Speaker 1: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. You are tuned into
Speaker 1: the Vitamin D with dwn Day podcast and I am
Speaker 1: your host, Dawn Day, here to get you excited about
Speaker 1: your life so that you can live life on purpose
Speaker 1: and for a purpose. And this is your first time
Speaker 1: tuning in and welcome Vitamin D. It's upon of my name.
Speaker 1: My name is Dawn and you get Vitamin D from
Speaker 1: the sun. So I'm here to shed light into your life.
Speaker 1: And I do this with inspirational insights and conversations with
Speaker 1: celebrities and everyday people like you and me, Because if
Speaker 1: you want to be better and you want to do better,
Speaker 1: then you're going to have to be able to see better.
Speaker 1: So join me on this journey of living our best
Speaker 1: lives and understanding and realizing how you are your greatest
Speaker 1: ass act. Let me tell you something, going after your
Speaker 1: dreams isn't easy. They say dreams don't work unless you
Speaker 1: do so what you're doing? Mm hmm. Have you ever
Speaker 1: heard the quote that, um, it's not about the size
Speaker 1: of the dog in the fight, it's about the as
Speaker 1: of the fight and the dog. Well, I gotta ask
Speaker 1: you something. How big is your fighting your dog? M hm?
Speaker 1: You know, we have these dreams and aspirations and a
Speaker 1: lot of the things that we want, uh, But sometimes
Speaker 1: I wonder how bad do we really want it? Because
Speaker 1: oftentimes we come into a situation we make these things
Speaker 1: called excuses as to why we couldn't do something while
Speaker 1: we can't show up, why aren't we there on time?
Speaker 1: Not wanting to be uncomfortable? But then I gotta ask you,
Speaker 1: how big is your fighting your dog? Now? Usually we
Speaker 1: look at the size of the dog of as far
Speaker 1: as people have access, uh, people who have notoriety, people
Speaker 1: who have a social media following, people that come with
Speaker 1: a wholesome family, some people that may not have any
Speaker 1: mental disorders or physical disabilities, but they ain't got nothing
Speaker 1: to do with the fighting the dog. Let me just
Speaker 1: tell you, even with myself, you can't allow people to
Speaker 1: tell you know, when I first applied to Howard, I
Speaker 1: didn't get accepted. Now easily that could affect in my ego,
Speaker 1: right and me showing up in my ego the biggest dog, like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I didn't get in. And I had
Speaker 1: to say, wait a minute, Dawn, this ain't about whether
Speaker 1: or not you're smart enough. Because you're an honor roll
Speaker 1: you're you're honor student, you're active on campus, you are
Speaker 1: president of student council. This had to come with the
Speaker 1: moment of how bad are you willing to fight? And see,
Speaker 1: that's when you got a mother lying in Janice Hill. Hey,
Speaker 1: she gonna remind you that there is nothing that you
Speaker 1: cannot do. She's gonna fuel she has she still does
Speaker 1: fuel the fight in my dog. So down, what did
Speaker 1: you do? Oh well, let me tell you what I did.
Speaker 1: I wrote Howard. Now I did say president. I was
Speaker 1: at the secretary student council in high school. That's neither
Speaker 1: here nor there. I wrote Howard and told them my
Speaker 1: qualifications because perhaps it's just the fact that I didn't
Speaker 1: test well, huh. But my fight persuaded me, gave me
Speaker 1: the ammunition to rebuke their verdict. And guess what, the
Speaker 1: verdict was changed. Not only did I graduate from Howard,
Speaker 1: I graduated with honors and I hosted my graduation. So
Speaker 1: don't sit here and tell me what you cannot do,
Speaker 1: because it's not about the size of the dog in
Speaker 1: the fight. It's about the size of the fight and
Speaker 1: the dog. Let's go right with me and get excited
Speaker 1: about Hello. Let me tell you I got somebody's special
Speaker 1: in the studio with me. Now, I was asking Jeremiah,
Speaker 1: I should know this is it Michael or McCall, you're
Speaker 1: super super close. It's me Hall. It's like a you know,
Speaker 1: cuse yes, yes. So it's complicated. But my mom's Jewish,
Speaker 1: she's Ashkenazi, so she's like Eastern European basically, but like
Speaker 1: they have very unique like culture from like Russians and
Speaker 1: Ukrainians and stuff. And then my dad was born in Pakistan.
Speaker 1: But we're from two different ethnic groups, both of which
Speaker 1: are like indigenous groups basically, So I'm Punjabi and Kashmidi,
Speaker 1: and then I'm from like two patrilineal tribes. So it's
Speaker 1: very confusing. So, like we understand ancestry to descend from
Speaker 1: the father, so patrilineal means it comes from your father's side.
Speaker 1: But then on my mom's side, everything is matrilineal, so
Speaker 1: it's with the mother. So it's very interesting. So you say, start,
Speaker 1: what do you mean by that, Like like you know
Speaker 1: those stories like in the Bible, like Sarah, you know
Speaker 1: how she was like the mother of nations, so it's
Speaker 1: like the matriarch of the family. Also, you're the way
Speaker 1: you grew up. Christianity is not something that that's so interesting.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting that you say that because I had
Speaker 1: first I had never been in a church until I
Speaker 1: was like eighteen years old, like an actual religious church.
Speaker 1: I had been to like old churches or like food
Speaker 1: donations stuff like that, but I had never been to
Speaker 1: a church service. And I think that once I went,
Speaker 1: everyone was doing all these different things that it was
Speaker 1: foreign to me. So it felt like the first time
Speaker 1: I was learning so much about Christianity. I didn't know
Speaker 1: that when people put their hands up it's like to God.
Speaker 1: I did not know that. How was I supposed to know? Like?
Speaker 1: How would I know? When I was in Kenya, I
Speaker 1: was talking to the Homeida. I should know his name
Speaker 1: right out of my phone, is right, it don't matter.
Speaker 1: I was asking him. I was like, you know, what's
Speaker 1: what's your background like with faith or religion? He was
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, something of God and Jesus. I
Speaker 1: was like, how do you How does your people know
Speaker 1: about Jesus, like just geographically speaking, and how the messages
Speaker 1: like oh, you mean my grandfather's religion, let's talk about
Speaker 1: that um And basically grandfather, grandmother, but just before there
Speaker 1: was a thing of Christianity, So you had never heard
Speaker 1: of God or Jesus. Well, I mean, obviously I knew
Speaker 1: what God and Jesus was, but like, okay, so like
Speaker 1: Jesus is the son of God, but then Jesus died
Speaker 1: for everyone's sins and then Jesus is God but also
Speaker 1: the son and marries a virgin, like and I'm a
Speaker 1: birth worker, so I'm like, that's how you make a baby.
Speaker 1: Like something was up in her like come on? How else?
Speaker 1: Was like like what? What? Really? Do we really like,
Speaker 1: come on with all the sperm that was in the
Speaker 1: world and really like, let's think about that rack sleep
Speaker 1: because we want to Wow, you're ready for a real conversation.
Speaker 1: And here, oh yeah, you know. I think it's important
Speaker 1: because I was just talking to a home girl of
Speaker 1: mine and she was telling me her daughter is twelve
Speaker 1: years old and thinks that a baby comes from a swan.
Speaker 1: She probably mean a steward, she said swan, And I
Speaker 1: said really, And I didn't mean to judge, but I
Speaker 1: feel like I don't know about in your background, but
Speaker 1: I want to say African American communities. I don't know
Speaker 1: if we talk about sex enough and talking about where
Speaker 1: children come from and your genitalia in general, of what
Speaker 1: it even looks like. It's don't say anything. And you know,
Speaker 1: I've had an individual, Kiana, she was on the show
Speaker 1: and she was just talking talking about how she had
Speaker 1: been involved in um sex trafficking, how she had been raped,
Speaker 1: she had been molested, and that whole hush hush, And
Speaker 1: it's like, we need to be more open with this dialogue,
Speaker 1: in this conversation and not acting like some fairy dust
Speaker 1: just came out of nowhere. And I think it's hard
Speaker 1: to because people I want to do what's best for
Speaker 1: their kids, and they think that keeping information on them
Speaker 1: is protecting them in some way. But ultimately what that
Speaker 1: does is it drives people to the Internet, which is
Speaker 1: like you so you don't want your kid to know
Speaker 1: about how they became a person, which one I think
Speaker 1: is a problem because I think it's normal to talk
Speaker 1: about how we enter the world. That's something that is
Speaker 1: common to every human. You know, we were made like,
Speaker 1: that's not an uncommon experience. But to then have that
Speaker 1: and then kids going to the Internet, it's just they're
Speaker 1: primed for exploitation and for misinformation about their own bodies.
Speaker 1: You know, it's really weird. It's really weird. I love
Speaker 1: how you described yourself. You said, I'm a birthworker. Yes,
Speaker 1: does that mean? Okay, so a birthworker is someone that
Speaker 1: works in birth or with birth. I think of it
Speaker 1: so like yourself. You know, you're creative. You have this
Speaker 1: calling in some way that keeps you going despite how
Speaker 1: difficult it is. You know how frustrating it can be
Speaker 1: to navigate the field or you know, partnerships or whatever,
Speaker 1: just the same way that I get tired of standing up,
Speaker 1: and you know, I am often up for long hours
Speaker 1: at late hours, almost always covered in baby vomit of
Speaker 1: some sorts. But we have this calling, you know. For me,
Speaker 1: I feel like it definitely was something that came from
Speaker 1: my ancestors, and for that I was just like, whoa,
Speaker 1: what's happening? Like it was the first time I had
Speaker 1: felt that kind of reconnection to ancestry, which was gray.
Speaker 1: But once I realized that, I was like, Okay, basically,
Speaker 1: this means for me that I'm going to have my
Speaker 1: hands and arms wrapped around like families and mothers and
Speaker 1: birthing people for probably like the rest of my life,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, And and it just came to you
Speaker 1: one day to be like I'm going to be dealing
Speaker 1: with yeah, So it didn't just come to me one day.
Speaker 1: So throughout my life, I've always appreciated kids because they
Speaker 1: don't know boundaries really that well. So everything that they're
Speaker 1: learning is typically for the first time or the first
Speaker 1: few times. And so with a baby, you see that rapidly,
Speaker 1: Like babies developed so quickly, you know, they learned how
Speaker 1: to move, walk, talk, like within six months, Like what
Speaker 1: do we do in six months? Like we're in our
Speaker 1: adult lives, and what do we do in six months?
Speaker 1: Like I could not tell you what I did this
Speaker 1: last six months, but you can see the observations in
Speaker 1: a new human And so I've always loved kids. And
Speaker 1: then I was working at this government commission in Hawaii
Speaker 1: about women, and we were working on this feminists like
Speaker 1: recovery plan for COVID because all of a COVID like
Speaker 1: funding was like police, you know, sending it out to
Speaker 1: like places that did not need money. You know, the
Speaker 1: police don't need more money or anything, but that's that,
Speaker 1: that's that. But um, we were basically advocating for money
Speaker 1: to be put into like community Healthcare Midwiffree Services, and
Speaker 1: that's where I met my mentor, um Tanya Smith Johnson.
