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
Today, we have first time mom, Rachel, whose minimalist approach to life I found quite inspiring. She tells the beautiful story of her off the grid free birth, and we have an important discussion on vaginal tearing and the cultural implications behind it.
Speaker 2
I remember, like, as a teenager and just a young person, my only thoughts around birth really were fearful, and I remember my mom's birth story. She birthed in the hospital naturally but with some interventions, but just the part about her hemorrhaging and having all the blood, it just was the part that stood out to me so much. So I always had this sort of fear around it, and I I think I did want to have kids someday, but mostly that fear is what stood out to me. And, I didn't think about it a whole lot more than that. But, fast forward to, I think it was about two and a half years ago, I was invited to attend my first birth, and that's actually the only birth I've attended besides my own. My friend's son, I was having her third baby, and they called me up at five in the morning. And I came over, and she was just laying on the couch. And it was just her and Melissa and I. I was rubbing her feet, and it was really casual and just such a casual thing, you know? And then all of a sudden, she got up on her knees and kneeled on the couch and birthed her baby. And she did have a midwife come over, but it was, like, honestly, the most easy birth I've ever witnessed. Well, the only birth, but
Speaker 3
it just A great starter. Yeah.
Speaker 2
Totally. Totally. I'm like, wow, what an awesome, easy birth. That's what it can be like. Okay. So that was in my mind. And then really just, like, having animals, having goats, and watching them birth every year, and that kind of gave me a flavor of, like, okay, birth is a pretty easy thing. That's something that happens in nature, like, all the time without complications. It's just how it goes. And
Speaker 3
I had lived with this tipi community, this tipi village, before actually meeting my partner and had lived with a couple of really dear friends there who are mothers, and they birthed their children in tipis out in the forest and just did it. Naturally raised their kids up that way, you know, do, like, elimination communication. All these things that I hadn't really experienced before, but just living with them, it was so normal and really opened up a whole new world for me of what's possible. So I had that in mind, and also had in mind that I really wanted to have a family and be a mother and step into that world. And then this is about a year after that birth that I told you about. I met my partner at a skills gathering up in Oregon, and it turns out that he had also lived with that Teepee Village, like, several years before. So we had this, like, common foundation. And, yeah, we just connected there and pretty much knew right away that, like, we had similar goals in life and aspirations. And the biggest one really was having a family. So without much ado, we just kinda did that in the next few months. And, we're living yeah. We pretty much always lived off the grid and just had a pretty simple life. And we got pregnant together around that, total solar eclipse last year in August. Oh, yeah. Cool. Like, this I think, like, within a week before that. So I didn't know at the time. But, pretty soon after, I knew I I had gone down to Mount Shasta for a the women's, vision quest ceremony and started having to pee, like, all the time. Yeah. So strange to me. Like, even when I was fasting from water for a day, I just had to kept getting up peeing. So when I came home and I missed my moon, I kind of knew right away, like, oh, okay. I'm pregnant. And I told him and, I didn't tell anybody else so for several months and just kinda, like, felt into it and noticed the changes and everything going on with my body. And I never really felt like taking a pregnancy test or anything like that. Just kind of minimalist, really. I think that's how I do most things. Like, I don't feel the need to see a doctor or anything really or a dentist, except emergencies, of course. But Sure. Anyway, yeah, around
Speaker 1
I don't I don't meet many I don't meet many women who don't take the pregnancy test. That's really cool.
Speaker 3
Yeah. I mean, I guess I just knew that I was pregnant.
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 3
So the place where the doubt did come in is okay. Like, is this gonna last?
Speaker 1
Mhmm.
Speaker 3
Who knows? So I was kinda open to that, seeing, like, is this gonna be a child? Is this gonna be maybe a pregnancy that that doesn't end in a child? I I didn't know. So I was kinda open to that and just curious about it. And, yeah, around the third month, we were, again, living with that TP community. We hadn't been together. Like, it was just me and him out in the woods in Southern Oregon. And, we had kinda reunited with this group, and it was really awesome village down there close to Mount Shasta. Southern kids running around and three other families, and we're all in our yurts and teepees. It was really great. Just living out there on the land with the spring and our goats and stuff. And so I was with these two women who had both recently birthed their children. I think they're oldest for, like, a year, a year and a half. And, they had free birth, so they were, of course, really supportive of me. And those are the first people that I really let know that I was pregnant. And at the time, we had planned to just be with them. You know, we set up our little Mongolian yurt there and made a nest. And we're thinking that that's where our baby would be born. So they were really supportive of us, but I also wasn't sure that I wanted to do it on my own the first time. There was just a lot that I didn't know. And so I was looking into midwives. I didn't really get too serious about it. And I actually talked to a friend who is apprenticing with midwives and and told her that I was thinking about doing, unassisted birth. And so I was calling it then. And and then she kind of was, like, asking me if it was because of financial reasons and stuff. And I don't know. For whatever reason, that kinda made me feel funny. And the truth is, like, financially, we couldn't afford a midwife at all. And I if I wanted to do any kind of birth like that, I would have had to do a lot of financial, like, loopholes and things like that, which just isn't very appealing to me, and I'm not good at it at all. So just like the simplest thing to do really was to not go down that path at all.
Speaker 1
Cool. And so how did you how did you how did your birth story with with the fear that your mom, you know, had planted in you around the bleeding out and how that had kind of colored, some relationship to birth previous to this? How did that, you know, like, pair with with, you know, kind of one of the most radical ways of giving birth, like, out off the grid by yourself, not even in a house or whatever?
Speaker 3
Yeah. Well, I mean, that was an initial fear, but the truth is that once I started reading other people's birth stories and I think even just meeting my friends that were living there in the village who had birthed, it really just overshadowed that with the positive light. Like, okay. Birth is actually normal. It's pretty unlikely. And and then just asking my mom too to hear more about my birth story and about the different interventions that she had and how quite likely she would have had a really easy home birth, had she not had those different things happening to her. Yeah. It just it made me feel confident. And so really I just started reading more and more and researching. And I kind of like when I get a new interest in my life, be it astrology or any of the other thing, I just go, like, way into it, and that's all I can think about and talk about. And so that was birth for me. And specifically, like, home birth and unassisted birth, but also learning about the different things that they do in the hospital because I really had no idea that it was like that. Never been to a hospital birth before. But, yeah, just the researching. And I found a flyer down at the local library for a birth class that was happening in town and is taught by a local doula. And so, my partner and I signed up for that and he was actually hesitant to that because from the get go he's like, okay, reproduction is a thing that humans know how to do. What more do you need to know?
Speaker 1
Nice.
Speaker 3
He's pretty like minimalist. He's like, okay, you can do it. And he's actually, throughout the whole thing, has, you know, he's never like discouraged me from researching and he wanted to learn basic things but he kind of wanted to stop me from getting too heady about it and to yeah. Just, you know, filling my head way too much with things that I didn't really need to know. I mean, really, just my body knows and I needed to trust it. But
Speaker 1
Well, and if you're able
Speaker 3
that balance for me.
