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 the incredible Rachel from British Columbia, Canada. She walked out of her first OB prenatal never to return and went on to birth her four children over the last seven years with her husband on their own land. Rachel shares about her interesting life raising four children off the grid on a farm in Canada and how she learned to birth her way in the house her husband built.
Speaker 2
Right now, we live in BC. We lived before as a family kind of all over the place. I'm from Ontario originally in a big city. And we me and my husband decided, after a long time of wandering around, really, we decided to have a family. And so we ended up settling in Saskatchewan, and we chose to live, like, way off the beaten path. And that kinda spurred us to live off the grid, and we held our own water, and we raised our own animals, and we try and live, you know, from our own hands as much as we can, which kind of ties into why I chose to free birth, really. And, so we just moved to BC about eight, nine months ago. And we just started building a house here, and, my son was born here. But the rest of my children were born in Saskatchewan. And, yeah, like, with the kids, they're all involved in life here. They know about butchering animals. They know about gardening. They know about what to eat from the woods. They're very, bush friendly children.
Speaker 1
So cool. I bet you have very healthy children because of it.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Well, yeah. We try for sure.
Speaker 1
So you're totally off the grid? Yes. So do you have solar, or how do you have electricity?
Speaker 2
We have solar. We had a smaller setup before. We live we're not like your traditional off the grid, families with, like, a huge amount of solar and a dishwasher that runs on solar or anything. We're very, very simple. So we lived with about a hundred twenty watts of solar for, I don't know, five five years or so, and we just finally upgrade to about a thousand, which is a huge deal. So
Speaker 1
Oh, luxury.
Speaker 2
We just use it for very I know. Right? We just use it for very basic things.
Speaker 1
Awesome. And so you're, like, on propane too, I'm assuming?
Speaker 2
Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 1
Nice. Nice. Woodsy life. So the most recent child was your son that you had in this house that you built?
Speaker 2
Mhmm. And Yeah.
Speaker 1
How many children came how many kids do you have?
Speaker 2
I have four.
Speaker 1
Okay. So and was just this one the free birth?
Speaker 2
Yeah. So I guess it depends on what you, define. But for me, this was the only free birth that I had because the only people present were my husband and my best friend. And they were just holding space, and that was their purpose.
Speaker 1
Mhmm. So, yeah, tell us maybe a little bit about the previous three births and what they were like and how that led you to get in even deeper with with doing it yourself.
Speaker 2
Absolutely. Okay. So, I got pregnant with my daughter, in two thousand eleven. And I kinda knew that I wanted a certain way, but I wasn't really sure what that meant. So my pregnancy was pretty restless, and I was trying to navigate the system as most most first time moms are doing. And I ended up having, a doctor, and I went to see him every now and then for my prenatal. And he just, like, didn't know anything really. Like, he wouldn't he would palpate my belly and then not tell me the findings. And I found that really annoying because, I mean, your baby is you. And so when somebody's touching your body even with consent but not really explaining what they're doing, it's really disempowering. And so I was pretty frustrated, and I was kept asking to look at my file. And he would look kinda laugh at me, and there was, like, a communication barrier there for a couple of reasons. And, so anyway, he ended up referring me to an obstetrician, and I was nervous about this because I wanted her to know that I this was my birth, not hers. You know? Mhmm. And so we went into the office, and inside the office, there was a lot of people sitting and waiting. And there I remember the feeling because I was sitting there watching in the waiting room, and there was this boy, and he had, he was there with his mom, and he was pretty young. So it seemed like it was a teen pregnancy type situation. And he was clutching this picture of an ultrasound next to his pregnant partner, and he wasn't even looking at her. He was just looking at this picture of the ultrasound, and it was, like, very I don't know. It didn't feel right. Everything felt strange. Anyway, it was my time to go in, and I went in and, I was talking to her. And I had done a lot of research, at that point because I was trying to figure out where this restlessness and frustration with the system was coming from. And I have, the negative antigen, r h negative, and Mhmm. Hopefully, some of your listeners know what that means. Mhmm. But, basically, I'm at a risk of sensitization if my baby is rh positive. And it's very confusing, but I had done all the research and empowered myself, and I knew exactly what I was talking about. And so we went in there, and she did some blood work and found that I was Rh negative. And she had bullied me right from the very beginning and was sort of, like, dismissive of my comments. And, she was also wouldn't even turn to look at my husband when he had comments. And I think it was, again, maybe a cultural thing as well because my husband and I are we we look very different from most of the people that she would have seen there. Like, I have a lot of tattoos. Like, my husband has tattoos on his face. Like, we're very different. We come from an extremely different background. Yeah. And so she wouldn't even look at him and wouldn't even answer my questions. And she told me that if I didn't take RhoGram perinatally that my baby would die. And just just those words, you are putting your baby at risk, your baby will die when she had known me for five minutes, I said enough. I said I'm walking out. That's enough. And, like, I walked away. And it's a fear too because you feel like when you're walking away from somebody who's a perceived authority, you have this fear that somehow they're gonna rat you out for being a dissenter of the prenatal system. Yeah. And so it was this fear that we had because we also live off the grid, and so, you know, it's just like a combination of things. It's really stressful. But so when I walked out and gone to the street and took a big breath and touched my belly, I was thinking, this is just about me and you, like, as to my belly. Right? Like, nobody else is really involved here. And I turned to my husband, and I said, this is we need to, like, figure out something else. And so we ended up interviewing a doula that, worked in that area. And she hadn't really been doing a lot of doula work. And she didn't seem to know a lot, but was supportive of me and actually listened for the first time, right, to what I was saying. And she laughed because I was saying, we're going to the hospital. I'm renting a hotel room beside the hospital, and we're gonna labor in there until the very last second. And then we're gonna go in the hospital, and Mike's gonna barricade the door. And, Wow. We're gonna, like, you know, turn down the lights. It was an extreme thing. And she just laughed at me and said, why are you going into the hospital at all?
Speaker 1
Right.