Speaker 1: She's the current president of the National College of Midwiffrey.
Speaker 1: She's the first black president of the National College of Midwiffrey.
Speaker 1: So she's always she's always rooting me on, and I
Speaker 1: always like to give her shout outs because if I
Speaker 1: didn't meet her, I think it would have been really
Speaker 1: really hard for me to figure out like what to do,
Speaker 1: because it's not easy, you know, like what happens when
Speaker 1: you make wake up one day and you're like, I
Speaker 1: want to be a midway, Like what do you do?
Speaker 1: Where do you go? You look towards like schools and stuff,
Speaker 1: and the schools that we have here are not the best.
Speaker 1: Necessarily we have like two three midwid free programs just
Speaker 1: in California, two and three. It's like like this is
Speaker 1: a whole new world in my brain, like, of course
Speaker 1: this is something or a position or a field of
Speaker 1: career that is definitely a needed valued But I never
Speaker 1: thought to think like what this person does, like how
Speaker 1: important they are in the process. And so just hearing
Speaker 1: you're talking about like how you kind of dived in
Speaker 1: there was interesting and then as I was looking at
Speaker 1: you further, it's interesting that you did choose this career
Speaker 1: path and you yourself have challenges with your how do
Speaker 1: we um with endometriosis? And that was another big thing
Speaker 1: was my experience like basically being forced to navigate the O.
Speaker 1: B G. I. N's office since I was is thirteen
Speaker 1: years old? What's going on a third day? For some
Speaker 1: of them may don't know what's endometriosis? So, yeah, So
Speaker 1: endometriosis is a disease that basically happens when the uterine
Speaker 1: lining doesn't fully well. It sheds, but it makes adhesions
Speaker 1: on other parts of the pelvic area. But it can
Speaker 1: also be found like in your brain. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of like the worst thing ever. Yeah, but so it's
Speaker 1: like attaching skin. Yeah, So it makes adhesions, It layers
Speaker 1: these cells that over time caused these kind of like
Speaker 1: exactly like fibrous almost at times, but ultimately like binding materials.
Speaker 1: So I had to have a surgery called excuse me,
Speaker 1: bilateral laparoscopic Ablatian surgery for endometriosis. And they basically just
Speaker 1: put a camera in your belly button and then in
Speaker 1: other parts of your stomach. They fill it with gas
Speaker 1: and they like burn and kind of cauterize out the
Speaker 1: you know, diseased parts. And I had like adhesions basically
Speaker 1: like fusing part of the back of my uterus to
Speaker 1: my bladder. It's just like, how did you find out
Speaker 1: about this? Okay, so at Thursday. So this surgery happened
Speaker 1: when I was eighteen, But fast forward. I've always struggled
Speaker 1: with my menstrual cycle. It was something that the first
Speaker 1: time I got it, I was so shocked because I
Speaker 1: genuinely was surprised that I was just losing that much blood.
Speaker 1: I was I had just turned twelve, I remember, and
Speaker 1: I remember like I was walking home from school and
Speaker 1: I was like, uh uh, something's not right. Like I
Speaker 1: could just feel and I was like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I'm bleeding. I was like, this is my period. But
Speaker 1: it was a lot. And that first year that I
Speaker 1: had my menstrual cycle, it was just like I would
Speaker 1: bleed and bleed and bleed, like it was like it
Speaker 1: was NonStop, and it was very be painful, Like I
Speaker 1: was like so much pain that I like I wouldn't
Speaker 1: want to do the things I wanted to do. When
Speaker 1: I was their teens, like, you know, that's typically not
Speaker 1: something necessarily that thirteen year old struggle with. So I
Speaker 1: felt isolated too because I was like growing up in
Speaker 1: also like a South Asian household. Like you know, the
Speaker 1: way menstruation is treated is very like interesting. Um, I
Speaker 1: don't say bad or wrong, but you know, there's this
Speaker 1: assumption that like you really shouldn't do much when you're menstruating, right,
Speaker 1: like you should really rest, which I actually like find
Speaker 1: value in. But that also kind of comes from the
Speaker 1: idea that you could potentially be like contagious and leave
Speaker 1: her alone and buy her even to today. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think I've heard I don't know what culture is in
Speaker 1: my brain. I could be messed up. Uh, Like I
Speaker 1: imagine I've seen something read something where there in the
Speaker 1: tent and nobody can go in there, and I don't
Speaker 1: know if there's Washington, but I just imagine very disgusting
Speaker 1: and it's it's really weird because I don't think that
Speaker 1: it has to be negative, but I definitely think that
Speaker 1: the way that like a lot of our communities engage
Speaker 1: with it is stigmatizing. You know, it's just sad because
Speaker 1: like life comes from this passage exactly and it's the
Speaker 1: it's it's a uniting experience, you know, like we we'll
Speaker 1: all have it, you know, we can we can know that.
Speaker 1: I mean some people don't, but there's a lot of
Speaker 1: people you can rely on. Despite this, you know, I
Speaker 1: still was like, Okay, I'm so young. I was one
Speaker 1: of the first of my friends to have my period.
Speaker 1: Like it was just very strange. And I didn't end
Speaker 1: up going to see my pediatrician until I was like thirteen,
Speaker 1: about like a year after I had initially gone in
Speaker 1: my menstrual cycle. And he's like this very sweet, like
Speaker 1: Filipino doctor. He's been my family doctor forever. You know.
Speaker 1: My dad's with me in the room, like it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm thirteen, man, like, what are you gonna
Speaker 1: do with me? And he's like, oh, yeah, take um aspirin. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you are you closer to your dad and your mom? No,
Speaker 1: I'm closer to both of them equally. I love them both. There,
Speaker 1: you know, there's such they're such good parents. No, I
Speaker 1: do love them. I think it's interesting because my parents
Speaker 1: are older, so seeing them progress has always happened in
Speaker 1: a different way than I saw my friend's parents. You know,
Speaker 1: how my mom was forty. Okay. She was like, I'm not.
Speaker 1: I'm not doing the whole young thing with these kids.
Speaker 1: You you were her first, she had more. Okay, so
Speaker 1: it's hope. Okay, I'm not I'm not forty yet, but
Speaker 1: I'm okay. So this is this is another thing we
Speaker 1: can talk about. Oh my god, the myths around geriatric pregnancy. Okay,
Speaker 1: wait because hold on wait okay, so okay, okay, go ahead. Wait,
Speaker 1: let's because then we got to go into okay, so
Speaker 1: I went to He eventually was like okay, yeah, there're
Speaker 1: he We told him. You know, I've been taking ibprof
Speaker 1: and I've been taking ivent, taking aspirin. It's not helping me.
Speaker 1: And it's like one they weren't helping me. Like they're
Speaker 1: called nd sades non steroid anti inflammatory drugs. They basically
Speaker 1: just try and reduce the body's response to inflammation, right,
Speaker 1: But if you're just treating the body for inflammation over
Speaker 1: and over again, not adjusting the root cause it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's also really bad for your stomach. There's all
Speaker 1: sorts of issues with like continuous like over the counter
Speaker 1: pain medication, you know, consumption stuff. But I get sent
Speaker 1: to this O b G I N. And you know coincidence,
Speaker 1: it's my mom's O B G I N. You know,
Speaker 1: because we're all I'm I'm thirteen, we're all in a family,
Speaker 1: you know, healthcare plan. My dad's with me, and you know,
Speaker 1: she says to me, like, you know, most teen girls
Speaker 1: just have irregular periods, and all that we do is
Speaker 1: just recommend that you go on birth control. So basically,
Speaker 1: from age thirteen, I started taking hormonal birth control and
Speaker 1: it like regulates your cycle basically, so it is essentially
Speaker 1: your ovaries and your uterus that usually communicate with your
Speaker 1: brain are being kind of controlled by like a synthetic
Speaker 1: hormone um. And it's not like I'm not I'm not
Speaker 1: a birth control hater, you know what I mean. I'm
Speaker 1: just this is my experience, and it isn't something we
Speaker 1: should probably readily over prescribe teenage girls, especially teenage girls
Speaker 1: who are in the clinical environment for reproductive health issues already,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Like it was looking back
Speaker 1: on it now as someone that is one day going
Speaker 1: to be a provider, like I think about that situation critically,
Speaker 1: so that basically the harm is that it's thrown off
Speaker 1: the body, Like, what are some of the negative side
Speaker 1: effects of like the hormonal control. Well, one, it didn't
Speaker 1: actually address my symptoms, so I was still experiencing painful
Speaker 1: menstrual cycles, and they didn't really provide me any relief
Speaker 1: other than they gave me like an increase like a milligram,
Speaker 1: you know, like advill or something like that, which is
Speaker 1: like cool, I could just take two of these from CBS,
Speaker 1: like really like what's going on here? But it did
Speaker 1: kind of tied me over until I started experiencing my
Speaker 1: endometrio systptoms really badly, which is when I started college,
Speaker 1: and I was like passing out, Like I was in
Speaker 1: so much pain. I would black out, like or sitting
Speaker 1: in class and fallout. Yeah, and so that's actually what happened.
Speaker 1: So once this situation happened, my roommate was there, you know,
Speaker 1: ended up going to the emergency room and m m
Speaker 1: m yeah. And unfortunately, you know, there's so much that
Speaker 1: needs to change. There's so much that needs to change.
Speaker 1: Talk about So when you're admitted to like an e ER, right,
Speaker 1: they are immediately trying to perform as many tests as
Speaker 1: they can to figure out, Okay, what is this story
Speaker 1: we have the symptoms, right, the patients here, you know,
Speaker 1: reporting these symptoms, but we don't know the cause. So
Speaker 1: they're going to use tests and things. They're going to
Speaker 1: run exams, and they're going to use their education and
Speaker 1: their expertise to make a conclusion. But the conclusions that
Speaker 1: doctors often make are not disentangled from systems of power.
Speaker 1: So the decisions doctors make, you know, about certain things,
Speaker 1: it's impacted by racism, it's impacted by sexism because we
Speaker 1: live in a racist and sexist country, you know, So
Speaker 1: how is it that and we have all this research
Speaker 1: proving you know, that there is different outcomes health outcomes
Speaker 1: from people of color during COVID even why is it
Speaker 1: that people of color were dying of COVID more, you know,
Speaker 1: the white people when we're all in the same country,
Speaker 1: and a lot was just even people that experience I
Speaker 1: don't know what the term is, but difficult pregnancies and
Speaker 1: women of color dying more exactly. So it shows It
Speaker 1: showed me that moment that wow, things really need to change.
