Speaker 0
Welcome to the Free Birth Podcast, a supportive space for people who are learning, exploring, and celebrating their autonomous choices in childbirth. Together, we'll unpack truths, share personal stories, and claim our ability to birth freely and intuitively. Here's your host, Emily Saldea.
Speaker 1
We are doing a four part series over the next year with my friend Kim in Los Angeles. Journeying with her from her birth work to leaving the system altogether into conscious conception to now having a wild and autonomous pregnancy, and then finally her upcoming free birth. This episode is meeting with Kim at the end of her first trimester, wrapping up her journey thus far. So let's yeah. Let's go ahead and just start with saying that, we are joined today I am joined today, with one of my dear friends, Kim, from Los Angeles, and she is, at this time of the recording, twelve weeks?
Speaker 2
Mhmm. End of twelve weeks. Yeah.
Speaker 1
And she is still feeling, quite nauseous in dealing with with all of that fun first trimester stuff. Hopefully, it's just first trimester. So, we're you're gonna hear some crackling of the saltine paper. And what other snacks do you have with you?
Speaker 2
I have some mango and a bagel and ginger ale and water.
Speaker 1
You're like, and a lasagna and a salad, if only. And I
Speaker 2
have chicken in the oven. Nice. Yeah.
Speaker 1
So you might hear some food today to keep to keep her nourished, so just deal with that, please. And, and, yeah, I guess we will just go ahead and and and and welcome all of you listening into what we're doing with these. This is gonna be a series, our goal is four. And, I asked him to do this with me because she is, also a birth worker, and I know her from the doula community in Los Angeles, and she helps run our nonprofit, in LA together. So, she, which she'll speak to in a moment, but she is choosing to have a wild autonomous pregnancy and went through her own process of conscious conception and, and then, you know, her intention is to free birth outside the system. And so I thought it would be really cool to track, her pregnancy and her birth and to check-in with her at the end of every trimester. So our goal, like I said, is four, so at the end of the first, second, third, and then fourth trimester, and just kinda see what happens. And so she's willing to include us in her process and, you know, we've spoken before that we really hope to encourage and, normalize anyone else who wants to do this. So, yeah, what a better way than to just, like, check-in with you and see how it's going and, and let's just start there. So welcome, my darling. Hi. You know, kind of take us back and tell us a little bit about who you are and, and kind of the the precursor to where you are today.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Lately as I've been reflecting on on how I got to this place and how I arrived to choosing free birth and, you know, being pregnant now and and in this in this choice, I really realized that this has been kind of a whole lifetime journey. I have Starting from, I don't know, I guess my birth, which was actually I didn't know this till later, but kind of a traumatic birth, and that my mom, well, I my head was pushed back into my mom's body while she was pushing because her doctor was at a party and wasn't there yet. And I knew I remember as a kid my mom always saying, like, you were so ready to come and they weren't ready for you and, just kind of hearing these things and it was not till many, many years later that I realized what that was and how traumatic that was for my mom and she didn't even really realize that really until we had a conversation about it where she she cried and it was a whole thing, but, I I think in some ways it's really in my, just I I feel like this is this has really been what I'm supposed to do in this life, like taking back birth and from from my own birth and, for all women. Yeah, God, of course.
Speaker 1
You know I resonate with that. It's Yeah. It's so it's only the biggest thing ever, right? No no big deal. The biggest thing ever. Taking back birth.
Speaker 2
Yep, huge deal. And so my journey towards motherhood has been I, I've always worked with children and babies since I was like twelve. I was the one who babysat all the kids. I actually, like, dropped a baby down the stairs when I was twelve, so I've come a long way.
Speaker 1
Oh, my gosh. They were fine.
Speaker 2
Didn't always start off knowing when to
Speaker 1
because it was a rocky start for kids. It was
Speaker 2
a rocky start. People trusted me with their babies, though. So I've always had an affinity to children and just been back and forth throughout my life of like, I wanna be a mother. I don't wanna be a mother. I I love living my life and and I love traveling and so there was a period time where I was like, no. This doesn't make sense. I can't fit this in. And then I met
Speaker 1
You can't live your life with a baby?
Speaker 2
No. You know.
Speaker 1
No. That is the narrative. Everything stops. Everything's ruined. You'll never enjoy your life. You're like, your freedom is gone. Totally, totally.
Speaker 2
So, you know, and another theme for me is that, I'm thirty two, so I feel like this has been, like, thirty two years of undoing stories and retelling myself narratives. So that that's an example of one of the narratives I've had to retell myself. You know, I started meeting families who had really cool lives and kids.
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 2
And starting to see examples of, like, oh, you you can keep being a person, and your life doesn't stop.
Speaker 1
Well, and that's such a good example of one of the largest narratives in that that we are stepping out of. Right? So, like, yes, rebirth is kind of, maybe the umbrella, like, master mother of what we're stepping out of. But within that, there's so many other systems that Yeah. We are looking at and and and narratives that we grew up with. So that kind of, American or westernized, like, very boxed in. You go to school. You find your your partner. You get married. You have a baby. You you're locked into a job or you are a stay at home mom if you're a woman. And da da da da da da da. It looks very certain. And so you better play in your twenties, and you better travel because then you're locked in. And and, of course, we know many, you know, people. I and I totally have done the same work of, like, oh, wow. This is actually a a certain narrative or system that you can actually just step outside of, and it doesn't have to apply to us.
Speaker 2
Yeah. It doesn't have to be the way that you you choose to live your life. And that was one of the many conversations my husband had when we my husband and I when we first really started having these conversations about wanting to conceive, One of them being, like, Oh, well, we can still travel. Of, like, you know, dreaming about things like someday we want to take a year where we travel around the world with our kids because we've never traveled around the world before, and we can still do that with our kids, and that's so much more beautiful to be able to show them that. So anyways, I so I feel like my path has really been, you know, a winding one of figuring out who I am and what I want and finding the right partner. The previous partner that I was with, I I cared about so deeply. It was a very intense relationship, but very fast. And I remember going to a psychic and, I guess asking, like, am I supposed to have kids? I just had this sense of like, I don't know, I'm still trying to figure out do I really want to be a mother? And you probably remember, I think this was maybe, I don't know, I'm sure you remember me saying I went through a phase of like I'm never being a mother and I don't want to have kids. So, this was in that time. And the truth was I didn't want to have kids with that partner.
Speaker 1
I knew
Speaker 2
that if I stayed with them, that wasn't our path. And, and you know, and that and I think that it would have been fine if I if that's the path I went down, but it wasn't the right relationship. But anyways, I remember him telling me something like, Well, like, there's these there are these different paths, that's, you know, what which is true. There's one where you'll be with this partner and you won't have kids and you'll have this life and you'll be happy with that, or there's another path, another person, and who and he said, Who you already know.
Speaker 1
And I
Speaker 2
ended up I ended up marrying one of my best friends. And said, There are children in that path and you'll be happy with that. And he said something like, I wouldn't tell this to every person, but with you, you are going to be satisfied with your life whether or not you choose to have children. And there was a great peace in that in getting that answer from me where it was like, and again it's like this this narrative that you're told like if you don't have kids you're gonna regret it or
Speaker 1
if you do
Speaker 2
have kids you know this.
Speaker 1
Right, you're fucked either way is basically how we are raised.
Speaker 2
Yeah And so I I that was just a moment that I reflected in this journey that where I realized, like, you know what? No matter what I decide, I am going to be fulfilled with my life, and I'm gonna commit to that path.
Speaker 1
Well, Anne, I think it's so important to to I mean, this is the work. This is the work of of being alive, that fulfillness
Speaker 2
Mhmm.
Speaker 1
Or happiness or peace. It doesn't come from this outside thing, including children. And so it doesn't come from traveling the world for a year or having the perfect husband or having your three kids and the perfect family or whatever. All of these, like, things that, you know, I I I think it's just so important to, yeah, really, like, stop there for a second and remember that and to, you know, like, take a breath there for anyone that's listening that maybe you're wanting children or you're pregnant now, or you're not sure if you want kids or not. And and I love that. I love that someone reflected back to you, you know, your truth that you can be fulfilled and happy in whatever path happens. Yeah. Because there are so many things that are out of our control or or that we just can't know, and we shouldn't be waiting. Not that you were, but just that we shouldn't be waiting for something to
Speaker 2
fulfill us. Yeah. And it it really there had to be You know, a lot of this is is coming down to this whole process I also went through in learning how to love myself and how to be, you know, just really finding my true self and feeling connected to myself before I could go down any of these roads. I have a pretty complex history with mental illness, with anxiety and depression, that I suffered for many years, and postpartum or postpartum. Sorry, my brain not postpartum Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, from being sexually assaulted as a teenager or from being raped. And, there was this whole huge healing process that I think very much is a process or a part of my conscious conception that I had to go through and go, you know, over these mountains before I could I could trust my body enough to to be in the place that I am now. And I think Yeah. I'm really grateful that I that I went down those roads. I I don't think I knew that it was gonna ultimately take me to free birth, but I think without all of that, I don't know that I would be here. But
Speaker 1
this is conscious conception. Like, taking to me anyway, and to you, like, taking that time to face those you know, or go over those mountains and do your work and Yeah. Take the time, you know, to, you know, find the right partner for you and all of the the time, the slowness that that, evolves into is so it's so potent, and it it it lends itself to have a really, really ecstatic and joyful, and peaceful experience. You know? Yeah. Not that physically I mean, sounds very challenging, which we'll get into later. You know, the beginning of your pregnancy sounds like it's really been quite the rough ride. But but in your heart and and in your spirit, you know, I know you, obviously, in real life. So I know that this baby was very wanted and, and just how profound that you didn't have to go through what, you know, unfortunately, so many women go through with an unexpected pregnancy, which is like, oh my god. You know? And it's not that we're we didn't we would go through a different, oh my god. But with with a wanted, you know, intentional, you know, conscious conceived, consciously conceived child, there's so much work that goes into it beforehand Yeah. That inarguably lends itself to more peace. It just it's beautiful. Mhmm. So speak to that a little bit more. And then I also wanna make sure we do talk about your birth work because that, obviously, is is so interwoven into this, and and has gone on for longer than you've been with your partner. -Yeah. -Um, so either way, however you wanna take it.