Speaker 2
And if I could give her any credit for anything, those words, I needed to be told to me so badly. Anyway, and she had a bunch of connections. Exactly. And so she said that's not a way to give birth. That's not okay. You know? Like, you need to do what you need to do to make this safe. And so I thought about safety, and I thought about what that meant. And, I mean, to all of us who are brainwashed by the system, we feel like safety is doing what the almighty authority tells us to do, which is the doctors, because we think women used to die in childbirth all the time. And so we need to trust these people to help us from this thing that we that is, you know, basically killing us or whatever they seem to think is wrong. And that's not the way it is at all, you know. And anyway, so I ended up talking to this doula quite a bit. And she said she couldn't really help me because she wouldn't wasn't willing to attend an unassisted birth, which unassisted basically means without medical professionals present.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 2
And so she said she would ask her friends and ask around and, see if she could get back to me with some ideas. And let's remember, I haven't paid this woman one red cent, and she did it because of that bond that women have sometimes, you know, over these things. And so she ended up phoning me, looking at my number and phoning me back and saying, I think I found someone who might be willing to attend your unassisted birth. And that's kind of where I started turning towards home birth and, not having a medical professional present.
Speaker 1
And did you feel wait. So this is with your first. So who who did attend your first birth?
Speaker 2
Well, it was a doula. I can't name her.
Speaker 1
Oh, no. Of course.
Speaker 2
Technically, in Canada, the laws are really strange here, and especially in Saskatchewan, they have these really archaic laws where, nobody can be present at the birth of a normal healthy pregnancy. If they are helping, like, it's like, the basically, the wording of the law is so arbitrary that anyone who basically gives you a tea who helps you with your labor can get charged with this, impersonating a midwife. And in Canada, midwives used to be, practicing separate from the state. And, in recent years, like, pretty recently, I'm not exactly sure of the exact year, but they the state took over the word midwife, and now all registered midwives in Canada work for the government. Basically, they have an overseeing body that's the College of Midwives, which is, like, basically, you know, a part of the state. And so in my opinion, having midwifery that, answers to the state is, like, saying the word midwife means mid with woman. It doesn't mean with insurance statistics. Right. With states.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Totally.
Speaker 2
Yeah. So I wanted someone there who was who was working for me only.
Speaker 1
Beautiful.
Speaker 2
And so I met this woman. Yes. And I met this woman, and she agreed to come. And we really didn't do a lot of prenatal care because I was doing it myself and learning about my body. You know? And, so she came to my birth, and I ended up going into labor at home, and it was minus forty five outside. Wow. And, she drove to me in a blizzard and brought someone with her
Speaker 1
that was Can I ask? Did did you have did you have any nervousness about doing it on your own for the first time in in a blizzard and not having any medical support there? Or was it just always very clear that that was the safest route?
Speaker 2
It was clear to me that was the safest route, and it was because I had educated myself and empowered myself on what the body does. Like, the things that make birth unsafe, when there isn't something inherently wrong with the pregnancy or birth, the things that make birth unsafe is interrupting the hormonal cycle of the woman. Mhmm. And, basically, that would be interrupted for me. Like, some people feel very safe in the hospital, and that doesn't like, the hospital doesn't always mean that it's the worst place for everyone. It's the place that you need to feel safe, you need to have dark, and you need to be uninterrupted in your hormonal cycle. And that's what those three things is what makes birth safe. Mhmm. And learning that and learning that I needed to be at home because I have this intense fear of people touching my body without consent. I've always been very, very, very private when it came to my genitalia or my, cycle or anything because and it wasn't because I was prudish about it. It was because I was so fiercely protective because it I knew how special and important it was for me. Like, it's something that needs protecting. It's something that needs nurturing, and it, like, in this world, it's like, you know, it's really messed up. Like, people have their rights taken away all the time, especially, women and people who identify that way. Like, there are a lot of things that maybe a lot of fathers don't understand about that. Like, especially, for it being my first birth, my husband was pretty worried because their job in some ways or they feel their job is to protect their family. And that's a very normal and natural thing to feel, but it can't that fear cannot trump the woman's choices or the you know, like, your choices in your pregnancy are yours and it's really up to everyone else to support.
Speaker 1
And so Again, what's complicated is yeah. What what gets really complicated with that father protector fear stuff is that it's around birth largely rooted in the brainwashing that a medical provider is safest. So I see a lot of
Speaker 2
Yeah.
Speaker 1
A lot of conflict there where the partner's not supporting the mother because they're brainwashed to believe something that's not true. But, yeah, it gets really complicated.
Speaker 2
It really does. And that's why, like, I burst on I had this birth was assisted in some ways because I had people there, and I was leaning on them to assure me that everything was normal and everything is right. And I think every birthing woman can really identify with that. Right? Needing that reassurance, of some kind. And especially when it's your first birthday, it's like all these sensations that are they're familiar in an ancient way, but unfamiliar in your modern brain. And so sometimes we have our modern brains and our ancient brains at odds with each other. I felt that a lot, you know? And my parents and his parents were really nervous that we were doing that. And, again, it's like I'm sure any home birther or unassisted birther would understand that feeling of needing to shut people out to concentrate on their own body and what's happening with them. And that's kinda what we did. Even though they they're probably pretty afraid to fight with me at this point because I have some intense conviction, and they don't wanna stir the pot or whatever.
Speaker 1
So how how long was that first labor?
Speaker 2
It it was about seven hours. I always go into labor in the nighttime because my pituitary gland, that feedback loop is always is so intense, and I need the dark to really open up. And so, as soon as the sun went down pretty much in every labor but this one too, I went into labor. And I labored on my own, for a while, and the person who is coming to be with me, to sit with me, my doula, was three hours away because everything's super far apart in Canada and especially Saskatchewan. So she's driving, and, she gets there. I would guess it was probably seven centimeters at that point. But I'm laboring on my own. I'm in the bathtub. I'm I'm finding that these really, interesting, like, figure eight movements of my body was helping to with to deal with the sensations, and I'm really coping well. And I'm laughing and joking and and, like, wanting to listen to music, telling my husband to go get me granola bars. Like, I'm totally fine. You know?
Speaker 1
Nice.
