Speaker 1: Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 2: A vesties today on the bright Side, multi hyphen it
Speaker 2: Elaine Welterroth is here to talk about career pivots, motherhood,
Speaker 2: childbirth support, and so much more. It's Monday, May thirteenth.
Speaker 2: I'm Simone Boyce.
Speaker 1: And I'm Danielle Robe.
Speaker 3: This is the bright Side from Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 2: Hi.
Speaker 1: Hi, Simone in New York. Simone in the city.
Speaker 4: We had a fun night last night.
Speaker 1: Can I tell everyone what you did?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Tell the story. It's fine, So Simone.
Speaker 3: So, Simone and I are texting and she's like, I'm
Speaker 3: at dinner with two girlfriends.
Speaker 1: Do you want to come by. I'm like, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: getting in a taxi right now.
Speaker 3: Go to dinner, I meet her, I sit down, I
Speaker 3: meet one of the girlfriends, which was Naha, who we've
Speaker 3: had on the show, her other girlfriend, Christina, who was
Speaker 3: super sweet, and five minutes in, Simone goes, Okay, guys,
Speaker 3: I'm really sorry to do this, but I have.
Speaker 1: To go to another drinks.
Speaker 4: Here's the thing, and then no, no, no, love me finished.
Speaker 3: Then she goes to the bathroom, changes her outfit, puts
Speaker 3: on fully different shoes and it's like, see you, guys.
Speaker 4: Here's the thing. Okay, I could have handled this better.
Speaker 2: However, However, Danielle, the invitation was for you to join
Speaker 2: a six thirty dinner. I had already been there for
Speaker 2: an hour and a half, we had already gotten the bill,
Speaker 2: and I love that you came by, But unfortunately it
Speaker 2: was just towards the tail end of the dinner and
Speaker 2: right up against my next appointment.
Speaker 1: I love this for you, Simon.
Speaker 3: In the city is real and I actually got to
Speaker 3: sit with your two friends for another hour and a half.
Speaker 1: I was out till ten thirty.
Speaker 2: I knew you would be fine. That's why I had
Speaker 2: no problem leaving you. I just I let you fly now.
Speaker 4: I knew you would be flying fun. It was great.
Speaker 4: The city makes me feel so alive.
Speaker 2: I don't know about you, but the energy in this city,
Speaker 2: the electricity, just the amount of people.
Speaker 4: I just I love New York City so much.
Speaker 1: I do too. I'm going to see the Neil Diamond musical. Well,
Speaker 1: it's so fun.
Speaker 3: I haven't been to a Broadway show in a few years,
Speaker 3: so I'm really itching for that. I'm going to see
Speaker 3: a bunch of girlfriends, and I'm going to eat a
Speaker 3: lot of different cuisine.
Speaker 2: Speaking of girlfriends, an iconic Y two K duo is
Speaker 2: reuniting for a new reality series. Paras Hilton and Nicole
Speaker 2: Ritchie may or may not be bringing back The Simple
Speaker 2: Life seventeen years after it ended.
Speaker 1: I feel very strongly about this.
Speaker 2: So you all remember The Simple Life, right? I mean,
Speaker 2: it was a show where Nicole and Paris tried on
Speaker 2: different jobs in the country, and it was also problematic
Speaker 2: disastrous results.
Speaker 4: Why was it problematic in your eyes?
Speaker 3: They went to Walmart and were like, ew, it's gross here,
Speaker 3: and then they went to Middle America and we're like, ew,
Speaker 3: it's grows here. Like, first of all, I'm from Middle America.
Speaker 3: Second of all, I do not think it's cute to
Speaker 3: pretend to be dumb. They were like spearheading that whole
Speaker 3: era of really smart, entrepreneurial, strategic women pretending to be dumb.
Speaker 2: Well, honestly, I feel really dumb for what I'm about
Speaker 2: to say, because I thought the show was very entertaining,
Speaker 2: and my friends and I all watched it and I
Speaker 2: had the DVD, and I don't know what to say.
Speaker 1: No, I mean, it was really entertaining.
Speaker 4: I get it.