Speaker 1
Totally. And I think for a lot of women, they have to or they choose to over intellectualize and even overmedicalize their own free births first to kind of find their way to that. And so what I am hearing about your story that's so cool is, like, you you really didn't have to over intellectualize, this biological design, you know, that you you were, and your partner very much so, were very comfortable in, the reality of the biology without having to, yeah, like, read every book and prepare for every emergency and make it super heady, which, you know, that's one of the most freeing parts of letting our, you know, letting physiological birth unfold is that it just will.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. Totally. And I think it's true. I mean, I I did over intellectualize it though, and, it did give me some comfort though just to feel like I understood it in my mind of what what was going to happen, the hormones, how they work Mhmm. And what could possibly happen and what I could do for that. But, anyway, we we took this class, and it was just us and two other couples. It was really sweet, and they were all home birthing as well and did, like, water births. And, just being there, it was only a couple of sessions spaced out over a few weeks. But through the process of just, like, speaking in front of other people, but I didn't know that well my plans to birth without any medical assistance, without any doctor's visits or anything like that. It gave me a lot of confidence because I had sort of been living in a bubble, really, of just people who live a lot like me, and I hadn't had to interact that much with the outside world as far as, like, telling them my my intimate things like that, which made, you know, everything about birth is pretty intimate to talk about with other people. So I just, through the course of that, had the confidence that I needed to know, like, yeah. I am making the right decision. Actually, I I don't wanna have a midwife as a backup, and I don't need to hire anybody that I don't know that well to be at my birth or anything like that. The one the one kind of, kind of wrench in our whole plan, so, was that we were living on this thousand acre property. That was really awesome. And, I think I was about five months pregnant when and it was winter. It was, like, January, I think, right before that lunar eclipse when the landowner who was, like, totally absentee just suddenly, vacated all of us off of the land. Oh, no. And we were like a tight yeah. So we were a tight community, you know, all of us with four families. And we got to stay together for a couple of weeks, but then we all dispersed in different places. And and that was pretty heartbreaking to just think that I had some stability and then not. So, really, that was, like, what was occupying my mind and my concerns throughout the pregnancy, not so much like what could be wrong with me as a baby but where am I gonna be? Where am I gonna be stable?
Speaker 1
Survival right there.
Speaker 3
Totally. It's like root chakra stability stuff and that's what was going on. And so we spent a couple of really hard months kind of, yeah, just being being not grounded at all. We went back to Oregon. We're staying in our little bus, like a really little bus, and crammed in there at the wood stove and, it started snowing and it was just hard. Just me and Andrew together in that little space, but we learned a lot through it, you know. In the aftermath, I'm, like, really grateful for the experience that we went through. Yeah. And it also gave me this space to dream up different scenarios because I knew for sure I didn't want to have someone be the boss at my birth. What I didn't know is who I wanted to be there and really how primitive I wanted it to be because we were used to living quite primitively without running water, without really anything but fire. And I thought that I would be able to do that. And of course my focus at the time was really geared on the birth, not so much the postpartum, which is like a whole another world where I really did want to have a lot of comfort. But at the time when we were sort of in this vague zone, yeah, we were searching, dreaming up different places that we could go. We knew we wanted to be amongst community, and families and support, and And at this wild place.
Speaker 1
At this point, had you what's your relationship like with your guys' blood families? Are are they included in any of this? Are they support? Do they know about your plans? I mean, you obviously have been already living the pretty alternative lifestyle, so how how do they fit into this, if at all?
Speaker 3
Yeah. My parents I'm an only child, so my parents are really supportive of my lifestyle and very understanding and loving towards me. And when I told them that we were having a baby, I think I was I waited until I was about four months. And they were just so ecstatic. And, truly, I don't remember them ever asking if I was gonna see a doctor or anything. Okay. I think their concern more was, like, the stability thing, like, where are you gonna be and all that. But, yeah, they just totally trusted me and trusted birth, I guess. And it somewhat surprises me because they're a bit more conventional and do go to the doctors for, not for every little thing, but, like, for big things. They definitely need to trust the medical system. And and I do too to an extent if it's like emergencies but Yeah. That's what they're good at. I think yeah. But I think my parents both trust that birth is natural and that I'm healthy and I know what I'm doing and making good choices. And yeah, they were supportive. And my partner's parents were, like, they were more concerned. They definitely were asking if I was seeing a doctor, if I had a midwife, or anything like that. And it took a little bit of reassurance of of that we know what we're doing and that we do have support and it looks a little bit different that we do have it. And but they're kind of like a phone relationship. Right? So because we're far away from from both of our parents. So I didn't really have that much influence Right. What my partner's parents thought. You know, my parents loved it. Okay. That's great. That's how I felt about it.
Speaker 1
Okay. So keep walking me through the rest of your pregnancy.
Speaker 3
Yeah. So somewhere around, the end of March, I was just so fed up with not knowing and with being in this bus, and was counseling with my friends over the phone and just decided to follow, like, the clear path, which was to go back to California. And that's where I had been living before meeting Andrew and have a pretty tight community down there, which actually includes a midwife and doulas who are just my friends. That's just what they do at at birth. So I had, like, their support too just in trusting me and and my body and everything. We decided to go back down to California, on the coast in Sonoma County and and settle down. We rented a little cabin in this garden that I had actually worked in that garden a couple years and felt pretty connected to the place. And it felt really good to be back with my friends and and be honored. And I was eight months, yeah, eight months pregnant at the time. So feeling pretty pregnant. Yeah. Yeah. And just, like, finally, okay, I'm just gonna rest. I'm just gonna be here and, like, soak in all this nice, celebration and pampering, and it just felt really right. So the, the only thing that I did have was some palpations. My friend, Nan, she's a midwife from way back in the day. She doesn't really do that anymore. But she knows a lot and she's been to a lot of births. And she just offered that to me as, like, a gift to just kinda check the baby's positioning. So we did that a couple of times. Like, I think we did it once a week, and it was more just a fun thing to do with her.
Speaker 1
Totally. And that can feel
Speaker 3
so much. Yeah.
Speaker 1
And so, like, nurturing and to feel especially someone that knows you and loves you, that's like a whole another experience.
Speaker 3
Oh, yeah. I know. That was my big thing with with deciding to go back to, to Sonoma County. It was like, I wanna be with my wise women friends. Hell, yeah. I started to think more so beyond the birth and what the birth could look like into the postpartum and realizing, okay, I really don't wanna be out in the woods with just my partner. That sounds that sounds terrible to me in some ways just because he can't do everything for me. You know? He there's too many needs for him to, like, take care of everything. And I had in my mind already that I'm just gonna be in bed afterwards Mhmm. After the birth, and I wanna be in a place where I can just do that freely and be taken care of. So
Speaker 1
And for and for your women to take care of him. How special.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. So around thirty eight weeks, I think, my friend, Nan, she did a blessing away for us out in the garden. And all my dear friends came, and it was really special. And Andrew was there too so he was also being honored and such an amazing experience to, you know, pass just the prayers and the songs and then passing the feather around and and receiving. It was like such a time as receiving all these prayers and and wisdom too from the women in the circle and such an affirmation to me that they were looking right at me and thinking like, Yeah, you can do this. This is a big life experience for you and transition into motherhood. This is huge, and you're gonna be fine. You're gonna gonna do it. So it was so blessing, you know, that energy. And that happens to be the very same spot where we set up the birth space. Aw. That was pretty magical too. Nana is a person who keeps a lot of different ceremonies that she's been passed down by people and does it in a really good way. So
Speaker 1
Beautiful.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome.
Speaker 1
You set up the birth space right in the space where you received all these blessings. That's so cool.
Speaker 3
Yeah. And the birth space was our we have a twelve foot teepee, and it's a teepee that Andrew sewed. And he actually gave it to me, like, the the first day I met him. He gave it to me and entrusted me to bring it up to this, primitive skill gathering, like, set it up. And and we ended up just sharing it there, and, like, getting to know each other. And it was, like, a really special teepee that we've carried with us. And so she set that up in right there in the in that ceremony spot under the plum tree. And then my friend lent me the birth pool that she had used. And so we had that inside and yeah. And I think he set it up about two weeks before she was actually born. So I was just, like, looking at it all the time in the garden. Very, very present. That was kinda cool. And, yeah, the weeks just kinda went on, and I enjoyed it and started waddling and feeling really good.
Speaker 1
Did was there oh, sorry.
Speaker 3
Go ahead. Oh, I was just gonna say I think I was really blessed also that I didn't have really any complications throughout the pregnancy. Like, everything went pretty normally. So I didn't have a whole lot to be concerned about and yeah.