Speaker 2
And I'm laboring in the water, and then I feel this, like, cagey kinda urge after she gets there. And, actually, she came and said, how are you doing? And I said, great. And she said, fine. I'm going to sleep. So she went to sleep because I did not want her there to be massaging me or touching me or talking to me at all. Right? I wanted her there just to hold the space. So she went to sleep in the other room, and, I labored a little more, and then I got cagey feeling. And so I wanted to stand up. I stood up and went over to my bed, and I'm making more jokes and making more jokes and being silly, and then kinda got serious. And then I barfed, and then, you know, you're at full dilation. Right? And so I go on to the bed that was set up in the living room, and it's next to this pillar. And, I'm I'm I'm on the bed on all fours, and I can feel the baby coming down. And for me, like, labor was almost more enjoyable because I could cope with the flow and the, like, intensity of it way easier than feeling this giant head, like, opening me up. That felt so strange and made me like, gave me so much energy that I was tearing at the wall. Like, you could see the the drywall was all ripped by my nails, you know, because I was just holding I was holding on for dear life because I did not make one conscious push once. My baby came out from the full, pressure of my fundus. Like, there it was the fetal ejection reflex to a t. Cool. And I just my only purpose in this whole birth to me was to just hang on for the ride. Right? Mhmm. And so my friend was basically sitting behind me. My husband was sitting behind me. Nobody really massaged me. Nobody touched me. My husband put a bit of counter pressure on my sacrum. And the baby, like, she crowned and then her head came out and my husband looked and she was crying while she was still inside of me. And I think that first sight of her, like, changed him for sure as a person, and I didn't get to see that because I was just dealing. Right? But the baby came out and, like, they basically just guided her onto the ground or, onto the blanket underneath me. And then I looked down and I picked her up, and it was like those classic moments that you see when it's interrupted. If you actually look, like, through my own research, if you actually watch a woman who gives birth uninterrupted, she'll most always go into a squat or into an all fours position. She will always burst ahead and pull back a little bit. Her baby will be born, and she always picks that baby up and brings the baby to her heart, so their heart to heart. And then she'll want to inspect. She'll get curious and look at the baby, and then she'll always put the baby in the crook of her arm right next to her breast. And that's how it is almost every time that you leave a woman on her own. Right? So far. Happened to me. Yeah. And we fell in love. And then I had one one of the ladies that the doula had brought was an aroma therapist. Like, she works with essential oils. And that lady got in there and started rubbing my belly. And I did not like that at all. Yeah. But I was too high from birth to tell her to stop. And she was rubbing my belly with, essential oils. And now in hindsight, I really wish she wouldn't have have because I needed to smell my baby. I need to taste my baby. I needed that connection, and I think it was directly affecting my release of the placenta. So with this birth, the that placenta took almost three hours to come out. And, and I think it was because my bonding got interrupted by that small thing, which goes to show you how sensitive the hormonal feedback is.
Speaker 1
Sure. Absolutely. I mean, I would still very much call that a free birth. I I I didn't realize it was with, like, a, like, a underground doula person. I mean, obviously, labels and definitions don't really matter in this in this realm, but, but definitely sounds like you birthed pretty damn free with your with your kiddo. So you didn't you didn't have any I mean, to me, free birth is that you are managing yourself. You know that that somebody else is not managing your care or deciding you know things for you, which obviously Oh,
Speaker 2
yeah.
Speaker 1
You totally embraced. So, okay. So that was your first. Awesome. An incredible story in a blizzard. And then you went on to have two more children in that same area.
Speaker 2
Mhmm. Yeah. So this, my first child was born in the house that we actually owned in town, so we weren't living in the, in the middle of nowhere then. But we moved shortly after she was born, to a piece of land, that was quite far off a highway. I mean, it was, like, not really remote because Saskatchewan's kind of like a quilt. You know? Like, there's people every now and then, but it was it was, like, out there. You know? And I got pregnant again, actually, between my first, birth of my daughter, which is the story that I just told you, and my pregnancy with my son. I had a miscarriage, And that was another big lesson for me because I think it's really important to talk about free birth as, in miscarriage as well because I did not know I was pregnant. I got pregnant one month postpartum
Speaker 1
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2
With my daughter. Yeah. So fun. And, so I did not know I was pregnant. And, well, actually, as we were moving, I was barfing and feeling pretty sick, like, I had a fever. And I just thought, oh, whatever. You know? Keep on going with life. And then I started to bleed, and I thought, oh, I'm getting my cycle back. And then there were clots, and I thought this isn't normal. So I ended up going to the hospital through the emergency room, and it wasn't fun for sure because I had to open and spread my legs for some random guy who was a doctor, and his face went white. I don't think he'd seen a miscarriage before. And, he was pretty disturbed, and I was just, like, what's what's wrong with me? Why am I bleeding like this? And he did a pregnancy test, and he said, you're pregnant. And so in that moment of having the miscarriage, I had to understand that I was pregnant Wow. And also losing a baby. And so for me, I live in the bush. I understand that these things happen. You know? I'm very, very in tune with death. It's for me, death and life is a cyclical event. You know? Like, one always tends to the other, and there's there's always, a purpose whether we feel it in the moment or not. Mhmm. And so I thought I'm pregnant. Okay. That's fine. I'm passing this baby. That's probably a good thing. I just wanna be able to navigate this with dignity, basically. And so I went into an they wanted to put me in an ambulance to go to another hospital because they didn't have the proper equipment, whatever that was. And so I said, no. I'm gonna drive myself. I'm totally fine. And so we drove her with you. For a meal. Yeah. Good. And my daughter. And we stopped for a meal, and then we went to the hospital, the other hospital, and, he gave me an ultrasound. And he showed me the ultrasound and said there's a little like, basically, the sac had collapsed on itself, and it's sitting right at the mouth of the cervix. And he suggested, a DNC, and he suggested giving me CytoTech Mhmm. Vaginally. And I said no. And I it was upsetting and whatever. And I but for me, I thought if my if the if it's right on the edge of my cervix and it's coming out, my body's awesome. Like, my body has a period every month, and I don't go running to the doctor. You know? And so I thought, no. I'm going home. And he said, I really don't want you to do that. And I said, I really don't care, and I'll come back if I have flu like symptoms because I'm I know what a fever is like. I know what that means. Right? And so, anyway, he ended up writing me a prescription for CytoTech. And, I took that home, and I didn't use them. I threw them in the garbage. And I laid there, and I talked to my baby, and I said, hey. Like, you need to come out. Like, we need to be done with