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Into the wild, I'm going into the wild, I am. It's been a wild freedom child since I left my roots back home. Into the wild, I'm good. Into the wild, I'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
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who are ready to celebrate their autonomous choices in birth, motherhood, and
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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
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a feminist perspective. Here's your host, Emilee Saldaya.
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It's been a wild freedom change.
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Today on the show, we have the amazing Mary Lou from Wisconsin, mother of six children and the owner of two businesses. Mary Lou shares how she learned the hard way, who not to invite to her births, why she chose free birth from the very beginning, and what it's like raising a big family. Alright. Welcome. Welcome.
Speaker 4
Thank you.
Speaker 1
So we have my friend, Mary Lou, on the show today. Good morning. Yeah. Good morning. A mother of six in Wisconsin, and, she actually gave birth during during her attending the Radical Birthkeeper School, which was so such a such a delight in our first round. Not on camera to be clear. She stepped away. But yeah,
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we are here to explore all
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of your stories. So I'm just gonna pass it to you. Kick us off wherever wherever you kind of note that your mothering journey begins.
Speaker 4
Okay. Well, I think, my mothering journey began when I, I guess, I never really thought about birthing or being a mother until I was pregnant. I the the father of all six of my children, is a, I I would say we're both sort of anarchists and we met in a he's from Wisconsin. I'm actually from Texas. So, we met kind of on both on our own journey, solo traveling. I was in an RV and he got in and pretty much never got out. So he brought me back to Wisconsin. We met in California, and we he brought me back to Wisconsin. And, we started a business together in Wisconsin, and we, think two years in Is
Speaker 1
it is it this business that I'm seeing?
Speaker 4
It is this business. This is, you know, kind of a a third rendition of it. Nice. But, it
Speaker 1
was a juice bar. Yeah. It's a beautiful juice bar for anyone who
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who opts. We can barely
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see it.
Speaker 4
And we also, we run a pretty large kombucha brewing company Oh. Called Tapowatt. So we, yeah, we brew and bottle kombucha and sell to the states that touch Wisconsin pretty much.
Speaker 1
Nice.
Speaker 4
So, so we're yeah. We are average do it yourselfers, business owners, entrepreneurs. My husband also runs a glass trade show, so, glass functional glass, so glass art pipes, and, it's kind of big into the glass scene. So that also ends up being in the, you know, legalization of marijuana Mhmm. Scene. So I got I was pre got pregnant in two thousand eight, about a year after we started that first juice bar. And, we were just living above it, and it was winter and was my first winter in Wisconsin. And I never really considered birthing in a hospital as being an option, and I don't know. I think it's just my my personality with health and with wellness. I think it's also my perspective on the medical system. And
Speaker 1
So how old are you with this first kiddo? Twenty seven. Okay. So yeah. Okay. So you had had some time in your twenties to kinda untangle
Speaker 4
How I felt about it. Yeah. My mother is, has been a hospital administrator. You know, that's I grew up kind of in seeing her in that system. She was a director of the oncology department. So I saw, you know, people, like, on the dying end of things, and I always, you know, kind of thought that the process of dying should be freed a little bit more.
Speaker 1
A lot a bit more.
Speaker 4
Yes. So I think it you know, as I developed that idea, I think that I figured that the process of birthing should be the same. You know? Absolutely. So I didn't I was very nervous to tell my family that I was pregnant because I wasn't married. I was I grew up Catholic. I wasn't married, and I think with every birth, I was nervous telling my family, for whatever reason, that I was pregnant. And I think after the first one, it was more because of I knew what their perception was about how I was going to birth, that they wouldn't be okay with. So I didn't really talk about it much with anybody at all. I didn't I had a, you know, wild pregnancy. I didn't get checked. I didn't, you know, I didn't believe in ultrasounds. I
Speaker 1
so Wow. You're ahead of the head of the so cool. It's just so it's so, affirming, you know, to this whole movement, you know, to to hear these stories of these women that just intuitively are guided
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to do this.
Speaker 1
Yeah. To do this on their own and and not engage in these systems. So did you have language for free birth or did you explore midwives?