Speaker 3: But it's interesting to me because Paris has had to
Speaker 3: make such a shift because our culture has shifted, and
Speaker 3: so she'll go on TV shows. In the past her
Speaker 3: lower third like how they introduce her was heiress and
Speaker 3: now it's author. And I think that's so indicative of
Speaker 3: the shift that we've made in culture because people, specifically
Speaker 3: women are no longer accepting any of that behavior, like
Speaker 3: we want more from people, and so even she has
Speaker 3: had to rise to the occasion.
Speaker 2: I mean, she was they were playing a character, though
Speaker 2: they were playing characters, and in the same way that
Speaker 2: housewives are playing characters on these reality shows.
Speaker 4: There's no reality in it.
Speaker 1: There's a little bit of reality. You can't totally go
Speaker 1: outside of yourself.
Speaker 3: You think that, like all those Housewives characters are fully
Speaker 3: playing a character.
Speaker 2: I mean, maybe there's a kernel of truth in there,
Speaker 2: but it's highly produced and so I think that Paris
Speaker 2: and Nicole just monetize that side of their personality, like
Speaker 2: they enhanced it, they heightened it for the cameras and
Speaker 2: they turned it into a character.
Speaker 3: If they bring it back, I hope that they do
Speaker 3: it really differently and meet culture where it's at now.
Speaker 4: I think they will listen, we're all more evolved.
Speaker 2: The simple life was a snapshot in time when culture
Speaker 2: was very different. I think these two women have grown,
Speaker 2: and I think there's a good chance that this new
Speaker 2: show will represent that, I don't know.
Speaker 1: The Complicated Life.
Speaker 3: That's what it will be rebooted as The Complex Life.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: All right, after the break, Elaine Welterroth is here to
Speaker 2: talk about pivots, motherhood and how we can all join
Speaker 2: the fight to improve maternal health.
Speaker 3: We have a woman here pushing the culture ball forward.
Speaker 3: Elaine Welterroth is a best selling author, a journalist, and
Speaker 3: a TV.
Speaker 2: Host, And today Elene is here to talk about something
Speaker 2: totally new with us.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 2: She recently launched the Birth Fund, a coalition that supports
Speaker 2: mothers who want to use midwives during their pregnancy and childbirth,
Speaker 2: and she's here to tell us all about it and
Speaker 2: how it works. Welcome to the bright Side, Elaine.
Speaker 4: Thank you ladies for having me. How are you?
Speaker 3: We are so good. We're really happy to have you here.
Speaker 3: You are sunshine. Oh, I could say the same thing
Speaker 3: about you guys. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 4: Elene.
Speaker 2: I can't wait to dig into mom's stuff with you,
Speaker 2: because I feel so much overlap with the journey that
Speaker 2: I've gone on as a mother, and from what I
Speaker 2: know about your journey as a mom. So let's start
Speaker 2: with your pregnancy journey and how your experience as a
Speaker 2: pregnant woman as a mother led you to the creation
Speaker 2: of this fund.
Speaker 5: I will say I always imagined i'd be a mom
Speaker 5: one day. I have a great relationship with my mom.
Speaker 5: I love babies, but I am a career woman and
Speaker 5: I was not planning on getting pregnant when I got pregnant,
Speaker 5: and so it was a big surprise, and there was
Speaker 5: a lot to learn really quickly, and I had just
Speaker 5: moved to LA in the pandemic, didn't have a doctor,
Speaker 5: had to, you know, go out there and find an
Speaker 5: obg yn.
Speaker 4: But I thought, how hard could it be? And ultimately.
Speaker 5: That process of finding a doctor who much a doctor
Speaker 5: that I felt comfortable with, who I felt listened to me,
Speaker 5: who I felt really was invested and cared, and even
Speaker 5: just someone that made me feel respected, was so much
Speaker 5: harder than I thought. You know, I have referrals from
Speaker 5: really great people. It was very clear to me going
Speaker 5: through this journey of dating doctors and experiencing the brokenness
Speaker 5: of this maternal health care system, exactly how women, even
Speaker 5: women like me, fall through the cracks, and it was
Speaker 5: one of the most vulnerable experiences of my life. It
Speaker 5: was one of the most humbling experiences of my life.
Speaker 5: I had, you know, bad experience after bad experience.
Speaker 3: Elaine, I know you've worked in journalism and in women's
Speaker 3: spaces for years. How aware were you of the problems
Speaker 3: with maternal health care in the US before you became
Speaker 3: pregnant yourself.