this because we gotta get on with our lives. And, like, you know, I'm honoring you. I'm not holding you in. I I want you to come out and pass. And so, I took a couple of teas and I laid down, laid really easy, and then I went to go to the bathroom. And right at that point, we were, like, shitting in the bush, you know? So I dug a hole, and I as soon as I squatted, it fell out. And I picked it up, and it was actually the most healing amazing thing because I got to pull it apart. I got to see the whole thing. I got to really own that. And then my husband and I and our daughter, like, went to the woods and we buried it with the legions of, you know, like, deer fetuses that are probably out there too. That's really awesome. Amazing thing to do. Yeah. But after that after that, I got pregnant with my son. And, he his birth was pretty challenging because I was used to this really ethereal, beautiful, like, short, you know, labor where the baby just fell out and then it was blissful. And he was a little interesting because a few days before his birth, I had felt this kinda stabby thing in my cervix. And I actually called the same doula again, and so we didn't really I didn't do prenatal care at all. I didn't take prenatal vitamins. It was a fully unassisted pregnancy as well. And so my doula friend said, yeah. Sure. I'm coming no what no matter what. And so I just kinda got rounder and rounder and did my gardening and all the stuff, but I kept feeling this punching in my cervix. And so a couple days before, the punching got really annoying, and so I tried to do some sort of an inversion to kinda pull whatever was in there poking me out, and it didn't work, of course. And so, I go into labor, and it's, the solstice, the longest day of the year. So if you're remembering what I said before about me laboring in the nighttime, well, there wasn't a long nighttime, and so I was in labor on and off all day. And I knew that something was a little up because every time I got in the water, the gravity would pull the presenting part off my service, and I could feel my contractions spaced out a bunch. And so my way of getting it going was squatting in the garden and weeding because I hadn't gotten it done before I went into labor. So I was doing that a lot. And then finally, later on in the day, things started ramping up a bunch, and I could feel that I was fully dilated, but nothing was happening. And it was annoying. Did you
Speaker 1
do a
Speaker 2
vaginal exam?
Speaker 1
I did. Yeah. You you could feel it?
Speaker 2
Did a vaginal exam, and I could feel that his head was crooked. And so it didn't like, the soft spot was off to the side. It was just a little crooked, and I thought, okay. So baby's probably a bit crooked. And so what we did was we went back to the house because we had a bathhouse at the time. Went back to the house, and I got the doula to push on one side and my husband to push on the other side of my hips at the top. And I told them to do it while I was having a contraction, and so they pushed so hard and the baby turned inside because it just gave a little bit more room. Mhmm. And he started coming out, and he basically baptized my husband and my friend because his water broke at the same time that it he had turned into place, and it was just this shooting out of water. Anyway
Speaker 1
Wow. Good intuition. Out. Were you already
Speaker 2
I know. Were you
Speaker 1
already attending births at this point?
Speaker 2
No. Okay.
Speaker 1
No. So you just knew to do that?
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. Like, it just something didn't feel right, and I thought if something's not right and I'm feeling all these jabs in my cervix, like, maybe there's just a weird spot. Like, maybe it's just not lined up properly. Right? And so pretty much, like, anything if anything's not lined up properly, there's a couple things you can do. Like, as doulas, you're taught, like, knee chest position. Right? Take some of the pressure off of the cervix of the presenting part. And then pushing on, the the top of the hips, like, right where your belly is, pushing hard on that basically opens the pelvis like clothespin. Right? Yeah. And so there's an extra couple There's an extra little bit of room there, so maybe baby can get in a better position. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but it's always worth a shot. Right?
Speaker 1
Of course.
Speaker 2
And so he's coming out, and it feels like the worst thing I've ever felt. I mean, I was like, I cannot stretch anymore. Like, this is at my absolute limit. I couldn't figure out why it felt so different. There was a lot of pressure and stuff, but this specifically was burning all down my, vagina. And so he's coming out, and my husband sees, and he's like, there's hands up there.
Speaker 1
That's what I was gonna guess. So
Speaker 2
yeah. So baby was born with both of his hands at the side of his head, and, he was totally fine. He had pooped in there, probably from being squished and not being lined up properly. Who knows? But it was very fresh, Max, so I wasn't worried. And we kicked him out, postural drainage, and, he's totally fine hollering and everything. And then we measured his hands with his head, and it was basically really similar to pushing out, like, a fourteen pound baby.
Speaker 1
Oh my gosh. So did you did you experience some tearing with that birth?
Speaker 2
No. Not at all. No. Woah. Woah. Woah. I had to had tearing with any of them, actually. It's like yeah. Intact perineum, and I I really feel like that's directly from letting, your babies come as they as they come. You know? Like, instead of trying to, like, guide them and push really hard and, you know, and yeah. And I have control over my pelvic floor too so I can feel them crowning. I just don't push at all or even, like, I just blow it away or whatever. Yeah. So he was born. He was totally fine. He was born on the solstice, so he's a special little guy for sure. And then a couple years later, I got pregnant again around the same time. And this birth was really transformative and really got me on the the the track that I'm going now with free birth and, like, really leaving people alone and learning to sit on your hands as a care provider too. Like, learning to sit on your hands instead of meddling because what happened was, there was an an insane thunderstorm where we were and the roads were all washed out and people were rescuing their cattle by canoe and it was like, it was really intense time. And of course, I go into labor. And that same woman was gonna come again, and she, on her way, got in a car accident. I was already in labor. She got in a car accident and phoned me while I was laboring and said, I can't make it. Oh. And so in that moment, we had to wrap our heads around it. I mean, I was like, dude, I got this. You know? But my husband was super worried. And so I told him to make peace with it, and he had to make peace with it on his own. Like, he had to go away from me and do what he needed to do because I didn't want him ruining my groove. Right?
Speaker 1
Oh, you're a strong woman, Rachel. I love it.
Speaker 2
That's awesome. And so he he dealt with it and then came back and like, my husband is an an amazing support. He's one of those people who he just knows what to do and what not to do, and he doesn't get upset when you don't want him to do something. You know? And it's great having him around, and he's very in tune with our kids and very in tune with me and very respectful. And so it's great. Right? It's like I have two doulas in a way. And, anyway, so she says she can't come. And, after she hangs up with me, I didn't know at the time that she was arranging another vehicle to come anyway. And so she was on her way to me. I just didn't know. And so I had just decided to have the baby because what are you gonna do? Right? Right. It's not just gonna get up and go to the hospital. It sounded like hell at the moment.