Speaker 4
Be I okay. So I think the first person I had to approach with it was obviously my husband because, you know, I don't think he thought about it until I was pregnant either. So I said, you know, I wanna do this. I really wanted to give birth by a tree outside, and that was, like, how I saw it in my head happening. You know, I wanted to do outside with nature, just be in connection with the earth. And, he was like, you're you're crazy. There's no man alive that would say yes to this. You know, they're you know, this just feels crazy. You know, I don't know anything about this. So I started trying to find literature about it. So I think the first book that I got was, Unassisted Childbirth by Laura Kaplan Shanley. Mhmm. And, so I gave it to him, and I was like, just read this. You know? Just see. And then we also, read Baby Catcher, and I just know finding birth stories that were out there at that time. I think it was two thousand nine. Two thousand eight, two thousand nine. So he he did read unassisted childbirth. I think, you know, not all of it, but he just kind of relied on me and my willingness to do it to be like, okay. Well, we we can do this. So preparing for that first birth, I didn't we lived in this little tiny cottage, you know, probably five hundred square foot cottage. I didn't buy a birthing tub. I didn't really have many supplies. I just relied on intuition to just do this.
Speaker 1
And and why not a midwife?
Speaker 4
I think just the comfort level. You know, I I I figured that bringing someone else in just wouldn't make me any safer and wouldn't make me any more comfortable than just being able to do it myself. I wouldn't. I and I think we did speak to a midwife in that during that first one where we said, you know, and but it's pretty far away. She was, like, in Green Bay, and we're we're north of that. Oh. And she was very, very, very Christian, which wasn't in alignment with us. And, it was just a conversation. And I would just like say that that we did.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. And I I mean, I just appreciate this because there's there's so many reasons that women choose free birth. And a lot of women that I talk to choose free birth because there aren't wonderful midwives around.
Speaker 4
Sure.
Speaker 1
And then there's women like you that choose it because it really is that simple. And it's it's it is the, it is the highest choice for you. Yeah. It is the choice that's in alignment, not from a deficit. You know? And and I guess I guess I could go on a rabbit hole of, like, well, what would it look like if we had all these authentic midwives around us that were nurturing us, that were Who knows?
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That became the that became the question for me as I did the radical birthkeeping schools.
Speaker 5
Mhmm.
Speaker 4
You know, coming from the background and the feelings that I have about birth and wanting it to be just me, what would my role be as a birthkeeper? You know, what could I offer to someone that had the same feelings as me? What kind of birthkeeper would I want? And I think it's really just almost a sounding board or even, just that postpartum period, which becomes really important and being able to care for care for women in that period, you know, nutritionally or however it may
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be.
Speaker 1
Right. To be fluid in the space of women starting families. Right? To be to be open and flexible with what each family needs. And to me that really is authentic midwifery or one one branch of it. Right? There's gonna be families like you that, might not want women like us at the birth, but would be so appreciative to tend to the children or come afterwards or bring the food and facilitate support in these other ways. And then as we know, there's so many new mothers who are desperate and aching for a woman who's had six undisturbed births to come hold space in in your in your total wisdom. And and that's what I just love about the school and about women like you and in our the women of our community because when you work outside the system and think outside the system you actually can be Authentic with each family and and and work outside of these boxes of how we're supposed
Speaker 4
to show up and serve Right. I can say that's the other thing I I really loved about the Birthkeeper School was, working through the victim, villain, and and and being able to speak authentically about my experience. Because before, when I would speak about it, I would feel almost self conscious, like I was judging people just by being so in my power. Yeah. So being able to approach birthing as, you know, just a point of light and just, you know, radiating that and not being not having to hide it because of other people's judgment on that.
Speaker 1
Mhmm. Awesome.
Speaker 4
Alright. So keep keep on going. So, let's say my first birth, my water broke at midnight and, we were watching Darjeeling Unlimited. It was, and I remember that first feeling of, like, oh my gosh. I I almost like you're hallucinating or, just a crazy drug rush that I couldn't compare to anything else. And, it wasn't like I was just gonna be able to go to bed, you know, because you read all these things. Especially when you're in your first birth, you're kind of going up of what you think that you know, and then that completely gets wiped off the slate. And then you start feeling what's, like, the the realness of it.
