Speaker 1: Zion, unsure, what the balance? Hell, I touch my belly,
Speaker 1: overwhelmed by word.
Speaker 2: I have been chosen to perform. But then a name
Speaker 2: your came on one day, sold me to Nail Dollan Gray.
Speaker 1: Born to me, a man child would be born.
Speaker 2: Buld is crazy, stirf home stance, I knew his life,
Speaker 2: desert chance.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to good Mom's bad Choices. I'm Erica and
Speaker 3: I'm Nila.
Speaker 4: Wednesday was it?
Speaker 5: What's going on?
Speaker 4: Nothing? Anything new?
Speaker 3: It's still retro grade.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's gonna be we have some time.
Speaker 4: No, not really.
Speaker 3: I mean yesterday I had a really Iria had a
Speaker 3: tantrum for like an hour, and I might have yelled
Speaker 3: at her like a crazy person. I felt really bad afterwards.
Speaker 3: She was just scream it was about ice cream. Well,
Speaker 3: she didn't want to go to my she didn't want
Speaker 3: to go to my grandma's house that I could go
Speaker 3: to therapy, and I was like, I have to go
Speaker 3: to therapy. And I didn't tell her that. I was
Speaker 3: like going to the doctor and she's like I want
Speaker 3: to go. I was like, well, I'll get you ice cream,
Speaker 3: and then she was like I want ice cream, and
Speaker 3: then the screaming kept happening. I was like, well, you're
Speaker 3: not gonna get ice cream if you keep screaming. And
Speaker 3: then she just kept screaming and like screaming, like like.
Speaker 5: That, oh my god.
Speaker 3: And like I was also on a conference call and
Speaker 3: so there was people talking in my ear and my
Speaker 3: daughter was screaming. It was just a lot was happening,
Speaker 3: and I think I just woke up that morning just
Speaker 3: feeling on edge, period tired, and she was in mid
Speaker 3: scream and then I just was like and then I
Speaker 3: was like do you like and I just kept screaming.
Speaker 3: I was like, you like the way this feels. This
Speaker 3: is what it feels like when you scream at me.
Speaker 3: And then she got really scared and she started like
Speaker 3: backing away.
Speaker 6: It's so funny how kids suddenly you do what they
Speaker 6: do and they're scared.
Speaker 3: Right, And I was just like, I'm doing exactly what
Speaker 3: you're doing. So I felt like it was it was
Speaker 3: even playing field. And then afterwards, obviously I was like,
Speaker 3: I'm thirty one. I was like, not an even it's
Speaker 3: this is not good.
Speaker 5: I called you and you're like, oh no, no, I'm
Speaker 5: just feeling really I was like, okay, you need to
Speaker 5: go home and so sweet. I almost asked you to
Speaker 5: do something. I said, oh, maybe you should emit.
Speaker 6: I was like, she's like, you're like naw, okay, okay,
Speaker 6: and then you started getting mad at irin you don't
Speaker 6: even deserve ice.
Speaker 5: Screamed because you.
Speaker 6: I was like, okay, I'm gonna call you that guy,
Speaker 6: catchu lated. It was just one of those mornings, little
Speaker 6: bitch that was like at four o'clock.
Speaker 3: Okay, well, because because it kept happening even after I
Speaker 3: picted her. Well, then I went to therapy and then
Speaker 3: that I didn't When I left, I didn't feel good.
Speaker 3: And then I picked her up, and then she didn't
Speaker 3: want to go to piano class and she was crying
Speaker 3: about that and I was just like, I can't deal
Speaker 3: with life today. And then I was like, there's no
Speaker 3: way I'm giving her ice cream today. There's no fucking way.
Speaker 3: And then I gave her ice cream because she's cute,
Speaker 3: and I felt bad for you screaming at her. My
Speaker 3: therapist said it was fine. I told her. I was like,
Speaker 3: I just screamed at her.
Speaker 6: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Anyway, how about you.
Speaker 5: You're good, I'm good, Yeah, I'm good. You know, normal
Speaker 5: adult shit and I'm an adult, so I gotta take it.
Speaker 6: So that's it pretty much, except for the fact I
Speaker 6: keep forgetting things. Okay, So we have a very special
Speaker 6: guest today, Mama birth were a birth worker.
Speaker 4: No, that's a legit term.
Speaker 3: Okay, certified doula, certified doula, childbirth educator, women's wellness expert.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 6: I was thinking sex worker and I was like, birth worker,
Speaker 6: same right, she has a birth worker birth worker?
Speaker 7: I did.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I just never heard anyone who was that term before.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a legit term. It's typically for women or
Speaker 4: people individuals who work in the birth world and have
Speaker 4: multiple hats they wear.
Speaker 5: Okay, got it. I will tell us a little bit
Speaker 5: about yourself.