Speaker 1
And so And she
Speaker 2
wasn't doing
Speaker 1
anything she wasn't doing anything medical. Right? She was just
Speaker 2
literally there. Yeah. She's holding space for me, which is really important. It's almost equally important as some of the medical things that people feel they need to do. But, like, I also realized that maybe I needed to just do it alone. And I think the reason why I thought that is because, as I mentioned before, my placentas take a really long time to come out. And so I think that's directly related to people chatting to me and fussing around with the cord and, you know, just more people in my space, and I think I almost need more of a quiet environment to get my placentas out. Sure. And so, basically, I'm in labor with my son, and I go right into the water. This is the first time that I've used the water a lot. And, so we have this bathhouse, and it's off grid, and it's run by a wood stove, and it's, like, using convection heat. And it's beautiful and amazing, and all it's just like lanterns lit everywhere. Mhmm. And so I'm laboring, and it's going really well. And then, actually, at the last my baby's coming down, I can feel. And I checked my own cervix because I always get this really funny instinct to check my cervix at full dilation. I think it's just a natural response to feeling that almost adrenaline rush when you're when your cervix is fully open. And so I check. I'm fully dilated, and I can feel my baby rotating and coming down. And, again, like, I didn't push. My body just pushed him. And, actually, the last two contractions, my friend showed up. And, I was like, hey. How's it going? I'm pushing or whatever. And so then the baby comes out. The head comes out underwater, and my friend has a flashlight. And the baby tried to breathe underwater, and so she got me to stand up, and then he just came out into my arms. But, again, like, placenta took a long time to come out, so it's making a big fuss. Oh, he's so cute looking. Look at all of his toes and his, you know, and trying to impress everyone and feeling, like, you know, really energetic, and I should have kept the energy really low. And, so he was born, and he was born one day before my other son, which happened to be the solstice again. I think it was that year or at least close to it anyway. So that was that birth story. And then, he basically is his personality is exactly like the day that he was born. I mean, he's a stormy little guy. He's crazy and running around all the time. He's a wild man. You know? And, so now we have three kids at this point, and we're moving to we decided to move to BC, and I'm heavily pregnant with all the kids in the car. And we're driving, and I've got this huge trailer behind me that's way too big for the vehicles, and it's going on the mountain passes. And it's terrifying. And we get here maybe five days of driving later, and we again moved to land, but we have this bus, our tour bus that we use for when we were on tour because we're musicians as well. And, so we're living in our tour bus, and, I'm super pregnant and my husband's building a house. We ended up actually getting the shell of the house, like, livable enough in six months, which is kind of a big deal. He's rushing, you know, trying to beat the growth of my belly. Wow. And, yeah. For this birth, I I mean, we're in a different province. I wasn't sure if I wanted to get to know another doula. I just really felt like I wanted to keep it within the family. And so I asked my friend to come to watch the kids and to help me, like, cook and all the stuff, and I wanted them to be there to hold space. Right? And so I go into labor again, and, basically, it's going so fast that I'm, like, surprised I'm even in labor. And every time I stand up, it's a constant contraction, like, just one long contraction. And I'm thinking, okay. This is super weird. I'm really not in distress, but this won't stop. Like and so I got in on my hands and knees, and that slowed it down to maybe a minute apart. And this just was, like, overnight. As soon as the sun went down, it was, like, an instant labor. And then so we went, we decided to go to our bathhouse. We built another one, and I'm just, like, barfing the whole way there because I'm dilating so quickly. So I get into the bathhouse, and I lay on the bed, and I'm dilating and dilating, and it's so fast. And I remember thinking in my head, if this is all it is, this is pretty okay. Like, it's going so fast. It's only been about an hour. You know? Mhmm. And so then I get into the pool, the tub again, and, I'm laboring a bit more. And all of a sudden, his head's just on the perineum. And I stand up while he's crowning because I remembered the last time, and I just didn't want that to happen again. And so I stood up while he's crowning, and he shot out like a like a bullet from a gun and almost hit like, he almost bungee corded on from his umbilical cord.
Speaker 1
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2
And I How did
Speaker 1
he land?
Speaker 2
I caught him midair.
Speaker 1
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2
I caught him midair about, like, two inches above the water. Like, he basically just shot out, and we were all laughing. And, I kept my I purposely kept my energy really low, and I made everyone be super quiet. I inspected him and went over to the bed and ate a banana and inspected him a bit more. And literally ten minutes after he was born, my placenta just fall out of me. Cool. And, and then we just slept on the mattress there. And then in the morning, we came back, and I had another friend watching the kids. And he was really nervous because he had never been around birth before and was, like, kind of, like, new to the whole thing. And he was really worried for us, and I was, like, you just gotta stay out of my way, buddy. You know? And, anyway, we walked back I walked back with my prize, and he just burst out crying because he had never seen that before. And that's kinda what it's about. You know? It's like Totally. The transformation. You know? You get people, like, people get teary eyed who never thought they'd even want kids because of the transformation. You know? It's so powerful.
Speaker 1
Oh, that's so nice. Wow. Yeah. I love the image of him shooting out and bungee cording.
Speaker 2
Yeah. It was really intense. And my husband was trying to calm me because he learned certain things. We do a ritual where he touches certain parts of my body that he sees are tense during contraction, and then I respond by loosening them. Right? And it's kinda nice. It's like a pattern that we can do that keeps me really loose, except he's trying to do this while the baby's crowning. And I was like, no, man. This ain't the time.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Wow. And and so was breastfeeding easy peasy for you with all the kids?
Speaker 2
It was. Yeah. It was. I had, some pretty and gorgeous breasts and some really uncomfortable, slight mastitis for my first daughter. But, actually, all of my children had lip ties, and I didn't know, until recently when I was doing research on lip ties for, some of my doula training, and it just dawned on me that they all did. And I didn't even notice really, and it just worked out. But, yeah, like, pretty much seamless. Like, everything was totally fine, and baby's all healthy and normal. And You
Speaker 1
didn't get the Yeah.
Speaker 2
Like, sweet.
Speaker 1
The snip of the lip tie?