Speaker 5: You know, as a journalist, I was aware of the
Speaker 5: maternal health crisis in a peripheral sense, like I think
Speaker 5: a lot of us are. We hear these scary stats,
Speaker 5: but somehow I think we live under this misconception that
Speaker 5: it doesn't those stats don't apply to us.
Speaker 4: The more I was experiencing this.
Speaker 5: The more I recognize that this is this is reflective
Speaker 5: of a system that's much more broken than I had realized.
Speaker 5: And I kind of put my journalistic hat on and
Speaker 5: I dug in. I started understanding that you know, yes,
Speaker 5: black women are dying at three or four times the
Speaker 5: rate of white women during and after childbirth, but fifty
Speaker 5: percent of American mothers label their births as traumatic, and
Speaker 5: in the richest country in the world, that's not normal.
Speaker 4: It shouldn't be that way.
Speaker 5: And then as I dug deeper, I learned that eighty
Speaker 5: percent of these maternal deaths are preventable. I learned that
Speaker 5: in other high income countries, there is a default birth
Speaker 5: model called midwif free that is contributing to much better
Speaker 5: birth outcomes. And yet in most places in this country,
Speaker 5: mid with free care isn't covered by insurance, and it
Speaker 5: isn't accessible, and there are so many birth care deserts
Speaker 5: in this country. So it made me start to go
Speaker 5: down this path of like, if we know these maternal
Speaker 5: deaths are preventable, and if we know that there are
Speaker 5: solutions like midw free care, why are we not rallying
Speaker 5: resources to make midw free more accessible? Why are we
Speaker 5: not talking about this issue more? You know, to me,
Speaker 5: there's nothing more important than keeping mothers alive, especially in
Speaker 5: a country at a time when we are forcing more
Speaker 5: women into motherhood before they're ready and therefore into a
Speaker 5: broken maternal healthcare system. We know it's going to result
Speaker 5: in a surge of maternal mortality. And as a storyteller,
Speaker 5: as somebody with a platform, as somebody with a great
Speaker 5: network of mothers who are kick ass, bad ass, like
Speaker 5: get it done, make it happen type of women. I'm like,
Speaker 5: if we were focused on fixing this problem, we could
Speaker 5: move the needle in our lifetime.
Speaker 4: So let's get to work.
Speaker 5: And really that's kind of the sort of fix it
Speaker 5: spirit that gave birth to Birth Fund.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you officially launched the Birth Fund last month
Speaker 2: and you count Serena Williams, Chrissy Teagan, Kelly Roland, Ashley
Speaker 2: Graham among your founding funders. It's a coalition that supports
Speaker 2: American families who can't afford the out of pocket costs
Speaker 2: of Midwiffrey tell us more about how it works.
Speaker 5: We pair midwives with families who are seeking out that
Speaker 5: support but can't afford it. And so we are leaning
Speaker 5: into the midwives in our network who know their communities
Speaker 5: and their needs better than we do. And we basically
Speaker 5: put out a call to them and said, you know, here,
Speaker 5: here's what we are offering.
Speaker 4: Can you find.
Speaker 5: People in your community who want access to your care?
Speaker 5: And a number of them were on these sort of
Speaker 5: financial wait lists, like they just they couldn't afford it,
Speaker 5: but they were already approved for the care. And so
Speaker 5: those women were nominated by their midwives in the community
Speaker 5: and they applied through our intake form. And we are
Speaker 5: working with an incredible organization called the Victoria Project, which
Speaker 5: has been doing work like this for the last four
Speaker 5: years since twenty twenty, focused on southern California only, and
Speaker 5: they've been giving out grants to women to help support
Speaker 5: their birth choices and cover those flaws. And I was
Speaker 5: so inspired by that organization that I asked them if
Speaker 5: they wanted to work together. So we're taking kind of
Speaker 5: their mission and taking it nationwide. So I call out
Speaker 5: these organizations because we could not do the work that
Speaker 5: we do every day with us out them, and Birth
Speaker 5: Fund is a coalition.
Speaker 4: We are not here to solve this crisis on our own.
Speaker 5: We know that we can't, but we are here to
Speaker 5: bring together the most effective organizations that have been doing
Speaker 5: this work for years in the shadows. We're here to
Speaker 5: bring them into the light and really really lift up
Speaker 5: the families and the birthing people and the birth workers
Speaker 5: who are doing God's work every single day and frankly
Speaker 5: not in a sustainable way. And it's the most rewarding
Speaker 5: work of my career to date.