Speaker 4: Sam, awesome. Okay. Well, my son just turn eight going
Speaker 4: on twenty. Like we talked about earlier, he is just
Speaker 4: the light of my life. He's my favorite thing on
Speaker 4: the planet, and he constantly makes me want to rip
Speaker 4: my hair out. And when he's away from me, I
Speaker 4: missed him within thirty minutes and want him home. And
Speaker 4: he's just the reason I do everything that I do
Speaker 4: and he makes me so happy. And I'm a single mom,
Speaker 4: newly single, but not that way, I haven't been with
Speaker 4: his father in about four and a half years.
Speaker 3: I am.
Speaker 4: I'm all the things you guys said. I remember birth doula.
Speaker 4: I'm an author. Now my book comes out in like
Speaker 4: forty five days, and I'm kind of losing my shit.
Speaker 4: But that's just I'm looking at all of my mentors.
Speaker 4: You guys know who Brene Brown is.
Speaker 5: That sounds Oh she was in the movie with the Mom's.
Speaker 4: No, she's so she's got a Netflix special right now.
Speaker 6: Well she's okay, So there's if you haven't seen it,
Speaker 6: there's remember we try to watch it.
Speaker 5: We got high and fell asleep with them.
Speaker 6: Like they're like older women and they're like trying to have
Speaker 6: fun and palm springs for the weekend.
Speaker 5: It's on Netflix.
Speaker 3: We watch Oh natres or.
Speaker 4: No, she's speaker, yeah, and a psychologist.
Speaker 5: But there's a part in the movie.
Speaker 6: It's the thing with Tina Fey, Right, there's a part
Speaker 6: in the movie and they're like, oh my god, is.
Speaker 3: That for me?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, is it a wine country or something? Yeah? Okay, okay, okay,
Speaker 4: we just want to ask you a couple of questions.
Speaker 4: So that's Oh my god, I love that. Okay, So
Speaker 4: my mentors that they don't know they are my mentors,
Speaker 4: like Brinane Brown and Oprah they don't know there are
Speaker 4: my mentors, but they are my mentors. Right well, everything
Speaker 4: that I've heard them say that the ship that they
Speaker 4: went through, I'm literally going through all of it right now.
Speaker 4: So I'm like this is to be expected, Like, yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm where I need to be next up Oprah.
Speaker 3: Right So, I'm just like it's my life and my
Speaker 3: masturbation manifestation kidding.
Speaker 4: Masturbate way in a non sexual masturbating.
Speaker 6: Way, like a manifestation while masturbating type of way.
Speaker 4: That's some powerful ship right there.
Speaker 3: It is, it is. I'm I'm totally We actually met
Speaker 3: a girl who told us about it, and I was like, wait,
Speaker 3: that makes total sense, and and then I tried it
Speaker 3: and then afterwards it was actually the first time I
Speaker 3: did it was I thought about being interviewed by Oprah
Speaker 3: Like basically what I do is like I obviously have
Speaker 3: to be turned on. And then right as I'm about
Speaker 3: to come, like I start thinking about something that is
Speaker 3: really it's something that I really want. It's not even sexual,
Speaker 3: but already.
Speaker 4: There bimaltic state.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so after that I feel so energized, and
Speaker 3: like when I did that that the first time, I
Speaker 3: immediately wanted to work. I was like, let me on
Speaker 3: my computer and like, mesen some emails, get me to Oprah. Yeah,
Speaker 3: let me do some ship exactly.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 3: I couldn't believe it. I was like, this is fucking weird.
Speaker 4: Like she's like, I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna masturbate
Speaker 4: every damn day now.
Speaker 3: No, I do a lot. I mean that there's the
Speaker 3: Oprah and not always to manifestations. That was just pure
Speaker 3: It's just pleasure, my favorite porn category.
Speaker 5: But dick is your favorite porn categy. No, I'm just
Speaker 5: saying it's my favorite porn category.
Speaker 3: Just because your favorite porn category, just because you've switched
Speaker 3: it up recently. Hey, thedom, calm down.
Speaker 6: I didn't tell anybody that thanks a lot, one new category.
Speaker 5: Tell a friend. The bitch tells everybody.
Speaker 3: Anyway, I don't know what we got on porn Oprah Okay,
Speaker 3: yes that's.
Speaker 4: What Oprah's where we were ye yeah, so so basically
Speaker 4: just everywhere they said that i'd be is where I am.
Speaker 4: You know, you're just you're like about to hit a
Speaker 4: new level and people. There's people that you really love
Speaker 4: and respect and admire and people you really don't give
Speaker 4: two ships about that you never think about. Like both
Speaker 4: types of people all of a sudden like start throwing
Speaker 4: shade at you and don't want to see you succeed.
