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
Hi everyone. Quick note at the top of the show here. If you wanna support the podcast, you can find me on patreon dot com slash free birth podcast, or head over to the website, free birth society dot com, and you can donate via PayPal if you wanna contribute a one time payment. Thank you so much. Today on the show, we have writer Jennifer Margulis from Oregon. Having four children of her own, she has birthed in hospital, at home with both licensed midwives and a traditional midwife, and free birth to her lost baby. Author of the books, Your Baby, Your Way and the Vaccine Friendly Plan, Jennifer offers both a
Speaker 2
first baby was born in the hospital. My second baby was born at home with certified nurse, yes, a certified nurse midwife and, her assistant who was a, a certified professional midwife. My third baby was born with a, just traditionally trained midwife and a doctor who wasn't supposed to be there, who had never assisted a home birth before, and she was there as my friend, not as a doctor. She would have been in big trouble with her career and her job if she had actually been there as a doctor. And then the last one was born here in Southern Oregon unassisted, so what you call free birth.
Speaker 1
And how did the well, I guess we'll get to it, but you'll have to speak to how the doctor took to your took to your birth.
Speaker 2
Yeah. No. That's the greatest story, but I'll just start I mean, I'll just start really briefly with my hospital birth. So I had wanted to have a home birth, but we lived in Atlanta, Georgia at the time. And I didn't really know anyone my age who was having babies and the few people that because I was a graduate student and most of the graduate students were busy, you know, dissecting Derrida and not interested in talking about birth and those kinds of issues. And so the few people that I knew who were having babies, I'll have them in the hospital. And at the time, it was really before the Internet, and I was told, oh, home birth is illegal in Atlanta. That's not technically true. It wasn't true at the time. Home birth is not illegal, but it was illegal at that time in Atlanta for, midwives to assist you in a home birth. So you had to do it kind of radar, which would probably have been okay, but my husband, who was also a graduate student, felt really strongly that we should have the baby in the hospital because he thought that would be the safest place to have a baby. And I wasn't confident enough to think that we should, that that wasn't the right decision. So then it turned out that that hospital birth was awful. I mean, I was in labor, really hard labor, like, contracting every few minutes, for almost fifteen hours, and a nurse came in and really roughly checked my cervical dilation and said nothing, not even a dimple, and turned around on her heel and walked right out again.
Speaker 1
Gross.
Speaker 2
So it was awful, and I didn't know it at the time. I was just kind of in it. You know? Like, you're just trying to make this birth happen. But it you know, after really starting to delve into a lot of research about pregnancy and childbirth, I realized, like, I was really being both emotionally and physically abused. I mean, I I knew that I was being abused in the sense that I was really in such utter despair the entire basically, the entire time, but it took me a long time to realize that that was actually partly because of the way or mostly because of the way I was being treated in the hospital. So that baby was born after twenty two hours of labor, and I had every intervention I mean, I say every intervention known to man. That's not true. I didn't have forceps or a vacuum. I didn't have a c section, but I you know, it was a very highly medicalized birth after I had been totally clear with all of the doctors that I didn't want to have any medical intervention. If I could avoid it, I wanted to have a natural childbirth, and it did not happen that way. So I had an epidural and I had pitocin and I ended up getting this huge tear. I was hooked up to all these monitors. People were screaming at me, push, push, push, as if, you know, as if you need to do that to a pregnant woman and, you know, a woman in labor, which, of course, you don't. In fact, the best thing you can do is just help her feel safe. There's no reason to look on a screen and tell her what her body is gonna do anyway naturally. So that baby was born, and I was so delighted and happy to have this beautiful baby. I've been wanting to have a baby my whole life, and it was really, really hard because I had so many problems after the birth that all were iatrogenic. So I don't know if we can get, like, into nitty gritty details if your listeners don't mind. Right? Yeah. But, you know, I had absolutely I had never had any bowel or problems down there before, and I had these unbelievably massive hemorrhoids that were bleeding. And for weeks and weeks, I mean, I remember going to a six week visit, and I was having bleeding. You know, I would bleed every time I had to have a bowel movement, and, you know, that's not normal. That shouldn't have happened. But when you've been given an epidural that you didn't want and you've been I I literally begged the nurses to turn it down. Like, I had read in the pregnancy conventional pregnancy books, oh, you can get an epidural and you can adjust it, and if you wanna turn it off, they'll turn it off for you. And I had been I had begged them to turn it off or turn it down. And in retrospect, I wish I had just ripped it out of my back. I mean, they wouldn't do it. They refused to do it even though I had a super high pain tolerance, and I hadn't wanted it in the first place. And so what happened was they overdosed me on the anesthesia, and I had my leg was numb for for, I think at least a week afterwards, I really had trouble with one of my legs, and I was such an active fit young woman. And the first thing I wanted to do was just, like, get up. I mean, I just I didn't have this image that you should just relax and take it easy. I just wanted to be back on my feet, and it was so hard with the hemorrhoids and then feeling these feelings of utter kind of failure, you know, because if things had gone so difficultly, I basically convinced myself that the doctors and the hospital had saved my life. And so, oh, isn't it a good thing that I had had this baby in the hospital? Because if I hadn't been there, what would have happened?
Speaker 1
It's like it's like Stockholm syndrome.