Speaker 1
And you're like, oh, shit. Oh, shit. This is real now. This is real.
Speaker 4
And, yeah. But it happens at midnight and you look at your partner and you're like, this is happening now. And he's like, no, I need to go to sleep. Like, well, we're not sleeping tonight. So I think with her, she let's see. She was my longest labor. It was twelve hours in total. I tried to birth as long or I tried to labor as long as I could in the bathtub, and it was a really tiny bathtub, and it was really uncomfortable. And I was just feeling huge, and I couldn't, like, be buoyant in it. And I was just, you know, trying I was kept using all of the hot water, and my husband is laying on the floor trying to take naps. And I think I tried to be in that tub a little too long. You know, I tried I I didn't know the feeling from just regular contractions to what transition was, and I was trying to just breathe through when my body was transitioning. Mhmm. And, at that point, my husband called a friend of ours, and she was a mother of five. And, she ended up coming at towards the very end, you know, as I was transitioning because it was that moment of, like, oh my god. What's happening? Something's wrong. You know? But you're not aware of what that feeling really is yet. So I get she she gets there, and she's like, she needs to get out of that tub. So she they help me out of the tub, and I go into the little guest bedroom. And, I get on the futon, and I start just she was like, you gotta start pushing. So I'm on all fours, and I'm pushing because I, you know, I thought maybe that would be an easy way to get her out. And, a couple pushes in, she presents with her arm and and, like, her hand is next to her face. And I push and they're I guess she's I can't see the baby, so they tell me that she's purple and that I really need to push. And I think just an experience of not knowing, you know, how pushing hard like that can be harmful. You know, not letting it just happen. So I just I gave it one good push, and she came out with her hand and her elbow, like, kind of like this. So the elbow was and I was on all fours, so all the pressure was on, you know, my the front of me. So her elbow pretty much just tore tore me pretty good. Yeah. Right through I don't know if it was really my clitoris or my urethra. So it was it was pretty frightening looking. So at that point, you know, and I was happy to have her out. She was healthy baby, seven pounds. She was fine. There was no no problems with the baby that she didn't lose oxygen or she wasn't nothing's wrong with her. But my friend who I in retrospect, for my first two births, she was there at the very end for both of them, and I ended up transferring to the hospital. She told me that I'd I really needed to go get stitched up. Oh, bummer. Yeah. So after twelve hours, we got in the car and went half an hour to the hospital.
Speaker 1
Yay. Yay. Yeah.
Speaker 4
So we got there, and, the hospital staff was they didn't wanna see me. They were like, you know, this person birthed outside of the hospital. She did something really dangerous. They thought I was a Christian scientist. They thought, you know, all these things.
Speaker 1
Oh, boy. I know. You still need care.
Speaker 4
Right. Alright. I was there for what I thought I needed to be there for, you know. You know, I was I'd yeah. But I, you know, I didn't give them my twenty grand for the birth, I guess. So they're upset about that. But they really wanted their hands on the baby, like, because we brought the baby with to just in the car seat to be right next to me. So if in case I need to nurse or whatever. But they really wanted to check her in and so they could do all the tests on her. Yep. So we avoided that, but and then I I think I waited, like, eight hours to see someone that yeah. To get stitched up. So the OB wouldn't see me. They it yeah. Just terrible. So it was just a regular ER doctor that ended up stitching me. Oh. And then I got out of there as quickly as possible. Ouch. Yep.
Speaker 1
But So what's in retrospect?
Speaker 4
Well, in retrospect Yeah. I think we talked about tears in the radical birth keeper school where, you know, those just heal up and it's I would have been okay if I didn't go to the hospital. And, you know, had there not been that person there at the end, I might not have gone or, you know, I might have just sat with it and then figured that out later. I think just the shock of seeing the look on their face when they saw how she came out. Totally. Okay. Something's wrong. Totally.
Speaker 1
I mean and this kinda goes back to the beginning of our conversation. I mean, having a woman there whose birth babies, who has all this birth experience with a new mom, like, we're we're just so easily influenced. Right. You know? And that's not a that's not a bad thing. It's totally understandable that we would be easily influenced, but this is kind of the whole point. Right? This is why who is there matters so
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much. Yep.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Okay. And then kind of a take us into that that well, let's not go to second birth yet. So then how so you come home, and how how are you shaped now from this birth? And, yes, there was a a little hospital stent, and and how do you kind of digest all of this?