Speaker 4: And what I found, and I've known this for a
Speaker 4: really long time, but I'm finding it significantly so recently,
Speaker 4: is that when you're around you're the sum of the
Speaker 4: five people you spend the most of the time with. Right, So,
Speaker 4: when you're around people that are playing at a different level,
Speaker 4: and you decide to do something incredible with yourself or
Speaker 4: your life and you want to up level, you're gonna
Speaker 4: have two types of energies come from people. The people
Speaker 4: that love and support you regardless and the people who
Speaker 4: feel inferior by what you're doing. So they're going to
Speaker 4: try to stop you because the bigger you get, the
Speaker 4: smaller makes them feel. Even if it's from a place of.
Speaker 5: Love, they don't realize it's like a toxic.
Speaker 4: Type of Oh, they don't realize that at all. This
Speaker 4: can be one of your best friends just.
Speaker 3: Want to like, oh, your dream is too big.
Speaker 5: Maybe plant seeds of like questioning the seeds.
Speaker 4: Of doubt, like are you sure you really want to
Speaker 4: do that? Or what makes you think you're capable of that?
Speaker 5: Or what it happens if it doesn't work out.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's my favorite. That's my favorite one. And I'm like,
Speaker 4: right now, I'm in the space where I'm like, you
Speaker 4: know what, I got a lot of self doubt on
Speaker 4: my own. I don't need yours too, But we're good.
Speaker 4: I'm good in that department. So you show up and
Speaker 4: you rally with me, or just go deal with your
Speaker 4: inner personal ship. Because when people throw shit at you,
Speaker 4: it's never a reflection of you, it's a reflection of them.
Speaker 4: So I'm not that interesting place right now.
Speaker 5: Interesting, that's true.
Speaker 6: I think we get frustrated because we don't realize that
Speaker 6: people are not doing it intentionally.
Speaker 5: It's just them. It's the rejecting. Yeah.
Speaker 6: So I know Sam because she Duela the two of
Speaker 6: my my my best friends, but both wait, my best
Speaker 6: friend's births.
Speaker 5: Baby babies, bab she duel it for both of her births.
Speaker 5: That's amazing. Those were both really good birsts.
Speaker 6: I I the first one I missed because my phone
Speaker 6: was off and I was so angry.
Speaker 5: I was so mad that no one called me more.
Speaker 5: I was like, why didn't you call my baby daddy?
Speaker 5: I was furious. I was so furious that I got
Speaker 5: to her.
Speaker 3: So you made her birth about you?
Speaker 4: I did, literally, I got Erica Erica. I was leaning
Speaker 4: down when.
Speaker 5: I got there and I opened the door and I
Speaker 5: just started crying. She did think I did baby over
Speaker 5: and saw.
Speaker 4: Her face, but she just walks through the door, just
Speaker 4: tears streaming down her face. I was like, ohne oh, honey,
Speaker 4: I cry just thinking about it.
Speaker 6: I don't know why I felt so oh, you know
Speaker 6: why because I had just had a baby, not just
Speaker 6: had a baby, but.
Speaker 5: I really really, really really wanted a home birth and
Speaker 5: I didn't get to have it.
Speaker 6: And I had like low key convinced Alana to do it,
Speaker 6: and she she finally like was convinced. So I was like,
Speaker 6: I should have been here the second second baby. I
Speaker 6: wasn't even in town. I was like, let me FaceTime
Speaker 6: that baby. I'm perfectly fine.
Speaker 4: I remember because like a week before we were facetiming.
Speaker 5: Do you remember that she should she had like a
Speaker 5: false alon.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's hilarious.
Speaker 5: And then Sam was the first person who hugged me.
Speaker 5: She was just like, it's okay. She had a duel
Speaker 5: of me.
Speaker 4: I legit am everyone's duel atta birth, not just the mom.
Speaker 3: That's probably a thing.
Speaker 4: Right, it's a huge thing.
Speaker 3: As a doula do is that something like you have
Speaker 3: to know you're.
Speaker 4: Gonna have one. To be honest with you, I would say,
Speaker 4: nine times out of ten, I'm the dula for the dad,
Speaker 4: not the mom. M.
Speaker 6: That's fasting because I would know a lot of dads
Speaker 6: are like, we all need that doula.
Speaker 4: And they all say that first. They all say that first,
Speaker 4: and now they're all like they sing my praises. So
Speaker 4: my friend Brandon is the perfect example. I literally never
Speaker 4: met him before I helped his wife deliver her baby
Speaker 4: in up parking lot.
Speaker 5: And parking lot, you just happened to be walking up.