Speaker 1: How much does it cost to have a midwife.
Speaker 5: That is a great question, and it really depends on
Speaker 5: where you live. But the price can range from anywhere
Speaker 5: between four thousand dollars to over ten thousand dollars and
Speaker 5: it's an out of pocket cost for most people.
Speaker 4: There's different types of midwives.
Speaker 5: There's midwives that work in the hospital and then there's
Speaker 5: midwives who work outside of the hospital system. We're supporting
Speaker 5: the midwives who work outside of the hospital system because
Speaker 5: those are the ones who are often not covered by
Speaker 5: insurance and those ones who are able to practice mid
Speaker 5: with frecare, by the way, which is a holistic form
Speaker 5: of maternal healthcare that addresses your mind, body's spirit. They
Speaker 5: spend an hour with you versus the fifteen minutes that
Speaker 5: you'll get in the hospital. They come to you, and
Speaker 5: when a midwife is working outside of the hospital, they
Speaker 5: are in charge of that process and they can make
Speaker 5: sure that you're getting the kind of holistic care that
Speaker 5: really is patient centric. That is what midw free is
Speaker 5: all about. Midw free that is in the hospital. You know,
Speaker 5: it's part of a medical system, right, so it can
Speaker 5: look a little bit different, and so we are committed
Speaker 5: to covering the cost of care for families in need
Speaker 5: who are seeking mid with freecare as a means of
Speaker 5: saving themselves. They are seeking out this care outside of
Speaker 5: the hospital because it's what makes them feel safer, because
Speaker 5: it is proving to have a better outcome.
Speaker 1: I think this is such a systemic issue.
Speaker 3: I remember reading one or two of the pieces that
Speaker 3: you wrote in twenty twenty and twenty twenty one on
Speaker 3: this topic. I know you've been thinking about it for
Speaker 3: years and thinking what can I do to make this better?
Speaker 1: One? Why is midwiffery the answer? And also I'm so
Speaker 1: curious as.
Speaker 3: To what people, individuals, communities that are interesting and helping
Speaker 3: can really do too.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Well, what I'll say is, Danielle, You're no different than
Speaker 5: I was before I had a baby. I had never
Speaker 5: heard of midwiffery before having this child has expanded my
Speaker 5: purview on what's important in my work in ways I
Speaker 5: could have never anticipated.
Speaker 4: I didn't know what a midwife was.
Speaker 5: Like most women in this country, It's not our default
Speaker 5: model of care, right and if we do, if we
Speaker 5: have heard of it, we sort of associate it with
Speaker 5: like maybe a witch doctor or you know, we think
Speaker 5: of them as like some unskilled, unsafe or less, lesser
Speaker 5: safe option to a medical doctor. Right, Like, there's a
Speaker 5: lot of misconceptions about midwiffree in this country, which is
Speaker 5: part of why we want to reintroduce midwiffree and reframe
Speaker 5: it and redefine it for a new generation of parents.
Speaker 4: You know, we're not.
Speaker 5: Here to push midwiffree and out of hospital births on
Speaker 5: families across this country. What we're trying to do is
Speaker 5: illuminate the choice, you know, when we are in a
Speaker 5: maternal health crisis. So if you are a family that
Speaker 5: is not getting the care that you need, you should
Speaker 5: be armed with a sense of agency about what other
Speaker 5: choices you have. And we are lifting up this alternative
Speaker 5: choice that has saved lives, that is helping women not
Speaker 5: just survive birth, but helping them thrive through birth. I
Speaker 5: personally divested and pivoted to midw Freecare because I struck
Speaker 5: out I was not getting the kind of care and
Speaker 5: support and attention that I needed, and I found it
Speaker 5: in midw free Care. I didn't even know this model
Speaker 5: of care was accessible, was available, was a thing like
Speaker 5: so many women, And I think that's why we end
Speaker 5: up staying in situations and dynamics with doctors that are
Speaker 5: frankly belittling, that are intimidating, that forced us to give
Speaker 5: up our power, that put us in dangerous situations sometimes.