Speaker 1: So you feel like a minority when you step through,
Speaker 1: nobody is thinking like you might be. I mean, they
Speaker 1: maybe have questions. They have questions because I don't, you know,
Speaker 1: I can check in Asian box and then they look
Speaker 1: at me and they're like, and I'm like, I know,
Speaker 1: but it's not my choice. There's no Southwest Asian category
Speaker 1: that I can choose. So take what you take, you
Speaker 1: know what saying? Um, When I go into the e R,
Speaker 1: the questions they will immediately ask are, especially with reproductive healthcare,
Speaker 1: are about your sexual activity. So I was seventeen, I
Speaker 1: was in college. I was a person having sex right
Speaker 1: and because of that, they immediately thought, well, you probably
Speaker 1: have honorrhea or chlamydia. You have an STI and that's
Speaker 1: why you're in pain. Because I was experiencing extreme pelvic cramping,
Speaker 1: like extreme pelvic pain, and you know, I'm thinking to myself,
Speaker 1: you're not really a hell like that side side. Like
Speaker 1: I mean, I seventeen years old. I was not as
Speaker 1: conscious and aware of like taking care of your sexual
Speaker 1: health as I am now. But it wasn't like that.
Speaker 1: Like I was getting tested. There was no way I
Speaker 1: had an STI. And you know, they took a sample,
Speaker 1: but they said, this is really really bad. If an
Speaker 1: STI develops into something called pelvic inflammatory disease and it
Speaker 1: can cause infertility. It's so dangerous, traumatic, traumatized. So they're
Speaker 1: telling me all these things and they're like, the thing
Speaker 1: that's going to help you is an antibiotic shot in
Speaker 1: your butt. So I get this antibiotic shot on my
Speaker 1: butt and I pick up my antibiotics and they send
Speaker 1: me home with the referral to an O B G
Speaker 1: I N and UM. I end up having to go
Speaker 1: in early because I'm experiencing so much pain. And basically
Speaker 1: I go to this O B G I N and
Speaker 1: I can just tell she's like overworked. You know, you
Speaker 1: can see when people are just like to sneeze, thank you,
Speaker 1: there you go. So you can just tell when you're
Speaker 1: in a medical environment and someone like doesn't see you
Speaker 1: as a person, you know what I mean, Like they're
Speaker 1: just looking at you like, Okay, I need to get
Speaker 1: this information, give it to me now, please, you know.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't feel great, especially when you're in a
Speaker 1: stressful situation. It makes you feel kind of like uncared for,
Speaker 1: which is not what health care is supposed to be.
Speaker 1: Health care care, you know, we're supposed to want to
Speaker 1: help promote happiness, health and healing. And yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: why I that's why I mean, I want to I
Speaker 1: want to see people thriving and happy and healthy. So
Speaker 1: she mentions to me that my um my tep my
Speaker 1: you know, test for granerie and clamydia came back negative.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, how are you just going to brush
Speaker 1: that off? Like you told me that the cause of
Speaker 1: my pain was this illness and infection that I don't have,
Speaker 1: and now I've taken antibiotics for it, potentially causing harm
Speaker 1: to my body. Because when you take too many antibiotics
Speaker 1: for things that aren't treating, it throws off your balance
Speaker 1: and your gut. But also it can cause your body
Speaker 1: to resist the antibiotics. It's called antibiotic resistance, and it's
Speaker 1: growing more and more common because antibiotics are overprescribed, you know,
Speaker 1: like any time you have an infection, or in my case,
Speaker 1: I didn't have an infection, and I was still prescribed
Speaker 1: them and given them, you know. So she tells me
Speaker 1: that her pain management strategy for me is going to
Speaker 1: be medication, and so, m hmm, how are we figuring
Speaker 1: out the story here? We're just throwing stuff on top
Speaker 1: because we got to figure out why are you in pain?
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the why is the pain existing? Right?
Speaker 1: And mind you, at this time, I'm seventeen and at
Speaker 1: this point I've had at least maybe six or seven
Speaker 1: pop smears. I'm not supposed to have one of those
Speaker 1: twenty one. You know, you don't want to open the
Speaker 1: cervix up to too much contamination, because that's how you
Speaker 1: get infections is by constantly examining an internal body part.
Speaker 1: You know, I'd had, you know, all the panels done,
Speaker 1: all the things, and so she says, you know, my
Speaker 1: pain management strategy for you as medication, So she sends
Speaker 1: me this prescription. I go to pick it up, and
Speaker 1: I was unable to because she prescribed me, uh oxyconton yeah,
Speaker 1: which is you know, like a like a pain killer,
Speaker 1: like a super yeah, a class three narcotic. And I
Speaker 1: wasn't eighteen at the time, so I couldn't even pick
Speaker 1: up that quantity because it would have been a federal crime.
Speaker 1: And that just goes where is that the health care part?
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know, it's it's deeply concerning, but
Speaker 1: when you look at the history of this field in
Speaker 1: the United States, it makes sense. So for me, I'm
Speaker 1: always trying to think about how we and divert you
Speaker 1: know how we can really shift our capacity and energy
Speaker 1: away from this, you know, right right? And I think
Speaker 1: you should in light having conversations like this. Absolutely, she says, Okay,
Speaker 1: you're negative. Then you're like, okay, so what's up. So
Speaker 1: I had another kind of episode where I ended up
Speaker 1: like basically blacking out in pain and an advising meeting,
Speaker 1: which is not cute your first semester of college, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. Luckily, this is like the story
Speaker 1: of like my experiences is like caring people supporting me.
Speaker 1: You know. My advisor let me know that her wife
Speaker 1: actually had endometriosis, this thing called endometriosis, and they couldn't
Speaker 1: figure out what it was for years. She went to
Speaker 1: all these different doctors and um, she kind of gave
Speaker 1: me her phone number and information and said, you know,
Speaker 1: if you want to call her, if you want to talk,
Speaker 1: Like here you go. I immediately left that meeting. I
Speaker 1: called and scheduled an appointment, and I had an appoint
Speaker 1: within like a week and a half. And when I
Speaker 1: got to that appointment, like I just knew that, like
Speaker 1: I felt something was going to change. The nurse that
Speaker 1: did my vitals was like really respectful of me. And
Speaker 1: when I ended up going into the exam room my doctor,
Speaker 1: she did like a full pelvic exam, so you take
Speaker 1: like a it's called a transaginal pelviic exam, goes through
Speaker 1: your vagina. They take this wand you've probably seen it
Speaker 1: and it's like, okay, we're just gonna poke around and yeah,
Speaker 1: and um I noticed she was like oh wow, and
Speaker 1: I was like what. And she's like, you have a
Speaker 1: lot of fluid, like just free floating fluid. So what
Speaker 1: are you feeling right now? You're nervous? Are you scared?
Speaker 1: I just didn't know what it meant at first, so
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, there's fluid, what like what's wrong?
Speaker 1: Like what could it be? And then she gets to
Speaker 1: my ovaries and she's like okay. So she's like all right,
Speaker 1: like we're okay, we're done. And I'm also in pain
Speaker 1: at this point because basically I was in constant pelvic pain.
Speaker 1: Like so you're you are you administring? No, you're not,
Speaker 1: You're not in your cycle, You're just you're just Oh
Speaker 1: so when you have endometriosis, you're just in pain all
Speaker 1: the time, not just beak of a cramps. Yeah, oh,
Speaker 1: you kind of don't get relief because when your menstrual
Speaker 1: cycle is bad, it causes your pelvic floor, which is
Speaker 1: this muscle group we have that holds up our body.
Speaker 1: It gets tight and spastic. So I experienced muscle spasms
Speaker 1: and it's like you can you can feel it, like
Speaker 1: you can like you're like like you can literally hear yeah,
Speaker 1: because no one wants to feel like their body, you know.
Speaker 1: So I go to her office and I had never
Speaker 1: sat down in like a doctor's office where they're at
Speaker 1: a table and you're like, this is what they do
Speaker 1: in the movies, I felt like and she said the
Speaker 1: word endometriosis, and that second I heard it, I was
Speaker 1: just like like it was like everything else just became silent,
Speaker 1: Like I was just like, whoa, this is like happening.
Speaker 1: I'm being validated. You know, my pain is acknowledged, my reality,
Speaker 1: my experience is being honored. But what the heck? This
Speaker 1: is like my life now? And did you know what
Speaker 1: it meant at that time? I did because I had yes.
Speaker 1: But also I had been like acts like asking and
Speaker 1: advocating to get tested for endometriosis since I first started
Speaker 1: seeing one doctor. I had been through like almost a
Speaker 1: dozen O. B. G Yan's. Like literally one of them
Speaker 1: told me like, oh, you should get pregnant. Wait what
Speaker 1: because then you want have a menstrual cycle? What does
Speaker 1: that even mean? Like what why are you? Was that
Speaker 1: a male doctor? It was a male doctor. It was ridiculous.
Speaker 1: It was ridiculous. I mean one of them recommended a
Speaker 1: full hysterectomy. Are you seen? So forget any Okay, go ahead.
Speaker 1: It was It was really weird too, because I've never
Speaker 1: hated my like uterus, like I've been in so much
Speaker 1: pain from it, but I don't hate it. I just
Speaker 1: I am always trying to understand it better. But to
Speaker 1: have someone wants to remove it from me, you know,
Speaker 1: it was a very weird experience. And it was so
Speaker 1: nonchalant for him. I remember, like, and you're sitting in
Speaker 1: the stirrups, so you know it's you're very so this
Speaker 1: doctor actually that finally diagnosed me correctly. She said, the
Speaker 1: reason why I think you have endometrios this is you
Speaker 1: said you were hospitalized. I found a bunch of free
Speaker 1: um floating fluid in your pelvic cavity. Right, Usually that's
Speaker 1: the result of is of ovarian cysts. Right, So it's
Speaker 1: likely that the pain that sent me to the hospital
Speaker 1: was the pain from ovarian cysts bursting. Yeah, And so
Speaker 1: I was experiencing that rupturing pain that is like very
Speaker 1: very bad. It just for a second, or is it
Speaker 1: like No, it's like it's not a pop. It's like
Speaker 1: like or like a it feels like you're muscles, like
Speaker 1: your pelvic floor and your uterus are being slowly pulled
Speaker 1: through like something very hard to pull it through, like
Speaker 1: there's resistance. You can feel it. It's very uncomfortable. And
Speaker 1: luckily I have not experienced ovary insists since then, right,
Speaker 1: because I had a doctor that I saw that I
Speaker 1: had these symptoms. She saw the reason why she ended
Speaker 1: the exam was because she saw very low egg follical
Speaker 1: account and so that's common in women. Are people with endometriosis,
Speaker 1: is infertility or reduced um you know, ovarian follicles, right
Speaker 1: or eggs And so that to hear that, you know,
Speaker 1: I've always known that I'm going to be a mother
Speaker 1: and wanted to have children, and that's something that's very
Speaker 1: sacred to me, and I never anticipated to hear anything
Speaker 1: along the lines of you can't do that, or that
Speaker 1: might not be possible for you at that age. I
Speaker 1: mean it was really there was no one else that
Speaker 1: I knew that had experienced because we don't talk about
Speaker 1: these things. We don't talk about I saw you post
Speaker 1: something on Instagram. Is this when they said you had
Speaker 1: the ovaries of a thirty forty? What was it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Like I had the ovarian follical count of like someone
Speaker 1: that was like it was like thirty two or thirty four.