Speaker 4
I think I was proud. I was really happy and proud, and, I think everyone that we told was really relieved, you know, like, oh, thank God everything went okay. You know, you're crazy. But and still, everyone that you a lot of people that you tell are that wanna tell you how unsafe it is and, you know, how what if something go you know, had gone wrong? What would you have done? Or at what point do you know it's going wrong even? But, yeah, everything at that point, it was still winter in Wisconsin, so we I had a chance to rest and be a new mom, and breastfeeding was went well. Been doing it for twelve years now. Sure. I would say, okay. The second one, it was pretty much very same very similar except I had a birthing tub at that point. And, at the point of when she was about to be born, this is Evelyn, she, Nick called the same friend again, and she came over. And I think at that point, it was more of a ceremonial thing for her to come. Like, she was she was the ended up being the godmother of my first child. So, he was like, you know, she's Evelyn's being born. If do you wanna come? And so she came over, and then, yeah, just her energy in the room wasn't it became more about her and, like, her ceremonial ness of it. You know, like, she came over and she had the sage and she was just trying to be very midwifey or what she thought was midwifey even though she wasn't. And it, yeah, she, like, got in the tub with me, I remember. And that was, like, not like, my husband has never gotten in the tub with me. And, yeah, it started singing and it was just like Oh, old man. Yeah. She is very bold. Yes.
Speaker 1
Woah. I cannot imagine going into someone's birth.
Speaker 4
At the very end. Yeah. And then, like, getting in the tub and yeah. So she she did that and then, she was born out of the tub. I got out, and I think to escape her and birthed Evelyn. And then an hour afterwards, the placenta hadn't come up. So then this woman was like, you need to go to the hospital. You've retained you have a retained placenta. I'm like, well,
Speaker 5
I
Speaker 4
was Wow.
Speaker 3
Feel like
Speaker 4
I was trying everything, but I think my energy was so stifled at that point that that's it was just, you know, probably just holding on to it or,
Speaker 1
you know But also an hour is nothing.
Speaker 4
An hour is nothing. And but that means at that time, that was like the magic hour or, you know, the the that that timeline that midwives spoke of that, you know, it's supposed to come out magically within that hour. So she's like she called the ambulance for me. Yeah.
Speaker 1
Wow.
Speaker 5
Yeah. And
Speaker 4
then she ended up riding in the ambulance with me, and then, my husband followed with the baby. Oh my god.
Speaker 1
Yes. Just take over.
Speaker 4
Right. Exactly. Total take over. So I ended up getting a shot of Pitocin at the hospital and the placenta came out and then I went home. So yeah, so I learned my lesson. I learned my lesson with the rest, and she was not she is not in my life anymore for other reasons, but, she wasn't invited to any more births.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 4
So then okay. With my third birth, I my husband, like I said, he runs a, glass trade show, and it's an annual event. So we were preparing for this event, and it's usually in the fall. So it happened that I was pregnant and due around when the show was going to be. So and it's not in our town. So preparing for a free birth in another town, is interesting. So we went, we went to Madison and we visited, a birthing center there just in like, for just in case. Like, if I go into labor at the show or, you know, whatever happens, can I can I come here and have my baby? And they're like they didn't want any part anything to do with it unless I was, you know, going through all the prenatal care with them and doing everything. So so I was fully prepared to just give birth in the Hilton. Totally. I think we had a suite there, and I think the staff there was ready for with extra towels or whatever. Like, they knew our background. They were ready for this to happen, so we would yeah. But it didn't. Thank goodness. It happened a couple weeks after the show. So with two children at that point, we with each of my subsequent births, for whatever reason, I have found it very, it's it was easier to have my children not there. With with Odin, he's my third. My youngest two were, like I was in the birthing tub laboring, and they were asking me to, like, make them food. I was like
Speaker 1
Was it just you and your husband?
Speaker 4
Yes. No. Yes. Just me and my husband. So, he, I think, called his sister who then ended up, picking the two younger ones up and just taking Yeah. And within an hour of her picking them up, he was born. So it just made it so much easier.