Speaker 4: No, Like she had called me, and she was on
Speaker 4: baby number two. And I didn't know her when she
Speaker 4: had baby number one, but I knew number one was quick,
Speaker 4: That's all I knew. And just like with Alana, we
Speaker 4: see patterns, right, so I'm like number two is fall
Speaker 4: out of her vagina, right, So she calls me up
Speaker 4: and no, she had called it a certain time. I
Speaker 4: saw a miscall on my phone and I'm like, she
Speaker 4: shouldn't be calling right now, that's interesting. And I called
Speaker 4: back right away and she's like breathing heavy, and she's like,
Speaker 4: I think I'm in labor, Like where are you? And
Speaker 4: she's like, I'm in the parking lot of Happy Feet,
Speaker 4: which is like a foot massage place. I'm like, of
Speaker 4: course you're in labor, you're a Happy Feet. She's like, no,
Speaker 4: I didn't make it in yet. I'm like, don't move,
Speaker 4: I'll be right there. Yes, And I get there and
Speaker 4: she's covered in sweat and she's shaking, and this is
Speaker 4: very very tall tale signs of transition, which is right
Speaker 4: before you deliver. So I look at her and I'm
Speaker 4: like totally calm, like all right, honey, you know what,
Speaker 4: I'm just going to take a peek downstairs. Just stay
Speaker 4: where you're at. And I look down and she's crowning
Speaker 4: in their parking lot, in her car in the parking lot.
Speaker 4: So one by one people start showing up. Her husband
Speaker 4: calls they have me, her best friend has me on speakerphone.
Speaker 4: Her husband he's like, get her. So the hospital he
Speaker 4: wanted her to go to was a lot further than
Speaker 4: where we're at. He's like, get her there. I'm like,
Speaker 4: that's not happening. And we're across the street from another
Speaker 4: hospital called Henry Mayo, and he's like, then just walk
Speaker 4: her down Henry may I was like, you don't understand,
Speaker 4: that's not happening, Like you just need to be here.
Speaker 4: And she held that baby in until he arrived and
Speaker 4: we're like the fire departments there. One of my best
Speaker 4: friends who's a midwife. I had called her like I
Speaker 4: called I was calling the troops. I'm like, I'm not
Speaker 4: catching a baby in a party. Lot, let me get here,
Speaker 4: and she didn't know. I was like on the outside,
Speaker 4: you know, yeah, very calm, but with her, I'm like
Speaker 4: we're fine, everything's fine. I get out of the car, like,
Speaker 4: where the fuck are you here? Fucking now?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 4: So it worked out. It was beautiful. But the point
Speaker 4: of the story is her husband. I see him hop
Speaker 4: out of the car and he's like, Amber, I'm here,
Speaker 4: and I grab his hands and I throw them on
Speaker 4: her back and I'm like, he's here. Feel him now,
Speaker 4: pushed because she was holding that baby in and like
Speaker 4: we didn't have heart tones. We didn't know how baby
Speaker 4: was you know, so she baby needed to be delivered,
Speaker 4: and I ended up being a gorgeous, beautiful, wonderful birth
Speaker 4: and a parking lot amazing story. First after from the
Speaker 4: moment I got there to the morment the baby was
Speaker 4: born as seventeen minutes. Oh shit, it felt like three hours. Wow,
Speaker 4: it was seventeen minutes.
Speaker 5: By then.
Speaker 4: He was coming from like the moor Park area, and
Speaker 4: he flew on the shoulder the whole way to get there.
Speaker 4: N Wow. I just got chills thinking about it. I
Speaker 4: just got chilled, like he is on my way, baby,
Speaker 4: I'm coming.
Speaker 7: To stop me totally, totally And the best part was
Speaker 7: her best friend was there, who was in a full
Speaker 7: lake cast, like full boots, right, and she's this tiny
Speaker 7: little girl and I'm like I needed to go inside
Speaker 7: and get gloves and she's like, okay, what kind.
Speaker 4: I'm like, just get gloves and she's like okay, because
Speaker 4: we have any gloves or anything. So she takes off.
Speaker 4: She comes back with like this full lake cast, like
Speaker 4: eight pairs of blood. She's like I'm here, I'm here,
Speaker 4: and I'm like okay. And then Brandon's dad had got
Speaker 4: there and none of us knew he was coming right,
Speaker 4: but he called his dad like, hey, my wife's outing
Speaker 4: a baby in a parking lot. He rolls up and
Speaker 4: you see this big tall to me I come running
Speaker 4: out of a car, and you see little tiny Natalie,
Speaker 4: the best friend in the leg run over there and
Speaker 4: grow ten feet tall, sir like checking him, not letting
Speaker 4: him get to No woman, Yeah, nobody knew wo he was.