Speaker 1: I was seventeen when they did. Yeah. And so basically
Speaker 1: what that was a result of was years of untreated inflammation,
Speaker 1: you know, and chronic pain. I mean pain, It sucks,
Speaker 1: but it tells us something because your body shouldn't just
Speaker 1: be heard, Yeah, just hurt, just like we shouldn't just
Speaker 1: hurt people. Yeah. So I met her. She put me
Speaker 1: on a bunch of different treatments. Some of them didn't work.
Speaker 1: Most of them didn't work. Um. I basically tried every
Speaker 1: kind of birth control that like exists, like the patch,
Speaker 1: the ring, the pill, all the things didn't work. Then
Speaker 1: I had surgery and I had an IUD inserted, and
Speaker 1: that was to help manage the endometriosis. And I started
Speaker 1: pelvic floor physical therapy and so that is. I'm so
Speaker 1: glad you asked. So it's because it's really out asked
Speaker 1: a question. Okay, So this is the thing. Pelvic or
Speaker 1: physical therapy is the fairy godmother that you never know
Speaker 1: you needed. So our public floor, especially as people that
Speaker 1: have uterus is and reproductive organs that can carry babies
Speaker 1: and stuff, takes a beating. We stand not straight. We slouch,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. We sloug right, We fold
Speaker 1: our transverse abdominal muscles. We don't really engage our core,
Speaker 1: so we kind of just like flop around a lot
Speaker 1: of the time. And our PUBLC floor can create these
Speaker 1: kind of tight areas or areas of tightness. Right. The
Speaker 1: vagina is really cool because it like can move so much,
Speaker 1: but the muscle it can't do the most. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a muscle. You have to train it. So what
Speaker 1: public exactly? So it's not just keegels, but it's basically
Speaker 1: doing work with a physical therapist who helps to manipulate
Speaker 1: a maneuver different tools inside of your vagina. Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, this is so weird, Like does it turn
Speaker 1: you on? This is not it was not like it's
Speaker 1: feeling good. It's like you're learning a part of your body.
Speaker 1: You're learning how to really understand how it moves, and
Speaker 1: you're like gripping or clenches. Yeah. Yeah, this is before
Speaker 1: after you had surgery. So I started it before, but
Speaker 1: it was prescribed to me, like I think one session
Speaker 1: a week about like three weeks after I had surgery,
Speaker 1: and I did it for like six seven months straight
Speaker 1: and it changed my life. Okay, So what was the
Speaker 1: surgery call that you had bilateral laparoscopic Oblazian surgery. Okay,
Speaker 1: obliging surgery. Okay, Um, you how long was the healing
Speaker 1: process was it? Yeah? You said something about your behaveal
Speaker 1: and you know, like, what did it feel like? So
Speaker 1: I've never had surgery before war I was like, and
Speaker 1: I'm also someone that is affected by medication very heavily,
Speaker 1: so I know it long. Yeah, I know, because that's
Speaker 1: why it's like I think, once I decided to like
Speaker 1: really get to a better understanding what my issues were,
Speaker 1: and that meant, you know, not taking all these narcotics
Speaker 1: that were being given to me, not taking all these
Speaker 1: prescription pain medications and birth control. So the healing time
Speaker 1: for me took about a month. They say it'll take
Speaker 1: two weeks, three weeks. It took me a month. They
Speaker 1: put this camera in your belly button. They cut like
Speaker 1: a hole. So yeah, it's kind of like okay, by
Speaker 1: belly button, you know what I mean. I do have
Speaker 1: a belly, but it's like different, like you can like
Speaker 1: I can see the scar, which is so interesting because
Speaker 1: most of the time people don't have like secrets in
Speaker 1: their belly buttons, you know, but it's kind of cool.
Speaker 1: So and then they put two incisions like kind of
Speaker 1: closer to where your ovary would lay, and they use
Speaker 1: these tools to cauterize and you know, take out the
Speaker 1: end of metrial adhesions, and they put you under general
Speaker 1: in asthesia, you know. And it's usually like a relatively
Speaker 1: short surgery one to two hours. I think mine lasted
Speaker 1: about two. And I just remember waking up and feeling
Speaker 1: like so disoriented. Um, I was super confused, and I
Speaker 1: was like is it okay? Like are we okay? Like
Speaker 1: are we good? I saw my doctor and she was like, yes,
Speaker 1: it's okay, We're gonna be okay, Like this was it
Speaker 1: was a successful surgery, just like we can show you
Speaker 1: pictures later. I was like, I'm gonna look at pictures
Speaker 1: of my uterus what like wild but it was. I
Speaker 1: woke up and was in pain, but I felt like
Speaker 1: crying tears of happiness because it took me a really
Speaker 1: long time to even get that surgery, and for most
Speaker 1: people it will take longer. The average age to get
Speaker 1: diagnosed with endometriosis is seven year years and I started
Speaker 1: having symptoms at thirteen. I had my surgery at fifteen
Speaker 1: or not fifteen, sorry, eighteen, so that was five years.
Speaker 1: That's shorter on average, and it will take any other person.
Speaker 1: And so I consider myself to be one of the
Speaker 1: lucky ones honestly, because there are people out here that
Speaker 1: have been suffering for years. I can't imagine that even
Speaker 1: when you're not on your sack, when you're cramping or
Speaker 1: in pain. Yeah, and also like it leads like it
Speaker 1: it impacts your life so holistically, like hormonally, your emotions
Speaker 1: are going to change, you know what I mean. Like
Speaker 1: I never felt like I was out of PMS because
Speaker 1: it was just like I was feeling so much pain
Speaker 1: and hormones. Like it's very uncomfortable and it's hard when
Speaker 1: you have chronic pain too, but you don't look necessarily
Speaker 1: disabled people are just like, oh, well, what's wrong with you?
Speaker 1: And it's like I have coucy issues, like leave me
Speaker 1: be Like I have issues with my vagina. So like,
Speaker 1: I was really happy when I had my surgery. But
Speaker 1: I also want to make sure that we don't have
Speaker 1: to just have surgery is the only option. I want
Speaker 1: to see a world where people with endometrios is don't
Speaker 1: have to rely on surgery as their you know, treatment
Speaker 1: as the gold standard, because ultimately, we should not have
Speaker 1: to have robots and little cameras go in our bodies
Speaker 1: for us to be able to get concrete answers about
Speaker 1: our health. Can it be caused by stress or anything? Um,
Speaker 1: your pain can definitely be increased and that's that was
Speaker 1: chronics your face if you breaking out, you will lose hair,
Speaker 1: you can grow tumors like what And people actually, um
Speaker 1: take birth control to control their hormones, like like if
Speaker 1: they if they experienced two intense fluctuations, yeah, mm hmm.
Speaker 1: So what did the doctors say, did they say, did
Speaker 1: they give you a percentage? Right? Are you able to
Speaker 1: have children now? Or what? Do they say? Yeah? So luckily.
Speaker 1: The the other thing is ultrasound imagery is not accurate.
Speaker 1: It is a guess. The body is not two D,
Speaker 1: it's three D, right, So when you're using an ultrasound,
Speaker 1: you're getting a two D image of a three D object, right,
Speaker 1: So you can't always see the depth. You can't always
Speaker 1: see That's why, you know, if anyone ever tells you, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: my doctor did an ultrasound on me, and they said,
Speaker 1: my baby is big and I won't be able to
Speaker 1: push my baby out. Well, ultrasounds are not that efficient
Speaker 1: actually predicting things. They're just pieces of information that we
Speaker 1: ultimately use, you know. But the kind of effective rate
Speaker 1: of ultrasounds predicting things has been shown to not be
Speaker 1: that high. And that's just looking at different like actual
Speaker 1: controlled studies, but also comprehensive reviews of all the studies
Speaker 1: about ultrasounds. So she said that we would have to
Speaker 1: do some extense of blood work, and so I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that would mean like twelve vials of blood.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm getting like poked and prodded. But they
Speaker 1: look at all of the different hormones in your blood.
Speaker 1: They look at lots of different panels and things like that,
Speaker 1: and to get an estimate basically about how many are
Speaker 1: left or how many are there, and luckily that information
Speaker 1: led to a conclusion that I did not have as
Speaker 1: depleted over in reserve as they had. Initiative thought, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know that. I love that you were like holding
Speaker 1: your breath because that's you know, that's that's something that
Speaker 1: when you are told things like that, you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's very weird, but you know there's hope, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do know that there's a And you know, this
Speaker 1: is another thing I really want people to know is
Speaker 1: that we live in a world where people with endometriosis
Speaker 1: get pregnant. You know, we live in that world. We
Speaker 1: live in a world where there's lots of different types
Speaker 1: of insemination method. It's doesn't necessarily need to be I
Speaker 1: v F because everyone thinks IVF is like the main thing.
Speaker 1: But you know, queer people have been inseminating each other
Speaker 1: for a long time with different things, so we have
Speaker 1: alternate ways, you know, and it's it's good to see
Speaker 1: that be normalized. And being that you are a doula,
Speaker 1: you've seen some of these things. Yeah, I've I've seen
Speaker 1: and I've heard. But okay, so when we come back,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about your your life as a doula, okay,
Speaker 1: and also I'm gonna get your thoughts on versus way okay,
Speaker 1: All right, y'all, we'll be right back. Fine, this is Vanessavil, callaway, peace.
Speaker 1: What's up everybody? This is trade change and you are
Speaker 1: listening to Lent with Don Day. Hold on, So before
Speaker 1: we jump back into our conversations there, you mentioned about
Speaker 1: geriatric pregnancy. You said it's a myth. So I said
Speaker 1: it's a myth because the term aeriatric pregnancy refers to
Speaker 1: anybody that gets pregnant over the age of thirty five.