Speaker 2
No. No. I didn't. Mhmm. There's, like, some debate about that even. Like, there's certain Absolutely. That can stretch and yeah. I think that what happened is just stretched enough, for them to nurse and, yeah, everything was totally okay.
Speaker 1
Awesome. Those are such good stories.
Speaker 2
Speaking yeah. And speaking before, I just want to touch on the, the fact that I mentioned I was RH negative. For those moms out there or anyone, like, who has RH negative blood who's pregnant, like, I had to do so much research to come to my own decisions, but I kinda did a bit of everything. And, for me, prenatal Rogam was, like, not an option. I wasn't into taking a blood product, like, in my pregnancy. If I'm gonna you know, I want to keep it holistic, and so I just made sure that there was no trauma to my body and no no way that the baby's blood could mix with mine in my pregnancy. Like, I didn't fall. I didn't, you know, stuff like that. And then in my birth, I basically blood blood typed the baby on my own. You can order a blood typing card on the Internet. Mhmm. And I blood typed the baby on my own with by the cord blood, And then I would only approach RhoGAM if I wanted to if the baby was RH positive. And my first two were not, and, my third baby was. And I ended up taking the RhoGAM. And I'm not even sure if I would've if I should've, but I just felt like it was the right thing to do. Mhmm. And then with my last baby, he was also, RH, positive, but I decided not to take the Rogan. So Yeah.
Speaker 1
You got a little bit of everything.
Speaker 2
Yeah.
Speaker 1
Well, I mean, that that's what it's about. It's educating yourself and then doing what feels right and really coming to your own you know, and you're such a good example that each baby is different, and each baby presents a different you know, you might get a different intuition of what to do with each pregnancy or each postpartum.
Speaker 2
For sure. And no birth is perfect in some ways too. Like, especially with my last baby, I actually got an gastrointestinal sickness, like, a really bad one when I was about seven months pregnant. And I actually had to go to the hospital because I was fainting. And so I didn't end up getting an IV or anything, but they watched me and checked the baby. And I was fine with that because of the fear of, like, you know, I was not nourished. I was taking care of everyone, and I wasn't eating enough because it wasn't, you know, it wasn't absorbing into my body. And, actually, when, like and there's the test too. Right? Like, when I was in labor with my baby, my water broke, and it was tinged a yellow color, which is really old mech. And what happened was the baby had gotten the sickness as well in utero, and he had pooped in the womb. Mhmm. And, so for me in that moment, I'm alone. I'm down a hill. Like, there's no easy way for me to get help. But these things just because like, everyone has such a fear of these things. Right? A fear of neck, a fear of the cord around the neck. These things are sometimes very normal and benign. And for me, I just thought in my head, okay. This doesn't look like the right color, and so I'm gonna remember. So when he's born, I'll just tip him out a little bit, like, really gently just so he can drain his lungs and his nose, like, very easily. Right? And so I just did that, and he didn't even need it. Like, we need to empower ourselves to know what to do in those situations if we even need to do anything and just stop assuming every little thing that doesn't look, like, quote, unquote normal to us is an emergency because it often isn't.
Speaker 1
Totally. It's like preparing yourself for everything to be okay or preparing yourself for everything to be a disaster. It's like a totally different
Speaker 2
Yeah.
Speaker 1
And preparing yourself for everything to be okay doesn't mean you're going to ignore any possible flags or ignore, you know, what presents. It just means, you know, that you're gonna approach things calmly and with a level head and with logic and intuition and education and yeah. It's a whole
Speaker 2
Absolutely.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Well And
Speaker 2
it's sort of like you're not preparing yourself for a for a good outcome Mhmm. Or a bad outcome. It's like you're preparing yourself for birth.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 2
And birth is messy, and it's not sometimes what you expected and all these things. And I feel like the like, sometimes, first time moms will ask me, like, how did you deal with the pushing stage? When did you know how to do this? How did you do and do this? And I always tell them, it's like, your only job is to listen to your body, listen to your baby, and let it happen. That's it. You don't have to push. You don't have to micromanage your body. Like, it's a really a lesson in surrender. You know?
Speaker 1
Yeah. Unless they're, you know, under time frames and worry and regulated care and all sorts of, you know, environments that would require them to push because they have to control it.
Speaker 2
Exactly. And, you know, if anybody ever, like, questions the safety of unassisted birth, I was just I it just clicked into my memory that there is a study, by this woman, Katie Jenkins McCall. She's on Facebook, and I'm sure, it's from her specific practice. And they did a study of unassisted births, and it showed the safety of birth unassisted, like, totally alone. Because what happens is in mainstream statistics, they lump accidental unassisted births with planned ones. Mhmm. And so you get this skewed perception of the safety of it because they're also including all the ones in the car, all the ones in the Walmart bathroom, like, all these ones too. And those are not planned. That's not the same thing. Mom isn't in the same headspace. And if you do any research in birth, like, basically, your mind is connected to your body. Right? And so her statistics are really, really awesome to look at because it's something you can even give your, you know, the in laws basically who think you're doing a dangerous thing. It's like, yo, here's the science. You know?
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. I know. I would love there to be more and more studies on this. So one thing I did wanna ask you before we go is, how did you navigate the conversation with yourself around death in in free birth and and being so far away from an an OR and a NICU? And how did you and your husband navigate, you know, kind of just the the reality that some things would be out of your control and, you know, that that it is possible to have an outcome that you wouldn't want. Did that come up much in your heart or in your conversations?