Speaker 4: And she's like no, like she stopped him, and he's
Speaker 4: like I'm here. It was the craziest thing, and the
Speaker 4: medical run.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 4: So the whole point of the story is Brandon, who
Speaker 4: I'd never met before. There ended up being a little
Speaker 4: bit of a scare afterwards, you know, like how is
Speaker 4: baby doing? We had like a good chunk of time
Speaker 4: from when we got in the ambulance to the hospital
Speaker 4: where there was a nervousness and I got to the hospital,
Speaker 4: I followed behind them and ended up doing my little
Speaker 4: Duela thing in the hallway with dad.
Speaker 5: Wait, wait, was the baby not breathing?
Speaker 6: Was it?
Speaker 4: Baby was fine, It's just we want to see certain
Speaker 4: things when baby's born. So have you ever heard of
Speaker 4: an Appgar score? Yeah, so it's the idea, want to
Speaker 4: see baby pinking up breathing well, responding well, and we
Speaker 4: weren't necessarily seeing those things right away. Some babies take
Speaker 4: a little bit longer to come around to make eye contact,
Speaker 4: just to show signs of thrivingness.
Speaker 5: Because I really understood what that scores.
Speaker 6: Yeah, my other best friend be like, I was an
Speaker 6: eight out of ten. I was the highest at gar scar.
Speaker 6: I'm like, what the fuck does that mean.
Speaker 4: It just means that we're looking right afterwards for how
Speaker 4: well babies responding, and then we check again ten minutes later.
Speaker 4: So some babies pink up right away and they're screaming
Speaker 4: and they're very lively, and some babies take time. That's
Speaker 4: all it is. So you know, there was a scare
Speaker 4: there for a minute, and long story short, we just
Speaker 4: had a very beautiful connection and I was able to
Speaker 4: due let him as well and be there for him
Speaker 4: and help him come to center and really take space.
Speaker 4: And I've done that for multiple dads and many many
Speaker 4: times since then. We'll be at like a barbecue or
Speaker 4: something and Brandon and I are shooting the shit, having
Speaker 4: a beard together, laughing, and everyone's always like, you guys
Speaker 4: are really close, Like Brandon's like, totally not that way.
Speaker 4: He's not that friendly with everyone. I'm like, what are
Speaker 4: you tognize the nicest guy in the world, And everyone's like, no,
Speaker 4: he's just that way with you because you're his doula.
Speaker 4: What a special feelings for you? You know, And a
Speaker 4: lot of the dads are that way. They really were like,
Speaker 4: who's this chick gonna like come intervene in my birth?
Speaker 4: And then later they're like, I'll review her. You want
Speaker 4: a video testimony? Oh, what do you need? Because we're
Speaker 4: so much there for them as well.
Speaker 6: You know, that's interesting because I do feel like the
Speaker 6: men tend to like freak the fuck out.
Speaker 4: The most they do because what you're doing is innate
Speaker 4: and they're seeing you either trying to figure out your space,
Speaker 4: which is scary to see because you look very confused
Speaker 4: and alone, and or they see very primal and in
Speaker 4: your way and it's beautiful and it's powerful, and a
Speaker 4: lot of men look at that and they're like, what
Speaker 4: the hell is going on?
Speaker 5: How did you become a doula? Like what is the
Speaker 5: process for that?
Speaker 4: What made you? Yeah, so I had cervical cancer when
Speaker 4: I was nineteen, Wow, And like, what is so? The
Speaker 4: way I contracted it was my boyfriend cheated on me
Speaker 4: and got hp and gave it to me, and the
Speaker 4: particular strands there's many forms of HPV. HPV is not
Speaker 4: necessarily like a sexually transmitted disease. It's like you getting
Speaker 4: a cough or a cold. Everyone that's sexually active will
Speaker 4: probably have it at some point or another and not
Speaker 4: even know. But there's many strands of it, and one
Speaker 4: of the strands does have the cervical cancer to aspect
Speaker 4: to it. And I got that was nineteen. Tried Western
Speaker 4: medicine a bunch of times, had two surgeries. It didn't work.
Speaker 4: It failed, So then they didn't know what to do
Speaker 4: with me. So they threw me to this midwife slash
Speaker 4: obgyn in their practice and they're like, you handle it,
Speaker 4: And she got me meditating, walking, exercising, eating whole foods,
Speaker 4: plant based diet, and I recovered very very quickly because
Speaker 4: of that, whereas nothing else worked. So that kind of
Speaker 4: like led me on this journey of like just being healthier.
Speaker 4: So my daddy's from the South and it is all
Speaker 4: barbecue and mashed potatoes are the only vegetables. Right. My
Speaker 4: mom's Filipino. They eat all parts of the animal, right,
Speaker 4: so I wasn't raised on like the farthest thing from
Speaker 4: a plant based diet, but it made a significant difference
Speaker 4: in my health, which is another thing that Alana and
Speaker 4: I really connect on right.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 4: The reason why I bring that up is I didn't
Speaker 4: know that I was going to be able to have
Speaker 4: kids because there's so much scar tissue on my cervix.