Speaker 1: So at thirty five years old, you're not geriatric. Your
Speaker 1: pregnancy is not geriatric. Like I'm pretty sure that the
Speaker 1: study that was actually used to determine the optimal age
Speaker 1: for reproduction was based entirely on studying white women, and
Speaker 1: um come on say it. Don't hold back. Come on,
Speaker 1: We're not them. We're just not them. We come from
Speaker 1: different communities where our bodies are different. You know, we
Speaker 1: hold our children differently, we nurture our children differently. So
Speaker 1: when I hear people say the term geriatric pregnancy, it
Speaker 1: just reminds me of how much like medicine has made
Speaker 1: women and people fear they're own body's capacity. You know,
Speaker 1: what do you mean by their own capacity? Like what
Speaker 1: the body can do? Like limits on magic limits like
Speaker 1: Janet Jackson exactly, like and it's it's person to person
Speaker 1: like it's not, it's not. It's really weird too that
Speaker 1: I see like most of the people saying that encouraging
Speaker 1: people to have kids in their early twenties, because I'm like,
Speaker 1: in this economy, somebody still take care with no you know,
Speaker 1: structure for caregiving. We don't have preschools that have capacity
Speaker 1: right now that have popped back up since COVID. You know,
Speaker 1: we don't have support for moms that's like accessible, you know,
Speaker 1: we don't have support for dads almost like you know,
Speaker 1: just this part of the conversation has really gotten me inspired.
Speaker 1: One like my mom had me at was my mom
Speaker 1: thirty five? Yeah, my mom was thirty five and yeah,
Speaker 1: because she was thirty two and I'm I'm thirty said
Speaker 1: and that that is something that hits my hand. I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: what does that look like? Me want to have children
Speaker 1: at the point right now, like I'm working out and stuff.
Speaker 1: And I've said this before, like I feel like I've
Speaker 1: been pregnant my whole life. So whoever I'm my partner,
Speaker 1: she gonna have to carry your fist. Man, we're gonna
Speaker 1: have to find Yeah, I just I don't see that
Speaker 1: happening at least, that's what I'm saying right now. I
Speaker 1: don't want to stop that. But yeah, I hear that
Speaker 1: is that. I mean, that's that's it. That's you know,
Speaker 1: And I want to say and let me, let me
Speaker 1: use my words properly to say that I felt pregnant
Speaker 1: because I know that there is more than that to
Speaker 1: that before it's what it means to me is just
Speaker 1: carrying the weight, and I know that it is more
Speaker 1: than just a weight. It is a life. There is
Speaker 1: something beauty. But my experience and how it's been, how
Speaker 1: it's felt to me to not have a stomach, that's
Speaker 1: something I'm looking forward to. It could change because as
Speaker 1: I'm hearing and I'm hearing something else and I'm judging myself.
Speaker 1: But but this is your truth right now, so just
Speaker 1: and so flexibility to change exactly. And that's the thing
Speaker 1: is that I'm so glad you can say you have
Speaker 1: the flexibility to change and not think, oh well, I
Speaker 1: have to decide right now. I have to go harvest
Speaker 1: my eggs right now so that I can preserve them
Speaker 1: and have my embryos frozen. You don't need to do that.
Speaker 1: And because you know I have fibroids, and so I
Speaker 1: was asking you what was your experience like when you
Speaker 1: were like, oh my gosh, this is endometriosis. To hear
Speaker 1: how you handled it so cool. I remember I would
Speaker 1: I didn't even know, and you know you said something,
Speaker 1: you said, don you should just not be in pain.
Speaker 1: I will never forget I. Um I was going to
Speaker 1: my friend's birthday, Dion. I was in so much pain
Speaker 1: I couldn't even get out the car. And the thing
Speaker 1: that was interesting, I had went to see my um
Speaker 1: my general practitioner. She had did my uh my path
Speaker 1: and she had noticed that it was it was abnormal.
Speaker 1: Abnormal she said, was always kind of large. Let me
Speaker 1: recommend you over to O B G Y N. And
Speaker 1: I felt like you. I felt like I was disregarded,
Speaker 1: like I felt judge because um I was heavier than
Speaker 1: I was now. But she was doing her examination, She's like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's just sound much tissue. And I was just like,
Speaker 1: first of all, you're up in me. Then you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I just can't see, and she had said, oh, there's
Speaker 1: five words. But I almost felt like it was a
Speaker 1: shame thing. And from then it took I waited, I
Speaker 1: dismissed it and go to the doctor. Then fast forward, um,
Speaker 1: she had did uh, she had to test to test
Speaker 1: a tissue. It came out uncancers, so that was fine,
Speaker 1: but they still wanted to say, hey, we should remove this.
Speaker 1: Really but at that point, I'm in so much shame,
Speaker 1: so I'm just like, forget it. I'm just I hadn't
Speaker 1: experienced any pain then. Ever since she did that Bobus,
Speaker 1: I think like the following the next two months, I'm
Speaker 1: saying cramps. I couldn't even get out the bed, and
Speaker 1: I it hurt me so bad because I thought of
Speaker 1: my mother. She transitioned from stage for a breast cancer.
Speaker 1: I remember the time that she wasn't paying she was
Speaker 1: calling out to her mother and I said, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I can't even imagine the type of pain that she
Speaker 1: had experienced. And then that's when I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: there's something that I need to do about this. And
Speaker 1: I think more conversations like this and people saying like, hey,
Speaker 1: this has happened to me. When you feel this type
Speaker 1: of pain, you should talk about And if your doctor
Speaker 1: or somebody else makes you feel uncomfortable, figure out somebody
Speaker 1: that does and what it feels like when you are
Speaker 1: comfortable and it is the right person. And ultimately we
Speaker 1: need to normalize these things because we should not suffer
Speaker 1: in silence. There's that is like another level and layer
Speaker 1: of the injustices. You have something about suffering in silence,
Speaker 1: right are you? Lord? You're talking? If there's a book
Speaker 1: silence will not produce? You got that book that looks
Speaker 1: at we got goodies that Sarah has brought um. But wait,
Speaker 1: before there, we had to talk about the myth of
Speaker 1: geriator pregnancy, knowing that it is based on a certain
Speaker 1: group of people. Knowing that if you do not identify
Speaker 1: or classify yourself as such person or as said person,
Speaker 1: there is possibility and not limit the magic of our bodies.
Speaker 1: I mean, life comes from this. Now at this point,
Speaker 1: now that you're like okay, you go to the doctor,
Speaker 1: they say, hey, I'm like cases, you can still possibly
Speaker 1: have children, you can possibly bring in life. Now you're
Speaker 1: in a career path where you're actually bringing in life
Speaker 1: and well not only bringing. But you're a full spectrum
Speaker 1: do so? Okay, tell us about this. Okay, so do
Speaker 1: you want to do like dula versus midwife or just
Speaker 1: what is it? And then you have the midwife versus
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's just the regular delivery person
Speaker 1: with the doctor. So we do so we can go
Speaker 1: through all the terms. Okay. So, adula is a labor
Speaker 1: support person, right, It's someone that is with you for
Speaker 1: the physical, emotional and spiritual transition of pregnant to not pregnant,
Speaker 1: pregnant you know, with baby in you, and then labor
Speaker 1: that process and then postpartum so the aftermath. I am
Speaker 1: a full spectrum doula, So that means that I am
Speaker 1: trained in supporting a person through the full spectrum of
Speaker 1: possibilities that could happen with pregnancy outcomes. So that could
Speaker 1: look like supporting someone experiencing a still birth, experiencing a
Speaker 1: miscarriage or early pregnancy loss, someone seeking an abortion, or
Speaker 1: someone ultimately you know, giving birth. So anything that falls
Speaker 1: along that spectrum I am trained to provide support for. Okay, um, So,
Speaker 1: then what's the difference between a doula and a midwife? Okay,
Speaker 1: So a doula is a non medical personnel, so we
Speaker 1: often have training in some form of medicine or some
Speaker 1: medical field, but our role anything medical is out of
Speaker 1: our scope, Whereas a midwife is a trained professional who
Speaker 1: has either undergone a direct entry route meaning that they
Speaker 1: attended a university and had an apprenticeship or preceptorship and
Speaker 1: had to sit and take an exam, or a nurse midwife.
Speaker 1: A nurse midwife is someone who is a nurse and
Speaker 1: midwife that has midwif free training, but there's kind of
Speaker 1: separate entry routes, So midwives differ from doctors in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways. One midwives us the midwif free model
Speaker 1: of care. Two midwives WI free model real quick. Okay,
Speaker 1: So the midwif free model of care is an approach
Speaker 1: and model of providing care for someone experiencing pregnancy that
Speaker 1: recognizes that it is a normal, natural, and common part
Speaker 1: of life, not a medical emergency that should be managed.
Speaker 1: So the midwiff free model of care basically is grounded
Speaker 1: in the principle that in the absence of um like
Speaker 1: anything that would confirm otherwise, we should allow natural processes
Speaker 1: to continue, right, So interventions are only suggested when there's
Speaker 1: evidence to indicate that there is a problem, but they're
Speaker 1: not looking for problems where an O, B, G, I.
Speaker 1: N may typically run a practice where that would happen.
Speaker 1: And what would they be looking for a problem, because
Speaker 1: then they can operate on you and they can do
Speaker 1: a C section, and then they can bill you not
Speaker 1: only for the surgeon's fees, but for the antithesiologists. The
Speaker 1: O R fees usually have to do two three stay.
Speaker 1: You know, having highly medicalized births is highly profitable for
Speaker 1: the medical industrial complex, and they make so much money
Speaker 1: off of birth that it is a business offer. Like
Speaker 1: the whole medical realms. It is so you I mean
Speaker 1: the way you you you gave, like the side I
Speaker 1: I feel like you're not really four like going to
Speaker 1: the doctor. So I don't want to say that. I
Speaker 1: want to see us having legitimate systems of community health care.
Speaker 1: And I think that a lot of people think that
Speaker 1: that means we can't rely or trust nurse as our doctors.
Speaker 1: But it's really to me about training to build relationships, right,
Speaker 1: because when you're caring for someone and you're kind of
Speaker 1: holding a lot of power in regards to their health
Speaker 1: in their life, that's a very serious, sacred relationship that
Speaker 1: you're making with them. And I think that the way
Speaker 1: we operate currently doesn't allow for these relationships to occur.
Speaker 1: And oftentimes doctors and medical personnel are unable to invest
Speaker 1: right enough time or one on one energy with their
Speaker 1: patients for their health care outcomes to actually address their
Speaker 1: health care needs. You know, because when we when we
Speaker 1: don't talk to each other, when when we really don't
Speaker 1: have a way of relating to the other person and
Speaker 1: connecting with them that is not simply based on trying
Speaker 1: to extract this list of um you know, statistics or
Speaker 1: data that you're trying to seek to make a diagnosis,
Speaker 1: it becomes easier to see people as products. We need
Speaker 1: to put the humanity back in healthcare. We really do so.