Speaker 1
Yeah. That was kind of what I was wondering is, spiritually or or, psychologically, how how did you feel, particularly towards the end? Was there demons and shadows and fears and and concerns to overcome? Were you doing a lot of, like, self work, or was it just easy for you to be in the, you know, the the bliss and and joy of of a wild pregnancy?
Speaker 3
That's a really good question. I think I did I think concerns did come up for me for sure. Not so much about, like, physically things that could go wrong, but more so about how, how all of my emotions and everything are impacting my baby. But and before she's born, like, in the womb and everything. And that was just a big thing for me. And sometimes I felt really guilty for just having, you know, like, anger or, gosh. Just different emotions like that. So that was something that I was working through, spiritually and just trying to remember to be more in that ceremony space all the time. That's something my friend Ann Louise really wanted to encourage me to do. When I came back, she's like, you are pregnant. It's a nine month ceremony. Stay stay in that and, and pray and just be with God. And so it's something that I I did try to work on more at the end. But as far as, like, thinking that something was going wrong inside my womb, I don't think I really indulged in that too much. Like, it just felt right. And I felt a lot more connected towards the end. Like, in the middle of the pregnancy, I remember, you know, like, reading other people's stories and thinking, oh, gosh. I I don't really feel, like, that connected to my baby. But towards the end, I just did more so. And I think it looks different for everyone else. So that was one of my things about reading other people's stories, is remembering not to compare myself Mhmm. To stories because we're all so diverse. But, yeah, around, like, thirty four weeks, it suddenly hit me that she was a girl. Like, I just knew that I had a little girl inside of me, and that was so special. Mhmm. Just feel like I
Speaker 1
What week were you?
Speaker 3
A little bit more.
Speaker 1
When was that that you got that information?
Speaker 3
That was, about thirty four weeks, and that was right before we made this journey down to California.
Speaker 1
So So take me, yeah, take me towards when you're entering your birthing time.
Speaker 3
Yeah. So we had this space set up, and it was in May. It was such a perfect time to birth. They're in this garden. It's all roses are blooming and the different flowers, and it felt so fertile and so perfect, and it's starting to warm up. And yeah. May so we, celebrated our anniversary of knowing each other and meeting each other, actually. That was really special. And, I think it was, like, the next day or the next few days, it was Mother's Day and kinda got to be honored like that. Like, that was my last big outing as I went to the farmer's market, which is kind of the social scene Yeah. For me out there. Yeah. And, like, once saw Nan and Nan looked at me and she looked at Andrew and she said, you guys are ready to have that baby. You know when the father looks ready, that's when that's when she's ready to have the baby. Like, energetically, if the father's not ready, I guess it can influence it. But that was actually, you know, like my due date that I calculated myself was May eighth, but intuitively I had already known that it was gonna be on the new moon, which is May fifteenth that year or that month, just because my goat said I was given birth on the new moon and kind of realized that there is something connected there with the with moon energy and just, like, newness and rebirth and everything. So
Speaker 1
Oh, for sure.
Speaker 3
I mean, it's
Speaker 1
yeah. For I I birthed on the full moon, and there's, you know, it's all anecdotal who would study that, but there's a ton, a ton, a ton, a ton of of stories of women birthing on the new and the full. But of course, right, like the the tides of the ocean, the tides of our amniotic fluid, the tides of the tides of the cosmos, like, you know, the the pulse of, you know, the lunar energy, like, of course, we of course. It's crazy to not acknowledge the connection there.
Speaker 3
Yeah. And, funny you say that because my friend Melissa actually did do research on that and found that it was true. Most women birth on the new moon or the full moon. She did a whole sample of, like, home birth people. So, yeah, you're, yeah, totally right.
Speaker 1
Super common. I remember when I used to do it in hospitals, if the mom was in labor on a full moon, it was like, oh, shit. She's probably not gonna be able to get a room because it's kind of just known that labor and delivery will be going crazy on a full moon. So it's interesting. But anyway, so is the so you had passed May eighth and Nan says you guys look ready.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. That was on mother's day, which I think was the, thirteenth or something. So the next day, the fourteenth, I think the only big thing I really did that day because I was mostly sleeping, like, resting a lot, like, sleeping maybe twelve hours or something and taking naps and just laying around. But the big thing I really wanted to accomplish is like, okay, Andrew's birthday is the sixteenth. I just wanna make a birthday cake for him and have that ready. So I went we didn't have an oven. We just had, like, a little camp stove and a fire pit. So I went to my friend Anne Louise's, and baked him a cake there. And then she wasn't there, so I just, like, soaked in her bath and soaked it all in, enjoyed enjoyed that evening, and went and picked some roses and some honeysuckle and brought all that yummy stuff home and put it in the cabin. It was, like, such a beautiful fragrance in there. And I went to sleep, and in the it was, like, around one in the morning, and this was the new moon now, like, on the dot. I woke up and started having contractions, like, the first real one. And, they weren't, like, intense or anything, but just clearly I knew, okay, this is happening now. And I think they were about every twenty minutes or something like that. So they were just warm ups. But I woke up, and I was so excited, really, that it was hard to sleep or anything. And I just kind of, like, observed them and, yeah, decided to curiously, like, observe what was going on each time because I'd never felt anything like that, of course. And then I kept having this sensation that I had to poop. So I went outside because we had, like, a compost bucket out outside of the cabin. And I went out there, but it was really cold outside and, I just felt uncomfortable. Just yeah. Overall, kind of uncomfortable. So I got this other little plastic bucket and brought it inside the cabin, thinking that maybe I would just be more comfortable in there and then I could go back to sleep after I go to the bathroom. And I sat on that and it actually collapsed under me and I just, like, fell backwards on the floor. And, this is like a this is Andrew's favorite part. I think it's funny that I fell on the floor and he our bed is on the floor. It's like a wool mattress, but he, like, jumped up in the air.
Speaker 1
He just jumped up in
Speaker 3
a really protective way. I was like, oh my god. What's happening? And then he's standing on the floor. His first thought was, oh, no. There's pee everywhere now. But the bucket was empty, actually. But yeah. And then I told him what was going on, and then he knew. And, you know, we just went back to bed, and he kinda held me and I tried to go back to sleep. And I think I did take naps in between you know, I had, like, a twenty minute window between each wave, and it would wake me up, but it wasn't overpowering or anything. Yeah. So in the morning, I slept in a long time. Like, Andrew was milking the goats now and doing all the morning chores and feeding the chickens. So I kinda just stayed in bed. And, I think in the afternoon or around noon, we we took a walk with the goats and the dogs. And I came back, and I was so tired. My focus was really just to nap as much as possible that day and just stay in bed. And I did that. I did a couple of chores, I think. But around dinner time, the waves just started getting really strong. And I was, like, kneeling over on this box, just breathing through them. Like, I kinda knew it was gonna pick up around evening, you know? Because I'm pretty tuned in to just natural rhythms, natural cycles, and won't have a light or anything. And I just knew she she was gonna be born at night. Like, that's the time that this feels right to me. So in the evening, things started to pick up. And I had told my two friends, that I invited to the birth, Ann Louise and Maya. And, they came. Maya came first and just kind of sat with us in the room, and the sun was setting getting dark. And I was just laying in bed, and, Andrew was, like, holding me and, yeah, just going through it. But eventually, Maya kinda encouraged me to, like, you know, move around more with it. I think I might have ended up just sitting still through most of it if I hadn't have had the encouragement. So that was really sweet. And yeah. I just got got more active in there. It's got a wood fire going in the stove. This really cozy space and, Ann Louise showed up with a big chicken dinner for everybody and I considered, like, staying inside. I was just afraid of being cold out there. Mhmm. And, and then everyone kind of got in this tizzy of, like, okay. Now we have to bring the tub and the pool inside and the propane heater inside and bring everything in. And that just got really chaotic really fast, so I just stepped outside and just went outside and, like, saw the stars and felt how good it was out there and just decided that I'm gonna stick with that and just be outdoors. And people were, like, asking me questions and talking to me a little bit more than I really wanted. That's something that I think about when I revisit the birth. It's like, I love these stories of women being totally on their own and just deep deep in themselves and everything, like, with spirit. And, yeah, I so admire that. And when I think about my birth, it wasn't exactly like that because I had people with me. I had Andrew and my two friends. And I'm so grateful for their companionship, and I ended up kind of relying on their companionship at some point, you know, when the waves got really intense. I loved that Maya could squeeze my hips for me and, like, touch me, and it it felt good to me. So this, you know, is obviously what I needed in this first, but I think in the future, I would really love to just kind of do it more on my own.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Me too.
