker 2
Awesome. Well, thank you so much.
Speaker 4
Thank you so much. I yeah. I just wanna say how grateful I am that you are out there holding the torch for so many women, creating this kind of bank of community and knowledge and resource that we can come together and feel empowered to birth in a sovereign way, and we can also connect with each other in the way that women always have and women deeply need to. Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.
Speaker 2
Well, if women are local in your area and they want to know about you or connect with you, how can they contact you?
Speaker 4
Sure. So I am on Instagram as at hummingbird family health, and my website is hummingbird family health dot com. And I'm always happy to oh, thank you. Always happy to talk with women about all things, holistic nutrition, birth, family, early childhood.
Speaker 2
Awesome. Thank you so much.
Speaker 4
Sister circles. Mhmm. Yes.
Speaker 2
Thank you. That's true. If you're in Portland, find find Anna because she's she's doing circles with our other RBKs. Alright. 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 birthkeeper 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 Red.
Speaker 3
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 of our power by design. I will not allow the separation of our young to be forced upon me. My sisters will no longer birth in captivity. The picket line redefined from burning our wild women to paralyzing us and drugging our babes. Strapped down in a clinical white bed, drying up the milk from our breasts, keep your needles. My family will never again be doomed to chase those dragons or your poison. We reject your fear. We choose love, everything with intention. Death, ascension. I will fly and bring her back to the star. Wild woman, she still lives in Sahar. Wild woman, from you, I will not hide. They could not burn