Speaker 1: And uh is there something that a midwife could not
Speaker 1: do that perhaps doctor could do. So that depends on
Speaker 1: state to state. But currently O, B, G, I, N
Speaker 1: S are treated and have the utmost authority when it
Speaker 1: comes to birth right their medical doctors. They know they've
Speaker 1: done the research. Most of them, if not all, have
Speaker 1: probably not seen a natural like normal physiological earth, you know,
Speaker 1: without UM some sort of intervention, whether it be in
Speaker 1: i V whether it be you know, a fully bulb
Speaker 1: to dilate their cervix, whether it be um you know,
Speaker 1: forceps apsotomy, you know, the cutting of the perennium. So
Speaker 1: they are used to engaging with birth in a medical
Speaker 1: context for whatever reason, they hold the most authority. They
Speaker 1: have prescriptive authority. They are allowed to govern each other
Speaker 1: and themselves. But midwives are a different kind of category
Speaker 1: because doctors have a vested interest in trying to, you know,
Speaker 1: stigmatize the midwiffree profession. You know, it's easy to say
Speaker 1: that midwives are uneducated and dirty and don't use practices
Speaker 1: that are up to standard, right, because we birth at home,
Speaker 1: we birth in community, so exactly like you can see, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know things aren't sterile exactly right, Okay, sure, And
Speaker 1: that's exactly how I was for years and years, and
Speaker 1: then I actually learned about the process of earth a
Speaker 1: physiological birth and learned that the interventions that are pushed
Speaker 1: onto people are not ultimately more helpful than not intervening.
Speaker 1: There are people that are told that they won't be
Speaker 1: able to push their baby out because their baby is
Speaker 1: too big, right, um who said that? Like, whose baby
Speaker 1: is too big? Like why what? What? What? What does
Speaker 1: that mean? Like what does that? Like? What does that mean?
Speaker 1: The baby's too big? Like the baby was grown in
Speaker 1: this thing, so it's big enough, you know. But I'm
Speaker 1: I'm getting flash this girl to house a dragon. Did
Speaker 1: you watch? Are you watching it? Did you watch? On? No?
Speaker 1: I heard there's a scen God heard there's a scene
Speaker 1: or where the mom dies. Yeah, and and then and
Speaker 1: and she was having, you know, issue, really difficult labor,
Speaker 1: and I'm just wondering what was We can't talk about this,
Speaker 1: I know, but but I will say that that a
Speaker 1: lot of people have talked to me about that, and
Speaker 1: they're like, it was so scary, it was so horrible.
Speaker 1: And I was like so happy to hear people say that,
Speaker 1: because I think that was the first time that, like
Speaker 1: pop culture wise, people realize that, like maternal morbidity is
Speaker 1: an issue. My mother before she passed, she said, I
Speaker 1: got her own type. She says, don She said, having
Speaker 1: a baby is like going through death. It's it's like
Speaker 1: death and rebirth. A lot of people describe it as
Speaker 1: because like you're going to the deepest parts of yourself
Speaker 1: and finding the straight it's a lot more mental than
Speaker 1: it is physical often, you know, and and and even
Speaker 1: just thinking that I didn't even think about to touch
Speaker 1: on this with you with just a historical context or
Speaker 1: with pregnancy. You know, how was it enforced on women
Speaker 1: and and and what that meant for a woman at
Speaker 1: the time, resus today. But let's get back. So we
Speaker 1: talked and about how whether they're saying like Midwiffrey and
Speaker 1: it's not as sanitary until you were doing it, you said, hey,
Speaker 1: it isn't called dirty. Yeah, it's not dirty because um
Speaker 1: birth is a natural process that's meant to occur, right,
Speaker 1: We're meant to exit and our bodies and immune systems
Speaker 1: then learned so much information as we exit, you know,
Speaker 1: the vaginal canal, as we exit the body. That doesn't
Speaker 1: happen with caesarean births because with cesarean births, the body
Speaker 1: is not actually physically able to process birth in a
Speaker 1: way that it is meant to occur. Right. So, cesarean
Speaker 1: birth is when um our surgical birth. Sometimes they're called
Speaker 1: a lot of times they're called cesarian sections, but yes,
Speaker 1: c section, that's super common. I try and use language
Speaker 1: like caesarian birth or surgical birth because they are still births,
Speaker 1: you know, they are still births. People that have s
Speaker 1: arean births still have birth, you know, inclusively, it's we
Speaker 1: I've seen the ways that gentle cesareans work, which is
Speaker 1: where you know, instead of baby being rushed immediately cord
Speaker 1: clamp boom done, like everyone separated. It's like this huge
Speaker 1: emergency um. You know, the baby is placed on the
Speaker 1: chest of the birth person and you know they can
Speaker 1: connect and they do a bedside evaluation of the infant
Speaker 1: instead of taking the infant to a different station to
Speaker 1: check it. A super shock, yeah, because I mean for
Speaker 1: the entire existence, they had the heartbeat, they had the
Speaker 1: warmth of this being and immediately. So so when you
Speaker 1: talked about the entry into this world and whether or
Speaker 1: not scessarian birth or a natural birth or vaginal Oh,
Speaker 1: is there a difference between someone having birth on their
Speaker 1: back versus maybe squatting. So there's a physiological difference. When
Speaker 1: you're on your back, you're not in the ideal position
Speaker 1: to actually expand your pelvis. So our pelvic bones and
Speaker 1: like structures are really cool because they're actually they move.
Speaker 1: You know, they're joined by ligaments and so as you
Speaker 1: move your body, you can feel certain parts of your
Speaker 1: body moving and expanding. So squatting, for example, allows the
Speaker 1: kind of like pelvic floor muscles to relax. They're not
Speaker 1: as like tense, which allows baby to descend usually like quicker.
Speaker 1: When you're laying on your back, you are kind of
Speaker 1: in one of the worst positions, are you au farious,
Speaker 1: because when you're giving birth, you need to think about
Speaker 1: how you're making space right, Like it's like a It's
Speaker 1: like Jenga, you know that game Jenga, making space ensuring
Speaker 1: that everyone gets a turn. That's kind of how it
Speaker 1: is in the body. Like the pelvic bones and all
Speaker 1: of our bones, like in this general area are able
Speaker 1: to move. We have these bones called sits bones that
Speaker 1: they're movable on our back, not movable like, oh, you
Speaker 1: can touch it and it moves. But depending on the
Speaker 1: position you're in, it will change the amount of space
Speaker 1: that there is for a baby to exit your body.
Speaker 1: So a lot of times we tell people to push
Speaker 1: with their knees in because when you put your knees in,
Speaker 1: what's actually happening is your low pelvis is being opened up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it depends. I have a bunch of different um
Speaker 1: and a lot of birthworkers have to um like rotations
Speaker 1: or kind of like sets that you can do depending
Speaker 1: on where the baby is in your body's like if
Speaker 1: you want more like space in the mid pelvis right,
Speaker 1: or if you need more space in the outer pelvic inlet.
Speaker 1: There's certain positions and kind of movements you can do
Speaker 1: at different stages of labor, and these are things that
Speaker 1: you probably won't do with it. V. G u Ant probably. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So that's why it's really important to hire a dula.
Speaker 1: You know, So, is a midwife the same as adula? No? Okay,
Speaker 1: so what's the difference between those two, right? So midwives
Speaker 1: are medical personnel, right, because they're still dulas are non medical.
Speaker 1: So as in my capacity as a dula, I do
Speaker 1: not touch any of the equipment from any of the practitioners,
Speaker 1: whether it be a midwife or a doctor, and there's
Speaker 1: practitioner or something. You know, I'm there for the birthing
Speaker 1: person and whoever else is there with them. You know,
Speaker 1: it's my sole focus to really be there for them,
Speaker 1: and part of that usually looks like taking inventory of
Speaker 1: the relationships and the energy in the room. So you're
Speaker 1: not pulling the baby out, You're not Oh, I'm not pulling. No,
Speaker 1: we don't want to pull babies out. So you also,
Speaker 1: dulas are not like that, but emotional support. You guys
Speaker 1: aren't actually taking the baby out. You just like you
Speaker 1: know what makes us because your energy is so calm.
Speaker 1: In fact, was telling Jeremiah about you from when we
Speaker 1: met months ago. I was like, I was like, her
Speaker 1: energy is how people describe my voice to be because
Speaker 1: people be like doing your voice is like so soothing
Speaker 1: almost like I was like, when you see her her energy,
Speaker 1: it's like, not in a degrading way, but it's so sexy.
Speaker 1: It's so alluring, just so like come here, and then
Speaker 1: she'll be looking with her eyes and stuff, and then
Speaker 1: she got the wings on the side of I was
Speaker 1: like saying, stop, I cannot, But that means a lot,
Speaker 1: because you know, it really is a great energy. Well,
Speaker 1: I will hopefully be helping catching babies. I'm going to
Speaker 1: be applying to midwin Free School soon, so I'm really excited.
Speaker 1: And so that means so you're kind of never once
Speaker 1: are you going to consider being ob gy? Now? Wait,
Speaker 1: why did you you had a second up? I mean,
Speaker 1: I thought you got the aspect of school to get
Speaker 1: in your way. I just don't think that I would
Speaker 1: thrive in a medical program like a like going to
Speaker 1: med school, I would develop more enemies than friends, And
Speaker 1: I wouldn't want to feel like I'm the odd one out,
Speaker 1: Like I actually want to learn with other people that
Speaker 1: like believe in the power of people's bodies and and
Speaker 1: their autonomy. You know, I don't want to like be
Speaker 1: the lone person having to advocate for this, like when
Speaker 1: I don't have to be Plus, I've considered it, right,
Speaker 1: I've considered it, but ultimately at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: I just don't think i'd want that power either. So
Speaker 1: I was talking about power. What's my thoughts on this
Speaker 1: whole row versus ways? Which part which part? Whatever comes
Speaker 1: to mind. It's because we're talking about rights and whether
Speaker 1: or not somebody can terminate a pregnancy. And the thing
Speaker 1: is is that sometimes what if it's a life or
Speaker 1: death situation, or what if you know, it's somebody is
Speaker 1: a victim of some type of sexual abuse, or just
Speaker 1: like they don't want to be pregnant. Yeah, Like, there's
Speaker 1: plenty of times where I think we have to like
Speaker 1: give ourselves the grace to be like it doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be like the worst thing ever for us to
Speaker 1: like support someone's abortion, you know what I mean, because
Speaker 1: like I think those arguments they're super super galvanizing and
Speaker 1: like it's like, oh, that's so like that's such a
Speaker 1: good point, right, But ultimately, we support people's bodily autonomy,
Speaker 1: not just when they're in crisis situations you know, or
Speaker 1: experience or you know, victims of violence or harm. Like
Speaker 1: we want people to have autonomy all the time. But
Speaker 1: is it not look that like, well, you're responsible enough
Speaker 1: to get pregnant, so you need to figure out what
Speaker 1: to do with right, But where does that idea come
Speaker 1: from that just because we have the organs to get pregnant,
Speaker 1: that like if we do, it says something about us,
Speaker 1: you know. For me, like I don't think if someone
Speaker 1: gets pregnant that like it means that like, oh, you
Speaker 1: know you like most people say like, oh, you did
Speaker 1: the deed. You got to kind of like open up
Speaker 1: or be willing to take responsibility. But like you're not
Speaker 1: wrong for getting pregnant. You know, that just happens sometimes,
Speaker 1: Like it's just something that happens in life. Sometimes people
Speaker 1: can control it, sometimes they can't. It's neither here nor there.