Speaker 2
It's absolutely Stockholm syndrome. And I don't know if everybody knows what that is, but it's I mean, just to remind people who are listening, it's when you you're kidnapped by someone and you then identify with your captors. A lot of women in this country are walking around with postpartum, you know, with with post traumatic stress disorders from being mistreated during pregnancy and childbirth, and it starts with prenatal quote unquote care, and who have Stockholm syndrome. But, you know, it was so it was four months after the birth. And then I should tell you something else, which is that another reason we didn't have a home birth is that our insurance wouldn't pay for it, and I didn't have any disposable income. And so I didn't know how we would possibly pay for it. I didn't know that, you know, midwives are willing to barter or put you on a payment plan. I just and money was definitely a huge stress as it is for a lot of us. Right? And, and then after the baby was born just a few days later, I got a letter in the mail from my insurance company saying that they were not going to pay for the birth. What? And they said my birth was a pre existing condition and they denied the claim and I had been continuously insured for four years or let's see, yes, for four years. I, I was in, graduate school and I'd been there for four years and they said the pregnancy was a pre existing condition, so here I am trying to figure out that. No, it's ridiculous. I've got this little tiny, you know, frog like baby trying to figure out how to nurse her, and I'm on the phone crying with the insurance company that's telling me that they're denying my claim. And then at the same time, and this I think is really important, I look at the insurance at the hospital bills because now I'm being slapped with these bills. Every single thing that I had said I didn't want, they added to the bill. So it was this, you know, every time they did anything, they added money to the bill. And it was really awful because it was, you know, it wasn't just some some hospitals sort of have a package and it doesn't matter what they do. And you can see that hospitals that are in do not have financial incentives to continue to sort of violate you and do things to you tend not to do as many if you asked them not to. This hospital had a huge financial incentive to do everything that they possibly could because then they could just add money onto the bill, money onto the bill. So that was really, eye opening for me, and it made me realize that I should not have made that huge life decision based on money and that that I could that I should have tried harder. I was I really beat myself up about all of this. Like, I felt like I should have tried harder to find a way to do it my way.
Speaker 1
You had no idea what you were up against. I mean, that's that's the problem is, you know, most women have an inherent trust in the medical model because that's literally how we've been trained and raised. So you couldn't have known. You know, and that's the other thing I think about all the time is with money, you know, it's hard when you look at it from a financial perspective and we are as women have not been raised to value our birth experience and paired with the inherent trust in the medical model that, you know, we assume the hospital birth is gonna be free versus dropping six thousand bucks or whatever it would be that we probably don't have, it's kind of a no brainer for most people to go, well, of course not. It'll be fine. It just,
Speaker 2
like, for you in hospital. The average vaginal birth in the United States now runs about twenty five thousand dollars. So, I mean, that's three or four times what it was when I was having my first child. Right? So with
Speaker 1
that's with them but that's with epidurals and and pitocin and all that.
Speaker 2
Just average. Right. That's the average. But if you were having a baby with a midwife at a birth center, it would be much much less. I mean, it depends. It's it's it really depends. I think you're in California. I'm in Oregon. A birth center birth runs, like, something like three thousand five hundred, four thousand sheet. In Southern Oregon. Right. It would be more a lot more, I think, in California. But then and then, of course, a birth a home birth with midwives. And, you know, often, they'll give you a whole package that includes all of your prenatal care. But it's true. I didn't know what I was up against. It was before the age of the Internet. But that said, I was in the parking lot with my husband, and we were both scared. We were working from a place of kind of fear and ignorance, honestly. But after prenatal visits, I would be so shamed by these, quote, unquote, health care providers who were rushing to get me out the door, who were not spending time answering my questions, and who were just so shaming. I would and I was so full. I don't know if this is happening for you, but I was so full of so many emotions and You know and hormones and just everything I felt everything so strong I mean I've always been a person who feels a lot but I felt even more and I'd sit in the parking lot and cry And I should have listened to myself What I tell women now is if you're unhappy with something you walk with your feet Our family we call them our foot ponies, you know get on your foot ponies and walk away and find yourself somebody kinder and gentler and more evidence based because there is no reason for you to be crying after prenatal visits or you know being told being shamed in the hospital. That's not health care. That's
Speaker 1
Yeah. That's why these conversations are so important because women need to know and partners need to know that you can have better, that there is something beyond crying in the parking lot, feeling brushed, you know, feeling abused after a birth, feeling broken. You know, there is something better
Speaker 2
and Absolutely. And, you know, and I'm not trying to diss all hospital birth because I mean I think that the best place to have a baby is where you feel most comfortable and that every pregnant woman should go to or a birth center and talk to a home birth midwife and read everything they possibly can on other options, like Laura Shanley's book Unassisted Childbirth is fantastic. I have unassisted actually, I have I mean, I just have, like, really empowering birth stories in my book, Your Baby Your Way. I think educating yourself and figuring out where you feel most comfortable. I mean, the most important thing so I don't I almost said, I think everyone should, you know, have a baby at home, but I don't actually think that. I think that you should have a baby where you feel, you know, where you feel safest and
Speaker 1
For sure.
Speaker 2
The most secure the most protected.
Speaker 1
The prob the problem I think that a lot of us who know what's going on at the hospital have, you know, with that sentiment is, yes. But if you think you feel safest at the hospital, but you have no idea what's happening at the hospital, well, but then that's not real. And so find out what's really going, you know, on at the hospital and then make your decision, which is not an easy feat. You know? It's that's not, like, a simple thing to do, I think, for a lot of women.
Speaker 2
Sure. And the problem is is that there's so much you don't have control over. So I do I've interviewed you know, I'm a journalist and a book author, and I've interviewed dozens, if not hundreds, of women who have had different birth experiences. And I have interviewed women who have had really Totally. What they felt like was empowering and, you know, really wonderful, safe, healthy hospital births. So it can be done. But the thing is is that it's so much of it is out of your control. You can't make sure that your provider is even gonna show up. This is one thing women don't realize.
Speaker 1
I know.
Speaker 2
They can love their obstetrician or, you know, even their certified nurse midwife who's delivering in the hospital, and they will not see that person until five minutes before the baby is born.
Speaker 1
And If they if they see them at all.
Speaker 2
If they see them at all. So that's one huge red flag, which is that you need to have so we know from the research, and to say nothing of common sense that continuous support during labor Makes your birth shorter and it makes your your your impression of your birth better, right? So we need continuous support that means having someone there who makes you who who is Secure and it makes you feel secure loved protected, whatever that can be a doctor, a doula a good friend It can be your spouse although that can sometimes be a little bit harder than you might think and that was one of the problems is that my My husband who's wonderful now. I would recommend him He's you know, fantastic, but it was his first baby. He had never held a newborn He'd never been with a woman in labor and he was really scared and then you know, you're you you feed off of somebody else's fear But the reason why I said a doctor is because the doctors don't usually sit by your bedside There are some who do I mean if anyone is in the la area stuart fish mine is an amazing home birth doctor who's by your side, you know, and if anybody lives up here in Southern Oregon, it's impossible to get in with her, but there's a doctor named Leslie Stone who she says, I heard her say at a conference, I understand that often the best medicine for pregnant woman in labor is for me to sit by her bed. You know? I don't like that image because I don't think you need to be sitting in a bed while you're having a baby, but the fact is is that doctor Stone and doctor Fishbein are two doctors who will who are there for you and will be there as much as you want them to be. You know what? They lose huge amounts of money practicing medicine that way, and that's why Leslie Stone only takes two women a month, if that, because she's gonna be there for you. But the vast majority, ninety nine point nine of doctors are gonna show up a few minutes before your baby is coming out if, like you said, if that.