Speaker 5: And it's not to say that I'm anti doctor. Nobody
Speaker 5: involved with Birth Fund is anti doctor like I. You know,
Speaker 5: I intended to give birth with a doctor. I just
Speaker 5: unfortunately couldn't find one. So I felt so empowered by
Speaker 5: this decision that I could make for myself for my baby.
Speaker 4: That put me back.
Speaker 5: In a feeling of being empowered over my body and
Speaker 5: over what we were going to do to bring this
Speaker 5: child into the world. And I had the most beautiful
Speaker 5: birth experience beyond what I could have imagined.
Speaker 3: I have heard from friends that midwives are more open
Speaker 3: to different birthing positions that can help moms get the
Speaker 3: baby out. With a midwife, did you give birth on
Speaker 3: your back like we're used to seeing in the traditional
Speaker 3: hospital setting or did you give birth vertically?
Speaker 1: Were you standing up?
Speaker 5: This is a very kind of basic, simple visual that
Speaker 5: opened my eyes and my mind to giving birth with
Speaker 5: a midwife when I was very skeptical, like I was
Speaker 5: very close minded at first, I thought that, you know,
Speaker 5: just to be safe, I'm going to give birth in
Speaker 5: the hospital with a doctor. But when I one of
Speaker 5: my best friends had a home birth. Two of my
Speaker 5: best friends actually had a home birth. And one of
Speaker 5: my best friends said to me, Elaine, let's just put
Speaker 5: it like this, if you were trying to push a
Speaker 5: bawling ball out of your body, would you rather be
Speaker 5: laying on your back pushing against gravity or would you
Speaker 5: rather be upright in a squad pushing it down?
Speaker 4: I said, well, when.
Speaker 5: You put like that, I mean, there's literally no question
Speaker 5: I would rather be upright working with gravity to get
Speaker 5: that thing out of me as fast as possible.
Speaker 4: And when it's.
Speaker 5: Those kinds of little aha moments, those little revelations where
Speaker 5: you start to think, wait a minute, why have I
Speaker 5: been conditioned to think that giving birth in this one
Speaker 5: way is the only big way, is the superior way.
Speaker 5: So once you start to understand and unravel like everything
Speaker 5: that we've been taught is normal about birth, and start
Speaker 5: to realize there's holes in this there's holes in these theories,
Speaker 5: and they're not necessarily advantageous or favoring the mother or
Speaker 5: the child. And so for me, that was the beginning
Speaker 5: of a revelation. You know, I really never thought that
Speaker 5: deeply about birth for birth fun, we are lifting up
Speaker 5: mid with fred as one solution.
Speaker 4: There are many solutions. This is a complex issue.
Speaker 5: But we will not get anywhere if we don't start somewhere,
Speaker 5: and so we are starting with middle break care.
Speaker 2: We have to take a quick break, but when we
Speaker 2: come back, we're getting into the joys of motherhood.
Speaker 4: Stay with us. We're back with Elaine Welterroth.
Speaker 2: Y'all, I really appreciate that you're presenting this as one
Speaker 2: solution to a really multifaceted issue, because I don't know
Speaker 2: about you. When I saw what Serena Williams went through
Speaker 2: with her birth, that was a huge wake up call
Speaker 2: for me. And I got pregnant shortly after that, and
Speaker 2: that her experience where she was almost she almost died
Speaker 2: giving birth to her daughter blood clot right, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: And so that really opened my eyes and made me
Speaker 2: be more intentional about the care that I sought and
Speaker 2: the doctors that I sought out.
Speaker 4: So I actually did have a hospital birth.
Speaker 2: I had two hospital births, and I loved it. I
Speaker 2: had an amazing experience. I felt so safe and so
Speaker 2: cared for. But it was because I sought out a
Speaker 2: black doctor. I found a black female doctor, and I
Speaker 2: knew that I wanted to have someone who saw me
Speaker 2: and understood the black maternal health crisis and understood my fears.
Speaker 2: So I also want to shout out all the incredible
Speaker 2: black obgi ns out there who are working tirelessly to
Speaker 2: make sure that these outcomes improve in hospitals.
Speaker 5: I'm so glad that you had that experience. I am
Speaker 5: so glad that there are incredible obgyans out there who
Speaker 5: have a heart for caring for mothers and who understand
Speaker 5: the fears that we're walking in with, especially black moms.