Speaker 3
Yeah. I mean, now that I trust myself. I think it was that though that I didn't know how it was gonna go, and I wanted to know that I had people there to support me. It just felt more comforting.
Speaker 1
Well, it's kind of funny because we were before we were recording, we were saying how the average person is like, I should birth at the hospital for my first baby if they want home birth. And then there's like layers. Right? So then the next person is like, well, I, you know, I want a home birth, but I'll just have a midwife, you know, if they actually want free birth And then there's free birth, but I'll have people around. And now and then there's Yeah. You know, I'm literally just gonna be by myself.
Speaker 3
It's like the hierarchy of radical birth. Yeah.
Speaker 1
Totally. Just like walking into the woods without notifying anybody.
Speaker 3
I know. I know.
Speaker 1
That's funny.
Speaker 3
Someday. But, yeah, I mean, I did actually have the option to have Nan there who is a a midwife. She's not practicing anymore, but she's delivered been at probably thousands of births in the past. So I had the option of her being there, and she offered that if I wanted to call her, you know, at transition time that she would come. But and I kept that in my head, like, okay. If there's an emergency or if there's something going on Mhmm. That I can't handle, I'm definitely gonna call her. And she's only fifteen minutes away. And she had given us that, the emergency childhood or emergency childbirth handbook. We read that, and then she gave us her oxygen tank just in case we needed that. So we didn't have to call call, like, the firefighters to come if we needed that. But, you know, we just had things on hand just to be, you know, responsible, I guess. We didn't have a very Now I
Speaker 1
have to do a PSA about oxygen at first.
Speaker 3
Yeah.
Speaker 1
Strongly do not recommend for anyone anyone listening. You know, it's a it's a a controlled substance for a reason. It's toxic to babies. Babies should not be having oxygen. It's it's totally insane that midwives are carrying that and acting as if that's some heroic, you know, heroic thing. So I'm glad you didn't have to employ that. And, and, yeah, that's that's kinda crazy.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Well, thank you for saying that because I actually felt pretty uncomfortable, and I didn't really wanna take it when she offered it because I don't really even know how to
Speaker 1
use it. Exactly.
Speaker 3
I've never It's like here's
Speaker 1
some here's some, like danger. Right. Here's some, like, you know, episiotomy scissors, Andrew. Like, just in case you need them, or or here's, like, a deep suctioning, you know, thing for your baby's nose just in case you need them. Like,
Speaker 3
you
Speaker 1
know, I mean I
Speaker 3
guess it was maybe more for me if I needed oxygen, But, again, like, I've never used one of those Right. Absorptions before. Totally. So I don't know. It was there. Yeah. It was just in a corner somewhere. Yeah.
Speaker 1
Right? You, like, put a tapestry over it.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. I think it was out on the deck with some storage things. But yeah. But she also gave me this great thick rope that she had used before at many births. So I had this great thick rope, tied around the crown of the teepee, and that was, like, the best thing that anyone gave me, when it came to bearing down. I'm outside. It's dark. It's sorry. It's a new moon night. It's really gorgeous. And we're in the redwoods. This is like a garden in a meadow surrounded by huge redwood trees that just creak at night and kinda silent. Like, you hear it just creaking. Really awesome. And I'm just kneeling on this bench. Just kneeling, staying still. It felt really, really good to me, actually. And I did get up a couple times, like, move around, and they brought me a sheepskin. I'm just on a sheepskin out there. And then they got, I think Maya got a fire going. There's a little fire pit just kinda close to the teepee, in between the teepee and the cabin. We had a fire going outside, which was really comforting. And, you know, it just, like, continued to to roll on, and they were definitely overpowering. They're definitely painful, the waves, but I didn't I was never scared about them or anything. I just trusted that my baby was fine and I was gonna be fine. And my concern was really, is this gonna take days? I didn't know how long because I actually, right, like, I had listened to your birth story pretty, I think, just before that. I can't remember when, yours was came out in, like, beginning of May, I think. So that was probably the most recent podcast, actually, before my birth. And I'm like, oh my gosh. Is it gonna take days? I don't know. Are my friends? My friends can't handle that. They're gonna leave me here alone. They're gonna be tired. So that I didn't know. And, yeah. I just I didn't know. But I just went with it and, I moved around a little bit. I walked around the garden and I kinda I tried hanging on my friends and, like, hang on Andrew and that just didn't really feel good to me. That was was an encouragement of Maya's and, like, no. You guys can't really hold all that I am right now. So I'm gonna I'm just gonna be on my own. And I remember, like, checking a couple times when I was kneeling and my mucus plug was coming out. It was, like, mucus and stuff, on my legs. And that was kinda interesting. Right? It's like you're in it, but also you can be this observer of, like, woah. My body is, like, doing this right now. This is so cool. So, yeah, I'm just kind of, like, observing and everything and, yeah, just going through it. And then at a certain point, it was probably around eleven. I kinda just demanded that the pool be full now. Like, I wanna get in the water. And they had, we had borrowed one of those on demand propane heaters, but that was only doing lukewarm water. It wasn't really gonna cut it. So pretty much, you know, like this conversation right now, like, when technology is not working, we just go back to basics and just do it simple. Back to basics. Okay. We have a fire going. Awesome. So Ann Louise, she got, like, a pot and a kettle and just was rocking the fire and, like, heating up water and boiling that for me and taking it to the pool and just so devoted. And I'm really grateful in a situation like that that I had the support I had at my birth of, like, people doing stuff, taking care of things. So
Speaker 1
I mean, that's the best support. Right? Like, just kind of
Speaker 3
Yeah.
Speaker 1
Managing the space so that you can do your work.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. She gave me some teas, some ginger roast teas. She fed everybody so that they were taken care of also so that they could be supportive for me. And, yeah, it wasn't that much longer, maybe an hour, half an hour. I don't know. But and then the pool was ready, and so I couldn't wait any longer. I just wanted to get in the water. And when they did, it felt so good. It felt so right to be in there, and just, like, lay down and and let it take over my body. And, yeah, I had, like, an altar set up in there with some candles and and some stones and a bunch of roses. I put, like, rose petals and lavender in the water and and just moved, you know, worked in there for a while and and moved around. And, and it just kind of, like, in my mind when I'm reliving it, it seems like it happened so fast, and it really it was just a few hours that night. Seven or eight hours.
Speaker 1
Where do you think you are in your birth process at this point of the story?
Speaker 3
Well, I think I when I got into the water, I was pretty close to transition. Mhmm. So when I had woken up at one in the morning, it was just, you know, like, pre labor all day long. And around sunset is when after labor really started to kick in. Because that's when I just couldn't do anything but breathe through it. And, you know, like, the waves were coming pretty quickly too. Like, I never timed them, but it was I could tell in my mind, though, how it's been pretty good with time. Like, they were just a couple of minutes apart and getting really strong. So I think around midnight or so when I was in the pool, I was pretty close to transition and, it I started hanging from the rope. So Mhmm. I would hold onto it and just, like, hold all my weight with my arms, and that is the most Mhmm. Powerful feeling in the world, probably. Mhmm. Wow. Just feeling your baby moving down in you, it just gives me chills how intense and amazing and, like, otherworldly that sensation is. Just staring down. Wow. So that was yeah. Thank you for that rope. That was really great. And I was in the water at the same time so it's such an ideal setup. Yeah. I'm like, hold me on to this rope and I don't really know where I was at at the time. I knew I was in labor. I didn't know how close I was or anything. But at a certain point, I was just curious. So I just, like, checked myself, and it didn't have to do very much. I just, like, put my fingers in, and I could feel, the first thing I felt was the sac, the amniotic sac, actually. And I knew it was that just because it felt
Speaker 1
Right. It's pretty obvious.