Speaker 2
Well, so, actually, I feel like the the a lot of the work in in accepting my body and healing the trauma that my body went through. Because I remember when I was first sort of really dealing with the with being raped, which I didn't I didn't deal with it until about ten years after it happened because I was drugged. And so it was not a conscious memory ever, and it was but it was very much a physical memory, and it was in my body and lived in my body because everything that happens to us is in our body and in ourselves, especially traumatic events like that. And so around the time, actually, after I went to my first birth So Sorry, this is a winding path story. So I ended up getting into birth work about four over four years ago, four and a half years ago, through yoga, really. I became a yoga teacher, during the time of a lot of the darkness and, that I was feeling. I just yoga was one of the things that that made me feel better. So I kinda got as a lot of yoga teachers get, like, really obsessed with it for a little while and then decided, like, I need to make this my life. I'm gonna be a yoga teacher. I'm gonna teach yoga all the time. And and, you know, I wanna share this. Because it really did that was one of the things that did bring me a lot of peace or at least I have I have a teacher who said that yoga is like a magnifying glass. The practice of yoga, it magnifies everything in your life, the good and the bad. Mhmm.
Speaker 1
And
Speaker 2
I always think about that because it was just it was another way that I was able to suss out, like, this is the stuff I don't need anymore. This is what I'm letting go of. This is what I do need. This is what's true to me. So I'm going through all that. I kind of fall into birth work because, I started teaching prenatal yoga just because I think someone asked me to sub a class, and I was like, Sure. -Cute. -I don't really remember. And and then apparently I was really good at it because the moms loved me, and, I guess there was, like, really positive feedback, and someone said, like, hey, you should you should teach prenatal yoga. So I took a training and, just totally fell into that. And I had heard the term doula before, but I I was kinda learned more about what that was in my prenatal yoga training. And while I was doing that, I thought, like, this seems cool. It kind of started as a business decision because I was like, oh, if I become a doula and I'm a prenatal yoga teacher, like, I can get more clients. And so I had that seed was a little bit planted. At the time, I also started to nanny for a woman who was a birth doula, who was finishing up getting out of the game, because she just had her second child. And I sort of unknowingly was her postpartum doula. I didn't really realize that's what I was doing, but it's totally what I was doing. I just was around her while she was nursing, and, and we talked a lot about a lot of things, and she taught me a lot. So, during that time, she's I'm teaching prenatal yoga and and other kinds of yoga. She had her baby. We had a really very intense connection. We've definitely, like, lived lives together. And, I remember there was a day where someone brought a placenta over. She did placenta encapsulation. And, I was just hanging with her and her kids, and she was like, Hey, do you want to see this placenta? And I was like, Yeah, totally. Like, super interested. And I hadn't been to any births yet, and I hadn't started my doula training yet. But I, like, was starting I was reading birth books that she was letting me borrow, and I was getting really interested. And I remember, like, I put on gloves and she takes it out and I'm just, like, touching it and so interested and enthralled. I thought it was just, like, the most beautiful thing I'd seen and asking her a bunch of questions. And she was like, You know, I really think you should get into birth work. And she was like, Not many people get excited about placentas and touching them. And I think that, you know, this might be a path for you. And so we worked out a deal where she, paid for me to do my training, and I sort of paid it off by, helping her with the placenta encapsulation. She taught me how to do it. I did she did tub rentals, so I would, like, clean the birth tubs and drop them off to people. I was just kind of doing the stuff that, you know, she didn't want to do as because she had a three month old and, helping her out, and it was a nice arrangement. So we did that. And then I was teaching prenatal yoga, and there was a woman this was in the summer, like four years ago, who just like one day after a class, I guess I mentioned that I was learning to become a doula, and a woman just showed up and was like, Hey. Or after the class she came up to me and and said, This might seem really weird, but I know you want to become a doula, and you probably should go to a birth, and I really like you, and I'm having a home birth, and if you want to come to my birth, I'd love to have you there.
Speaker 1
That's
Speaker 2
so sweet. Okay. Like, really amazed. I didn't know her well. I was like, I was really touched that she just, out of nowhere, was like, Hey, do you want to come to my, this super intimate thing in my life? So I went to her birth and, she had a doula, but her doula was actually pregnant at the time, like seven weeks pregnant and feeling not great. So I kind of ended up being the main doula. This was my very first birth, so, you know, just a part of me was like, I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm just showing up. And, but it was Because it was a home birth, it was I feel like that was the perfect first birth. But Right. Oh, yeah. For sure.
Speaker 1
Mine were too.
Speaker 2
Because it was We just I I just followed her lead. Like, I just followed her around.
Speaker 1
You don't have to know anything.
Speaker 2
No. You just, like, you know, she'd go in the bathroom, and I'd be, like, if she if it seemed like she wanted me to go in the
Speaker 1
bathroom, I'd
Speaker 2
go in with her. And it was actually the fourth of July, which was really cool because there were fireworks happening, like, what we would be there was a moment we were, like, outside and there was fireworks, and I was like, Do you want to go inside? Because and she liked it. She was kind of into it. She was, like, contracting, and there's fireworks, and I was just, like, so, again, just enthralled and engaged, like seeing that placenta just being like, Wow, this is amazing. I don't even really know what's happening, but I'm just like in it, and watching her, and she just was so beautiful and just doing her thing. And, I and her midwife was was pretty awesome. I mean, it it it was actually one of the most hands off births I've ever seen.
Speaker 1
Woah.
Speaker 2
Which is very lucky for
Speaker 1
My first was one of was one of the most hands off I ever saw too. Maybe that's why it all happened like that, like, to give us a taste of what it could be like.
Speaker 2
Exactly. And that's what I've been tell that's what I told I've told a lot of newer doulas that I've sort of mentored over time, that as I've helped them process their first births that were always traumatic, or almost always, or had, you know, intent elements that they were just like, Woah, I didn't expect that. And I, you know, just to sort of honor their process and be like, Yeah, I know that's really hard. And, like, to be honest, if my first birth hadn't been what had I I don't think I would have stuck around with this work. Because it, after that, got really, really hard. You know? And so, exact exactly what you said. I think that I because I knew what birth could be, because I saw it before I knew really anything else about birth, just with these fresh eyes, and to get to witness that, and, and, you know, it was just like a regular birth, and it was Yeah,
Speaker 1
you saw a real, unsabotaged, beautiful, magical birth.
Speaker 2
Yeah, and and, you know, when the baby, came out for, with the presentation, with her hand presentation, she had her hand, like, in her face, and no one, like, there was no it was like, whatever, just, like, stretched her a little bit more, but she bare I don't think she even tore, actually. But it was just so calm and just birth. And I'll never forget the the high from that, like, coming home. And I was with a different partner at the time, someone I had been with, or I ended up being with for four years, and thought would be a person I would have kids. We were very back and forth. But anyways, I remember coming home, and I wanted to wake him up, and I wanted to be like, Oh, my God. Like, the miracle of life. This is just, was just You're like,
Speaker 1
I don't know why I'm horny, but I am, and I hate to, like, tell everybody. Oh, it
Speaker 2
was just, like, the most amazing And there are no words to describe the way I felt, and But it was three in the morning, and, like, I don't know. I think I tried to wake him up and he didn't want to wake. He was drunk probably. It was the fourth of July, so, you know, he'd been at a party. And I was just, like, couldn't sleep. And, yeah, it just completely changed, I think. Like, that was definitely a life changing Mhmm. Time to see that. It was just so beautiful. And so then that happened. And then, months went by and I didn't go to any other births, or not because I didn't want to. It's very fuzzy. But around that time in those months is when I started to really get flashbacks of my rape when I was raped. And things got pretty dark for a while. And then I was supposed to go to birth and ended up not. And a few things happened where basically I didn't go to births. And in retrospect, it's really good that I didn't because I was incredibly vulnerable at that time and just, like, crying all the time. There was a period of, like, a month where I was just crying, like, every day, and my body was, like, reliving the trauma as I started to put the puzzle pieces together through in therapy of, like, what happened. And
Speaker 1
And the last thing you want is to go to a hospital and see what they're doing to women there. Yeah.
Speaker 2
Exactly. So it was really great that in the end that I, you know, I had a few months' worth. Well, really almost a year, I think.
Speaker 1
I don't know.
Speaker 2
It was a while before I went to another birth. And so then I'm going through this whole, like, healing process, which was very intense and involved a lot of different elements. Sort of what I was speaking to before, these overlapped. Then I get a little stronger and I start attending births. And once I started really like, okay, I'm a doula. I got my business name, the Yogi Doula. I'm teaching prenatal yoga. Once the word was out, I just started getting so many clients because my yoga students
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 2
They liked me, they trusted me, they already felt comfortable with my energy, or whatever it was for them, connected to me. So I I started just dove in and was doing, you know, several births a month. And at first, it was crazy. I started seeing all kinds of insane things that I did not understand Right. I was seeing. You know, and I didn't really have that many mentors at the time, and this was before I met you, and I really wished I had met you sooner or a few other people who ended up being really important in my life as just friends and mentors, because I really had no idea.
Speaker 1
They don't know. Like, I mean, I remember when I first for years, the shit that I saw happen at the hospital, I remember not questioning it.
Speaker 2
Mhmm.
Speaker 1
Even though now, like, some of those memories are burned into my heart and my and my mind, and they're horrific. But Yeah. In the beginning, and and probably in large part because of our training, right? The training is so, like, this so this could happen. Here's a vacuum extractor. Here's an -Thank you, thank you. -exactly. -exactly. -Like, this is all perfectly fine and normal.
Speaker 2
-Yeah. -And so, I didn't even know how much it was. -I was like, I start I kind of was like, but why was it so why was that birth so different? Right. You know? And I think I did have some questions about it, but then I thought, well well, like, well, this apparently, this is what birth is. Like, more birth.
Speaker 1
Not just what birth is, but this is what doulas do. Yeah. Yeah. Right? Because, like, our place is follow along. Yeah. That that's where I think I didn't question it for so long was, like, not that I thought that those births were great or anything, but I was just, like, well, this is just my job. I just go to home births and I prefer home births but anyway.