Speaker 1
Making them fake. I thought you were gonna say much. Oh my god. Her
Speaker 4
like, I don't like how mommy looks right now.
Speaker 1
She's like, get out of here. That's funny.
Speaker 4
Yep. But he was born. No problems. I think that my labors had just, gotten shorter and shorter and shorter. He was, like, three or four hours, maybe. Then with my fourth, it's Dharma. She I I don't really remember much about the birthing process. She was born in the tub, and she was born in call, which I thought was really cool.
Speaker 1
Did you have to open up the bag, or did it pop, or how did the bag I
Speaker 4
think when she came out, yeah, I just tore it with my my hand. Cool. But then you could see it, like, floating in the water, which was pretty cool. Cool. Yep. And I don't I I do remember making popcorn during that labor, so I did make food. But that was in our in the house that we're in now, which my last three babies have been born in. They've all been born in the water. Yeah. I don't remember much else about her, but I did she was born in the fall too in, late September. And at three days old, she was at the class show with us. So Woah. Yeah.
Speaker 1
So how is your body keeping up with all of this?
Speaker 4
I think well, now I'm thirty eight, so it's definitely different.
Speaker 1
Mhmm.
Speaker 4
With my with number five, he was the biggest baby, so I think that affected my body the most. When he came out, I was reaching down for him, and I was like, oh my gosh. Is that his butt? You know? Because I thought maybe he was breeched, and it was his head. It was just so big. It was like, wow. But then pushing him out in two pushes, I think that affected my body the most. That
Speaker 1
How does your tearing kind of your tearing history and the sutures hold up with the other with the other births? Like, do you ever deal with with that tearing again?
Speaker 4
No. Not at all. Wow. No. Not at all. No tearing. And but also, I don't try to labor on my front anymore. And I think the water birth and just the mantras of open, open, open, that's, like, all it you know, I I keep that in my head a lot and not being rigid and not having an audience. Whenever people ask me about how I can do this, you know, how do you do that at home? That's so brave. I think my main answer has been, how do you do it in the hospital? That is so brave. You know, like, that is how do you have an audience? And, like, even birth photography, I I think it's so beautiful and amazing, but I don't think having an audience is for me. You know, that's it's such a private thing to to me.
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean yeah. We we know that the hormonal matrix also thinks it's a private thing.
Speaker 4
Sure.
Speaker 1
Right? Like, we understand that our biology works best in birth when it's a private
Speaker 4
thing. Sure.
Speaker 1
And we do lots of things to override that.
Speaker 4
Right. And it's such a such an intimate thing with my husband. I think with at each birth, our bond has gotten so much stronger and, like, just reaffirming, you know, why we did this in the first place. And, you know, also reflective of the birth make the the baby making process. You know, it's such an intimate, intentional thing that why isn't birthing the same? Like, why why do people medicalize something that isn't medical while you're like, if you don't need the hospital to make a baby, why do you need it?
Speaker 1
And I think for plenty I think for plenty of couples, baby making is not a beautiful, reverent, connecting thing.
Speaker 4
Okay.
Speaker 1
You know? I think you know what I mean? Like, I think lots of couples have disconnected, gross, male centered, shitty sex True. That make a baby, unfortunately.
Speaker 4
Right.
Speaker 1
You know? Yeah. I mean, I think when you when you're having, like, reverent conscious conception sex, it it it becomes obviously harder to justify going and drugging yourself from letting people pull a baby out of you.
Speaker 4
Exactly.