Speaker 4: So I think it's important to lift up.
Speaker 5: Those positive, joyful birth experiences inside the hospital and outside
Speaker 5: the hospital. But I think what this work is about,
Speaker 5: it's about hope, it's about joy. It's about lifting up
Speaker 5: positive birth experiences so that we know going into birth
Speaker 5: what even to dream for, like what to wish for?
Speaker 4: You know, what is the vision to have in our mind.
Speaker 5: We don't want the visions that we've been we've inherited
Speaker 5: from media and you know.
Speaker 4: Hollywood, which depicts birth as like this.
Speaker 2: Wild emergency, the water breaks, the panic ensues, like it's
Speaker 2: just for alarm fire like it's just crazy. I'm so
Speaker 2: aligned with you on that, Elaine, Like, I think that
Speaker 2: we really do need to highlight these incredibly positive, joyful
Speaker 2: birth stories because motherhood is so joyful and I'm always
Speaker 2: reticent to paint a picture of motherhood that is overly
Speaker 2: dark or like negative, because I want people to know
Speaker 2: how amazing it is to bring another human being into
Speaker 2: this world.
Speaker 5: I find motherhood to be the most fun thing I've
Speaker 5: ever done. Yes, Wow, it is so much fun. And
Speaker 5: I wish people talked more about how fun it is. Yes,
Speaker 5: me too, just hear about like how hard it is.
Speaker 5: I'm like, I've actually found more balance through motherhood than
Speaker 5: I ever had in my life, like work. Life balance
Speaker 5: came after having a baby, because now I have a
Speaker 5: physical reminder of what's more important, like you, and it
Speaker 5: forces me to stop and to pay attention to not
Speaker 5: just what he needs, but what I need. I never
Speaker 5: even engaged with real self care until I became pregnant
Speaker 5: because I was like, oh, I need to be good
Speaker 5: for someone else. There is so much to say about
Speaker 5: motherhood that is absolutely amazing. And that's why when I
Speaker 5: learned about this, I was like, wait a minute, why
Speaker 5: aren't we only talking about this through this like grim
Speaker 5: lens of scary statistics and sad stories. Guys, I had
Speaker 5: the most empowered, joyful, meditative birth experience, and I want
Speaker 5: thought for more women who wanted right and women who don't,
Speaker 5: who want the epidural, who want the hospital birth?
Speaker 3: Girl?
Speaker 4: Boom, do you that was me? I was like, give
Speaker 4: me all the drugs.
Speaker 5: Bo Like I was that girl too, by the way,
Speaker 5: Like I got turned out by my midwife. Okay, I
Speaker 5: didn't decide to have a home birth until thirty six weeks, which,
Speaker 5: as you know, is at the very eleventh hour. I
Speaker 5: was like, I literally was like, I love you, midwife.
Speaker 5: Shout out to Kimberly Jrden and Allegra Hill. They are
Speaker 5: two incredible black midwives who are the co founders of
Speaker 5: Kindred Space, LA, the only black owned birthing center in
Speaker 5: all of southern California.
Speaker 4: I want to shout them out.
Speaker 5: But they took such good care of me, you guys
Speaker 5: that I was like, you know, I really love.
Speaker 4: This care that you're giving me.
Speaker 5: But is there just any way that you could just
Speaker 5: like sneak some epidural just a little drop?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Can you just can we just if you could.
Speaker 5: Tell me that you could give me some epidural, I
Speaker 5: will sign up today. And they're like, you know, that's
Speaker 5: the kind of the whole thing with natural birth and
Speaker 5: home birth is like you won't have access to it,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 4: Like that was the hardest thing for me to swallow
Speaker 4: because I was that girly.
Speaker 5: I was like, I'm looking for the epidural, you know,
Speaker 5: but I just didn't want everything that came with the epidural.
Speaker 4: I didn't want like the hospital's rules.
Speaker 5: And I didn't want to have to be upright if
Speaker 5: I didn't want to be it. I didn't want needles
Speaker 5: in my arm when I'm trying to be as zen
Speaker 5: as possible for my body to expand and push out
Speaker 5: this bowling ball of a baby.
Speaker 2: And so on that note, let's focus on the solutions here.
Speaker 2: Walk us through how the fund works. How do you
Speaker 2: connect with the women who need the services, how do
Speaker 2: you find them, and then what do you provide for them?