Speaker 4: And my ex and I just found out we were pregnant,
Speaker 4: and it was like the most beautiful blessing, But I
Speaker 4: got something called hyper amesis graviderum. It's what Princess Kate had.
Speaker 4: So you're like so sick you can't even hold down water.
Speaker 4: It was horrible. I lost so much weight, my cheeks
Speaker 4: were all sucked in like a tweaker Like I looked
Speaker 4: so unhealthy. It's horrible. So all I could do my
Speaker 4: whole pregnancy was I sucked on trail mix, I watched documentaries,
Speaker 4: and I played Call of Duty. Yeah, so I googled
Speaker 4: like all the different ways to help with motion sickness
Speaker 4: and morning sickness, and I tried all of them. I
Speaker 4: did everything, and the only one that made the biggest
Speaker 4: difference is video games. Because your mind is focusing on
Speaker 4: something else, so it takes you off of it. So
Speaker 4: for like six months I couldn't work. I literally sat
Speaker 4: there watched documentaries ate ten different kinds of trail mix
Speaker 4: from sprouts to mix it up because I could only
Speaker 4: have like one thing in my mouth and suck on
Speaker 4: it to not throw up. And I came across the
Speaker 4: business of being born. I watched and I was like, oh,
Speaker 4: oh shit, Well I never thought that I was going
Speaker 4: to do this, but guess I'm having a baby in
Speaker 4: a baptim. Like I'm all about it. So I started
Speaker 4: googling and researching, and I found out that it was
Speaker 4: going to cost a lot of money for a midwife
Speaker 4: that he didn't have. My ex works in the studios
Speaker 4: we both used to and they were on hiatus. He
Speaker 4: literally did not work my entire pregnancy. We could not
Speaker 4: afford that, right. It was going to be like fifty
Speaker 4: five hundred out of pocket. Insurance didn't cover it, and
Speaker 4: I was just like, shit, what are we going to do?
Speaker 4: And then I found out about dulas, and I just
Speaker 4: I researched my whole pregnancy, and my sister in law
Speaker 4: and my cousin's wife and all these women kept coming
Speaker 4: to me with pregnancy questions because I knew. All I
Speaker 4: did was sit home and research and watched documentaries, and
Speaker 4: then one after another people just asked me to start
Speaker 4: attending their births. And I had an incredible birth experience.
Speaker 4: And did you.
Speaker 3: End up having your son at home?
Speaker 4: So what I did was I labored at home, first
Speaker 4: in my shower, which is a whole crazy story for
Speaker 4: another day because it's a long one, and then in
Speaker 4: my jacuzzi, and then my doula got there. And then
Speaker 4: we had a friend who had a birth center who
Speaker 4: was a midwife, and she let me come there and
Speaker 4: check me because I didn't want to get to the hospital.
Speaker 4: So I was basically like ready to push and when
Speaker 4: I go by the time I was seven centimeters, She's like, Okay,
Speaker 4: you can go to the hospital now and have your baby.
Speaker 4: So I ended up delivering at the hospital, but I
Speaker 4: was able to labor for most of the time away
Speaker 4: from the hospital, which makes a significant difference.
Speaker 3: So were you like a high risk pregnancy because of
Speaker 3: the scar teessue?
Speaker 4: No, but what they did say was one of two
Speaker 4: things happens with the scar tissues, So if it's fred
Speaker 4: they call it incompetent cervix, which is like such a
Speaker 4: demeaning name. All the medical terms for women are incompetent cervix,
Speaker 4: Like it's just not good enough. So what happens is
Speaker 4: it's soft and it dilates very quickly, which would be
Speaker 4: ideal dilate have a baby, right, or that scar t
Speaker 4: issue doesn't want to dilate, And that's what end up
Speaker 4: happening to me. So even though I got to the
Speaker 4: hospital at seven centimeters, like this is going to go
Speaker 4: so fast, transition to the smallest part, Yes, stuck in
Speaker 4: transition from eleven in the morning till seven at night
Speaker 4: when I delivered, Wow, like the most intense part of labor,
Speaker 4: because that piece of scar tissue when it pop, oh
Speaker 4: my god, They're like there's one piece left and if
Speaker 4: you push, your cervix is gonna swell and you're gonna
Speaker 4: end up in a C section. So I laid they're
Speaker 4: not pushing for a really long time.
Speaker 6: When I got pregnant same, I was like super psycho
Speaker 6: research pregnancy honestly, like, I don't know what's gonna happen
Speaker 6: in my lifetime, but I would get into birth work,
Speaker 6: I would be I would like, that's totally something I
Speaker 6: don't know. I don't know if it's that movie makes
Speaker 6: everybody want to be in birth work, but I agree.