Speaker 1
It's It doesn't quite add up. So I'm curious and this is kind of a I don't mean this to sound like a like a weird question, but,
Speaker 3
like, I'm curious. I'd love
Speaker 1
to hear you speak on the choice to have six children and and perhaps more. I don't know where you're at with your with your mothering, just because we don't hear a lot from from women who have this many children. Yeah. And I know, you know, because of my relationship with Yolanda and other women who have big families, I'm very aware of the judgments and the stigma and the stuff around it, externally. So, yeah, I'm just kind of curious. I'd love to hear with you in in your wisdom and in your in your choices, because it sounds all very, yeah, very intentional. Like, what
Speaker 4
I don't know. Like, what's up with that? Well, I can't say it's I've consciously conceived every time. You know, I think that I am extremely fertile, so it's not like I've I've been, like, really trying to have a big family. I don't come from a big family. My husband's oldest of four and I'm the young younger of two. So it's it's not something I really planned for, but it's something that works and has worked for us. And I don't really love being pregnant, but I love birthing. And I love being a mom, and I love babies, and I didn't even know that before I had them. I didn't really have much experience with babies. But I think in today's world, there aren't many people that think outside of the system or not enough people that think outside of system that are resisting what is happening. And I think I mean, these are things that I I am dealing with every day, and you I'm sure you are too as a mother that we need more children with parents that are resisting Mhmm. That are resistant to the system because it's it's enveloping us in ways that we can't even fathom right
Speaker 1
now. Yeah.
Speaker 4
So to raise children that are speaking up against the technocratic society and the medicalized system and the injected pharmaceutical prophylactics, as Yolanda calls them. We we need more of that. And I I'm not single handedly going to populate the world full of unvaccinated children. But
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, obviously, we don't know what our children will do, but to to ensure that our children are growing up with parents who resist and who Exactly. Yeah. Who talk about this. Yeah. Totally. So, okay, let's go to your last story. And then I have more questions about about a household with with six children. Okay.
Speaker 4
So
Speaker 1
so fascinated by it. Ma'am, my
Speaker 4
most recent baby was born during, this during COVID, during the radical birth keeper school. She was born on the fourth of July.
Speaker 1
Oh.
Speaker 4
Her name is Max.
Speaker 1
You've got a you've got a lot of girls.
Speaker 4
I have four girls, two boys.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 4
She's my only summer baby. She was born I worked a long day here at the Juice Bar, I think ten hour day making smoothies for people. It was hot here. I think we had, like, a power surge, you know, electricity was going out.
Speaker 1
Yeah. And didn't you have didn't you went pretty far along in the pregnancy? Yeah. Were you how far were you?
Speaker 4
Well, who knows, really?
Speaker 1
Oh, okay. Oh, tell me tell me about that. Do you not do you not pay much notice?
Speaker 4
Well, I'm pretty sure I know that I was forty weeks, but I think with all of them, I was later than what I figured. But without ultrasounds and without checks and all that stuff, you know, you kind of purchase going on estimates. Mhmm. But when you get to that point at the end when the whole world wants to know why you haven't had that baby yet, you know, like, well, it's gonna come. And then you get to forty two weeks and people are like, well, you need to go you need to go get that baby out. Like, no. Thank you.
Speaker 1
What's the longest you've carried? Do you
Speaker 4
think forty two weeks. Mhmm.
Speaker 1
And the earliest?
Speaker 4
Probably my first. And I think I thought I was due two weeks before, so maybe thirty eight, but who really knows?
Speaker 1
Okay. So it's summertime. You're making smoothies.
Speaker 4
Yeah. Making smoothies. We also have a little motel here. So we were making, my husband and I, like, spent the night before because we were gonna have guests coming the next day, making beds, cleaning rooms till, like, ten at night. And then eleven PM, I'd lay down and go to bed. I sleep in the sunroom, like, we co sleep. You know, I kind of move around beds all night, every night. I don't know where I'm gonna wake up or where I'm gonna fall asleep.
Speaker 1
Oh my god.
Speaker 4
But, you know, kind of my bedroom in the summertime is the sunroom, which is also the birthing room. So I had my tub filled up. I was ready. You know, I think preparing that space is also something that's really important and sacred to me. Kind of making it like a giant altar space is really important. So I have, you know, my crystals and my sage and my tub and my plants and just, like, that feeling of life and living around me is really important. And my music my husband plays DJ every birth. He's, like, the best DJ. Cute. Which I think is really important is having having that the music ready or, you know, whatever you think that you're gonna want ready for you. So it's eleven o'clock, and I look out the window, and I see the full moon. I'm like, okay. Alright. The moon's talking to me. This is gonna happen. I don't feel sleepy, like, this is really gonna happen tonight. So I go in and I wake him up and I'm like, it's gonna happen tonight. So all of my kids are sleeping upstairs and actually in the bed in the birthing room, and they slept through the entire birth and labor. It was amazing. So, Magdalene was born by three thirty in the morning that morning, July fourth. I think I went through two CDs of singing bowls, which is what it was. And I during this birth, because I was also studying birth so much at this time, I was very aware of everything, you know, of the process. And I remember looking at my husband and saying, you know, I don't think I'm progressing as fast as I should. You know, I was kind of, you know, I'm very, very aware of the process. He's like, you've only been in labor an hour.