Speaker 5: So Birth Fund is really singularly committed to covering the
Speaker 5: cost of midwi free care for all the families in
Speaker 5: our network. And I'll tell you, like the best part
Speaker 5: of the phone calls of meeting our families. Is this
Speaker 5: part like where we go, but wait, there's more, and
Speaker 5: we get to tell them what else comes with participating
Speaker 5: in birth funds. So Sofar is coming in and investing actual,
Speaker 5: real dollars.
Speaker 4: In these families.
Speaker 5: Each of our families are getting ten thousand dollars as
Speaker 5: a gift from so By to open up what's called
Speaker 5: a newborn vault, and they're being paired with a financial
Speaker 5: advisor who's going to sit down with them and help
Speaker 5: them pan out their famili's financial future. And one other
Speaker 5: resource I'll share is we've partnered with the Postpartums Support
Speaker 5: International organization, which is incredible. They offer mental and emotional
Speaker 5: support to families in the postpartum stage.
Speaker 4: So you have access to.
Speaker 5: A peer to peer network of moms who have recovered
Speaker 5: from really serious a range of mood disorders, which can
Speaker 5: affect a lot of families in that postpartum stage, especially
Speaker 5: when you don't have the support that you need. We're
Speaker 5: creating this kind of a wrap around care program for
Speaker 5: our families that we really hope will become a model
Speaker 5: for the government and for other private companies to say,
Speaker 5: you know what we can do that we can do
Speaker 5: better for families who are bringing new life into this world.
Speaker 4: So this is just the beginning.
Speaker 5: We're in our first cohort, but there's so much more
Speaker 5: work to do, but we're really we feel really good
Speaker 5: about how about how strong was starting.
Speaker 2: I know the Birth Fund is just starting out, but
Speaker 2: tell us about the women you've helped so far.
Speaker 4: Do you have any updates?
Speaker 5: We had our first birth. Don't make me cry, you guys.
Speaker 5: We've had a lot of happy tears in the last
Speaker 5: week in December. I had this idea for Birth Fund,
Speaker 5: but I sort of started in baby steps and I
Speaker 5: started with no pun intended. I started just like an
Speaker 5: ig fundraiser. On my birthday, I felt so indebted to
Speaker 5: my midwives that I was just like, for my birthday,
Speaker 5: all I want to do is pay it forward and
Speaker 5: cover the class of care for another family in my community.
Speaker 5: To have access is kind of transformative mid with free
Speaker 5: care that I had. And so I put it out
Speaker 5: there on Instagram and a fundraiser, and I was like,
Speaker 5: if anybody wants to join me, here's the link. I
Speaker 5: went off and enjoyed my birthday, and then I came
Speaker 5: back and found out that we had exceeded our goal.
Speaker 5: And raised enough money in under sixteen hours to cover
Speaker 5: the cost of care for not one family, but two.
Speaker 5: And that just was the proof of concept and the
Speaker 5: affirmation that I needed. That was sort of the genesis
Speaker 5: of Birth Fund. So one of those moms gave birth
Speaker 5: last week and it's just like the most gratifying work
Speaker 5: I've ever done in my life. And by the end
Speaker 5: of the year, we'll have a number of babies birth
Speaker 5: through the Birth Fund.
Speaker 3: For any woman who is pregnant, thinking about getting pregnant,
Speaker 3: visualizing a family in the future, what do you want
Speaker 3: to say to her?
Speaker 5: Oh my gosh, this question makes me emotional. But what
Speaker 5: I would say is trust your body. Trust your body, Mama.
Speaker 5: You were built to do this. And when I say
Speaker 5: trust your body, I also mean trust when it doesn't
Speaker 5: feel right.
Speaker 4: Your body is your protector. Your body is full.
Speaker 5: Of wisdom, and so you deserve the care that feels good,
Speaker 5: the kind of care that feels good, and if it
Speaker 5: doesn't feel good, it's not care. And so keep fighting
Speaker 5: for the best for yourself and for your baby, because
Speaker 5: you deserve it, and it's available to you, and there's
Speaker 5: also resources available to you to help you get that.
Speaker 2: Carry user knowledge is power. Learn it all to your research,
Speaker 2: ask your questions. I think, know all the choices, know
Speaker 2: all the Yeah, it's.