Speaker 3
It kind of felt like a goat stomach. Right?
Speaker 1
Oh, yeah. That's totally what I thought too. Not
Speaker 3
It just had it has that flavor to it, that consistency.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Goat flavor.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Goaty. That's funny. But I also felt
Speaker 1
some You know, some people
Speaker 3
say, like, water balloon. Oh, yeah. Well, if you've ever cut open a goat, their stomachs feel just like an amniotic snack, I guess. That's awesome. So, but, yeah, I felt also a little bit of cervix that was it was hard, and I was just going on intuition with all of this. But, like, okay. It's obviously, like, I'm not fully dilated, but I'm really close. This is amazing. So just checking like that, it it kind of, like, gave me, well, it gave me a good idea of how close I was, which gave me this whole new wind of, wow. I'm just gonna, like, do this now. I don't have to wait that much longer. Like, my baby's coming really soon. So I just worked on that rope, really. I just hung on that rope as much as I could, and and then would take a break and kneel down in the water again and sometimes lay down in the water. And and, Anne kept bringing hot water in to fill it up. So it was, like, perfect temperature the whole time, which when I hear other people's water birth stories, that feels it sounds like there's
Speaker 1
a perfect temperature. That's hard to achieve perfect water the entire day.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Campfire is the best for that, I think. But yeah. So, actually, this is a cool part of the story that around, it was, like, twelve thirty, I think. And I'm not sure how I kept track of time this whole time, but I was very coherent. Like, I never had that tripping out kind of experience. And maybe because I was, pretty well rested, and it didn't take that long. But I was just super aware of myself, but also aware of what was going on at the same time. It was, like, kind of this omniscience of, yeah, super superwoman thing going on. Hell yeah. But I was alone in the teepee now, and, it's lit up with candles. But Andrew, he was out at the fire with Maya and Ann Louise, and they started singing, this happy birthday song to him because it was his birthday now. And I was alone in the teepee, and the super strong wave came over me. And I was really vocal the whole night, so they heard me. I think everybody on the land heard me. Right. There's also, like, five other people living on the land. But Andrew came in, you know, in the middle of his happy birthday song. He came in to the teepee and just he was, like, kneeling around the pool the whole time and just saying really beautiful things to me. And he loves me and just supporting me in in that way, like, that I know that he's there with me throughout the process. And I think it was about that same time that I just got up and I kneeled on the pool, like, on the opposite side of him and felt the first, like, fetal ejection reflex, the first push. And with that very first push, I felt a pop too, so my water broke Nice. In that moment. But it kind of hurt actually because I think it's because of that bit of hard surface Mhmm. That I felt, just like the sac pushing up against that. So that being in my mind, I'm like, oh, okay. So I'm still not fully dilated, but now the water is open, it's popped, and and now I'm pushing. Or now I feel like I wanna push. It's kind of happening. Kind of like to me, it felt like, vomiting, like a vomit sensation, but the other direction kind of. And Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1
It's like your vagina throwing up.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Totally. And you can't stop it. But, again, this is, like, one of those moments, where my mind is full of all of the information that I've absorbed through my research, through my listening to podcasts and stories. So I'm kind of, like, thinking about the different scenarios, the different things that could happen rather than being, like, fully present in a in a more, like, blank kind of state. So, yeah, in a way, I think it was good. It was good for me just to be kind of aware of, like, what could be happening. Mhmm. But my concern kinda kicked in. And so I thought, okay. I should probably not be pushing it. I'm probably not ready, so I'm gonna get out of the pool. And I got out, and I knelt on the earth. I just was on my hands and knees on the cool earth, which felt really good. And, but the pushing was coming and it was kinda undeniable. But I tried to. I tried to deny it. I tried to just breathe through it for a while for a couple of pushes. It just felt like moments really. And it was the hardest part of the whole thing was trying to not push, like, wow.
Speaker 1
But you just intuitively knew to do that.
Speaker 3
I I'm a guess it's maybe intuitive or maybe it's just, you know, I was that's what Nan told me is, like, you wanna try to not push right away. Mhmm. You wanna try to wait for a while. So I think I don't know if it was intuition or really just informational, but Gotcha.
Speaker 1
It was in your
Speaker 3
got out. Yeah. Just just that knowing that last time I checked that there was still some cervix left, but I probably wasn't ready. So and also hearing your story where you were afraid of your, swollen cervix. I'm like, okay. I gotta be careful here. So I got out, and I got on the earth, and I breezed through it. And, that only lasted a couple of times. So a couple of moments, and then I just, like it's like when you're trying to not throw up, and then all of a sudden you just do, and it all dashes out, and it it feels really good. And it was kind of like that, but I think what I felt was her head, like, entering my birth canal and it felt amazing. It was like, this one moment and the whole birth that was, like, orgasmic, really. It was amazing, that that sensation. And it just confirmed for me, wow, I am ready. I'm this is all good. This is happening. And I, you know, I just stayed on the earth for just a moment longer, and and I thought about just staying there because it it felt too good to move. But I knew I wanted to be in the water also. So I I climbed back in the pool, and with the next few waves, I was kinda kneeling in the water and also holding on to the rope because sometimes I would pull myself up with the rope for that, like, bearing down sensation. And, and I was checking myself too because her head came down pretty quickly, and so I could feel the pressure. And I was just, like, holding my hand over my yoni, and, it was pretty, quick that I could feel her head just, like, starting to bulge down there and just feeling with my hand. And, you know, it's like I don't remember any pain at this moment. Like, of course, before all of this, like, it hurt. The way it hurt. But at this point, I think I was just so aware and, like, vigilant and curious too and excited that that that's all I felt, really. It was just, like, pure excitement and, and curiosity and and no pain. And so I'm just, like, feeling and with each wave, her head is, like, coming and and it, like, it crowned, like, maybe four or five times before fully crowning. And at this point, Andrew is inside the TV and Maya is also, and they're just kinda out standing around the pool. And and Louisa's outside with the fire, but I didn't really communicate with them at all. They're just there, you know, holding space without really talking to me or asking me what's going on, and and it's dark in there too. So in a way, I, like, kinda was private and kinda was on my own and wasn't really being watched too much. Like, half of me was, was in the dark. So, yeah, her head her head crowned and, and came out, and that was pretty intense feeling too. Like, I I did have that ring of fire sensation, and that was really an intense moment. But
Speaker 1
Yeah. Intense is a understatement.
Speaker 3
It really is. And that's the other part that I think about when I revisit my birth too is I was not at all prepared for that sensation.
Speaker 1
Mhmm. I think it's actually it's better that we're not prepared.
Speaker 3
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1
But nothing really but nothing could prepare you. Right? Like, everything that has that that we've heard, like, everything's been said. It's just that this is stupid, but it's kind of like trying to explain, like, going to Burning Man or, like, acid or something. Like, you have to just do it. There's really yeah. It's a ring of fire. Yeah. It's gonna burn. Yeah. It's gonna feel like the entire universe is going through a portal through your vagina. But, like, really, you can't even intellectualize that. You just have to have it.
Speaker 3
Well and also my friends my older friends who are, like, grandmas and older wise women, they had told me to do the stretching. Right? The perineal stretching and even to have Andrew do it. And I had, like, we talked about it, but it just did not appeal to me in any way to do that. And so I didn't. And I sometimes think, well, maybe I should have. I don't know. But Mm-mm. I didn't I didn't want to do it. It didn't feel good.