Speaker 1
I know a couple of doctors who will pop in a couple times, and they get praised for how much time they spend with their patients because they'll come sit at the bedside and, you know, slap her leg and say you're doing great. And literally, nurses praise the doctors who come in more, you know, anyway. So yes.
Speaker 2
Right. I'm saying, but I'm I mean, it's it's all our system is afford good medical care. People should not have to be rich in order to have the provider of their choice in the situation that they want. And, you know, and this show we're gonna talk about when we hopefully we'll get to it, you know, not having a a paid person at your birth. Right? But it's really a travesty that, you know, a lot of people can't afford it. I could not. I felt that I could not and truly I could not. I mean, when I was a graduate student and my husband was a graduate student, we were making, like, eleven thousand dollars a year. You couldn't afford, you know, you couldn't afford anything. I mean, we could barely you know, it was, like, paycheck to paycheck and a lot of people in America are living that way. And that is because we have a broken maternity quote unquote care system that needs to be fixed.
Speaker 1
And that and that paired with not knowing to value it. I mean, I can't tell you how many people I've gone to interview with who have the brand new Subaru and the flat screen TV, and they own a house in a nice part of LA. And they're literally looking me straight in the face saying, I would love to have a home birth, but there's just no way we can swing it. And what I hear is, I do not know to value my birth, you know, because of course those people could figure it out, you know.
Speaker 2
Yeah. No. That's very, very true, and that's a super good point. I mean, yeah, I've had that experience of being in the three story mansion with the pool outside and a mom saying to me, oh, we can't afford organic food. Yeah. And, you know, this monastery to a doctor and they both work I mean, he works full time and she works almost full time and there's no question that they could, you know, they could ease up a little on the pool maintenance and be buying a hundred percent organic food. It's a so when you say I can't
Speaker 1
Value.
Speaker 2
Some people, what they're saying is I don't value. Although, you know, some people genuinely can't afford it. I mean, it it I've noticed that and I don't know if this is true in california But I can tell you that in oregon midwives are very doulas too. They want to work with people who need them and it's they have to make a living We all have to make a living. It's a hard thing, right? But there I do I know there there are many doulas and midwives and other birth attendants that are not in either of those categories that will work with people who are You know low income and figure out a way to make it affordable and the wonderful thing is we have something we didn't have you know, and my daughter was born seventeen years ago, which is the internet and social media so you can help find the right people Well, and
Speaker 1
that and yeah, and that pivots to you know, another problem that I'm now learning a lot about in the free birthing community, which is you actually pointed to it earlier as well, which is plenty of women in their state or wherever in Canada or Australia, you know, all these places where women want and would prefer a trained midwife with them at their birth, but it is either illegal or inaccessible or, most commonly what I'm hearing is it's it's actually just not legal. There's not a there's not an option. And so their choice is to either hospital up, which is, you know, they're not gonna happen for them, or to go it alone, which are two pretty intense choices, you know, if there isn't this option for a traditional birth attendant or, you know and then just the last thing I'll say to that is, you know, I I how many people I have worked with that scrape together the five thousand, work out a barter payment, you know, they're they're they're not wealthy people. They scrape together the money because they know they have to have a home birth and, they're with a regulated midwife and then low and behold, she's ruptured for twenty four hours and is forced to transfer or, you know, has a breech baby and is forced to c section or whatever it is. And their midwife who they scrape together the money for abandons them in their, you know, window of birthing to go on and have a a, you know, traumatic birth experience in the hospital that they were doing everything they could to avoid.
Speaker 2
Yeah. That's a horrible thing. And you know what else is that even when the laws I mean, I don't wanna be so negative, but I will say this because it's important. We have laws in Oregon, that low income women can have access to the birth of their choice. So that is part of our law, and it's our commitment as Oregonians who really value medical freedom and choices in childbirth. But then the state Oregon Health Plan and the Oregon Health Authority are systematically denying low income women access to home births. And so, for example, I literally got a call this week from, the office manager of a, birthing center who said that a woman is being denied, who's she is she is young She's low risk. There's absolutely no reason and she asked for an expedited hearing. So her due date is july thirteenth Her hearing is set for july twenty fifth meaning a hearing to to protest the state denial because there's absolutely no reason why this young healthy woman should be denied, you know, being reimbursed.
Speaker 1
Who who would pay for it? How does how is that supposed to work?
Speaker 2
The Oregon health plan, which ensures, about fifty percent of the pregnant women in this state qualify for the Oregon Health Plan, so low income women, they need to pay for this out of hospital birth. They denied her, denied her for absolutely no good medical reason, for no reason at all, basically. And now they've set a hearing for her to she wants to appeal the denial, and they set the hearing for July twenty fifth. Her due date is July thirteenth.
Speaker 1
It's like calling your pregnancy a preexisting condition. It's just none of it makes any sense.