Speaker 1: It's going to happen. You know. I think we spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time focusing on the like perception of
Speaker 1: like what like, oh, someone like that, you know, someone
Speaker 1: like that, someone who would have unprotected sex, you know,
Speaker 1: someone who would do these things that maybe don't fit
Speaker 1: into our purview of what we would do. But what
Speaker 1: does that say about us? Then? Yeah, like when we
Speaker 1: need support, we really should be met with judgment. So
Speaker 1: you feel like Row versus Way, which you're highly opposed
Speaker 1: because the judgment not just the judgment, but I mean
Speaker 1: it's literally limiting abortions healthcare. You know, we're literally revoking
Speaker 1: people's access to healthcare because of like men, like literally
Speaker 1: men made this decision, you know, and it was bad
Speaker 1: before Row. I want people to know that of counties
Speaker 1: in California do not have a single abortion clinic and
Speaker 1: we are you know, blue state, we protect us. This
Speaker 1: is right now of counties. I mean that's like a
Speaker 1: fucking lot of people, Like it's millions of people that
Speaker 1: I have to drive miles even to just get to
Speaker 1: a clinic. I mean when when we think about it
Speaker 1: like that, and this is the issue that I have too,
Speaker 1: is you know, g have a Newsom, the governor announced
Speaker 1: that there's this like scholarship fund for nursing students and
Speaker 1: people that are going to be providing abortion related health care. Cool.
Speaker 1: We don't have enough people professionals in the state of
Speaker 1: California that can teach that to other people because general
Speaker 1: practitioners and care providers like family nurse practitioners or family
Speaker 1: medicine doctors often don't receive or receive very little education
Speaker 1: and abortions and you know, miscarriage management. Um, and that's intentional.
Speaker 1: You know, that's super intentional and it sucks. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: do you feel that what are your thoughts on that
Speaker 1: the before this was an issue whether or not I
Speaker 1: was going to be overturned real vicious way. As far
Speaker 1: as a time limited when somebody can get an abortion,
Speaker 1: do you think that should exist If somebody wants to
Speaker 1: abort a baby at eight and a half months, should
Speaker 1: it be fun? I mean, that's not really for me
Speaker 1: to decide. You know. One I think one example we
Speaker 1: can look at is Christie taken So last year, so
Speaker 1: she was very public about experiencing pregnancy loss. Yeah, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, she recently came out saying, let me call
Speaker 1: it essentially, I'm just paraphrasing, but she said, like, let
Speaker 1: me call it what it was. I hadn't I had
Speaker 1: an abortion, right. And that's because people that have miscarriages
Speaker 1: or experienced spontaneous pregnancy loss that is not connected to
Speaker 1: any factors that could be you know, found it just spontaneous. Right.
Speaker 1: They are often needing and often received the same kind
Speaker 1: of healthcare, the same surgeries, the same medications, the same
Speaker 1: therapies and treatments that someone seeking an abortion would because
Speaker 1: for the body, abortion and miscarriage are the same. So
Speaker 1: was it an abortion or miscares this year? That's the thing.
Speaker 1: It's like, I don't I thought I didn't know if
Speaker 1: I heard like she had to compare like her losing
Speaker 1: her life or or what was her life in danger?
Speaker 1: I don't know if I've read that, but I did
Speaker 1: see abortion. I just put it together, like, oh, but
Speaker 1: the reason why is because her life was in danger.
Speaker 1: And it's situations like that. The majority of abortions take
Speaker 1: place in the first or second trimester. I mean, if
Speaker 1: people had access to abortions, we wouldn't have to worry
Speaker 1: about these kinds of things, like what happens at eight
Speaker 1: months if someone does, because obviously that happens. But if
Speaker 1: people had readily, you know, accessible abortion related sexual health
Speaker 1: related healthcare, they wouldn't have to kind of push off
Speaker 1: the choices that they wanted to make you and also
Speaker 1: be ashamed or embarrassed about it. So we're gonna transfer over.
Speaker 1: I have this segment this entitled shed Light Onto shed
Speaker 1: Light on This, And basically it's a segment where'm gonna
Speaker 1: give you a scenario, right, and it's gonna have a
Speaker 1: character who's dealing with the situation and they don't know
Speaker 1: how to handle it dthing, and that's where you come in.
Speaker 1: So I just want you to come up with whatever
Speaker 1: you feel like the solution is that you feel will
Speaker 1: work best based on the situation that this character's in.
Speaker 1: So basically there it's your advice. So don't trimp, don't sweat,
Speaker 1: because there's no right or wrong answer. So are you
Speaker 1: ready to give some knowledge about your life experience? Okay?
Speaker 1: I am? Are you listening alright? So Danielle is a
Speaker 1: twenty six year old expecting mother. She is currently two
Speaker 1: months pregnant and this will be her first child. Danielle
Speaker 1: is not in contact with the person that got her pregnant.
Speaker 1: She has the love and support of her parents and friends,
Speaker 1: but she is still anxious about the pregnancy process. Her
Speaker 1: best friend, Jasmin, suggested that she finds a birth through
Speaker 1: lot to get her through their pregnancy, but Danielle can
Speaker 1: be very stubborn, often refused to ask for help even
Speaker 1: once she were needs it. She pushed back on Jasmine's
Speaker 1: advice because all the people she knows who have given
Speaker 1: birth never had a dula. She also doesn't think she
Speaker 1: can afford one. Jasmin told Danielle that it won't hurt
Speaker 1: to try out, try it out, but Danielle is still insure, Sarah,
Speaker 1: can you help this some light on this? Yes, So, I,
Speaker 1: as a doula, will always recommend that people have a
Speaker 1: doula point blank period because there is a level of
Speaker 1: extra hug that you need a little little extra like
Speaker 1: security blanket of someone that's there for you, that you
Speaker 1: can rely on, and just knowing that you have that
Speaker 1: is going to make you feel more comfortable and confident
Speaker 1: navigating the journey. So doula care can be expensive. I'll
Speaker 1: also say that ultimately it's worth it because you have
Speaker 1: to think of it as an investment, you know, it's
Speaker 1: an investment in your birth, your baby, your process, and
Speaker 1: it's very person specific, very tailored to what each person needs.
Speaker 1: And there's never a time where I will not recommend
Speaker 1: do look here. But with that being said, I hear
Speaker 1: Danielle's concerns. You know, it's hard to ask for help,
Speaker 1: you know, you worry about affording one. Most dula's, like myself,
Speaker 1: work on a sliding scale, so we offer a range
Speaker 1: of you know, price points that people can choose based
Speaker 1: on their own ability. And I also, you know, utilize
Speaker 1: payment plans, so it's not a burden to be able
Speaker 1: to have care during pregnancy. You know, ultimately most of
Speaker 1: us are in this work not to make a buck,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Like it's it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of sad actually, how devalued like financially do look here
Speaker 1: is so the state of California is like trying to
Speaker 1: do this big integration of doulas into medical and what
Speaker 1: that looks like is dula's having to work and basically
Speaker 1: become registered and work with physicians in order to get
Speaker 1: like someone to sign off or like to approve their
Speaker 1: hours and stuff. And I'm really concerned about that because
Speaker 1: doulas are community members. You know, we're not bound to
Speaker 1: a code of ethics. We are not bound to a
Speaker 1: medical board. We don't have licenses that can be revoked.
Speaker 1: We are community members who have answered a calling and
Speaker 1: have shown up for people. And I fear that with
Speaker 1: the regulation like this increase in this desire to regulate
Speaker 1: and professionalize UM do LA care, that ultimately it's going
Speaker 1: to center the most privileged, you know, the white du lahs,
Speaker 1: you know, who can take on all these clients with
Speaker 1: medical like through medical because they will work with a
Speaker 1: physician that will you know, give them their signatures that
Speaker 1: they need UM and then we have a disparity there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of people, a lot of people
Speaker 1: just don't want to work with UM or under a
Speaker 1: medical person. And that's well within our rights as dulas,
Speaker 1: like we are not medical personnel. We are comfortable. Well
Speaker 1: that's that's where our power is is that we're not
Speaker 1: there for the medicine. We're there for the medicine that's
Speaker 1: in here, you know, like we're really there to to
Speaker 1: be there to hold and most most often you know,
Speaker 1: you're not going to get that holding in that care
Speaker 1: from your provider because of the way that maternal health
Speaker 1: care structured in the United States. It's so I would
Speaker 1: really hope that Danielle would, you know, feel comfortable. I
Speaker 1: also have an awesome DULA friend named Jasmine, so I
Speaker 1: was like, that is so funny. And she's from Alabama.
Speaker 1: She went to University of Alabama and she's actually gonna
Speaker 1: be going back saying. Is the doulah field very diverse? Um?
Speaker 1: It depends. So me, I did not go to a
Speaker 1: training where there were a lot of white people. I
Speaker 1: was trained by an organization called the Birthworkers of Color Collective.
Speaker 1: We are you know, we're people of color. We're not
Speaker 1: catering towards UM, a white birthing demographic. But there's a
Speaker 1: lot of UM racial inequality in the birthwork field. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you'll see a lot of times UM white presenting or
Speaker 1: white adjacent or white people getting UM recognize for work
Speaker 1: that they're not necessarily doing. You know, they're getting grants
Speaker 1: for communities that they're not necessarily a part of UM
Speaker 1: because you know, a lot of white people like to
Speaker 1: do diversity work. You know, they like to work with
Speaker 1: people of color, teen moms, poor people. That makes that
Speaker 1: diversity inclosion. But I mean, there's a whole lot of
Speaker 1: us who are from those communities, so kind of would
Speaker 1: make sense for us to support our community members. I
Speaker 1: don't know, but you know, some of them don't think
Speaker 1: that way, so it is interesting. But I have a
Speaker 1: really really strong kind of community and network of black
Speaker 1: and brown dulas and birth workers of color, and that's
Speaker 1: where I'm comfortable and that's where I'm staying. I heard
Speaker 1: that a lot of that. I didn't have to be
Speaker 1: here for a minute. But one other thing that I
Speaker 1: think would be so important just for us a young
Speaker 1: mother that's about to go on there to give birth,
Speaker 1: for that father that is accompanying his wife, his girlfriend,
Speaker 1: his significant other, for anybody that is walking in the
Speaker 1: room or experiencing themselves walking the room or can pushed
Speaker 1: in there about to give birth. What are the things
Speaker 1: that they should think about? If you could give like
Speaker 1: a checklist or just say, hey, keep these things in
Speaker 1: my while giving birth, preparing for birth, or anywhere in
Speaker 1: between the process, what would you say? You know what
Speaker 1: your boundaries are. You have to do a very deep
Speaker 1: inventory and check in with yourself about what your pregnancy
Speaker 1: should look like for you. You know who you want
Speaker 1: to be around you during your pregnancy who you don't
Speaker 1: want to be around. Um, there's a lot of times
Speaker 1: that we have, you know, stressful people in our lives.