Speaker 1
Yeah. You shouldn't have because of
Speaker 3
what that was, like, weird.
Speaker 1
Exactly. You shouldn't have because it didn't sound appealing. So there right there, like, we're talking about your vagina. But the other thing is that there's no evidence that that does anything at all whatsoever. It's totally, it's just it's I mean, yes. It's anecdotal. Some women think it helps, but the I I think it's kind of counterproductive because we also have to be careful about what that implies because that's implying that you need help stretching. It's implying that you have to do something other than, exist with the tissue that that very much is meant to, not only is it meant to stretch, but it is also meant to tear if that is what happens, and it's also meant to heal. You know? So I think the whole kind of consciousness around, the the stretching prenatally can be dangerous in the sense of, you know, that that leads a woman to think, oh, I need that. Or if if I tear and I had done that, then I, you know, then I wouldn't have torn or kind of I think it kind of contributes to some mythological, you know, things that are not factual.
Speaker 3
Totally. Yeah. I I agree. I don't think that there really is any evidence for it physically helping or anything like that. And and I didn't really think that it would, but the thing that did kinda sway me towards considering that is just, like, practicing to, sustain a sensation like that. Mhmm. I think that's really the only benefit that you could get from doing the stretching. It's just like, woah. This is an intense sensation, and I can breathe through it. And when I revisit my birth, the this is just the one thing that I think about is how intense that sensation was and how I wasn't able to really sustain it very long. And, and I didn't push. Like, I was just letting my body push the whole time. Like, I never once, you know, forcefully pushed anything. But at that moment where her head was, like, half in and half out, it was just, like, this moment where I kind of see this opportunity to either, like, sustain that intensity or or not. And for me, I didn't really, and I just, like, kind of let this push come just to get her out, get her head out. Mhmm. It was too much for me. And I did care. And I like what you said about, you know, like, kind of getting a little bit I don't know if you said it exactly, but getting a little too, like, heady and feeling guilty and feeling like, oh, I did this wrong and I tore. I could've done that better. And I I have been that way really when I think about my birth is, like, I think about that moment. Like, maybe I could have prevented it. Maybe I could have done something else. And maybe it's just, you know, my body is like this.
Speaker 1
My But but hold on. So But you're but in that thought, there's a unspoken implication that tearing is bad or that it shouldn't have happened or that, right, that it that there's an implication that if you had done something different, that wouldn't have happened. And underneath that, that's implying that tearing is bad. And so Right. You know, that's something that is so powerful to bring up because, obviously, we are all in a culture we cannot escape, you know, how, just reductive our vaginas have become, you know, and porn and then, you know, I mean, that they're all supposed to look one way, and they're all supposed to be, you know, look basically like they're eight years old, and that, you know, and that childbirth is gonna absolutely ruin you, and blah blah blah, all the stuff that we already know, when in fact, the reality is, yes, childbirth will change you forever in every single way. Yes. And that is fucking awesome. Right? And so Yeah. You know, I've never seen a a tear, and I've seen quite, scary looking tears. I've never seen a tear in a home birth that wasn't sutured or, I'm sorry, that remained unsutured, that didn't heal perfectly, ever, my own included. I mean, mine mine wasn't gnarly, but it wasn't it wasn't nothing. It would have certainly been sutured had a, midwife, you know, with a needle been near me, and, you know, it wasn't, and I stayed in bed for, you know, three weeks, and I kept my legs together. I never applied seaweed or manuka honey or any of the other techniques. I just, I kept thinking about my cheeks, my my mouth. I kept thinking about, it's mucous membranes. You know, my my cheek is the same tissue as my vagina, and when you bite your cheek, you don't go get stitches, you know, and then you're shocked at how quickly it heals. Even if you keep biting it again on accident, you know, once it's kind of inflamed or whatever. And I just kept thinking about that. And, you know, long story short, my my vagina healed wonderfully. My tear is not there anymore. You know, it's it's it's all good. What what would you say about yours? Did you how did you heal?
Speaker 3
Well, I it is kinda different for me, and I think my body is more of a collagenous kind of a body where when I get any kind of cut or scar or wound, it's scars. It's on my skin. And so, you know and I totally agree the whole, like, appearance and superficial level of a tear. That's not really my concern here for me. It's just having lived my postpartum experience. It was really hard having a tear. And I kinda think well, it would have been very different had I not had that to heal because for me, it took like, I was in bed for, like, at least a week. And then after that, I was outside just laying on this futon, like, all day long. And I basically was just laying around for a month to five weeks not doing anything. And I tried really hard to just keep my legs together and and, like, keep clean. And it was kind of my focus besides my baby. It was
Speaker 1
Oh, totally. Me too.
Speaker 3
My hair. It was huge. And Nan was super sweet. She would come over and check on me and, like, yeah, just, like, encourage me and say I'm looking really good. I'm doing really good. And she's the only person because I have such a close relationship with her, she's, like, my wise elder woman friend and she's the only person that I let actually touch my vagina. Mhmm. And it felt fine and everything. But, yeah, she was, like, encouraging me, like, You're doing great. Most people wouldn't, you know, let them heal without getting stitches. I'm proud of you. And, and then it did heal up, but, honestly, I'm four months postpartum now, and it's only been, like, a month that now that it's been fully healed. Like, it took a long time. It was that sensation of, like, having to, you know, be really careful of how I move my body, which I think is important postpartum because you're relearning how to use your body and you're kind of reborn into this mother body and it's amazing. And it was hard for me to, like, not be able to squat and not be able to do, a lot of positions. And so only the last month, really, I felt like I can move my body again in that way because it it took a really long time for my tear to heal, and that might be kind of uncommon.
Speaker 1
No. No. That's that's very, very common. Absolutely. And I think there's a real I think there's a real genius and and beauty to, to tears sometimes because I wonder if you would have laid around as much if you didn't have to baby it. You know? I wonder, Right. You know, there's so many different things at play. Right? Because when we make ourselves, when we have to tend to, our tears, I know for sure if I didn't have that tear, I would have not have been as good about resting, and, allowing the rest of my body, you know, my public floor, my uterus, everything, you know, like you said, you're coming into a whole new body, and, you know, it's all connected, right? Because the more we rest even without tears, the more we rest, the better the integrity of our pelvic floor thirty years from now. Right? The less likely we're gonna have incontinence or prolapses in our sixties. The the more, time and love and and gentleness and slowness we take in those immediate postpartum weeks and months. Anyway, so I totally hear you. I'm not trying to to diminish that it was challenging. I I totally hear you. And and and I just think it's such a beautiful topic because even in that, there's there's almost a implication that it should have healed faster. Right? But it Yeah. But why? Like, just like how my whole thing was, my labor should have gone shorter. I'm just, like, making that up. Right? It took Right. It took the exact time that it took. And it's our stories around it that that actually I find to be the most painful or to cause the most, suffering or resistance. Right? And, you know, all suffering comes from resisting what is or not accepting what is. Anyway but but I I hear you, and I love that you're starting to feel like, you know, whatever the right word would be for you, like, whole in your body again and and having feeling some real healing a month in the last month or so.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. I think you're right too. I mean, it is such a topic, really. And for me, just talking about it now, it it takes some courage because there's some really deeply embedded shame to it, to tearing, like, even talking about it. And I'm I'm not sure why that is. I haven't fully unpacked that, but it's there. And so talking about it is a big thing.
Speaker 1
Yeah. I think it's called the patriarchy.