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean yeah exactly it's just it just became like it's your job it's what you do and in the training you know there is so much stress about like not judging and not judging women's birth decisions. You know, and it just took me a really long time before I realized that women didn't actually Right. They weren't actually making their own decisions, you know? And so, so I was looking at it as, like, Oh, that's just the decisions that, you know, they're making their, eye. Yeah. Mhmm.
Speaker 1
And if this is really important, you know, because I I know a lot of doulas listen to this podcast, and, I I don't think that we're unique at all in in navigating this and in feeling confused about it. Yeah. There's just so much implied complacency and submissiveness and then this very, misogynistic thing that I think got planted in so many of us around, like, our job is just to help reframe the birth. You know, I've talked to so many women who have had traumatic births and, who actually felt very hurt by their doula attempting to reframe or to focus on the positives because, obviously, imagine if someone tried to do that with your, you know, assault. I mean, it's Yeah. That would be, you know and and why is that, like, ludicrous? Of course, no one would try to reframe your rape. That's not I I don't think. I mean, that's that's not nearly as normal as as what people do to birth rape. It's it's wild.
Speaker 2
Yeah, and it it was definitely there was a process later in my birth work that I had to go through to kind of, you know, forgive myself in a way of all the times I did that, because I did. And, again, it was very unknowing, and it's really painful.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 2
Some of those memories, like you said, burned, and, you know, I have that, too, of just feeling so helpless and watching, you know, women be cut without being told they can, or just things happening, and again, you just feel like this is just what's happening, and I'm I'm, like, silent and,
Speaker 1
you know, so Or or we're, like, holding their hand. Yeah. Or holding their hand.
Speaker 2
Telling them they're okay.
Speaker 1
Oh. Oh. It's so painful. I have so many memories of that, of, like, the the doctor looking to me as, you know, as I'm the one that, like, is supposed to keep this hysterical bitch, you know, calm Yeah. While they're, you know, pulling a baby out of her or holding her down with a team of people. And I just did it. And I just would hold her hand and look in her eyes and say, you know, it's gonna be okay. And, you know, see the see these women leave their bodies. And, oh my god. Yeah. It took and it's, like, crazy that it took so long. I mean, I've done this for a long time, and it really took many years. So, actually, I wanna go to that for a second where I'm curious about where this for you, especially with such serious, history of trauma and violence happening to you, and then also so actively working on that. And then so, like, when did you start to kind of piece these pieces together that you were actually witnessing rape, abuse, violence, etcetera?
Speaker 2
Yeah. I think it it really wasn't So I I try to think about, like, was there a moment? And, it really was just it was a slow process. It was a combination of finding other doulas. Like, meeting you was a really big, I think, part of my journey, because I remember, I remember the first time I don't know if you remember this, but the first time we ever met several years ago, we had, like it was because
Speaker 1
of Miri because of her doula.
Speaker 2
Kitchen mouse. Yeah. Kitchen mouse. Of course I remember.
Speaker 1
Well, I feel like it was so long
Speaker 2
ago, but I don't know. It was a few years ago. But I just remember I don't I don't even remember exactly what we talked about, but I feel like there were just things that we were just chatting. Like, it was just because we're like, Oh, doula date. We should meet. It was a doula date, and I think we had a few friends, mutual friends, and there was just like a lot of people in my life had been saying, like, You need to meet Emily. So I so I did. And, I just remember a feeling of, like, you validated a lot of things for me, I think, that I had questions about or that I was just like, Isn't this kind of fucked up? Like, this doesn't seem right. And I remember just in our short com or however long we spent, like, just feeling, like, less alone or like, like, Oh, I'm certain some of the questions that I'm having, I'm not wrong to have these questions. And they had a few other interactions with other people, other doulas mostly, and I guess. And, and it, it, yeah, such a process, so it's really hard to pinpoint what exactly it was. And probably reading things. I'm a huge birth nerd, as birth workers tend to be. So I was also, throughout while I'm attending birth, you know, just reading all everything, like devouring everything I can about birth. Books, podcasts, everything, and, you know, of all different kinds of viewpoints. And so I think that a combination of just, like, learning more, and then this feeling that is deep in my bones that was really from, you know, that first birth, but I think that that goes back into maybe, I don't know, many, many lifetimes ago, something that I just knew inside my soul. Right, you're a woman. This feeling of like, this is not what birth needs to be. Like, this is not Right. We're doing it wrong. Yeah. And so I think, yeah, it was it was a slow process, but it was like very similar to the way that I put together that I was raped, actually. It was like a puzzle. My therapist had me do this activity where I, she was an art therapist, and she gave me a blank puzzle and was like, just make these puzzle pieces into, like, however you want to fit into the the puzzle of, like, this happened to me. And so I had, you know, all I so I went back through, like, the decade of life experience post this traumatic incident happening to me, and kind of was able to see. It was a really cool activity because I was able to to just make my own artwork and it was it only made sense to me and then put it together and was like, Okay, I was raped. Like, that was what that was. And so I think in a very similar way with birth, I I had all these puzzle pieces, and it was like going through all the memories of things that I saw, questions that I had, talking to other people, and, you know, reading work from, like, Sister Morningstar, different midwives, and just starting to learn, like, Oh, this isn't this Yeah, like I said, that this is not how birth has to be. And, and, and this is actually very wrong. -Mm -Um, and so, yeah, it was, it was a process. But as I started to accept it, I guess, or really, like, get woke to it, I began meeting more people, and more people came into my life, and, and getting just more confident in in what I was starting to see and understand. And and so it helped a lot, like, get having other people to talk to, that were like, Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1
Well, because, as we know, I mean, so many doulas, including ones who have been doing it for a very long time, are not vocal about how effed this whole thing is and are not vocal about what they're seeing and actually are quite committed to the reframing and the complacency and the being you know, this whole thing that, you know, any dual is familiar with of, like, yeah, it's not the best, but, like, someone should be with them.
Speaker 2
Mhmm.
Speaker 1
You know? Which I find disgusting. Disgusting. I find that, like, way of thinking super, super harmful.
Speaker 2
And I don't understand, to be honest, how people can do, like, hospital births for decades.
Speaker 1
Years, yeah.
Speaker 2
And and not feel traumatized by this.
Speaker 1
Oh, I think they do. Of course they do.
Speaker 2
They have to.
Speaker 1
But but I think we are experts at compartmentalizing and Yeah. Like I just said, reframing and going, like, well, at least somebody's with them. And, you know, another very real thing that's a bit more practical is when you've built a business around this, you then, you know, you have one of two choices. When you start to get woke to how unethical this is, what are you gonna do? Yeah.
Speaker 2
What are
Speaker 1
you gonna do? You either have to not go there and not look at it and come up with some creative, mental gymnastics of how to stay in the game. Or, you know, you you, like you and I, go fuck this and ditch it, you know, which is not gonna happen to me. It's way, way, way harder. I was making a lot of money attending women in captivity and accepting their money and watching them be, brutalized. I was making a lot of money doing that, and it was not financially easy to stop doing that. As Yeah. You already know, and obviously, probably most people who listen to this, because it's not the first time I've said it, it just got to a point for me where it was like, I can't I can't I can't ignore this. I can't act like I'm actually making a difference. Because we're not.
Speaker 2
And that was, that was, a scary part of my process in realizing I have to stop attending these births in captivity. Right. Totally. And how and how do I do that? Because, again, like, it was a big part of my, livelihood. Totally.
Speaker 1
And your identity and your and your place and community, and you were getting clients so easily. Like, I totally relate to that. And and, obviously, what, it's, like, ninety five percent of people are birthing in in the hospital, and then a very tiny percent are birthing at home. And if you are gonna attend home births, LA is a pretty darn good city for that because there are quite a bit of home births. I mean, it's all relative, but, you know, it's all, like, in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 2
More people.
Speaker 1
But it's still all with licensed midwives, so Mhmm. That's still, to some degree, very much a branch of captivity, obviously. Yeah.
Speaker 2
And in in my opinion, a lot of the midwives in Los Angeles are fairly conservative, or there there's a lot
Speaker 1
of Yeah. Let's let's replace the word conservative with medical.
Speaker 2
Maybe Yeah. Okay. That's a better word.
Speaker 1
Because that is what it is.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Medical. Yeah. And and, you know, and and and needing to protect their licensure. Yeah.
Speaker 1
I mean, that's that's true everywhere. Yeah. So so, yeah, let's keep going then. Okay. So now you're deep in your birth work and your own self awareness and and healing of your own life stuff, And you're starting to, really not be able to ignore what you are seeing. You and I have met at this point and have become friends. So now we're a couple years ago.
Speaker 2
Mhmm. And I I start to then get more vocal with clients, like, more honest. I would say I I I started feeling comfortable I started feeling comfortable deciding, like, you know what? There are certain hospitals where I just had so many Yeah. Traumatic experiences that I cannot attend birth there. And then feeling confident to kind of explain why or, and that's all, that's always a tricky, that's a whole other conversation, but, you know, we're just saying no to to certain births or knowing that, like, I setting my boundaries.
Speaker 1
It shouldn't be a whole complicated conversation to say, I don't go to that hospital or I don't birth with that doctor because this is why. This is what I saw him do last week. This is what I saw him do a year ago, and I could never, in good conscience, you know, go with you into that birth and act like you're gonna get what you want. Like, why is that feel as doula so radical and so, like, dangerous?
Speaker 2
It feels radical and it feels so hard to, like, to tell people that. Like, you know, you don't wanna, like, hurt them. I don't know.
Speaker 1
But then I then I always what gave me the confidence to get over that so for anyone listening that's resonating with this conversation, what I crinkle crinkle. I'm sorry. No. Don't be. It's all good.
Speaker 2
Saltine.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Exactly. What I remember thinking, because I was in an abusive relationship, and then I got out of that. And, and then I remember another woman in my social community started dating said man. And, I was like, someone has to tell her. Like, whether it's me or someone else, someone has to tell her that he's dangerous. And it was also when I was attending a lot of births. And so I was like, wait, why is this any different? Why is this any different? Because, actually, he didn't do nearly this kind of stuff to me that I'm seeing doctors do to women. And so why is there this veil of of acceptance? I mean, obviously, we know why it's the fucking patriarchy and it's our socialization and, you know, that we're meant to be silent and and can do anything, especially doctors and our whole our whole complete loyalty to the system. I mean, I we actually know what it is. But, I remember helping just really take it there in my own heart and go, you know, if there was a rapist in my community, I would not be silent about that. Absolutely not. And there have been rapists in our community, and I wasn't silent about it, and or a woman abuser or whatever. And so I'm I am, unwavering willing to deal with whatever social, backlash there could potentially be about that, and I have in the past. And so I just finally realized, like, why why am I silencing this whole other pretty parallel situation?