Speaker 2
Absolutely absurd. So she asked for an expedited hearing, and they said no. And, actually, I'm hoping to do a story on this because, I haven't heard back from them again, but this is the kind of thing that we need to know about. Mhmm. But in any case, you know, it's important what's important is that you should have the birth of your choice and be as educated as you can and figure out what the best options are going to be and then Work out a way to make that happen, you know, and it's every like I said every woman is different But my second birth was an out of hospital birth and I had a I had a team I mean it was a two midwives and the good news is that it compared to my first birth It was absolutely phenomenal and fantastic and you know, I I mean it was just night and day, the difference. And the bad news is is that it wasn't the birth the ideal birth. And I also felt that the midwives made many mistakes that they shouldn't have made. And it actually wasn't my primary midwife. It was the second midwife who rushed in at the end because we it was a snowstorm in February and starts directing things and yelling at me. And this was a woman who had never herself had a baby. And, you know, even home birth midwives are not all gonna be the way that you hope that they would be, so she starts screaming at me, get on the bed. Oh my gosh. Bed right now. And the amazing thing about that is that I had never said that I'm definitely gonna have a baby lying on my back on a bed, and it turns having a baby on your back on the bed, some women will be fine doing that. That is not an optimal position to have a baby. So I don't really know what's going on, but I scramble onto the bed like she told me to. I turn over. I literally, it was like I sneezed and this baby flew out. And the thing about that is that I ended up with another huge tear, which absolutely did not need to happen. And where this midwife came off, you know, saying that, and, it's just ridiculous. And I, I mean, she was very, very bossy and bossy and directive in a way that I feel very uncomfortable about. And I will say that after that happened, I talked to the main midwife, and I I said that I would like her to be at my next birth, was also in Massachusetts, and but I didn't want her partner to be there. And instead of talking about it, instead of working through it, instead of saying to me, tell me what your perception was, what happened, and why were you unhappy, she got very defensive. And she Oh my gosh. A friend of mine I know it's kind of sad. She got very defensive, and she said, well, you're asking me to to first, she said, sure. And then she said, well, you're asking me to abandon my partner. So her relationship with her partner, who was really not acting the way that she should have, was more important than, you know, than following up.
Speaker 1
You're not you.
Speaker 2
It's not that I that she had to agree to be at my birth for the third time, but it's sad very, very sad to me that she was not open. She was not psychologically able to be open to find out what they had done wrong. And, honestly, they did quite a few things wrong. So I actually wrote about this, and I used the midwife's name. Her name is Jerna, and she's in Western Massachusetts. I don't know if she's still practicing, but I wrote about it when I was a columnist for Mothering Magazine. And I will tell you, I got such a huge amount of backlash, but I also got many, many love letters and many expressions of gratitude. So people wrote to me privately, and they also left comments, and they said, you know, we've also had you know, I've writing to me and saying I had a bad experience with that midwife too. And the the thing is is that but then people who were sort of in the home birth is always good and home birth midwives are always good kind of ideology were very upset that I was criticizing home birth. But I can tell you, you can have
Speaker 1
You weren't you weren't criticizing home birth. You were criticizing how you were treated at a home birth. That is, like, that's
Speaker 2
that yeah. Ugh. That makes sense. Very import I mean, the thing is if you are going to have birth attendants, you need to really clip with them, and you need to also it's hard if you're having your first baby because you don't necessarily know what you want, although some people just know what they want, and they can express that. And I I mean, it's wonderful when you already do know because you've already been in the field or you just are really in touch with your body. But, you know, it's really important. We feel very disempowered. Totally. This is women on women. This is not necessarily, you know, the sort of male model medical system, but, you know, we we But it kind of is. You know, it's still
Speaker 1
this implied, you know, you're gonna defer and, you know, like you said, she came in and just took charge. I I wanted to ask you about that birth. Did you ever meet with her beforehand? Did you have any sort of a relationship with her where you, you know, shared what was important to you or, you know, you expected?
Speaker 2
So we, I had said to my husband I mean, after that first birth, my husband said, god, I'm really sorry. I didn't know what was gonna happen that way. And, you know, he was like he was he was really outraged at how we had been treated, and he felt really bad. And, I mean, but we also this is important too. We also it was the day of my daughter's birth, and my daughter is this, you know, shining star in my life and in the world. And so in some ways, it was, like, one of the happiest days of
Speaker 1
my life. So confusing.
Speaker 2
I well, it's just, like, it's not I don't ever wanna negate that. You know? It's I I think that those two things can be together.
Speaker 1
A hundred percent.
Speaker 2
Yeah. But we, you know, sometimes, like, women are ashamed, women especially women who have had c sections who didn't want them, And then people say, well, why do you, you know, you had a healthy baby. Don't talk about it. But I think we do have to talk about it. Human beings are messy and complicated.
Speaker 1
Yeah. And you can be super grateful that your child is alive and healthy and here and celebrate her birthday and be devastated and, you know, traumatized by the way she she got there. You know? Yeah. I mean, you can be unhappy. And that that's the thing with the majority of births, particularly ones in hospitals. The the majority that I talk to, not all of them, but there are parts where women aren't happy about it. But overall, and again, we are socialized to be like this, overall, it was fine. My baby's here. I'm I am trained to be grateful, and I am trained to focus on the bright side and to not ask for much, you know, and to and to accept the situation. And now I'm in survival mode even though I'm freaking traumatized and questioning my, you know, ability to ever do this again and blah blah blah. I have to now take care of this little tiny animal, you know, and, I mean, it's just it's we're the most vulnerable ever, you know, in in that time frame, and then we have to go on and learn how to mother and breastfeed if that's what you're gonna do. So, you know, of course, it's incredibly hard to speak up about your birth in that, you know and then the whole, like, statue of limitations if you're gonna report any abuse passes before you're even prepared to talk about it, and then we gotta be ready for your second birth.
Speaker 2
It's funny because my daughter so one baby born in the hospital, three babies born at home, right, in our family. And when she was in she started going to a little Waldorf school here in Oregon, and people will say, you know, my child's name is yellow magnetic shooting star and born in a pool of water on a moonlit night. I mean, it's true. It's kind of like, the majority of the kindergarten class or the first grade class, the majority of the children were born at home and, like, one story after another of kind of these amazing, wonderful births. And so one day, my daughter came home, and she said, why was I born in the hospital, mom? She was kind of outraged because she realized her three siblings were all born at home. And, you know, she got to see her baby, the the littlest one, just a few just a few minutes, maybe an hour after she was born. She was at school and didn't wanna be at the birth, but she came home and then she just took the baby and held her on her chest and waited for two hours. And I'm like, I want my baby back. And she's like, no. She's
Speaker 1
Oh my god. That's cute.
Speaker 2
She was ten years old. But but, yeah, no. I think it's important that we talk about I mean,
Speaker 1
you know So what'd you tell her? Did did she understand?