Speaker 3
Totally.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Right? Like, our it's our vaginas. Like, I I oh my gosh. So part of my tear, it happened at the, at the the v, like, the vaginal opening, and, a piece of it tore. And day two or something or day three, I finally looked at it, and there was a little piece of a tear of skin. I didn't really understand what it was because I was still very swollen hanging. And I was like, oh my god. I fucked up my vagina. And I had the same feeling you did of, you know, it was like your your vagina's throwing up, you can't do anything about it. I was trying really hard to not add any energy on top of it, and then when it was actually the, you know, the largest part of her head circumference actually coming out, it's uncontrollable. It just happened, and I screamed through it, and, and so, yeah, later, I was like, man, I wonder if there was a way I could have not done that. Or, you know, now I've, like I I cried. I mean, on day three, which probably is not the best day
Speaker 3
to be looking
Speaker 1
at your vagina because that's all your hormones coming in and your milk coming in. It's like the cry day. But, I remember crying and being telling my husband, like, and again, I mean, I'm embarrassed to even admit this because I'm such a feminist and I'm such a self assured person. And I was I was crying and going, I'm so sorry. Like, the vagina that you utilize is ruined. I've you know, it's ruined. And obviously, he was like, chill out, girl. It's all good. However it is, it's all good. But I did feel a lot of shame around how it looked and that I felt like I fucked up. And then I'm happy to say, but it would have been fine if it hadn't. But my vagina just kind of reabsorbed it. I don't even really understand what happened. But over the next couple weeks, it just, like, healed. And I don't really know what happened to the hangy peas, but my vagina just, like, sucked it back up or something because it's not there anymore. Whereas for other women that I have attended, the ripped part does remain hanging out. And, you know, it's it's our journey to rediscover self love and recreate our acceptance of our bodies, which is, you know, our vagina's changing is one of a thousand ways. Right? Our boobs, stretch marks, I mean, everything. Right? Everything about humans, taking over our bodies for a period of time and then feeding them for a long time changes us. And if we lived in a matriarchy, if we lived in, you know, this utopian vision that we'll never see, you know, then then this could all be celebrated in a really big way instead of it feeling like some destruction of our womanhood.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. I had really similar feelings, and I'm really grateful that that we're talking about this and for you sharing your own experience too. And I've just been on the, you know, on the group online, the new birth and the, you know, the free birth group and stuff, and it, I guess, it catches my eye that there are a lot of topics about fairing and how to heal them and all of this. And it's like the focus, like, how can I heal it as fast as possible? And I I think it's really important just what we're talking about now to bring more dialogue to it because it really is just, more like how can I heal my whole self and how can I rest more and, I don't know? It's like it it happens for a reason. Like, I'm realizing that there's a reason today.
Speaker 1
Yeah. And I would
Speaker 3
for sure.
Speaker 1
I would actually just reframe what my experiences of seeing everyone asking all day long questions about tearing isn't how to heal it. I mostly see how to prevent it. And so, there's so much in that, you know? There's so much fear, and there's so much, concern, you know, that's just saying, like, my vagina is going to get ruined. You know, everyone's told me, or I had an episiotomy before, and understandably, anyone, you know, coming from before, and understandably, anyone, you know, coming from captivity where they've been violated and, you know, cut and scarred from unnecessary, you know, violence, understandably, there's a lot to unpack there about, you know, am I going to need one again or how am I going to stretch if I've already been cut? You know, that's that's a whole different topic than what you and I have dealt with since we had our first babies outside of the system. But but, yeah, that's what I see more more than anything is how to prevent it. And so, yeah, I love this conversation because, really, my experience, my truth, and and what I have seen for a very long time, and, you know, my partner Yolanda absolutely would say the same thing, which is that vaginas are meant to stretch, and they're meant to tear if they do, and they're meant to heal. All of that happens in the same, in the same sentence. You know? They're not,
Speaker 3
Yeah.
Speaker 1
They're not going you know, you're not gonna be left destroyed. It doesn't that doesn't make any biological sense. That doesn't make any self protective sense. And the problem is so few women get to experience that because they're all managed. Right? So, if you tear at all and you're attended, you know, with with someone who also, you know, lots of doctors get paid more to suture after the after the fact. You know, and everyone just wants to do something. Right? So I have rarely been to a midwife assisted birth where, the midwife said, we could suture you or we could not. You know, you'll heal on your own. I have so rarely heard that from a licensed midwife's mouth, and yet it's absolutely true.
Speaker 3
Mhmm. It is. Yeah. Alright. Somebody posted, one labial wall or two labial walls in a room will always find each other. Yes. Right? It always is meant to heal.
Speaker 1
Yes. I love that. Yes. They will find each other. They'll find their way
Speaker 3
back to each other. It's such a huge fear. And like I said, I didn't have any fear while I was in even in transition time. Like, I didn't have any fear except caring. And I don't know why. It was such a big thing for me. And, I think when I revisit my mom's birth, how she birthed me, like, she had a routine episiotomy and tore on top of that. Of course. And so she had, like it was it sounds really brutal when I imagine it. Right? Oh
Speaker 1
my god. Yeah. Could you imagine scissors to your perineum? Holy shit.
Speaker 3
I know. And it's, like, the most sensitive part of our body and the most sacred, and it's the portal into the world. And so no wonder we have so much of our attention focused on to that really tender place.
Speaker 1
Yes. The gates.
Speaker 3
Yeah. And I this conversation that's helping me, like, really bring awareness to that of how much fear we have towards it. Like, we're gonna have focused, attention towards our vagina, towards our perineum. Like, let's let's reframe that more as, like, just yeah. More more, more love towards whatever happens there. And like you said, the healing process too. I mean, that's what it is. It is if you need that, that's what it is. And for me, it it turned out to be pretty good. Like, I was really blessed. I was very pampered, in my postpartum. Like, my partner wasn't working, so he pretty much did everything for me. He did all the daily chores and also took care of me and made me sit back and would smudge me and take care of me. And then, my friends did, like, a meal transfer, bringing me really good food and massaging my feet and everything like that. So I think I just needed to be on my butt and my back and absorb all of that. Oh, yeah. And hampering. And
Speaker 1
literally every new mother does.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Everyone does. Everybody. Every time.
Speaker 1
I mean, there's no
Speaker 3
Yeah.
Speaker 1
Even if you're a new mother again by your seventh child, like, having a baby, it is the time for reverence and love and and, you know, support and resting and taking it all in. And and this is true of for the optimal, you know, health and bonding and attachment of mom and baby. Right? If you're up and in close and you're going to Target or you're working on the farm or you're whatever it is, you, you know, you are not doing full one hundred percent bonding and connectivity, and assessment, right, of your baby. And that really is done best naked in bed with nothing else on your plate. And so, so few women get that, get that space, but it's not a luxury. It's not a it's only a luxury and a privilege because it's not the norm. You know, it absolutely should
Speaker 3
be the norm.
Speaker 1
So Yeah. I I don't yeah. I I like talking about tears because I think it's it's it's nice to sit with it and reframe it. And, I think it's also I don't know how to say this. Like, it's like a part of our it it sounds so Christian. I don't mean it like that. It's like a part of our sacrifice, you know, like, to Mhmm. To give ourselves to the bigness of birth and to the bigness of walking through, you know, these these gates. I don't think we get through unscathed a lot, and that's okay. Like you said, you're someone that, like, scars or that marks are left. It's like, yes. Fuck. Yeah. That's awesome. You know? That's Yeah. That is our body's story, and that is our body's offering, you know, to make the space and to get so big, and to stretch in ways that we're absolutely meant to, but that freaking hurt.
Speaker 3
You know? And that leave us That's good.
Speaker 1
In a whole new, you know, state. And I think it's a I just yeah. I love it. I I love that I tour because I was so freaked out by it, and I was so freaked out the first week about it. And I'm otherwise so self assured and and just so confident. So, you know, I love that I got that and that it I kept reopening it because I was like, I could probably just, like, make a snack, and then I would totally fuck it up again. And I'd be like, oh my god. When are you gonna learn? Get your ass in bed. It took a couple rounds.