Speaker 2
Yeah.
Speaker 1
And, actually, it's even more unethical because I'm accepting money, you know, and that these women have no idea. So, anyway, I just I totally relate to that. And I think a lot of doulas do. It's, it's weird how silenced we are willing to be.
Speaker 2
Yeah. And it's weird how almost taboo it is to discuss it with other doulas too. Like, I remember feeling, like, almost secretive as I started asking other doulas, like, So how much do you tell people? -Right. -Like, you know, like, how how honest are you with them? And so, as I started to get more confident on one of the things that, you know, is challenging is feeling like I would try to tell people everything that that I knew or, you know, in in and I always tried to be respectful of them, but, you know, many times they wouldn't listen to me.
Speaker 1
Totally. Or,
Speaker 2
you know, you get a lot of the response of, like, there it's just it's the the authority of the doctor at the end of the day still, like, overrules everything else. -For many people. -Not with everybody, but, you know,
Speaker 1
-Right, and those aren't women that we wanna serve anyway.
Speaker 2
And that's kind of where I ended up landing. Though that was a difficult decision because I do have a little bit of bleeding heart syndrome. Sure. And, like, wanting to help everyone. And, you know, it it was a process to be able to realize, like, I can't help everyone.
Speaker 1
And then That's exactly it. Is I think, you know, many women, especially birth workers, relate to that and the whole, like, wanting to help. But, actually, are we helping when we go with women who are who are, you know, with known predators? Like, is and if we've tried our best to say, hey. He's a predator. This is the deal. I have found more influence, and more changing by saying, he's a predator. This is why. I don't attend births with him. And if you still choose to, you know, of course, that's that's your that's your prerogative, but, these are my boundaries. And the the the firmer I got about that, because and this is what's the most important thing. I am saying this. You are saying this from a true space of love and a true space of loyalty to women. Women are who we serve. We don't serve the system. We don't serve doctors. We don't serve men. We serve women and their babies and their partners, but we serve women. And so I've I really was able to lock into, and it's obviously only grown sense of, to speak the truth, and to have our own boundaries is actually the most loving thing we can do. And then what happens from there, oh my gosh. Like, how influential, you know, I've been able to become from speaking my truth and speaking out against all this bullshit and
Speaker 2
So powerful. Right?
Speaker 1
And really, really, really centering women and serving women. And and, actually, you know, I think we both could make the case that you're not serving women to accept their money and pretend like you can help avoid a bunch of shit and then go with them into a hospital with a known abuser, and then feel terrible about it. Right? And carry so much guilt. And, I mean, how is that serving anything? I don't know. I may I'm sure there's another perspective to this, but I don't get it.
Speaker 2
Yeah. And, you know, and that's ultimately why I decided that I couldn't do that anymore. That I just couldn't And and so right now, what it looks like is not attending births at all. But that's kind of jumping ahead. So so But, you know, I I was arriving to that place for a while, of just, yeah, This isn't I'm not helping, and really, in this way. It's painful. Really painful. And so getting, you know, more vocal, learning how to be more confident in my voice, which was which was a really huge thing for me just as a person in a in a major, way of growing that I had to really push myself. I'm sure you remember, but, like, I undercharged well, I always I mean, I'm really sorry. I remember you having a talk with me being like, What are you doing? Charge more money. I was like, I remember, like, one phone call in particular, I was like crying, and you were like my therapist in that phone call, like, because it was just like, I'm, like, tired, you know, coming away, like, traumatized from from these and, like, not making that much money in that.
Speaker 1
And you can't put Right. And that's a whole other thing. You can't put a price to the secondary trauma.
Speaker 2
And that's that's what I you know,
Speaker 1
you can't. It's just it gets way too weird, which is essentially what we were doing. Like, I charged a shit ton to go to the hospital because it fucked me up, you know, and because I obviously had a lot of experience, but, really, it was like, I can't justify going there for under x amount.
Speaker 2
Yeah, especially because, you know, I, once I started getting more solid with my self care, I realized that what I had to do to process a brick Right. Became pretty complex, and it was like, and I need, like, you know, time to myself, and I need to do all of these things. Like, I'm going to therapy and all all these things. And so it it was kind of a logistically, like, well, I need more money because of how much I have to take care of myself. Totally. Right. You don't have to
Speaker 1
do self care after you go to an amazing normal birth. You're like, even if I have found that even if it's a long birth, even if I totally didn't get my normal sleep and, you know, of course, that's very normal, especially with first time mamas, I feel so great after a birth. I feel rejuvenated. I feel, like, full of energy.
Speaker 2
That feeling that I described, feeling after my very first birth, you know, that that's totally what it was. It was like I just I was like I could just, like I wanted to just be, like, on rooftops yelling to everyone how amazing women are. Totally.
Speaker 1
It's just, like, The female body's incredible, and I don't need
Speaker 2
to sleep ever because I'm, like, so excited about it.
Speaker 1
-Totally.
Speaker 2
-And, you know, and and I did luckily get to attend a few more births like that, but honestly, over the births I attended over the years I did it, it wasn't that many Yeah. That I felt that way after. So coming back to my journey, I, my husband, who's now my husband, he had been a friend of mine for a really long time. Actually, the partner that I mentioned that I had been with for four years, they were best friends, so there was a slight drama there. But we we it was a while before we got together. But anyways, when we started we started dating, we kind of accidentally fell in love, is what we say. We our our first dance at our wedding was just fooled around and fell in love. Because that's a little bit different. It was kind of like, whoops. Didn't mean to do this exactly, but here we are, and it was amazing. But, he was just this incredible pillar of support for me that I hadn't had from a partner or even from a friend. Like, I would so I was still, you know, having a hard time, you know, just feeling so deeply after a breast. And I would come home, and he we moved pretty quickly in our relationship. We dated for four months, and then we had an agreement that we wanted to get married. So there was no, like, I was always so, like, I the proposal thing is so stupid and patriarchal. Like, I'm, like, you don't need to ask me or I don't know. I don't need to wait for you to ask. Like, I just didn't want any of that idea. So we just, like, shook on it, basically. Like, we
Speaker 1
just You're like, gentleman's handshake. Let's do it. You in? You in? Okay. Basically. Totally. And I was like, let's do it.
Speaker 2
Yeah, and that was great. And then he moved into my studio apartment pretty shortly after, which you'd been into it. It was very small.
Speaker 1
Really small.
Speaker 2
And we lived there for for well over a year, so I feel like it's a really solid start to outpatient sickness. So I'd come home from birth or leave for birth, you know, in the middle of the night, and there's, like, there's no way for me to not wake him up because we're in one room. And I just could I could walk in the door and he would wake up and he would just, like, pull me into depending on the situation, but I could just, like, cry into his arms, and he would, he would never complain about me waking him up, or he just did anything I needed him to do. Like, I remember one time I was really having a really hard birth, and, you know, I hadn't eaten in a long time, and I was just, like, feeling horrible, and, he was like, Go take a shower. He'd been asleep because it was four in the morning, and he just wakes up and he's like, Go take a shower. I'm gonna make you mac and cheese. And so he's just, like, making me mac and cheese, like, waking up and, you know, had to work and stuff the next day. And he just was was so supportive, and I feel like having that kind of support really helps me to feel more confident in seeing that what I was doing to myself. Yeah. And not, you know, and helping that it wasn't helpful, healthy or sustainable or serving anyone, and how much it was hurting me. And so a lot of conversations and, you know, just having his support and, and, yeah, he was just really, important part of me learning how to I don't know, just in getting to where I was and learning how to how to take care of myself.
Speaker 1
And so where take me then from that into going back and forth of, do I want a child or not? So you guys are now engaged. You're living together. You have this wonderful support. You and I are have been friends now for a little while. Could and then when I left LA, I remember one of my last conversations with you was just you really not knowing. But you did know who you wanted to be with and you had this wonderful person. I think your wedding was relatively close, but just not not quite knowing yet. So, so take me into the conscious conception piece.
Speaker 2
So, we didn't we both were, I think, uncertain. Like I said, my previous relationship, I was like, Nope, not having kids. So that's kind of what I'd been saying. And I'm, I'm a very, like I change my mind a lot about things, in general in my life. And when I have an opinion, I'm, like, pretty strong about it. So, you know, and I'm kind of extreme. Like, an example is I used to be like, I hate little dogs. And I would just be like, I hate little dogs. That's who I am. I don't like little dogs. Well, I now own a seven pound dog. So I Wait,
Speaker 1
wait, you had another dog?
Speaker 2
Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that.
Speaker 1
I only
Speaker 2
know about your bigger dog. She's a seven pound Chihuahua dachshund. So I changed my mind about things that I had strong opinions about. So, you know, I was And people in my life just kind of know that, like, that's just Kim sometimes, and I That's just who I am. But so I would A lot of people were like, Oh, you don't want to have kids. Like, that's what you're saying. And then, you know, I just I started to think, like, Well, if I was gonna have kids, it would be with this person, for sure. And, you know, he's so great at taking care of me. He would be so great at being a father. And, you know, just So we kind of started to talk about it. It was like a lot of little conversations. But even at the time of our wedding, there was no, like, decisions. He had always said, like, Probably not gonna have kids. For him, there was a lot of, like, just He's really passionate about the environment, and he had thought a lot about, like, overpopulation and had always been like, Well, maybe if I did, I would adopt. Just wasn't certain that he wanted to do that, or he I don't know. But he also always said, Never say never. That's, like, always been his his mantra about the whole, like, Will I have kids? Thing. It's like, Well, I'll never say never to anything. But so I remember, I don't know, at a certain point after our wedding, I think, I started to feel like, oh, you know what? I do wanna have kids. And then I suddenly was like, I wanna have this man's baby. So I started to get a very intense baby fever and just, like, was just like, Oh, man, I really want this. And so at first, I was, like, a little nervous, because he'd still sort of been like, I don't know. And then I So we just started talking about it, and we talked a lot, and we had a lot of conversations over several months. We got married a year ago in August, so the last really after our wedding, I feel like I started to Yeah, it was after we got married. I was just like, And now I want to have your babies. So we talked a lot about, like, Okay, well, if we do it, it's still, like, a little wild ways away. But then, like, time keeps moving, and I'm just, like, feeling it more and more. And we're talking more about it. And then towards the end of last year, the conversations really
Speaker 1
didn't And I do think I I should point out here that it's interesting that this kicked in for you as you are stopping attending abusive birth. Yeah. Because that's gotta be related. Like, knowing knowing that you're exiting this system and and probably, like, separating out these things a little bit, I imagine would give a lot more room
Speaker 2
-Yeah.