Speaker 2
Yeah, no, I said, you know when you know better you do better and we had thought that we would be better off going with the hospital and that would be the safest place and it turned out that it wasn't and If I had to do it again, you would have been born at home and you know, I wish you had been and you know, and then that's why your sisters and brother were so she was still kind of indignant and interestingly this is the same child who is starting college this coming fall and wants to be a doctor.
Speaker 1
We'll see
Speaker 2
Yeah, we'll see how that goes. I do think it's important to speak up I mean the thing is human relationships are difficult and messy and you do have to advocate for what you want. And if something does go wrong with you, it will sometimes. I mean, things are not always gonna be perfect even if it's just you yourself and you. Of course. Things can go not the way you helped you what you wanted them to and it's important to be able to talk about that and to work through it and to not try.
Speaker 1
Yeah. And I think a big point just and we can move on to your third birth, but something I've been thinking a lot about this week is I read this quote that said, you cannot both prevent you you cannot both prepare for war and prevent war. And, you know, that that to me is most of the women I've worked with in, you know, prenatally is I'm gonna have this birth plan, and that's gonna help them not do this and that. And, you know, they're preparing for war in order to prevent it, which it is not is not how it works.
Speaker 2
You know?
Speaker 1
And then they're genuinely surprised when they're treated horrible.
Speaker 2
Yeah. It's true. So my third baby was born with the help of a lay midwife who had herself had ten children, and five of her children have been born unassisted. And I remember the first time I even heard the words unassisted childbirth, and my eyes kinda lit up like, woah, wait. What is that? I mean, that Is
Speaker 1
that in Massachusetts?
Speaker 2
Yeah. This is So you kick you
Speaker 1
kick that team to the curb because she responds super weird.
Speaker 2
Well, I should say that I, with great reluctance and sadness, ended up not using that same midwife because she refused to not do it with her partner. You know, she refused to sorry. She refused to attend my birth without her partner, and I did not feel comfortable. I mean, she was a wonderful midwife. She was very calm and very cool and just there for you, you know? And but her partner was really inappropriate. She was, you know, she was really inappropriate. So so I started I started interviewing other midwives, and then I found this wonderful hippie lay midwife. So she's this, white woman who was a super Rasta. Rasta she had like huge dreads that went all the way down to her ankles and she herself had ten children and You know, and she really under we talked a lot about it. And the first thing she said to me is she said You're not gonna tear because I had had two really bad tears that had to be sewn up in both instances in the home birth and some people don't know that home birth midwives can suture, you know, and also carry oxygen and carry Pitocin if you need it for after birth. But you know, I had had these two terrible tears and she said you're not gonna tear and I said I'm not she said no You didn't have to tear and I was like What like it was a real revelation to me like, oh my god. I didn't have to tear. Like, I didn't
Speaker 1
How powerful to hear that, you know, to have a midwife tell you that right
Speaker 2
off the bat. That's so beautiful. Yeah. She was wonderful and beautiful, and, I mean, she was really, and she had had five unassisted births. So she herself and I should say she was Rh negative, so that would have put her in considering a high risk category. And even her last birth, she's since had one more baby, so she's got eleven children. But, you know, she was in her 40s for her last birth, so that would also put her in a high risk category. And so, you know, we did. We talked a lot. And, and she was just very calm and present. And And, you know, I definitely had a lot of post traumatic stress, I think, from both birth experiences. And so so then my friends, I have this have this absolutely wonderful friend who's a doctor and, What kind of doctor? Family practitioner working at a low income health clinic, but kind of the best, a doctor who goes into it for all the right reasons, really wants to help people. So she's an African American woman, and her mom was a Christian scientist, very conservative. And it was just so great to have the white Rasta Yeah. Lay midwife and my friend who's an African American doctor in the corner. And she she really she said that she wanted to be there. And I said, fantastic. I'd love to have you there. And she really just stayed in the you know, she stayed very quiet and calm and was just there. She really wasn't interacting very much.
Speaker 1
And and did your doctor friend have has she seen birth? Is that a part of her practice?
Speaker 2
She has a lot of births because it's part of your training, and she had actually seen some bad situations in the hospital. I I can't remember the details, but she had seen one woman who went into a postpartum hemorrhage, and she was afraid of birth. She had two children the same age. That's why one of the reason we were such, good friends. She had two children the same age as my kids, and, you know, she hadn't had she had never seen a home birth, and she had never seen a really empowered birth. And so
Speaker 1
I bet that changed her forever.
Speaker 2
It did. So a funny thing happened with that baby, which is that, I went into labor in the middle of the night and, or around eleven o'clock at night. And that is when I had gone into labor the first time. With my first baby, I had been biking home from, dinner, and I went over a terrific pothole, and it was, you know, I was nine months almost nine I was eight or something, eight and a half months pregnant. And I went to lie down to go to bed, and my water just gushed out, and that was how the pregnant the the labor started. And then with my third baby, a similar thing happened, which was that it was about eleven o'clock at night, and I had and I and I my water broke then too, I believe. And I had been really my second birth, my water didn't break until right at the end, and it was a totally different experience. Laboring with an intact water and laboring with a broken water were completely different for my body. All I can say is that when the when my water broke the first time, it was all, like, elbows and knees and sharp and
Speaker 1
Yeah. You don't get the balloon.