Speaker 3
Oh, that happened to me too. Yeah. So it's a aggravating experience to feel it open again. Mhmm. Oh, yeah. But, you know, it was I didn't even know that I had torn until a couple days in because I didn't check or anything until, like, it was all stolen and everything. I just I just rested. A few days in, then I I felt it. And, I asked Andrew to look, and then he told me that I had a little bit. It wasn't bad. And, but it was kinda it was it was a whatever. It was just superficial, but it was pretty big. And and then I started to freak out. Like, I really had a big freak out time and cried and all this, but what turned it around for me was man saying, you know, it's my battle star. Like, yeah. So the the women, like, tribal women would say that that's that's my battle scar, and they're proud of it.
Speaker 1
So yeah. Especially when you've had such a positive birth. Right? Like, sometimes, as we know, women are left with scars from their birth, and it's it's haunting to them. And so this is an
Speaker 3
else does it to you. Totally.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Exactly. Totally. I mean, that's really fundamentally the difference. Right? So getting to walk through these, you know, just epically powerful, you know, rites of passages and and having the experience leave marks on us, you know, if if we birth in power, there's so much opportunity to welcome it and reframe it and love it, and grow with it. And yeah. Exactly. When it's happening to you, that's a oh, gosh. That's a whole another thing.
Speaker 3
Well, yeah. I'll just I'll just finish the birth story because where we're at now is her head is only halfway out.
Speaker 1
So I have to figure out. Okay. Yeah. We kinda skipped around there. Okay. So
Speaker 3
her head is accurate. Yeah. I'm in the water, and it's dark, and her head comes out into my right hand and that felt so amazing just, like, holding her. Her head fits so perfectly in the palm of my hand and and the next wave, it was so effortless. Just it happened. Like, I felt her body twist a little bit, and then she was out. And here's where, like, I didn't tell anybody where I was at. I just was very, like, serious and quiet and inward. And then all of a sudden, her little arms are, like, flapping towards the surface of the water, and she swam up to the top. And that's what everyone saw. But she was there, you know, and she wailed. I just picked her up out of the water and held her to me, and she just cried for probably ten minutes. She really had a big voice and, you know, people came in and said congratulations and then laughed when the dog came in. He was really curious. And, but I was afraid that she was getting cold. Right? I just my instinct was, okay. I gotta get her warm. It's kinda it's probably fifty degrees outside. So, we went back inside into the cabin and, laid on the bed, and she nursed in there. She finally calmed down, and she nursed and then fell asleep into a really sweet deep sleep. And I ate some of that birthday cake. And, yeah. And my friends, like, sang a welcoming song to her, And, I waited for the placenta to come. I had a couple of contractions that hurt pretty good, and then it kind of just ended. And I'm just, like, waiting for the placenta. My daughter, she was she was asleep, and so I laid her down on the bed, and we're still attached by the cord. And I'm just kinda, like, she's laying in front of me, and I'm kneeling over a bowl waiting for this placenta to come out, kinda losing my patience. She was born at two fifteen in the morning, and I just wanted so much to get into bed with her and go to sleep. And I'm like, okay. We're into this placenta, and I don't know. This is where I feel like maybe if I had just stayed outside, it the energy change is maybe what delayed it. I don't know. Because it felt very different being outside, very primal to, like, going indoors. And it took a good while and, you know, and left, and then it was just Andrew and Maya in there. And they were a little bit concerned about me because I was bleeding out a lot, like, the whole time. Bleeding pretty good. Like, I probably lost I didn't measure it, but maybe three cups or something. But I'm
Speaker 1
How did you feel, though?
Speaker 3
Yeah. So I felt light headed if I tried to get up, but I realized, hey. I'm, like, losing a lot of blood. That makes sense that I'd be light headed, but I don't feel concerned or alarmed. So this is probably fine. And I just wish this placenta would come out so I could go to bed.
Speaker 1
And how many hours are we at now?
Speaker 3
Let's see. That was I mean, it took four hours Okay. For the placenta to come out. Mhmm. So we were all pretty patient throughout that. But, yeah, a couple hours in, they were kinda getting a little concerned about me. And, I took some, like, non quiet tincture and didn't really do anything. So and then they rubbed my belly a little bit, and that really didn't do anything. And just before daybreak or at daybreak, I decided to go walk around outside thinking maybe some movement would help me get this placenta out because, like, contractions have totally stopped. It's just sitting in there. I'm not bleeding that much anymore, and I feel fine, but I'm ready for this to be done now. So I wrapped my baby up and kinda held her up my belly and then put a sweater on and walked around the garden again. And, and finally, I just knelt down and Maya came behind me and she very gently just pressed on my belly and I felt the placenta detach and slip out Nice. And onto the earth. And it was so amazing, just to have it out and, like, took prints of it and and, and put it in a bowl, washed it up, and then and brought her inside. And then I finally got to go to bed at sunrise. Mhmm. But, yeah, I think that was not something I expected. Mhmm. I definitely didn't think it was gonna take that long. But I just wanna, like, share that because it's it can be normal for it to take a long time. Like, I hadn't ever heard of it taking four hours, but for me, it was that's what happened.
Speaker 1
Totally. And, you know, because all birth stories that we hear are managed, nobody hang you know, nobody managing a birth is gonna hang out for four hours. That's not
Speaker 3
Yeah. You
Speaker 1
know? I say nobody, and I'm sure somebody's going, well, my midwife did. So, okay, maybe there is somebody who did. But, the vast, vast majority of managed births, you know, they want the placenta out in in the hospital, you know, less than twenty minutes in home, you know, certainly less than an hour. And I would say that it is certainly ideal that, you know, by forty five minutes, it's, like, getting thought about and you, you know, so you're seen if it could be encouraged, but, like with you, you did that, and it wasn't, you know, and you ultimately felt fine. You didn't hemorrhage, you know, you would have known if you were in trouble because you would have had serious signs of shock, and, you know, and that's a good thing to insert here that hemorrhage is not based on the amount of blood somebody loses. It's based on the amount of blood paired with how, that person is feeling. It's how the person responds to the loss of blood that decides if it's a hemorrhage or not because one person could lose three cups and feel fine, just a little woozy like you. Another person could lose one cup and and fully, go into shock. You know? So, I think I I love your story. I'm so glad you said that because it is important to talk about. And and, you know, I have other stories on this podcast of women, you know, taking many hours. One woman, I think, was twelve hours. And, yeah, I think it it definitely happens, and it needs to get normalized because with managed births, we don't hear that. And because our cultural narratives are only rooted in managed birth, we have actually lost track of what's normal.
Speaker 3
Right. Yeah. It's such a broad spectrum of what can be normal too. And I think just the basis is, like, trust your intuition. Be prepared with supportive people around you who also trust you. But, yeah, trust yourself to just check-in and say, is this okay? Is it not? And your baby too.
Speaker 1
Right. You're gonna know if you don't feel
Speaker 3
Yeah.
Speaker 1
You're gonna know if you you know, people say all the time, well, you know, what if I I want a free birth, but what if I, you know, bleed out and then all of a sudden my husband has to make all these decisions and he has to he has to he has to I'm like, what
Speaker 3
are you talking about?
Speaker 1
Why did he all of a sudden become another person that's managing you? Like, you are going to know if you're not okay. It's it's it's not rocket science. Like, it's pretty straightforward. If you do not feel well after birth and you're showing signs of shock, and you are losing blood, you know, that's that's a problem. That's very, very unlikely to occur in an undisturbed birth. Obviously. Right? Like, that's the most protective, hormonally protective way to birth. It's as if nature designed it that way.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. Birth is normal. That's just that's it for me. I love learning about birth and hearing stories and researching and just the bottom line is like, it's just the normal thing to do. It's what we do.
Speaker 1
It's just what we do. Well, I love your story. I love that you just followed your instincts from the very beginning and, just totally birthed in power and and so unique and yet also so universal and just such a such an awesome story. I could totally see it in my head as you were as you were saying it.
Speaker 3
Oh, thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much for for highlighting those important things too. I really learned a lot just sharing this with you.
Speaker 1
Nice. That's awesome. Alright. Yeah. Take care.
Speaker 3
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.