Speaker 2
Absolutely. Absolutely, it does. And and I think it's, like, a responsible thing to consider and a responsible thing to talk about too. Like, there there are no guarantees in birth and there are no guarantees in life. Things happen all the time. And it doesn't mean they're gonna happen to you tomorrow, but it's ignorant to just assume that nothing will ever happen to you. And I think it's a it's a really big picture thing for me. And for me, it's sorta like we are so, as a society, like, detached from death and detached from struggle that we feel like we're entitled to be, absolved from sickness or we're entitled to be absolved from feeling anything that feels bad for us. And that's not really the natural state of humans. Like, we it's it's really important to sometimes go back and be like, wait. For example, like, let's just say a headache or something, it's like that your head is trying to tell you something, like, just numbing everything all the time doesn't actually it's like numbing the message as well. You know? Mhmm. And for me, like, getting in touch with my own feelings about death was absolutely, like, a prerequisite to birth because, like, in some ways, it's a gateway. Right? It's like the gateway to birth is is really similar to the gateway to death. Like, similar things happen even. And, just because we're giving birth doesn't necessarily equal, a perfect child or a live baby, like Totally. In the case of my miscarriage. You know? Like, I could have been fearful and sad and stayed at the hospital and not found some way to be empowered by it, and that would have done that would have been a huge disservice to myself. And to be able to own that and have my miscarriage and inspect my baby and, like, really touch the miscarriage and touch touch the tissues and not dance around it. Like, it's this taboo subject, and I'm a disgusting person for you know? Like, I was able to do that. And I think the reason why I was able to do that, as I mentioned before, I grew up in a giant city, like, just outside Toronto. And so now I live in the bush in the middle of nowhere, so I certainly was not raised butchering my own animals and dealing with death and all these things. But it came the hard way in some ways, like raising animals. Anyone who raises an animal knows sometimes those animals die and there's literally nothing you can do. Or sometimes an animal gets hurt and you have to kill it and put it down. And, like, understanding that death doesn't always have to mean trauma and death doesn't always have to mean negative, that you can kill something with respect and love. You can even name it and kill it. You could even name it, love it, scratch its chin, and then eat it. You know? These things, like, I I learned those things and I learned respect and that mentality really helped me to, like, get in touch with my miscarriage and get in touch with death. And
Speaker 1
So did you just I mean did you just feel like you were, like, able to take whatever outcome happened? Like, you were just willing to be open to whatever the the path was of of your children's birth.
Speaker 2
Absolutely. That's for sure. And that's where the the the question of safety comes in too. Right? It's like, I know that I'm doing the safest thing because I am a healthy woman with a normal pregnancy. And if my baby passes, I have still done the safest thing possible.
Speaker 1
I have still done that.
Speaker 2
And I mean, for sure. And it like, the thing about birth for me and the lessons that I learned is that nobody else should ever take the responsibility away from you Mhmm. And you should never let them. Mhmm. That's your body producing a person regardless of the outcome, and that's your body's biological function. And no one else's, and it's no one's business. And even in death, even in miscarriage, like, some people would say you could have done this and this and this. And it's like, you people have to understand that babies die at the hands of doctors all the time, and the person who gets blamed is the home birth, when something happens to the baby, they just blame the mother. Or the midwife. Is that fair?
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Speaker 2
Yep. Exactly. And then those poor people are not only having to deal with the the death of their child or the something bad happened to the child, but they're also having to deal with being blamed for it. Mhmm. And that's extremely unfair. And it has like I said, it has to it ties in with people just frankly being uncomfortable with death and needing to blame. Uh-huh. I mean, look at our society.
Speaker 1
Buried people
Speaker 2
in the ground filled with chemicals. Yeah. Yeah. Mhmm. We bury people in the ground filled with chemicals because we can't wrap our heads around the fact that we need to return to the earth because as a modern society, you're you know, you, like, gauge how progressive and and how, like, higher class the society is by how far away they get from nature. Ugh. And that's not doing us a very big service at all, is it?
Speaker 1
It's so sad. Mhmm. It just, like, it's so painful. The further
Speaker 2
it gets to get And it and especially with birth because that's the one thing or one of the few things anyway that brings you back to that ancient brain. Mhmm. And like I said, sometimes it's difficult to, resign that ancient brain beside your modern brain. You know? Your modern brain gets in the way and says, when I am in pain, I shouldn't be feeling pain, because I'm a modern person, and we don't have to do that anymore. You know? Like, for example, you think of this, like, way back when in the like, feminism included epidurals. It included having gas and in labor, and they felt that that was a liberating
Speaker 1
Well, yeah. Coming coming out of a lineage that said, you know, with religion that they were dirty, slutty, little sinners, you know, that to all of a sudden get to and that they were being punished for, you know, the pain of childbirth was was their, like, religious punishment of being a dirty woman. You know? And now, you know, in the fifties and birth control and and getting to say, no. We don't have to feel that anymore. You know? We get to make decisions for ourselves. Give we don't need this pain, you know, but it's still under the same patriarchal paradigm of even though we're being punished, we're we can at least take medicine to alleviate some of that punishment. Yeah. It's such a trip, man. I knew it. The last, like, hundred years It is. Of birth in in western culture is just, like, fascinating.
Speaker 2
Well, for my grandmother, my grandmother used to work in a mental institution in Toronto way back when. And she told me stories of anybody any woman that came in that was schizophrenic or had, like, specific mental illnesses, they would sterilize them against their will. Mhmm. And there you go. Again, where it's this, you know, you're not good enough. You're not, you know, you're not, meant to be a a parent. Yeah. Totally. And then Taking the fertility away and the power away from women again. And, like, I I just can't resign myself to that. And, you know, there are genuine emergencies that require, hospital care, but I don't know how the pregnancy obviously isn't one of those things. And I wish so bad that we could have a world in which women can make those choices. And if they need that care, they would get it without question and without ridicule or anything, you know. If you have a mom who needs to transfer to hospital for whatever reason for her own intuition or let's just say she has a care provider, that isn't recognized by the hospital, and that care provider could get in legal trouble for attending this woman. Like, that is not ideal, obviously.
Speaker 1
For anybody.
Speaker 2
We wanna keep people healthy. Mhmm. We have to keep people healthy. We can come home
Speaker 1
That's what I was thinking.
Speaker 2
As much as we can. That's what
Speaker 1
I was thinking at the beginning of our conversation around kinda what what led you to your first birth choices, and it's similar to what's led me, you know, to be preparing for my first birth, which will also be, you know, this this free birth outside the obstetrical paradigm. And it's largely it's not that I don't want people there. It's not that I don't want love and support and all of this stuff. It's that the only systems traditional birth attendant would be, you know, of someone who is, you know, what the traditional birth attendant would be, you know, of someone who is does have medical background, does know how to deal with stuff, but, you know, but also knows how to sit on their hands and doesn't have to be married to the state by their license and put their license before, you know, the individualized care of a mother and baby. And there really isn't that third option, at least in the state that I'm in. And it's it's sad because free birth is a pretty radical option for a lot of women who are cool with the home birth or are cool with the birth center birth. They want nothing to do with the hospital, but then, oh, their baby's breech. They're fucked. They have to go get a c section.