Speaker 2
You don't. And then with the one with the second baby, my husband kept saying, should I call the midwives? And I was like, no. No. Don't bother. I'm not really in labor. It's not isn't heard enough. Don't you know, should I call the midwives? No. Don't call the midwives. Should I call the midwives? Call the midwives. Like, it you know, it was very it was so much easier and so much less painful. Partly, I knew what kind of pain to expect, and I don't even like to think of it as pain. And now it's like I think of it more as just, like, really intense sensations. It was so much less intense. So when my water broke and it was eleven o'clock at night, I really had a moment of panic, and I it was almost like I was flashing back to my original to the first baby. And my husband was asleep, I remember, and I didn't wanna wake him up because one thing that had happened in the first labor that lasted for twenty two hours was that he got exhausted. And so I just I sat there with this, with a robe that he had, this funny robe that an aunt had given him when he was, like, fourteen years old, and I was sewing it up. And then I realized a few days later that I actually sewed it completely inside out. But I just sewed it, and I had called my, the midwife and I had let her know that my water had broken and that I was in labor and, you know, that she could come over if she wanted or not if she didn't. And she showed up and she tiptoed upstairs. We lived in a little tiny farmhouse in New England, like a red farmhouse with a little backyard in New England. She tiptoed up the stairs and came and found me sort of sewing away and, you know, sat with me for a while, and I started having really intense contractions, pretty soon after that. And, you know, I still didn't want to wake up my husband and then I did I woke him up and then our doctor friend came over and It was the most seamless and wonderful You know birth and partly why well a couple things happened one was like I remember saying to her, okay, when it got really intense, and I was, of course, in transition at that point. I'm like, okay, I'm ready for the epidural, and she said, great. I'll go get it at the same time. And, you know, just, like, keeping a sense of humor about it all. And then the and she was exactly what I needed. She was totally there and completely calm and quiet and just hand you know, checking on the baby every once in a while, which I don't even remember that part. She was using a stethoscope, not a doppler. And, you know, just with me as much as I needed her to be, and it was really an amazing experience. And so then but then here's what happened. So I was kind of leaning against the bed, and the baby's you know, which is a much better position, sort of, you know, leaning forward a little bit as a way you can kind of have your pelvis more open. I was very comfortable. Nobody was telling me what position to get in. And so then the baby's head comes out, and, actually, I think at that point I was more like on all fours. And the baby's head, which is another wonderful position to have a baby in on the floor on all fours, right? And the baby's head comes out, and I felt like moving. I have no idea why. But, like, I was sort of, you know, they were sort of holding the head, I was sort of holding the head, I don't know. And I felt like moving, and my poor doctor friend was like, Jennifer, do you realize there's a baby right there? And I was like, just don't drop the baby.
Speaker 1
Wait, like moving like how? What do you mean?
Speaker 2
I just started crawling. I don't know. I just started crawling forward. I just started moving. I crawled towards the bed. I crawled forward and I kind of turned over and I was like, just don't drop the baby. So everyone's laughing. My doctor friend is, like, having a heart attack. She thinks I'm completely crazy because I have a half born child. And interestingly, I sort of sort of flipped over. I wasn't lying down on the bed, but I was kind of sitting on the bed. And then the baby was born. And later, when the midwife and I were talking about it, she was like, you know, that's what your body needed to do in that moment. It's very possible that your movement and your kind of shifting position was kind of what helped him get his shoulders out.
Speaker 1
So That
Speaker 2
was a really wonderful experience. I couldn't have been kinder or gentler or
Speaker 1
And how was your perineum?
Speaker 2
It was completely intact. Whoo. And just like she said, you know, I didn't have any tear of
Speaker 1
any kind.
Speaker 2
So it was true. And it's that, you know, Ina May Gaskin talks about the the power of the mind. And, you know, do you know that story where she had this one woman who just dilated like you you couldn't believe? I mean, she'd never seen such a big dilation of her cervix, and then her baby was born. And she she talked to her about it afterwards in the night, and Meg Gaskin said, you know, that was incredible. And and the woman said, well, you told me I'm gonna get huge. Yeah. So I keep saying to myself over and over in my head, I'm gonna get huge. I'm gonna get huge. And sure enough, you know, she got huge. And
Speaker 1
And just the difference of being directed and bullied, you know, which doesn't give you any space to go with your instincts and find your own position and everything that you did in your third and I'm assuming your fourth birth, you know, of course, you tour with those two and didn't with these.
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, the amazing thing is that you don't have to find your instincts. You just have to get out of the way of your, you know, frontal lobe. You just have to let your body do what it needs to do. And sometimes, honestly, your mind will come back into it and you won't know. And, you know, you can be as prepared as you think you're gonna be and still end up sort of sobbing and, you know, very emotional experience. I mean, you have a whole human being in your body that you're going to, you know, push out the most intimate part of your anatomy. It's a pretty exciting and very empowering, but it's also a very overwhelming experience. So it's not like you're gonna sort of magically know exactly what you need, but if you can just let your body do what it it needs to do and is programmed to do and that was one of the things that helped me the most in the last birth was that I really I really like I I Took baths at night and I tried to teach myself to meditate. I'm really a type a Personality. I have a lot of energy. I always want to go go go and to actually force myself or just take a bath and kind of calmly breathe and do some sort of birth affirmations, which I did just kind of imagining the birth and then the other thing was that I I think I also got this reminded me gaskin But I just kept reminding myself that I was I was the last in a long line of women who had birthed babies so I thought about my mom and I thought about my grandma and I thought about how They had birthed me and I was gonna birth this baby and it's it's amazing how powerful your mind is, you know, mind the the body and the mind are totally connected. We're all, you know, body mind spirit and I think taking that time to really Meditate was something that also helped me have an you know incredibly amazing fourth baby. So
Speaker 1
So tell me that story
Speaker 2
Well, so it took me months and months to convince my husband that I wanted to have an unassisted birth. I mean, honestly, if
Speaker 1
How did you do that jump in your brain?
Speaker 2
Well, yeah. If the so I interviewed a lot of midwives, all of whom are friends of mine to this day.
Speaker 1
Plus now you're in Oregon with
Speaker 2
the four Yeah.