Speaker 1
Like, okay. You're right. You're right. I'm like, this is
Speaker 4
just isn't as hard as it should be. It isn't I'm I'm kind of lingering here in the tub, and I feel like I'm not progressing. This isn't good. And within twenty minutes of me saying that, she was out. So yeah. I think, Nick was changing, you know, just adding cups of hot water into the tub. So he would go into the other room with the kettle, just to increase the temperature of the tub a little bit here and there. And on that last run to the kettle, I was like, baby, baby, baby. And he's like, no. Wait for me. So she was out. She was there. And then she was, she's such a sweet, sweet, sweet baby. So she fell asleep right away on my shoulder, didn't really cry. And that's just, I guess, her personality. She was born very relaxing and very sweet.
Speaker 1
So I have to ask, does it get easier? Birth? Yeah.
Speaker 4
I think so. I think just the familiarity with it. Your body is so in tune with it. I think there's a rhythm that you find, and I'm sure that it's not true for everybody, but and that you could find subsequent complications or whatever it is. But I think being so much more aware of the process with each one is is easier. I think postpartum doesn't get easier. You know, just you can never really be fully prepared for the the wave of hormones, how that can affect you.
Speaker 1
I mean, I think in some ways, it would get harder just with the more kids
Speaker 4
children. Sure.
Speaker 1
Because Yeah.
Speaker 4
You don't get to rest.
Speaker 1
Time to, like, lay around.
Speaker 4
Exactly. Yeah. You don't really get to do that. I mean, you should. You should. In a perfect world, you know, you would have that support, you know, to get your children to be quiet. I'm I'm very sensitive to sound after birth. I think that's that's something for me. So I'm, like, very, like, on edge, and I want just a little bit of peace and quiet.
Speaker 1
Oh, and kids are so
Speaker 5
loud. Yes.
Speaker 1
So so what is it like in a household with six children of all ages up to eleven? Like, what is your I'm wondering your your support system, you know, your makeshift village. Like, how how does it flow with two working parents and six children?
Speaker 4
Oh, that's always a work in progress. And now, since COVID, we just decided to homeschool too before they were going to, public school. And we always wanted to homeschool, and I think this was the push to do it, which adds a whole another dynamic to just the chaos of life.
Speaker 1
So do you and your husband just take turns with the juice shop, or do you have, like, a babysitter come in or, like, who's on your team?
Speaker 4
We do have, one lady who's doing, like, a filming workshop with the kids, two days a week, so that gives me a little bit of a break. I think that's why we're keeping people outside of the Juice Bar now too is because we're homeschooling inside. I don't know. I I can't say it's easy, but what good would easy be?
Speaker 1
So it it really is just you and your husband? It is. Wow. And but you live near the Juice Bar and
Speaker 4
then We do. It's in our it's in our front yard. So we we're on a farm. Yeah. We're on a
Speaker 1
Cute.
Speaker 4
We're on about sixty acres here. So the front two acres is the commercial property, and the Kombucha Brewery is about a mile away. So, that's where all that happens. And we do have a good staff there. Mhmm. I'm all of that myself.
Speaker 0
Mhmm.
Speaker 4
But that's always a work in progress as well. Yeah. It is really especially in the winter, it is really just us. My mother just purchased a house here last year, but she's seasonal. So she'll be here in the summertime. Not that yeah. That'll be really helpful. Okay. So, yeah, I'd love to just
Speaker 1
before we close, just hear a little bit more on how this has shaped you and how, you know, like, I think a lot about women who make these choices, how in some ways it calls on us to be leaders, you know, of of this kind of stuff in our own ways, not necessarily in some big loud way, but, we are the keepers of normal birth.