Speaker 1
-for safety and comfort in that.
Speaker 2
So at this point, I had really, gotten I was still attending births, but I was pretty firm with my boundary. I was, like, you know, like you said, but I was very I I was really a lot more careful about who I was working with, and I was doing a lot fewer births, too. That was an important thing for me. But so not so at that point I was mostly doing home births or, a few hospital births, but very, like, only to the hospitals that I, you know, felt like, okay, I'll go there. Anyway, I I So I had shifted my birth work in some ways, a lot more boundaries. And But I knew in my heart, like, I was gonna stop eventually, because it was just like, I can't keep, you know, until, yeah, unless I'm, like, only attending rebirth services. Which is just hard to do. But, but not impossible. But, anyways, yeah, so with the conversation So those things were very parallel. So the conversation started to get a lot more serious. And then also around this time I started to learn a lot more about fertility and about tracking my cycle. And I just got really interested in that and I read, like, Taking Charge of Your Fertility. I was listening to your podcast a lot. I was just learning a lot more things about, like, Oh, my body, and, you know, yeah. I think tracking my cycle and getting really comfortable with that and, like, learning my body changed a lot for me too.
Speaker 1
Yeah, me too.
Speaker 2
So I, you know, was starting to do that. And so then in, like, January of this last year, or towards the end of the year, I said, You know what? I had an IUD in at the time, and I was like, I don't want to have this IUD in anymore. And it was kind of in the decision of, like, we're getting we were feeling like, Yeah, we're gonna have kids. We kind of arrived there. But it was still, like, probably a year away. And because he didn't feel ready, and I was I felt like I probably was ready, though I knew I wasn't, and there was still a little more we had to do. But I decided I told him, like, I don't I've reached this place, like, I don't want this thing in me anymore. I want to take it out, so I want to use fertility awareness method. And so we had discussions about that. He was, like, comfortable. We were both, like, on board. So I was tracking, and so in January I had the IUD removed and that was, like, kind of a really empowering experience
Speaker 1
for me.
Speaker 2
Yeah, hell yeah, totally. To just be like, it was the first time I wasn't in any kind of birth control. And Oh, that's a big deal. Yeah, and it felt very freeing. And I remember actually, like, the, I also was, like, getting into self exam, so looking at my own cervix, and had found a really awesome group of people where we were doing that and learning about that with each other. And so I remember when I got my IUD out, I had asked to put the circum or the speculum in, and my the doctor was like, Like, she was, like, so confused, and she was like, What? Like, and I was like, Yeah, I like all the time, like, I look at my own cervix. And she was like, Why would you do that? And I think I just was like, Because I want to, like, it's a good time.
Speaker 1
Why do you
Speaker 2
do it, lady? Yeah. Jeez. I think I did. I think I did do it and, but it was just, it really left, like, a sour taste in my mouth because Why didn't you, why didn't you have
Speaker 1
a midwife take it out?
Speaker 2
I don't know. I think because I really wanted it, like, urgently and I had Kaiser and Mhmm. Yeah. I just it was what I had to do. Yeah. Because I did think about having a midwife do it. I should have. But anyways, and she was just very like and I said I mentioned, like, yeah, I think because she's like, you know you can get pregnant now. I'm like, yes, I'm aware. But I did still like I also am using fertility awareness meant like She's
Speaker 1
like, whatever, dumb hippie.
Speaker 2
Yeah, exactly. And she was just like, well, when you want to get pregnant just start taking prenatal vitamins and have sex and that's all it takes or something like that. And I was just like rolled my eyes like whatever I'm done. And I remember walking out of the hospital and being like I am not walking into hospital again. I mean, other I did still have some births I was committed to, but, like, for myself, until, like, you know, I get into, like, a serious car accident. Like, I need to for, like, a, like So, direct -So, at this point -directly.
Speaker 1
Wait, okay, so this was January of this year? -Of twenty eighteen? -Yeah. -Mm Okay,
Speaker 2
so -Yeah, twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1
-Like, what year? At this point, do you already know that whenever you get pregnant, you're gonna have a wild pregnancy and fever?
Speaker 2
I kind of skipped over that. I was pretty certain, but I hadn't I wouldn't say it was one hundred percent. So, once the conversation of having kids started, I was like, obviously I'm not giving birth in a hospital. Right. And I so I was still kind of like maybe a midwife. And but I and so I had a few specific midwives in mind that in LA that I thought maybe, and I did work with some of that, and it just, you know, ended up afterwards deciding, like, Nope, actually don't. I don't want that. But, so I had to That's what
Speaker 1
we got. We're so lucky, right, that we got to you know, we kinda get insider info. We get to go to all these births and be like, Oh, never mind.
Speaker 2
Yeah. So, I would say in January, I was still a little bit like, Well, maybe I want a midwife. I even, I remember thinking, like, I kind of want to have a midwife that I can call if I want them to come, But, like, maybe I won't want them to come. -Sure. -That's understandable. -And I was not sure, but I but I did actually already know who I wanted to be, my doula, which was my good friend Stevie. And we because I just we had a really great connection, and I just thought, like, I really trusted her, and I and I remember her having it her and I, like, have the first time we ever talked about it, and I said, I'm gonna give birth someday, and, like, I want you there. And we both, like, had these images and visions of me giving birth, and it was really beautiful, and it was just very, like, Yes, of course I want you there. Like, I trust you, and I want your energy. So I felt very certain about that, but I wasn't certain about everything else. And then it didn't take long. It was just, like, a few more months, after I had my IUD out, and I was tracking, and, at that point I didn't want to get pregnant and and it was working. I wasn't getting pregnant because I knew what was going on in my body and, you know, I knew when, like, when when we had to wrap it up or when to when to avoid having sex. You know, and and so and that gave me a lot of confidence to be because I think at first there was a little bit of like, does this really work? Hell yeah,
Speaker 1
it does. Like, can I really trust myself?
Speaker 2
Yeah, totally. So that confidence definitely helped, or that definitely helped build my confidence. And then, yeah, then there was just a period of time. Again, it's like it was also procedure or, like, process oriented. I don't know remember the exact moment, but then I just remember starting to it was like I was trying it on and saying, like, I'm gonna have a free birth. Yeah, and I should mention that that actually your birth and your birth story and, you know, and talking to you while you're, while you were pregnant and all was certainly, like, watching a friend and a peer go through it and, like, see that she could do it definitely made me be like, Oh, well, if Emily could do it, I I think I could do it too.
Speaker 1
Hell yeah.
Speaker 2
And, you know, and that definitely helped a lot. So, and that was happening, yeah, around the same time. So, you know, not long after you gave birth, I think I did start saying to people, like, I'm I wanna have a kid at some point, and I'm gonna I'm gonna have a free birth. And I remember, like, everything You know, yeah, just getting more confident. And the more I said it, the more I was like, Hell yeah, I'm gonna have a free just feeling a lot stronger in it. Like,
Speaker 1
I'm gonna have a six pound dog and a free bird.
Speaker 2
I changed my mind. So I just started to really begin to own that. And I remember talking about it with Stevie, and Stevie was, like, so supportive. Stevie's very much a radical doula, and she also Shen, she was like, Yes, of course, like, you can do this. I love it. Like, just very, on board. And the other piece was when I started talking about that to Jacob, to my husband, he was like, Yeah, alright. Like, we could do that. Why not? And, he was like
Speaker 1
Good boy.
Speaker 2
Yeah. And because he knew, like, the you know?
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 2
He was very much like, you're not going to a hospital
Speaker 1
for her. Exactly.
Speaker 2
Like, I said he was he was the one, like, holding me while I was crying.
Speaker 1
Exactly.
Speaker 2
About watching women be ripped and, you know, things like that. And so he was it was always, like, he was always on board with, like, well, definitely not a hospital. And yeah. And he just I remember watching him, like, be he wasn't nervous about it, so that gave me more confidence too. We had a few conversations, like, discussing concerns, which, you know, his concerns were the normal concerns that he'd had is he's just like, I just worry about something happening to you, and it's like, and but we discussed, like, something could happen to me wherever I give birth. Like That's
Speaker 1
the thing. Right? It's like this mat this, like, notion that a midwife being present somehow takes away anyone having to face the reality of rare complications or the whole what if, what if. Like, a midwife doesn't just all of a sudden make a birth super like, all so much It's not magic. Yeah. It's so interesting.
Speaker 2
You know, we had a lot of conversations about death and, and how that's a part of the process and and and really discussing, like, what our comfort levels were and and, just accepting that that not all outcomes are positive and and but that doesn't necessarily, I don't know how to phrase this, but, just our our comfort with trusting processes and, I Just because I'm in the hospital does not guarantee that a negative outcome isn't going to happen. And actually, in my opinion, it, increases the risk of a negative outcome happening because of of the various other traumas that could happen.
Speaker 1
I mean, really, for from your and I's perspective, I would say it actually guarantees a negative outcome. Yes, you are extremely likely to have a live baby because most babies do survive the birth process, but we know all the other things that that are, you know, not just likely, but they will occur if you're in the hospital.
Speaker 2
And so, kind of what I decided, and this was also came into making the decision to have a wild pregnancy and not doing all the tests and all of that, was like, you know what, if there is something, like, there's a chromosomal abnormality,
Speaker 1
abnormality. Say it again, say it. Chromosomal, you could say it.
Speaker 2
Chromosomal abnormality. Got it. Or anything wrong. You know, I'm gonna trust that, like, if that's what was meant to happen, then I'm not gonna get in the way of the process of that it's gonna happen. You know, if it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen either way. And whether or not I do a test or whether or not I give birth in the hospital isn't gonna change that outcome.