Speaker 6: But one of the things that during my research, and like,
Speaker 6: first of all, a lot of people don't know a
Speaker 6: lot about home birth.
Speaker 5: A lot of people don't know that what a duel is,
Speaker 5: what's the difference between a midwife and no idea?
Speaker 6: But you know, you explain it really well like your
Speaker 6: supporter to mostly the mom, but obviously the dad too.
Speaker 6: But I feel like a lot of people because what
Speaker 6: I discovered when I was doing research is like there's
Speaker 6: so many things that can like navigate your pregnancy, like
Speaker 6: your labor specifically in pregnancy that come up like trauma.
Speaker 4: Girl, this is my jam. Nobody talks about this.
Speaker 6: And when it came up for me in my many
Speaker 6: book research podcasts, crazy shit, I was, I don't know
Speaker 6: who was.
Speaker 3: Doing all types of shit.
Speaker 5: I was like, wow, that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 5: And also I don't know.
Speaker 6: Why no one has really discussed it like so much.
Speaker 6: So where like I've read, I read a story about
Speaker 6: someone like in labor and then maybe like the midwife
Speaker 6: had a conversation with her about like some sexual trauma experienced.
Speaker 6: Yeah yeah, and during labor like literally like she closed
Speaker 6: back up and read and dilated smaller.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, because I came up for her and she
Speaker 5: literally had to release that energy for her to birth
Speaker 5: her child. Like the energy we hold in our womb
Speaker 5: is so real and so.
Speaker 4: So powerful, powerful, so powerful.
Speaker 6: I don't think women really recognize how much that correlates
Speaker 6: with labor and birds.
Speaker 4: Oh it's so significant. So interestingly enough, something you said,
Speaker 4: I kind of want to take you back to, so
Speaker 4: you know how you said, like, oh, I can totally
Speaker 4: see myself being a dulo one day. That's because innately
Speaker 4: you are. So I want you guys to go on
Speaker 4: a quick little journey with me for a second. Okay,
Speaker 4: So let's pretend it's two hundred years ago and I'm
Speaker 4: going into labor right now, right and we all are
Speaker 4: in a tribe and we live in the same community,
Speaker 4: the same village. I would not be afraid. I'd have
Speaker 4: zero fears in my head from television, movies and society
Speaker 4: to have baby because I was at Jamila's birth last
Speaker 4: year and I supported her through that and the rest
Speaker 4: of the women came together and saw it, and I
Speaker 4: wasn't worried about what she was going to do afterwards,
Speaker 4: because I knew she could breastfeed, and if she was
Speaker 4: actually one of the less than two percent of women
Speaker 4: who cannot breastfeed, there would be another woman there to
Speaker 4: nurse her child, and her older children children and her
Speaker 4: spouse would be taken care of and be fed, and
Speaker 4: would be fine, because your only job after you have
Speaker 4: that baby is to lay there naked for days, weeks
Speaker 4: since some cultures months, nurse your baby skin to skin,
Speaker 4: rest and recover. It's a healing process, not only as
Speaker 4: a baby being born, but so is a mother.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: We don't honor this process. It's not normalized. Birth isn't
Speaker 4: a normal thing. It's I think we've made very medical right.
Speaker 4: So our mind around is completely asked backwards. And the
Speaker 4: reason why you said you can see yourself doing that
Speaker 4: is because whether it's you in a past life or
Speaker 4: it's what's been passed down generationally through yourselves, is that's
Speaker 4: what we did as women. We honored each other, we
Speaker 4: supported each other. We've seen birth since we were children.
Speaker 4: It cracks me up. There was this post on Instagram
Speaker 4: the other day, and it might even have been one
Speaker 4: of my midwife friends, and she had children in the
Speaker 4: room and the mom was birthing her baby and people
Speaker 4: are like, oh, they're going to traumatize that kid, and
Speaker 4: I'm like, no, no, no, no, hold on. Especially the boys
Speaker 4: in that room are going to be the best husbands
Speaker 4: and the best support systems because birth is not going
Speaker 4: to be weird to them, and they are going to
Speaker 4: believe so much in their partner when she goes to
Speaker 4: have their child, there will be zero fear.
Speaker 3: And also they're going to see what women women like,
Speaker 3: what miracles we are, yes, like.
Speaker 4: Wow, power women are. And here's the thing. There's no
Speaker 4: such thing as love and hate. There's love and fear.
Speaker 4: Fear is the opposite of love. Right, And when you
Speaker 4: think about men that don't support women, it's not because
Speaker 4: they hate them. It's because they're in fear. They're in
Speaker 4: fear of their power, they're in fear of losing them,
Speaker 4: fear of all them.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I forgot.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, Oh, we were talking about trauma.
Speaker 4: Trauma of trauma. So birth is ninety percent psychology. Oh right,
Speaker 4: and trauma comes up in birth every single time.