Speaker 1
We were
Speaker 2
in Oregon. We were three thousand miles away. We were no longer in Western Massachusetts, and I called the midwife who had delivered the third baby and asked her if she could come to my birth. And she said, well, Jennifer, I would totally consider it, but I have to tell you, I have an eleven month old. So at that point, I mean, she must have been I was forty, so she must have been, like, forty five or something at that point. She'd had another baby. She likes babies. And so there was no possibility that she I mean, she's like, let me see if I can figure it out. But, you know, she had a nursing nursing at home. And I interviewed all these different midwives, and I actually found one that I thought I was gonna work with, and I she, she came to the first, you know, she came to our house for a prenatal visit and I, it was awful. And I was like, I, and part, I mean, partly she brought a student with her without asking if that was okay and that that just felt really violating to me, and I couldn't say, actually, I feel really uncomfortable with this person here. And then, you know, she's, like, palpitating my belly in a way that hurt. It didn't feel right. I was like, I don't I mean, I'm not saying that there's anything wrong. She's a wonderful, wonderful midwife. Don't get me wrong. We're still friends and, or, you know, colleagues or acquaintances or whatever. But I just realized, like, I didn't actually want that. I didn't want, you know, students showing up at my house. I didn't want her I didn't want anyone touching my belly, really. And so that I had so I, you know, I tried as part of the experience of deciding how I wanted the birth to go. And then we I really I read Laura Shamley's book Unassisted Childbirth, which I think makes, midwife assisted childbirth look totally inside the box. So it's a book to recommend to everyone, just because, you know, whatever you decide, it really makes kind of a more, you know, a midwife assisted birth seem totally conventional and normal and because she's so out there. And I interviewed moms who had had unassisted births. So I interviewed one mom in town who had six children unassisted, including twins in the bathtub without a spouse around. She, I think, had her husband had gotten into a fight, and so he left and she gave birth to these twins in the bathtub. Oh my god. And I interviewed another midwife, interestingly, who had wanted to have an unassisted birth and was really sorry that she hadn't. That midwife agreed to be on call. And I interviewed another midwife I really liked who had three unassisted births, and I was like, I am not doing this. You know, all the forms you have to sign and all the, you know, the stuff for the state and everything else, I was like, this is not happening. But it really took a long time to convince James. And I think what really convinced him finally was that midwife who had not had an unassisted birth even though she wanted one said, well, you know, the midwife is often just there for the husband. And so he was like, okay. I'll just do it this way. And it's not honestly, it's not like I would recommend unassisted birth as the way to have a baby. I mean, I think, like I said before, you should have the baby the way you feel the most comfortable. There was something that I really loved about being completely in control of my birth, being the only person in my space, and just getting to do everything my own way.
Speaker 1
It's not that we recommend unassisted. It's that unassisted, if you're drawn to it, is a completely viable option.
Speaker 2
Yes. I mean, and then and then I have to say too, I and you you get so much blowback even from a progressive community like where I live, people freak out. But I you know, I have to say, I was also within a few minutes of a hospital. I had a midwife who was willing it's funny, she never answered her cell phone, but she was theoretically willing to, if we had any questions at the time, be on call. I had another midwife who said, listen, Jennifer. If you just want me to come and I'll stay in the other room and read a book and I won't do anything, but I'll be there in case you need me. Very experienced midwife. And I was like, no. I actually don't need that and I don't want that. And Nice. You know, I really prepared myself as best I could. And I was definitely high risk, in the sense that, you know, that traditionally you would say, oh, I was high risk. I was over forty years old. You know, who knows what else it could have been, but multiparous. Is that what it's called? They
Speaker 1
would have found reasons if you were.
Speaker 2
Yeah. They would have found reasons and, you know, and it was just the just completely it was just absolutely incredible and wonderful experience. And after it was over, I was kind of in awe and in shock. Like, I I don't think I really believed it was gonna happen that way, you know? But, like, I had seen pictures online, which unfortunately you can't see anymore. They've been since taken down, but they were behind a firewall of like a mama catching her own baby, an unassisted mama who was just reaching down and catching her baby, the most beautiful pictures you've ever seen with her other babies surrounding her, watching her, just, like, pulling her baby up to her chest. And I was like, oh my god. I didn't even know it was anatomically possible to catch your own baby. And it turns out it totally is. Yeah. I mean, if that's, you know, what you wanna do. So
Speaker 1
So tell me the story.
Speaker 2
Well, the story is short because I wasn't in labor for that long. I I had an article due that morning, and I started having contractions, but I kept thinking, I don't know if I'm really in labor, if this is just and Hicks, you know, you can do a lot of false labor, and you can have as many babies, you can have eight babies and still not know because your body's kind of gearing up inside. I said to my husband, do you think I'm in labor? Am I just being a wimp? And he goes, oh, you're just being a wimp. He would say. And, but I emailed my editor anyway at More magazine, and, I was writing this awesome story that I had to go to fly to New Orleans to do the interviews for, and I was, you know, so pregnant when I was on that airplane. And people were like, when does your baby do? And I'd say, yesterday. I was joking. But then they would, like, these, you know, like, black men in Atlanta were I mean, in New Orleans were like, oh, my god. What is this lady's about to pop? But anyway, I emailed my editor, and I said, you know, I think I might be in labor, so I might be a few days late on the article.
Speaker 1
That's funny.
Speaker 2
And my daughter, who was eight years old at the time, had put together a list of jokes. And they were special jokes that I was gonna she was gonna tell me when I was in labor. So they were going up to me That's
Speaker 1
so cute
Speaker 2
Because humor really helps if you can keep a sense of humor and if you can have birth attendants if you have birth attendants or a partner or a friend who have a good sense of humor It really makes a difference if you laugh and so she had her list of jokes for me Which I still remember some of them and I was in the kitchen having a contraction But I was still wasn't totally positive if it was like a real contraction and She told me one of her jokes and I just sort of cracked up and then the kids went off to school And I would say that my labor really oh and then I set up my tripod I took a picture of the I was actually having a contraction when I took the picture of my belly and I put a little sign up on it that said coming soon question mark and I did that because I was blogging three times a week for mothering magazine as a contributing editor there and I thought it would be fun to have a picture. And if you actually look at that picture, you can see that my uterus is actually contracting. It's pretty awesome, and I thought it would be kind of nice to have a few photographs. And this was you know, we didn't have, like, cell phones with cameras on them, even though it was only seven years ago. And then I got into the shower, and I asked, James to make me some vegetable juice, like, to juice some veggies for me. And I got in the shower, and we had put in a bar in the shower, a metal bar like you use to help get in and out of the shower if you're older. And it had been kind of a production. It cost a lot of money, and we had a friend of ours had done it for us. And I apparently, according to my husband, I was not in the shower for very long. And because I thought I was gonna spend most of my time laboring in the shower and the bath, and then he I got out of the shower, and later he told me he was really disappointed that I had been Oh
Speaker 1
my gosh.