Speaker 1
And and I think right there, it really comes down to philosophy of life, and how you would respond to certain things. Because I think the only really two reasons to, try to gain all this information, through industrialized, you know, system is if you were going to terminate the pregnancy, or if you were of the perspective that you needed to be as prepared, air quotes, you know, as possible for said thing. But, of course, the irony of that is that there's so many false positives, and there's so many, false positives of ultrasounds and even the blood tests. That's kind of interesting too, because, right, like, we know, because we walk with women, how many women are told, oh, your baby could have brain damage, your baby could have downs, your baby could have Oh, cool. And then they're just freaking stressed out and then they have a totally, average or whatever the right word is, baby.
Speaker 2
Just a baby. That's so interesting. Yeah. That's well, that was, you know, yeah, I saw that happen a lot of times and so that was one of the things I realized and I talked we talked about, in thinking about, like, the test and stuff. I'm like, it doesn't it doesn't help anything. And, if anything, it just makes people stress more and that's more, that's a negative thing to me.
Speaker 1
So, yeah. So, you're twelve weeks.
Speaker 2
So, I'm twelve weeks pregnant. So, let me speed through the con So, conscious conception, or when we, Once I got the, IUD out, it was like, Okay, we I don't have IUD at some point. Like, we do want to get pregnant. So we're just we set arbitrary dates for ourselves. At first, it was like, Let's start trying at the end of the year. And we had this idea to, like, do a trip, and maybe we would do it then. And then we kind of kept moving that up because it just felt like, You know what? Actually, maybe, like, we're getting closer. And then eventually we were like, August. We're August of twenty eighteen. We're gonna do it. We're just gonna start. And so, we planned, like, sort of how we wanted that to look like, but then, come, like, June, we were, like, feeling I don't know, I guess it was just, like, we just started to feel more ready. So I guess it was the end of June, when the week that I was ovulating, we just decided, like, let's let's just, like, have let's just do it. Like, don't pull out this time. It was kind of I mean, it was a little bit more than that, but we just, I think both of us just decided, like, what I like, we want to do this. So, we're diving in. As we, yeah, basically as we were getting closer Oh, and another piece to it, the thing that had been really important to Jacob before deciding to have a family was getting a house. That was actually a really huge, important thing to him, was, like, he wanted to buy a house, and so he, and I was, like, less on board with that because I actually thought that buying a house in LA was scarier than, having a kid. Because it is. Houses are expensive. I was like, I am not scared of getting pregnant and having
Speaker 1
a baby. Living in a studio with a kid and two dogs and your man might feel scary too if you can avoid it.
Speaker 2
But, you know, I just I was really scared of that, so I was resisting it a little bit. But then we started we started to look at houses, and so we it just got more comfortable. So right around the time that we started to look at houses, we, the conversations shifted to, like, we're ready. We're ready to start calling in the baby. So what we we call we decided to call the summer the summer of love. So we're like, okay, in the summer, it's gonna be our summer of love. And it was really important to us that we enjoyed the process. Yeah. So I had been tracking and we decided, you know what? Like, let's not do that. Like, I just decided that I wasn't I wasn't even gonna, like, do any of my tracking anymore. We were just kind of, like I wasn't gonna temp or anything because it was too stressful to me. We were just gonna have sex when it felt right. And, and our rule was, like, it had to be enjoyable. It couldn't be forced. And it had, you know, it had to be, like, we were doing it because we wanted to. So, And all of
Speaker 1
those things are just tools. Right? Because they give us information. So if, let's say, you had actually tried for six months and it wasn't happening, well, then you probably would have called in those tools again to really make sure you were hitting the next day. But, I think it's beautiful to just yeah. You started out super relaxed. Not that it wouldn't be relaxed with those tools.
Speaker 2
Yeah. But, for me, like, I'm I'm I'm much I I like to control things, and that's sort of always been my comfort level for better for worse and so it just real Yeah, we we made the decision. The plan was if I wasn't pregnant by the fall then
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 2
Then we'd start introducing, you know, tracking again. Like, there would we I had kind of like a general outline because of, like, plans of, like Yeah. Yeah. Oh, and I should say that I had decided I was gonna my last birth was gonna be in August and I actually had a birth for scheduled for the end of August, a home birth, and then they they decided a few months before that they wanted to go with a different doula, which had never happened to me ever.
Speaker 1
And it's such a blessing.
Speaker 2
And I remember they wrote me an email and I remember reading that email and being like, I'm gonna be pregnant by then. Like, that was what I thought, which I was. But and so I just was like, okay, like, this is cool. Like, I'm not supposed to go to that birth. So I already had someone for early August and I just my plan was, well, I'll try to get pregnant, like, early August, or around when I'm ovulating in August so that it's not interfered. Because I felt pretty strong that I did not want to go to anyone's birth while I was was pregnant.
Speaker 1
Yeah, me too.
Speaker 2
And that felt important to me. But then, I guess it was early July rolled around, early July, late June, whatever it was. And we just kinda decided for our summer, we'll have to start there. And I didn't I thought in my head, I was like, you know, it's gonna take maybe two or three months. That's just sort of what I assumed. So I was pretty, like, I felt good about it. And I had a trip planned to go visit one of my best friends in Tennessee, and I was saying that was my maiden voyage, because I was gonna go, you know, on a trip by myself and, you know, not be on call and just, like, enjoy being with my friend out in the woods, or on the farm. She lives in the farm, and she, like, poops outside, and she's she lives in a, in a cabin and has this, like, I think, beautiful homestead life. So my plan was to do that in, when was that? End of July. So, yeah, so we, we have unprotected sex beginning of June. And the week after, I started thinking, I think I might have gotten pregnant. I just start I just started thinking about it a lot. And, so I I had all these plans. I was like, you know what? Let's go have, like, this big sushi dinner. I'm like, I'm gonna get in a hot tub. I'm like, gonna do these things, or I'm like, have my last, like, few beers or whatever. Just things that, like, I'm gonna probably cut back on. I don't I also part of my conscious conception was I had, changed my diet a lot. I had completely cut out alcohol and caffeine to that point and cut way back on sugar. I just sort of had a feeling, and I remember when, yeah, so we we had this, like, big sushi dinner, and I the night before I or I got a hotel room for myself the night before I went to, my trip. And I just had this, like, glorious day of laying in bed and reading a book all day and, like, masturbating and just, like, a very full, like, whatever Kim wants to do kind of day.
Speaker 1
And even surprisingly, I just stayed in bed and made myself cum all day. Like, I had all these other plans. It was a great It was a Hell, yeah.
Speaker 2
It was a great day. It was a me day
Speaker 1
right there.
Speaker 2
At that point, I think I just I kind of knew. I knew. I just had a feeling that I might be pregnant. But I don't know. It was like all a part of the plan. It was like, that's what I would have done anyways even if I wasn't pregnant. But I, the day that Jacob took me to my hotel, I remember being like, Oh, I want to stop at, Office Depot or something. I I want to get a journal because I want to start, keeping a journal for the baby. Because we're, you know, at that point, we knew that I could be pregnant. We officially started calling them in. So, I want I, like, found this adorable little giraffe journal, and, I was like, I'm gonna start now, like, on this trip, and I'm just gonna write to them, and I just wanna write to them about, like, this journey and how it's going and or whatever I wanna write. And so I got that, and I, like, started writing to them that day. And I don't think I wrote about how I spent all day masturbating and lying in bed,
Speaker 1
but As I dear die dear child, today was a wonderful day. Oh, my God, that's amazing.
Speaker 2
But I did but I think I did say, like, I kind of think that you might be in me now. I don't know, something like that. And it was it was and so those, like, it was like a week or two, where I was just kind of, like, had this feeling, but but didn't want to get too excited, I guess. But but also just I was just like, I always want to be in the moment and enjoy, like, day to day. And so I and go and see my friend, and we had a great time. And we were, like like, swimming naked in waterfalls and
Speaker 1
And early pregnancy is cool because it is very just, like, it is what it is. Mhmm. Like, either or you are. It just is.
Speaker 2
Yeah. And and I just and I wasn't gonna get stressed about it, and I wasn't gonna be, like, hard on my I don't know. I just yeah. It was just, like, I'm just gonna keep living my life because at to this point, that's what all I need to do. And
Speaker 1
And actually, for the rest of your life, that's all you have to do.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1
totally. So did you wind up taking a test?
Speaker 2
Not not till I got back, but So I was feeling like the only way I could describe it is like lots of pangs in my uterus. I describe it as like, it felt like construction. It wasn't cramps, it wasn't painful, but I was feeling just like pokes and prods in my uterus during this time. And then I was like, interesting, and kind of like intrigued by it, and, but, and would tell, you know, it's like texting Jacob, like, I'm feeling these things. And the other thing I was doing is checking my cervix, because I that was just a part of my fertility awareness, is like the cervical fluid, checking cervical fluid, and the positioning of my cervix. So I was supposed to get my period while I was in Tennessee. Okay. Which maybe you remember because I remember texting you, like, I haven't gotten my period. But, I so I knew so I and and my plan was to bring my my, cup, my menstrual cup with me, on the trip because I like, we had conversations, I was like, I might be pregnant, but I might not be in, you know, and I don't want wanna get sad about it. Or if I do, it's I was okay with being sad about it. My plan was if I did bleed, I was gonna bleed into the earth, because I was, you know, gonna be in my friend's farm, and so I was planning to just, sit in the ground and bleed into the ground, and, you know, like, okay, we'll keep calling the baby in. And I but I forgot my menstrual cup, and we were driving to the airport, and I was like, oh, I forgot it. And he's like, do you wanna go get it? And I was like, no. No. It's okay. Like, I'll I can figure it out, or I'm just gonna bleed into the earth anyways.
Speaker 1
You're like, I'm sure she'll have mason jars. Yeah.
Speaker 2
She'll have something. And kind of jumping around, but the my previous cycle before I got pregnant, I remember, like, while I was bleeding, I I was just, like, really tired on a day, and I was laying in my bed. And I remember thinking, I had this very strong thought, This is your last time bleeding for a long time, so enjoy it. And I thought, I'm gonna freebleed. So I just, I had, like, two hours before I had to go wherever I was, so I just, like, laid in my bed on a towel and just bled, or just let myself, like, lay there. And, and and I had and, yeah, it was just this thought that was, like, this is the last bleed.