Speaker 1: You don't want all the extra stress. You don't want
Speaker 1: all the extra stress when you're pregnant. Um. I tell
Speaker 1: people to look at the way that their home is
Speaker 1: set up. Physically. You may need to adjust some things.
Speaker 1: You know, you may need to move some chairs closer
Speaker 1: to your bed. You know, you may be getting a crib.
Speaker 1: You need to physically orient your space for a new
Speaker 1: person to come in. And I would also say that
Speaker 1: this goes back to having boundaries. Is I know what
Speaker 1: you are comfortable with and know the risk, okay, because
Speaker 1: this is an experience for your health care, so that
Speaker 1: you can be happy and health Yes. And also it's
Speaker 1: like we become desensitized because we think it's a medical
Speaker 1: thing to be managed, but it's people give birth every
Speaker 1: day and it's an experience. Sir out inhailed you for
Speaker 1: quite some time. Should I pull out of time in
Speaker 1: the body. It's not necessary, all right, I know it's
Speaker 1: so much. Okay. Last thing, so here there are terms
Speaker 1: that relates to you in your life line. So specifically
Speaker 1: to you. Not. The thing that makes it interesting about
Speaker 1: the terms in here is that, say, if you were
Speaker 1: a basketball player, you're a ref. Always give this example.
Speaker 1: So get used to it, y'all. Say, if you are
Speaker 1: a basketball player, ref, there may be a term in
Speaker 1: their pivot because that is a movement, a term in basketball.
Speaker 1: But just as you pivot on the court like you
Speaker 1: are turned, sometimes you gotta pivot in life. You see
Speaker 1: the double entire there? Okay, good, So in here, like
Speaker 1: I was saying, the words that relate to you, and um,
Speaker 1: tell us what they mean and then how they can
Speaker 1: be used to inspire somebody. Okay, says I think you're
Speaker 1: catching it, while I think it's like all right, all right,
Speaker 1: let's get this going. Okay, Okay, here we go. Okay, life,
Speaker 1: it's life. It just says life. Um, I would probably
Speaker 1: say that it's the very very small parts of life
Speaker 1: that through this work I've begun to appreciate. So if
Speaker 1: you've ever seen a baby, realized that a window is
Speaker 1: a window, and realized the outside is outside, you feel
Speaker 1: like you're watching the shortest and most amazing movie of
Speaker 1: all time because you're literally watching like a human, you know,
Speaker 1: a real life human that needs a lot of nurturing
Speaker 1: and care, like understand that, like this is the world
Speaker 1: and they are inside a box and it is so interesting,
Speaker 1: and you know, sometimes they cry, sometimes they scream, and
Speaker 1: that's how life can be. Sometimes. You know you want
Speaker 1: to cry. You want to scream in your box too.
Speaker 1: But the growth is always there. M yeah, And if
Speaker 1: you just keep on living, you're gonna keep on growing, right,
Speaker 1: that's it. Just keep on keeping on because if it
Speaker 1: isn't over, it's not all right, then it's not all right.
Speaker 1: It isn't catch it all right? Sir? Where can they
Speaker 1: follow you? Um on social media? Do you have any
Speaker 1: future projects you want people to know about? Tell us
Speaker 1: all the good stuff? Okay, so yes, you can follow
Speaker 1: me on social media. I ran an Instagram count called
Speaker 1: Tales of a Dye, which I can I can send
Speaker 1: you or you have access to and I can. What
Speaker 1: is that? Oh my gosh, I thought that was day
Speaker 1: like Dawn did die? Yes, So, a dye is the
Speaker 1: traditional term that we use in a lot of South
Speaker 1: Asian communities to describe a birth attendant. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of like my tales. That's why I call it, Like
Speaker 1: the tales of my journey because I want to show
Speaker 1: other people that becoming a midwife, becoming someone that works
Speaker 1: in community healthcare is something that we can do. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of barriers to starting in this field or
Speaker 1: like getting a career in this field, and you know,
Speaker 1: especially being a younger person, Like I don't want people
Speaker 1: to think that midwives are only people that are like older.
Speaker 1: They have to you know, like the role of a grandmother,
Speaker 1: Like no, we can we can be whatever we want
Speaker 1: to be. Yeah, so you can follow me there. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm working on a abortion do look Collective so in
Speaker 1: a national abortion do look collected to train abortion do
Speaker 1: lias so? Um. Information will be posted on my Instagram soon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's exciting, you know, let me just call me. I know,
Speaker 1: I keep talking and I think that there is a negative.
Speaker 1: Of course it is because that's why people are opposed
Speaker 1: stigmas into abortion. Because when you said abortion and you
Speaker 1: smiled at me, I saw a bloody image of a
Speaker 1: baby mm hmm. And that's just being transparent. And it
Speaker 1: could be any situation of who knows, it could be
Speaker 1: a still birthday, could be anything like you said. But
Speaker 1: my mind was, you know, in conflicence. We've been smiling
Speaker 1: at that, right because I'm like, wow, is with the
Speaker 1: abortion happened? Is right? But because that's all we've been taught.
Speaker 1: That's all we've been taught. We are taught that it
Speaker 1: is an uncommon, extremely difficult procedure that is so emotionally intense.
Speaker 1: It's taught exactly. We're not taught that medication abortion is
Speaker 1: safer than going for a drive, attending a frat party,
Speaker 1: or even carrying a pregnancy to term. You know, we're
Speaker 1: not taught these statistics, so that medication abortion is safer
Speaker 1: than taile and all you know that it has an
Speaker 1: efficacy rate that's higher than birth control. So we we
Speaker 1: are with informations withheld from us where miss we're miseducated intentionally. Gosh, Donnard, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: thank you for that information. Check it out tells of
Speaker 1: a die hope. Yes, you did say, it's like this
Speaker 1: like you know, yeah, all right, and what else we got?
Speaker 1: So I gave you a guide from we testify about
Speaker 1: how to use medication abortion pills. Yeah, because this is
Speaker 1: information that's publicly available through the World Health Organization and
Speaker 1: this is just information sharing, So you know this is
Speaker 1: not encouraging anyone to do anything. It just letting you
Speaker 1: know their options, hearing that people like you with the
Speaker 1: same mindset exists. And when you're not alone, you're not alone.
Speaker 1: And when you have information, you can make informed choices,
Speaker 1: and informed consent is always the goal. So yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so that's what you're working one next, and is there
Speaker 1: any other way that we can support you? You know,
Speaker 1: just start talking about the things that matter. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it's really great that more and more people
Speaker 1: that that don't necessarily do this work are interested about it.
Speaker 1: You don't have to necessarily want to do it. You
Speaker 1: can just be like what's up with that? You know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like like I want to know about that?
Speaker 1: You just want to know. So listen. If you like
Speaker 1: Joe and you want to know, you better go follow
Speaker 1: Sarah Okay on all of her social media and tell
Speaker 1: somebody about her because there are people who need to
Speaker 1: know how important it is or who needs support. Because hell,
Speaker 1: she was talking about me in a duel and I'm
Speaker 1: thinking myself my mom transitioned over ten years ago, and
Speaker 1: with the support that she says that a duly can offer,
Speaker 1: I can imagine that could be a comfort of me,
Speaker 1: along with my sister, along with my family, but just
Speaker 1: that person that you can just exhale with, you know,
Speaker 1: because birth isn't experience, gosh darn it, and life be life,
Speaker 1: and it'd be nice to just life life, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think ultimately it feels unnatural for us to
Speaker 1: have to experience so much pain alone because we're not
Speaker 1: meant to experience those things alone. You know, We're meant
Speaker 1: to be wrapped up in our community, any people that
Speaker 1: it can hold us and care for us when when
Speaker 1: we need that health care period period. There we go. Okay, y'all, well,
Speaker 1: I guess it's about time to head out of year.
Speaker 1: I hope you feel inspired. I hope you got something
Speaker 1: from it. You know. That's what it's about. And that's
Speaker 1: where about shedding light. Now, if you'd like to be
Speaker 1: a guest on the show, uh, you can go ahead
Speaker 1: and send us email Vitamin D at Dawn day Speaks
Speaker 1: dot com, or if you have an idea for a topic,
Speaker 1: he'll I didn't know I was gonna have a dulo
Speaker 1: on talking about all this good stuff, but it was good, right. Um.
Speaker 1: You may also need some advice, you know, your love,
Speaker 1: your career, ask for rations, how you feeling whatever? Have you?
Speaker 1: Email me Vitamin D at dawn day speaks dot com.
Speaker 1: Now you know I always say, so, I'm gonna remind
Speaker 1: you again, what do I say? If you want to
Speaker 1: be better and you want to do better, you have
Speaker 1: to be able to see better. So know that when
Speaker 1: you're writing me and I'm giving you my response, it
Speaker 1: may not always be the thing that you want to
Speaker 1: hear here. But I just want to let you be
Speaker 1: able to see so that you can make an inform
Speaker 1: decision right, give you you another perspective to see it right, No,
Speaker 1: that it's coming out of love. Furthermore, if you still listen,
Speaker 1: that means that you enjoyed this. So can't you tell
Speaker 1: somebody to tell somebody else to tell somebody else that
Speaker 1: do on Day? Got a podcast and it's called Vitamin
Speaker 1: D with Dawn Day, and it's available wherever. I didn't
Speaker 1: say somewhere. I didn't say over there. I didn't say
Speaker 1: just on my heart er, Apple or Spotify. I said
Speaker 1: everywhere you get your favorite podcasts. Okay, and me in
Speaker 1: the world to me, you process my dream and while
Speaker 1: you're at it, go ahead and rate it. You see
Speaker 1: the stars up there, go a hand and hit five
Speaker 1: and make a little calm and say something that you
Speaker 1: liked about it or maybe some adjustments. Just say something
Speaker 1: that somebody can make it informed decision to check us out. Okay.
Speaker 1: Another thing, if you want to see this beautiful young
Speaker 1: ladies that I'm looking at, go ahead and follow us
Speaker 1: on on social media. Vitamin d Doing Day. We our clips.
Speaker 1: We got excerpts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, fan Bay,
Speaker 1: Pinterest wherever. However, tres y'all side, So check us out. Okay.
Speaker 1: And now if you want some invitamin do you know
Speaker 1: the original source that be me? You can find them
Speaker 1: follow with me personally at Dawn Day Speaks. Okay, now
Speaker 1: I'm out of here for real. You know I always
Speaker 1: say I'm in the business and making dreams come true,
Speaker 1: and a damn sure ain't gonna forget about mine. So
Speaker 1: until next time, you know, I always say you like
Speaker 1: your greatest asset, peace, get the inviteminy right with me
Speaker 1: and get excited about your lives.