Speaker 2
Yeah.
Speaker 1
It's like and the only other option is this pretty radical side of, well, you could just have this breech birth at home with no one around, which honestly would probably be what I did, but that's that's a pretty crazy pill to swallow for most people. You know, it's just
Speaker 2
Yeah. I think, the unassisted birth community is sort of like there's there's what you speak of, those people that fall between the gaps that don't want a certain thing and or can't access it. Like, you know, there's people who maybe don't have health care, and they say, I can't afford this. I'm not going I kinda want some support, but I can't afford it. And so they decide to do it that way. Or there's people who have trauma from the hospital and feel like they still need support but can't go to a unsafe space. And then there's people sort of like me where I don't fit into that. I think even, like, in Canada, everything is paid for. Right? So it wouldn't be a financial issue. And, like, I could probably find an attendant here who works underground. Right? Somebody who who because women are awesome like that because there'll always be people going against the grain and doing the right thing versus the legal thing. And I could probably find that, but I really needed to not. And I think that's kind of where I I think locking everyone in, to that sort of, like, there is no options there for a free birth is, like, maybe not a hundred percent true, although it is an option. It's like some people just really like to be with their families, and that needs to be a legitimate respected option. You know?
Speaker 1
A hundred percent. Oh my gosh. Of course. Yeah. It's it's Mhmm. Yeah. There's just, you know, because it is this default model that is so, you know, put on a pedestal and been so, brainwashed into us, any other choices seem like they're crazy and dangerous when yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I work with you know, I used to work with Orthodox Jewish people in in Los Angeles who just, you know, wanted to be at home with their families. They're very private people, and and and, you know, it can be complicated with all of the holidays and all of the the stuff that they have to do. It just is easier to just be at home with their family, especially when they're on their sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth kid. You know? Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 2
And and And it's unfortunate too that, like, some people go to free birth after being traumatized because that's also a thing. Right? Where a mom gets pregnant, goes through all the hoops, with the hospital, has an obstetric medicalized birth, is traumatized by it, and chooses next time to have an unassisted birth or a midwife assisted birth at home or something to alleviate the fear Mhmm. Of having birth in the hospital. And that it saddens me because it wasn't my experience. I chose that first off, and it sucks that so many women come to that afterwards. Like, I wish that we could make these choices not out of a reaction Right. Preventing that. Bad that happened. Mhmm. Yeah. Like, if we could make our choices, like like, offensively instead defensively. Totally. That's what I wish for everyone. Well, nothing know, like, I'm here.
Speaker 1
Nothing about our society works that way. You know? Like, for no one's trying to prevent alcoholism. We're just setting up AA chapters everywhere. You know? Like, one of my Exactly. One of my most favorite, little fables that I learned when I was in India was, the story that was told in this town that I was in, where they said, you know, this is as, like, an example of what's wrong with society is they said, you know, there's this story in our town of all of these cows are jumping off this bridge. And it's all of our village's cows, so they're very valuable to us. And we realize all of these cows are walking up to this bridge and they're jumping to their death. And so the whole village gets together and says, well, what can we do? Well, okay, we can make trampolines, you know, we can figure out ways to catch the cows, we can resuscitate the cows once they've fallen. And so they're all scratching their head trying to figure out what to do at the bottom once the cows have jumped. And the problem is nobody is going up to the bridge and figuring out why the cows are jumping and trying to get the cows to actually not jump. You know? And I I love that because that that just is so telling of how we approach things in our society that it's, like you said, it's all this reactive, defensive response, and and birth is it's exactly that. I mean, how many women do we work with who have been so traumatized in the obstetrical model, and that's how they're finding their way to midwifery care? And yeah. It's Absolutely. It's sad. It's really sad.
Speaker 2
Yeah. And it's also, like, you have all these women who are reacting out of, like, fear and all these things. And and then it's, like, for me anyway, as like a doula and somebody who sits with the with a lot of women during their birth, like, that stuff plays out in their birth too, you know. Like, the point in which they got, you know, obstetrically assaulted comes out in their birth. And it's like, this is the part that I think is annoying to me about people who are against free birth or they're against home birth because they think it's dangerous. They believe that you're literally arguing a side of politics or arguing some thing that doesn't matter, but it really does matter. Like, if you are a woman giving birth to a baby boy, think about what that does to that boy. He is now birthed he has been birthed and accepted by his mother and is born looking into the face of empowered woman. Mhmm. Right? What does that do for the future? Like, what does that do? Why do we have so many shitty people Totally. Wandering around doing terrible things to each other?
Speaker 1
We're born out of violence.
Speaker 2
I could go. Well, sure. And I wish I could go back to each one of those people and ask how they were born because it matters. Mhmm. This isn't, like, some debate over, you know, left or right or who wants to have this kind of rights or this kind of it's like this is exactly what we need to be talking about in order to change the crappy paradigm that we're stuck in. I mean, like, birth sets someone up for their entire life. That first hour after their birth and a few moments after birth, there is never a time in a baby's and person's life that their limbic system is being changed that much. It's being imprinted for the capacity to love for their entire lives. It's being imprinted for the capacity to trust and respect for their entire lives. And if that doesn't matter, then what does?
Speaker 1
Yeah. Right? It's so sad. I hear you, girl. It's nice talking to you because I feel like I don't even have to talk because you say all the stuff that I say all the time, which is fun. I appreciate that.
Speaker 2
Uh-oh. We're in an echo chamber.
Speaker 1
That's true. Hey. It's kinda nice to go to one of those every now
Speaker 2
and then. Well, we gotta wrap up. And then. It's nice to escape.
Speaker 1
Yes. Alright. We gotta wrap up, but thank you so much. This has been really fun to record and and to connect with you. And it's so it's so helpful for me, you know, to connect to other women of of these like minded themes. And I just have so much respect for you and am so impressed by your maternal wisdom and the choices that you've made and so fun to hear all your stories. So thank you so much.
Speaker 2
Oh, thank you. It was awesome.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Have a good day.
Speaker 2
Okay. Yeah. Bye.
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.