Speaker 1
Cool.
Speaker 2
And that was actually before, like, because because when we decided to start calling the baby in, it was really, like, in the moment. So I still at this point, we were still planning to wait till August, and it was not August. So so, yeah, that it was all, like, we we're just slightly ahead of schedule. But it was kinda spur of the moment, which is which was perfect for us. So, yeah. So then I'm I'm in Tennessee, and I'm having this great time, and I'm checking my cervix, and I'm realizing my cervix is not dropping, like, usually when I to bleed. And I normally I have pretty short cycles. Like, they're, like, twenty through twenty four days, which, by the way, I had been told was abnormal and that it would possibly mean that I wouldn't get pregnant
Speaker 1
Of course.
Speaker 2
By a
Speaker 1
doctor. Someone told you that.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. And it was like but I'm but I'm, like, regular and I'm healthy and I so anyways. Yeah. Don't believe those things. Yep. But, so it was just Yeah. And just noticing and sharing all this stuff with my friend, like my cervix is still really high and no blood. And so then, like, usually I get my period, like, the day before I think I'm gonna get it, so that day passes. No no blood. And then the next day, the day it was supposed to start Saturday. No blood. And then Sunday. No blood. And just, like, each day that passes, I'm like, okay. Like, I'm not bleeding. This never happens, I always get it early. And then it came the day for me to go home, and I remember just like being very emotional that day. I was sad to say goodbye to my friend, cry, we both cried, and then on the airplane I was like, there was a mom with a baby, and just that sight made me cry. And then when I got to the airplane
Speaker 1
Sounds like pregnancy!
Speaker 2
And I started feeling tired, and you know, so at this point my period had been missed, but I decided I wasn't gonna take a test until I was with Jacob. And I was still like, I don't know, do I wanna take one? But I wanted to be with him, even though my friend was like, kinda dying. Like, she was like, Should
Speaker 1
we go get a test?
Speaker 2
And I was like, No. I made this promise. But I was that day that he picked me up, and and he knew, he knew everything that was going on. I called him when I got to the airport, and he wasn't there yet, or he was running late. And I just started bawling, which was, like, an extreme reaction. Like, I was like, you're not here. And I just, like, cried and went into the bathroom, and the airport was just, like, crying. And and then I was like, what is going on with me? Like, why am I crying so much? Very weird, but I was like, I am pregnant. Like, I just I just and each day was just like, I'm pregnant, like, just accept it. And when he, you know, finally picked me up and he took one look at me and just hugged me, and he was like, I love you, and you're definitely pregnant. Yeah.
Speaker 1
That's cute.
Speaker 2
Because I was, like, crying.
Speaker 1
He was like, this isn't, this isn't
Speaker 2
how you normally are. But, and I still and then at that point I was like, well, like, I think we need to get we need to buy a test. I want to take one. And I insisted on buying two different kinds. I don't know, it just felt right in the moment. And I took one I was taking them, I think, while he was peeing. Because it said on the box, like, it takes two to three minutes, and so he's like, do I have time to pee? And I was like, yeah. And he was peeing while but it changed, like, immediately. Like, it was, like, I peed on it, and then it was, like, instantly, like, the two lines. And I was like, I'm pregnant. I think I just shouted it out, and he was still peeing.
Speaker 1
He was like, why didn't you wait till I was done peeing? He's like, dude, you waited all week, and then I'm actually here. That's funny.
Speaker 2
But, you know, we're in the studio apartment still, so, we've been here.
Speaker 1
Hold on. I have a clarifying question. If he was peeing Where were you? Don't you have to pee?
Speaker 2
I dipped it into I peed into a glass and then brought the glass into the other room and dipped it into the glass.
Speaker 1
I'm picturing you, Kim. I'm picturing you, like, over your sink in your kitchen.
Speaker 2
Because I was worried that I wouldn't pee on it, or I don't know. I was just like, I'm gonna dip it into a glass. So, yeah, Louise peeing while I'm, like, dipping a stick into my a glass of my pee. -Beautiful. -Um, in a studio apartment. It's very glamorous. -Mm And and so then I was pregnant. And, and, yeah, and then he left town the next day. I had been out of town for a week. He left town the next day, and I was just suddenly like, oh, I'm pregnant. And, I still didn't really believe it. And it I don't know. And I was really tired, but I did believe it, but I didn't. You know, it's just, like, it's all
Speaker 1
Like suspension.
Speaker 2
God. And it's so heady, and it's just there's a lot of mind games. But, and I think
Speaker 1
And I don't think those ever stop.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Well, they have not stopped yet.
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, I they didn't stop my whole pregnancy. And even now, like, it's still heady and some somewhat can be, like, disassociative and super weird. You know, my mom my mom has three grown children, and she said that she still looks at us and is like, Are you guys really mine? Like, you know, so
Speaker 2
When you came out of me?
Speaker 1
Yeah. I think that's I think that's forever.
Speaker 2
Yeah. I I imagine. Well, I remember talking to you during your
Speaker 1
prac I remember when you
Speaker 2
were, like, you had, like, a breakdown at thirty eight weeks. I remember even just, like, afterwards, I remember you being, like, I I'm, like, I might not be pregnant. Maybe it's just think one time you told me, like, maybe I'm just growing, like,
Speaker 1
a bag of juice.
Speaker 2
You're good.
Speaker 1
Like A bag of bones and goo to discuss it.
Speaker 2
Like, okay. David had a name
Speaker 1
for it. I had a name for it in case it was a a bag of bones and goo. Oh, yeah. It was the thirty six week breakdown. And I was like, I for sure I'm not gonna love this kid. I don't wanna be a parent. What did I do? But that was like the head that was the most, emotional. But otherwise, I would just be like, I'm pretty sure I'm not pregnant. -Like -Yeah. Like, the baby died, or the baby doesn't have a face, or Yeah, it was just very Like, just being in that unknown is really what it is.
Speaker 2
Yeah, it's But it's such a necessary part of this process, I think. And, you know, and I'm very much in it right now, and I and it's hard, but it's also kind of awesome, and I I love that I haven't had any ultrasounds or anything because it this is mine. Like, nobody else gets to see anything, like, about or hear my baby's heartbeat before I do or anything like that because, like, this is mine, and I will not let that go. And I I will not let anyone take that autonomy away from me. And so, even though it is, like, heady and and weird, I actually, like, really love -Mm -sort of the secrecy of it.
Speaker 1
Privacy, intimacy, and that no one else is, like, validating anything for you so that you Yeah. You don't get to you don't get out of the work, you know, that you have to just really be in it and it is uncomfortable. And I'm not implying that it's that there's not work with assisted pregnancies. Of course. Of course there
Speaker 2
is.
Speaker 1
Pregnancy I mean Exactly. It's life. Everything. But there is a uniqueness to not having anyone else participate in or manage or validate, or like you said, listen or look in. There's a particular uniqueness of that work that -You're really -Deep.
Speaker 2
Just push deep into this, like, trusting yourself.
Speaker 1
And the, like, surrender, just what will be
Speaker 2
And surrender will be.
Speaker 1
And surrender will be. And and not having you don't get these little kinda shortcuts almost of Yeah. You know, like, outside reassurance, which is not bad. It's just a different way of doing it. So give me we gotta wrap up here. So give me kind of Like,
Speaker 2
oh. Run down of my pregnancy side?
Speaker 1
Yeah. Just like what speak to this this twelve weeks. We already know we're a couple weeks in now in the conversation of what we've already covered. Because by the time you found out you're pregnant, you were already how many weeks?
Speaker 2
Yeah. Jacob left town, and then I started to get nauseous. Nausea started about, like, week five. And, it started first just nausea for a few days and not throwing up. And I was like, you know, and I think, like, because it Yeah, I was I just kept questioning. Like, I took a few more pregnancy tests because I was like, I don't believe it. Even though I was, like, actually having a lot of symptoms, like, pretty fast. My boobs got huge. They were really sore. Smells got crazy right away. And and, yeah, just very fast. And and I started telling people pretty quickly. I didn't feel like I didn't want to I wasn't, like, really keeping it a secret or anything. I I was and people seemed really surprised by that, like, when I would tell them, and, and it and they'd be like, Oh, you're only five weeks? Like and I was like, Yeah, but I'm pregnant. Like and if it if it stops, it stops. But, like, this is what it is for me right now. I'm pregnant. I don't know. I just think that was a that's a weird thing that hap I don't know, that people feel like they have to keep it secret and, you know, in case they miscarry and But then I was always like, Well, then I will tell everybody that too, because I'm gonna be really sad. And then Right.
Speaker 1
Right. Well, that's it. Right? It's exactly. I mean, I think that's kind of the cardinal rule is to only share with people that you would also share about a loss. And if you're if you're telling people if you're an open person who's telling people, and I do think, obviously, it's different when someone's experienced, like, multiple losses or Absolutely. Been trying for a really long time or whatever. There's so many other ways of experiencing this stuff. Minimize that. For sure. That feel really different. But, anyway, so you were, like, telling people, starting to feel nauseous.
Speaker 2
Yeah, and, you know, and I was, like, and also just still kind of shocked that, like, it happened the very first time that that we were like
Speaker 1
I figured it would. You know, shocking.
Speaker 2
No, you know, I was. I still am. I still am like, I can't believe it. I thought the pregnancy thought I wouldn't be pregnant yet. But, yeah, and so then the nausea started, and then then I just started vomiting. And, I have been throwing up essentially every day apart from a couple magical days, since, like, the about the end middle of week five. And, yeah, that has been hard. Brutal. It's def it's been really brutal, and I have just had to, change my life. Like, I I I only can do what I have to do. Like, I I am working still. Like, I'm I'm babysitting right now a little bit, And, that was one of the things. So I when I decided to stop attending birth, I was like, well, I'll do more, like, postpartum work and babysitting. So I'm kind of doing that. But I right now, just babysitting it, keeping it simple, and teaching yoga. And I'm still doing it, but it's, like, it's hard. I mean, everything is just like, I had really intense food aversions. I've been eating really bland foods. And, yeah. And then and then this time, we also opened escrow in a house and closed escrow, so we bought a house. That happened started the week after we found out or we took the pregnancy test. We opened escrow, and my husband was out of town a lot. And so it was just, like, so many crazy lights just happening at once, which is maybe partially why I'm having such an intense physical I it's been just very physical, and Well,
Speaker 1
I mean, ideally Ideally, we'd live in a world where a newly pregnant woman experiencing nausea could just lay in bed and be taken care of for three months or whatever.