Speaker 2
Really not very long. I felt like I was in there for an eternity I do I mean I remember really sort of meditating and breathing and kind of I was sort of having fun, but then He came over with the vegetable juice and I tried to drink I drank like one sip sip of it and I couldn't drink anymore and then I started to cry Because I felt like my husband was being so kind and loving and calm and patient and doing everything that I needed him to do and I was like couldn't drink his vegetable juice, you know, his juice and, like Couldn't
Speaker 1
use his handle in the shower.
Speaker 2
I well, the handle part, I didn't care about, but I was, like, I really felt so bad. And I got out of the shower, and the our shower was right next to our bedroom, our bathroom at the at the bedroom, and it was just a few steps. That time from getting from the bathroom into our bedroom felt to me like it took hours and hours. It was just like time kind of stopped. And I I didn't I'm just not somebody who gives birth in the water. I mean, water bursts are great for some people. They just it never appealed to me to actually birth in the water. So I was I knew I wanted to get out of there, and I knew out of the bathroom and go into our bedroom. And, you know, there was that long walk into the bedroom, and then I would have these unbelievable so then I started pushing, and I had these, like, just the most powerful pushing contractions you can imagine. They would be so intense, and I was making so many guttural noises. And James was like, should I call the kids? Because we had talked about my my daughter had my one of my daughters had been interested in being there. The other one who was ten was, no way, mom. I'm not interested at all. And then it turned out she totally came home and wanted to see the baby and was really excited. She just wasn't excited beforehand. And I said, no. I don't I don't think I want them to see me like this because I was so I was just so intensely into it. It was really, really intense. And I had told myself I wasn't gonna feel any pain. It was gonna be good pain, and I was it was really intense. I mean, I was really feeling a lot of pain.
Speaker 1
And it sounds like it was going really fast.
Speaker 2
Oh, so fast. Faster than any birth. So just because the baby was born, I think, around twelve o'clock, so it was the whole labor was only three hours, basically. Oh, first startfinish. Compared to twenty two hours of my first labor, that was a really fast labor, and it was just happening, you know? And so, and so I I leaned up against the dresser in that, like, we were talking earlier, that kind of, standing, but sort of recla a little bit forward forward mode. And, and, you know, and then what was interesting was that the contractions were so intense and I was making these really primal noises that I had never made before. I was surprised to my my husband was totally calm. And as soon as the contraction was over, I was completely lucid. It's almost like you're on some kind of mind altering substance, which you kind of are. Mhmm. And you're you know, the hormones are really kicking in and everything is, more kind
Speaker 1
of Yeah. That snap in and out is so weird.
Speaker 2
It was so weird. And then I was like, I could literally like, we could talk about the stock market. We could talk about anything. I was totally, like, I was just in my logical brain. And I remember saying to my husband is I am I like, are you is this worrying you? Because, like, the noises and stuff. And he's like, no. And he was totally calm. And, you know, and then the baby was born just a few minutes later, and and sure enough, like, I reached down and
Speaker 1
So were you still standing against the dress?
Speaker 2
I think at the moment that she was born, we were I was I was again in that kind of sitting squatting position, leaned up against my we had a kind of a low bed, leaned up against the bed, and I and I sort of reached down between my legs, and James did too. And we just picked her up, and I put her right on my chest, and she was a little bit, you know, kind of purpley. She actually had some really good color considering she was just like a few seconds old and you know and, and, he kind of helped me and then he was doing a little videotaping which annoyed me. Actually, I guess that means we did have a cell phone He had a cell phone that had a camera on it, but whatever and you know, I just kind of held her and then we didn't know if it was a boy or a girl So then we had to check and he said it's a girl and I really thought I was having a boy I said it is. Are you sure? Like, you can say. I was pretty off okay. Like, I was very, very surprised. And I had that sort of euphoria and that feeling totally surreal feeling of, like, wow. Did this really just happen? This is kind of amazing. And then, you know, we did everything in a much gentler way than we ever had before. I mean we just We just held her and nursed her and then my my son and my daughter both came home. And so my daughter so my daughter got to see her within a few minutes and before I delivered the placenta, they both came home from school before I delivered the placenta. So my daughter was a little bit my eight year old was like a like, it was a little intense for her, you know, the the whole placenta part, but she got to see the baby just, like, you know, all full of vernix and body fluids and, babiness. So
Speaker 1
When which was the daughter that took her and didn't wanna give her back?
Speaker 2
That was the ten year old. Okay. That was the one who it was hard for her. She said she loved babies, but she didn't love my baby. She didn't really want me to have any more kids. I think she always wanted to be an only child, and she's the only one that was born in the hospital. Right? And she's like, you know, she's like what you know I I don't if and she said she really didn't want it to be a boy because she didn't like boys and if it was a boy she was gonna name it dung beetle and My daughter my eight year old daughter's best friend was really worried really really worried that the boy was gonna be a that the baby was gonna be a boy and that we were gonna name it dung beetle. So when Gianna found out that we were having that the the baby was a girl, she was like a sigh every week.
Speaker 1
That's hilarious.
Speaker 2
Yeah. It was silly. And now they're super close. It's actually amazing to have kids that are ten years apart is so incredible. If I had known how nice that would be, I could, like, just I would've had all of my kids ten years apart. I would just have I would've had to start at a very early age.
Speaker 1
To have four kids.
Speaker 2
So that's the story.
Speaker 1
Beautiful. Awesome. Well, I know you have to go, so I guess all my follow-up questions will have to wait for another podcast.
Speaker 2
Absolutely. If your listeners want to know more, they can read my books, and the the book that's the most relevant to this conversation is called Your Baby, Taking Charge of Your Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Parenting Decisions for a Happier, Healthier Family. And I think they'll find a lot of really good information in there and a lot of inspiration about how best to have a gentle birth.
Speaker 1
Beautiful. Yeah. I'd love to have you back on to talk about that and your work with vaccines, and you just do so much in the birth world. So I would love to keep picking your brain another day.
Speaker 2
Alright. Let's schedule it.
Speaker 1
Okay. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. That was a really fun fun story to hear.
Speaker 2
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1
I wanna hear from you. If you have a question, comment, story to share, or an episode idea, find me on free birth society dot com and send me a message. Also, reviews on iTunes are awesome. It helps spread the podcast to more listeners. Let's build and connect this community. 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.