Speaker 4
Right. You
Speaker 1
know, it just is what it is. So, I'm yeah. I'm curious how how this continues to shape you and influence who you are as a woman. Not that it can really be untangled. Like, it's it's one integrated thing, but
Speaker 4
just yeah.
Speaker 1
Curious. Do you
Speaker 4
have anything to say on
Speaker 5
that?
Speaker 4
I think my experience, has led to other people doing the same thing. I do know of one friend of mine who did free birth her first, because she saw that I could do it. And, you know, we touched base several times throughout her pregnancy, and she was like, she's been listening to your podcast. And I think, that was the push she needed, like, listening to every episode and hearing. I, one thing I did wanna say was that I don't think everyone anyone goes from home birth to the hospital. You know, I don't think anyone has a home birth and is like, oh, that wasn't for me. I mean, maybe I'm wrong.
Speaker 1
But you do hear of it
Speaker 4
the other way. You know, you mostly hear, I had a terrible hospital birth. I mean, they're never having children again. You know? Totally. One of my very good friends, she should be a mother of ten. You know, she's, like, the most loving. She has so much love to give. She's awesome. She's got so much energy. She had a terrible first birth, and she's, like, never again. Absolutely never again. You know? I'm like, well, that's terrible. Terrible. I mean, you should spend your first really years of motherhood just either regretting that, feeling traumatized, and then not not bonding and connecting with your child because how it affects breastfeeding or, you know, whatever else happened. Just it's so sad. Yeah. And that's, like, what I hope, you know, why I appoint people your way and why I'm more willing to talk about it with people that are just willing to not feel like they're being judged for how their first birth went or how they want their first birth to go. Mhmm.
Speaker 1
And so have you entered it, like, a more officially into birth work?
Speaker 4
Well, I think to be fair to my family and to my other businesses, it's not the time for me yet.
Speaker 1
And you're a baby.
Speaker 4
I do. I have a seventh adult month old and, yeah, I have two businesses that really require my attention. So I think my birth work right now is just being a lighthouse and, you know, I think doing that elder exercise, it's where I want to grow into
Speaker 1
Mhmm.
Speaker 4
Is doing that birth work. And I think once I can leave some of this other stuff behind, that's what I'm working on becoming.
Speaker 0
Mhmm.
Speaker 4
And that's what I that's what I want to do.
Speaker 1
Mhmm. Totally. May I absolutely see that being the path? It's also just about time and resources and, yeah, like, what you have to give. Like, a mother of a bunch of young children typically is not, like, the most resource to go to a bunch of births. Right? When those children are older and you have more spaciousness than than of course. Right. That that makes total sense. Your focus is is home and and centered there.
Speaker 4
Of course. Right. Yeah. I think also going forward with COVID and the way the world is, I think that birth work is so much more important even now than ever before, because of the system. And I hope and the way that money money is going and converting to crypto and all of that stuff, I think birth work is going to be the future for my subversiveness, maybe.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Well, it will never go out of style until we're actual robots. Alright. Oh, we laugh so we don't cry. Exactly. Alright. Awesome. Anything else you wanna offer or share?
Speaker 4
I don't think so. Well, I think, I just really wanna give a shout out to my husband, and I I don't hear enough ladies in home births speaking about their husbands enough. Maybe they don't wanna be spoken about as much, but, you know, I call him my mid husband. He is amazing. And, he I asked him what he wanted me to speak about on here. He was like, well, it's all very private to me. Like, it's a sacred thing for him as much as it is for me. Mhmm. And I wanna acknowledge that. Beautiful. Thank you so much. Yep. Thanks, Emilee.
Speaker 3
And that's it for today, my sisters. Check out everything we do, including one on one and group coaching. Learn about our private membership, in person retreats, and more on free birth society dot com. Our online courses are on free birth society courses dot com, including our flagship course, the complete guide to free birth. Don't miss the radical birth keeper school if you're ready to become the authentic midwife that women are searching for. Together we rise, and the revolution starts inside each of us. Our opening song is by Shyla Rae. And now, I'll leave you with our Freebird Society theme song, Wild Woman by Aruba 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 honoured, 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 out 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 present. We reject your fear. We choose love. Everything with intention. Death, ascension. I will fly and bring her back from the star.