Speaker 2
I can't. You know, I'm And I I am trying to do that on days when I can, but, you know, it's not not every day.
Speaker 1
-Um, it feels like it's shifting at all now at twelve weeks?
Speaker 2
Well, I I've had a few days. I haven't thrown up today, so that's positive. My my appetite is starting to come back, so I've I've started to be been able to eat vegetables again, which is nice Yeah. Because I really couldn't. So that was exciting. But I the last few days, I had some, like, really big vomiting days. Like, yesterday, I threw up, like, eight times and the day before. And so there's Do you feel like
Speaker 1
you're able to stay hydrated?
Speaker 2
Yeah. I'm still peeing and I and, you know, and I'm I'm monitoring my weight, like, just to make sure I'm not losing too much. I haven't really lost a lot. I haven't But
Speaker 1
even if you were losing too much, like
Speaker 2
Yeah. I
Speaker 1
mean What is too much? I mean
Speaker 2
Yeah. I I just kind of, like it just felt good to me to be, like, am I, like
Speaker 1
It's reassuring.
Speaker 2
Yeah. It's nothing too crazy is happening. And I think I'm staying hydrated enough because I'm still peeing. Mhmm.
Speaker 1
I mean, I I know a lot of women who lose weight in their first trimester and then, you know, and then gain it later when they're feeling better. And I also know women who have only been able to eat, like, waffles and potatoes for four months.
Speaker 2
Yeah. You just do what you gotta do. And then, you know, so a few people have because a lot of people in my life know, or everyone pretty much knows that I'm doing this the way I'm doing it, that I don't have a doctor because people ask me, and I'm like, no, I haven't. And me and family is supportive, but by, I have had, like, I think my in laws are, you know, they they will sometimes be like, Well, don't you feel like you wanna go to a doctor because you're so sick?
Speaker 1
And I'm What would they do?
Speaker 2
Exactly. That's what I say. It's like, well, there is literally nothing that they can do for me. Like, they'll just tell me that it's normal or, you know, like, if I am dehydrated, put me on an IV. And, like, I don't I don't feel like it hasn't gotten to that point. That's what I'm I'm like, well, if I was truly, like, passing out and, like, for real dangerously dehydrated, then, sure, put me on an IV. But that's why I'm
Speaker 1
thing. You would go to get an IV. You wouldn't go to be like, doctor.
Speaker 2
Exactly. Blah blah blah. And I've had that conversation with my doula that if I if it really did get that bad, that I'd want her to come with me. So, because I'm like, I do not want them to listen to the baby. I don't want, like I basically just wanna be like, put fluids in me. Don't honestly do anything.
Speaker 1
I wouldn't even I wouldn't even tell them you're pregnant. Yeah.
Speaker 2
I mean, that's that's probably what I would do if you weren't. Yeah.
Speaker 1
If you could avoid it because
Speaker 2
it would be a I
Speaker 1
mean, you're this isn't gonna happen to you, but if anyone is listening and they do find themselves in that position, like, it it it's gonna be a rare day that, you you know, you can wrap your head around.
Speaker 2
Just be like, I'm dehydrated. Yeah. Exactly. Rehydrate me. But I would probably still have my doula come with me just in case, like Yeah. Yeah. Why not? You know?
Speaker 1
And, yeah, exactly. That that I think that's such a good point to highlight of of this kind of knee jerk reaction around, well, you know, you don't feel good or this is happening. This is happening. So shouldn't you see a doctor? And it's like, well, let's just pause for a minute and really investigate what would happen if we went. You know? You know about my near drowning incident when I was, like, right around where you were. I think I was, like, thirteen weeks, and And my knee jerk reaction was, like, should I go make sure the baby's okay? And then I was like, hold up. What does that even mean? Who tells me if my baby's okay? Nobody can tell me if my baby's okay except for me. And even if I don't know, that's okay. You know, and I really had to repeatedly throughout the pregnancy as you will too, you know, be like, Hold up. What is actually available to me in these systems? And you and I have such the, you know, we have the intel because we work in this field. So we actually know it's not that there's anything magical going on there that they can somehow tell. It's actually quite, rudimentary and and unreliable.
Speaker 2
It is. Very unreliable. And and they're, you know, working so much with guessing and estimates. Right. There's a lot of that and people don't realize, like, ever so much of what they tell you is, like, they don't actually know either. Right. Of course not.
Speaker 1
They're not God.
Speaker 2
Yeah. And and one of the things that I'm so happy that I really understand about birth is that at the end of the day, there is so much we really just don't know. And nobody knows, and we're not meant to know. And so I think if you can kind of accept that and, be at peace with it, then, like, you don't need to stress yourself out.
Speaker 1
You know? It doesn't start and end with birth, right? Birth is not this, like, singular event. Like, it's also life and death and how our day is gonna go. And it's just being in relationship with the divine, you know? Like, it's it really is what it is. And if you can if you can or if you already are in relationship with the divine, whatever that means for you, you know, then then the whole experience is going to be colored by that.
Speaker 2
It's true. And I didn't really talk about that at all, but that is a huge part of I guess I mentioned, like, seeing psychics and things. But but that my, like, spiritual practice and my personal, spiritual practice or relationship with the divine, however you wanna put it, is another huge piece of just, who I am and and and how I've gotten to where I've gotten. And and it's it's a lot of Yeah, it's, it's the thing that I trust more than anything else.
Speaker 1
Right, totally.
Speaker 2
And Yeah. And when I decided, really was, like, standing in the truth of I want a free birth, the, really, the real reason is because I know that the only true authority that, like, I want, like, when I'm giving birth, and even, like, right now, is my intuition and, like, just whatever, like, what I trust and and and my body and and the process, like, the physiological process, that to me is the greatest authority. Like, birth herself is the greatest authority there is on birth. Right. And I don't want anyone stepping in the way of that. And they know that and and that, you know, and that's ultimately why I chose not to go with midwife.
Speaker 1
Mhmm.
Speaker 2
I think because, you know, that there's still an authority. They you know, there's lots of great there's great midwives and wonderful They're not allowed.
Speaker 1
They are literally not allowed to let birth herself dictate the experience. Yeah. They They agree to sabotage. They have to
Speaker 2
Yeah. Fuck that. I just I didn't want that. So, you know, and that just comes from yeah. Again, like, this is that's the only thing I really trust. I trust birth more than I trust any other humans, and and I trust this process and that it will be what it will be, whatever the outcome will be. And so, you know, just reminding myself to to sit with that every day and being so sick, really forces you to be in the present moment in like a way that nothing else does. -'Cause when you're, like, literally trying to survive, like, just being, like I mean, I've had so many moments of just, like, driving and being, like, Oh, shit. I'm gonna throw up on myself right now. You know, and that's such a, like, pre like, a Yeah. Very present moment. You can't do anything else, and and it's I I'm I it sucks, like, because it just sucks to throw up so much, and it sucks to feel so crappy, but but I'm really grateful for how much it's keeping me just, like, in this experience. Mhmm. And I you know, there's something in that, so I'm just staying in the in the experience.
Speaker 1
Yeah. And then soon, you know, when we we're gonna, you know, we're gonna check back in in three months, and then you're gonna be being kept in this experience in a whole other way, you know?
Speaker 2
So we'll be Yeah. We'll see what's shifting.
Speaker 1
Yeah. So it'll be
Speaker 2
As much as it's hard it's hard these days to be like like, I have days where I'm like, it's never going away, I'm nauseous forever.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 2
I'm gonna throw up every day of my life. That's like how I feel and sometimes, you know, one thing that has been helpful is talking to other pregnant women. Because I teach prenatal yoga, I get to, like, interact with other pregnant women a lot, which just like in that basic like, just talking to another woman who's going through a similar experience is really nice. Like, just, you know, I've talked to the women that are like, Yeah, this sucks. So, like, I'm puking a lot too. Or, you know, just to be reminded that, like, you're not alone. Totally normalizes it. Yeah, and that helps me way more than a doctor could. Right, exactly. Just being normalized and having, and feeling heard too, like feeling like my experience is being seen and heard for what it is. And, I feel like pregnant women are really much better at doing that than other people because a lot of other people will tell me, like, it's gonna get better, or, you know, or just things that aren't helpful, but when I talk to someone else who's been through it recently or is going through it, there's much more of a, like, Yeah man, like it sucks. It's
Speaker 1
brutal. Yeah.
Speaker 2
And you know, just kind of like I see you and I hear you and that's the thing that has been the most helpful for me these days is just feeling like acknowledged for how, for how hard this is and and, like, how it like, it's a lot of work to grow a human. And, and I'm and I'm doing it again or I'm something's happening.
Speaker 1
I'm still feeling Hopefully, it's not a bag of goo.
Speaker 2
It will be
Speaker 1
not a bag of guilt. Yeah. And this is just the beginning. It's just the first trimester.
Speaker 2
And I'm and I'm feeling a lot of of that construction feeling still. So I know there's, like, you know, like, things I feel pressure and, I did. I had my hand on on my belly the other day, and I felt, like, a ripple under my hand, and I was like, oh, that was weird. And so, you know, little things, there's just, like, something's occurring.
Speaker 1
Something's definitely occurring. I'm pretty sure I
Speaker 2
know what it is.
Speaker 1
Okay. So we do have to wrap up because this was a super long episode. Okay. Awesome. Well, let's, let's leave it there and thank you for your time. And this was awesome, and I'm excited to Sorry.
Speaker 2
Be so long.
Speaker 1
No. It's all good. I'm excited to, yeah, tune back in with you in another, let's say, twelve weeks or so and Yeah. And see see what's going on with you.
Speaker 2
Awesome. Thanks for doing this. It it's, like, nice to get to talk share my experience.
Speaker 1
I know. Plus, I miss you.
Speaker 2
I miss you too.
Speaker 1
That's it for today, everyone. Join us next week for another episode of the free birth podcast. Thanks for joining us, and remember, your body, your choice. Lots of love.