Speaker 3: Nice to hear what your choices are and then make
Speaker 3: the right one for you. Yeah, exactly, And you're getting
Speaker 3: the conversation started, which I think is one of the
Speaker 3: most important parts of this.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much, Elaine. Thank you for having this
Speaker 4: conversation with me.
Speaker 5: I can't tell you like we should be talking about
Speaker 5: this more so, thank you for taking on this topic,
Speaker 5: and and thank you for sharing your story too. I
Speaker 5: think it's so important to hear like really positive, joyful
Speaker 5: hospital bird stories, just as much as it's important to hear,
Speaker 5: you know, joyful births that are happening outside Plastica as well.
Speaker 1: Yes, thanks Elaine, Thanks.
Speaker 4: Thanks ladies.
Speaker 3: Elaine Walterroth is the founder of the Birth Fund, a
Speaker 3: best selling author, a journalist, and a mom.
Speaker 2: For more information on the Birth Fund, you can check
Speaker 2: out birthfund dot com.
Speaker 3: You know, so many of our conversations revolve around feminism
Speaker 3: and the women's movement, and one of the things that
Speaker 3: I always take away is that so much of feminism
Speaker 3: is just about choice, and so I appreciate that Elaine
Speaker 3: is bringing a conversation to the table about choice in
Speaker 3: delivery and pregnancy. People don't really talk about midwiffery all
Speaker 3: that much. I hear about it in LA a little bit,
Speaker 3: but you know, it's sort of even though she said
Speaker 3: it's a it's an old practice, it's sort of new
Speaker 3: age in our culture right now, and I like that
Speaker 3: she's bringing it to the forefront.
Speaker 2: Yeah, learned a lot during that interview. I didn't quite
Speaker 2: think about the fact that midwiffery gave way to this
Speaker 2: whole industry of childbirth, and I think that's just something
Speaker 2: that's really important to consider when you're thinking about having
Speaker 2: a family. And I definitely factored in the industrialized element
Speaker 2: of medicine and hospitals whenever I was planning my birth.
Speaker 2: And again, we just keep coming back to this idea
Speaker 2: of knowledge is empowerment, and the more that you know
Speaker 2: about the situation that you're stepping into, the more that
Speaker 2: you know about your options and your choices, like you
Speaker 2: just said, that's when we can really feel empowered to
Speaker 2: make the best decisions.
Speaker 3: I also loved when you talked about the joy of motherhood,
Speaker 3: because I really do hear people talk about how hard
Speaker 3: it is and I'm sure that's incredibly true. Yeah, but
Speaker 3: you had two birds. You love giving birth.
Speaker 2: I love giving I know that's controversial, but I absolutely
Speaker 2: love it. I would be a surrogate if I didn't
Speaker 2: hate being pregnant so much. But I think it's I
Speaker 2: think it's so important to talk about positive birth stories.
Speaker 2: We can't go around just only talking about the negative,
Speaker 2: really scary stories. Like we know that those exist, but
Speaker 2: like we have to be mindful of showing the other
Speaker 2: side and that you can have this really peaceful, yet
Speaker 2: challenging but incredibly spiritual and transcendent and transformative birth. And
Speaker 2: that's what I experienced, all thanks to having an incredible
Speaker 2: doctor who really saw me and listened to me and
Speaker 2: my fears and my concerns.
Speaker 4: Well, that's it for today's show, y'all.
Speaker 2: Tomorrow, we're talking with actor Melissa Joan Hart. Do we
Speaker 2: even need to elaborate on her credits? I mean, she
Speaker 2: needs no introduction, but Clarisa explains it all. Sabrina drive
Speaker 2: me crazy. I mean, we have major MJH nostalgia And
Speaker 2: she's going to join us to reflect on her illustrious
Speaker 2: career and her recent move into stand up comedy and directing.
Speaker 3: We cannot wait for that. She's such a huge part
Speaker 3: of our childhood.
Speaker 4: She really is.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, don't miss it.
Speaker 3: Meet us back here tomorrow, and thank you all so
Speaker 3: much for listening and hanging out with us. Listen and
Speaker 3: follow the bright Side on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 3: or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: I'm Simone Boyce. You can find me at Simone Voice
Speaker 2: on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 3: I'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 1: That's ro Ba y. Stay on the bright Side.