Speaker 5: Oh, he said to ninety percent, Like in your.
Speaker 4: Psychology ninety percent.
Speaker 5: I would say that I think there's a point.
Speaker 6: I don't know if you agree, Erica, there's a point
Speaker 6: in laboring where like I realized, I'm like, okay, I
Speaker 6: have to go inside myself.
Speaker 5: Like yeah, sister, yes, I literally took his space.
Speaker 3: I had this.
Speaker 6: I didn't have a duel. I wanted to do it
Speaker 6: because it's same. I didn't have money. I didn't have
Speaker 6: fifty five hundred dollars. I call my friend's mama, was like,
Speaker 6: you think your mom will come out here because she's
Speaker 6: like been a couple of births and do an unassistant childbirth,
Speaker 6: and I it's sassed about it. Like even before I
Speaker 6: got pretty, I was really into watching home births and
Speaker 6: then I show Luna too, So I really I don't
Speaker 6: I think it's good to normalize it. I think some
Speaker 6: of my friends may think it's a little weird.
Speaker 3: Well, her daughter sits and watches like two hours worth
Speaker 3: of birthing videos and then I walk in and on
Speaker 3: my my floor walks in. You could close the door,
Speaker 3: and they're pretending to have babies in her room, and
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm not really sure if I want my
Speaker 3: four year old pretendingly she's having a baby. I put
Speaker 3: back on the birthday video. It's like they watched birthing
Speaker 3: video actually, and I.
Speaker 6: Actually heard a really like disturbing story and I just
Speaker 6: got scared. So I just but I also like we
Speaker 6: watched birthing of animals, but the same I wanted it
Speaker 6: to be normalized. I don't want it to be fearful,
Speaker 6: Like my first introduction to birth was like scary, like
Speaker 6: in a hospital setting, and that's how I knew I
Speaker 6: didn't want to do that.
Speaker 5: But as women, and this is.
Speaker 6: What our bodies do, I think it's there's no early
Speaker 6: or late age to discuss it. There's nothing, there's nothing
Speaker 6: inappropriate or strange. I mean, obviously it can be traumatic.
Speaker 6: But that's why I like to show a range of births,
Speaker 6: because sometimes they're really quiet, sometimes they're really like there's
Speaker 6: all types of birth, so.
Speaker 4: I think that's important.
Speaker 6: But we had another guest, like we had another guest
Speaker 6: a while ago, jess Jessica Hooper, and she was saying
Speaker 6: that she was really scared of miscarrying. She kept like
Speaker 6: obsessing over it to the point where her midwife is like,
Speaker 6: why do you feel like you don't deserve your baby?
Speaker 5: And I was like, Wow, I never heard anything like this.
Speaker 6: And she was saying how she felt like her sexual
Speaker 6: history because maybe she'd, like whatever, had sex with guys
Speaker 6: with unattached situation. She felt like she didn't deserve like
Speaker 6: her husband and her baby, and that it was really psyched,
Speaker 6: like fucking with her psyche making her feel like something
Speaker 6: was gonna happen to her.
Speaker 4: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 6: And I like, there's so many things that play into like,
Speaker 6: as you as a doula, have have you experienced any
Speaker 6: like trauma with women that have like affected their labor
Speaker 6: or their pregnancy.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So it's actually the first thing that I address,
Speaker 4: and it's my approach, and it's very different. And you know,
Speaker 4: I don't preface this by saying that dula's are God's
Speaker 4: gift to birth in today's society. I am a duel.
Speaker 4: I have nothing but good things to say about dula's.
Speaker 4: But even the best DULAS certification training programs out there
Speaker 4: today don't necessarily teach about this. They do teach about
Speaker 4: dealing with loss or with sexual trauma to a certain degree,
Speaker 4: which is fantastic and it's something that needs to be addressed.
Speaker 4: But what I found is a lot of the typical typicals,
Speaker 4: not even the word traditional duelist support today is how
Speaker 4: do I support a woman in a hospital to make
Speaker 4: the best choices that are right for her body. What
Speaker 4: are her alternatives, what are her options? How can I
Speaker 4: manage her labor and pain. That's really the broad spectrum
Speaker 4: of it, and what I found within for the first
Speaker 4: few years is it's all psychology and it's all the
Speaker 4: inner game. And so most of the work that I
Speaker 4: do with my clients is before the birth, not during,
Speaker 4: and it's a lot of visualization and meditation, like a
Speaker 4: lot of fear and burning release lists, like getting the
Speaker 4: shit out of your head and figuring out what it
Speaker 4: is you need to heal, because if you haven't, I
Speaker 4: promise you, sister, it's coming up when you're in labor
Speaker 4: and it causes issues every time. So sometimes it give
Speaker 4: me sexual trauma or abuse. Sometimes it's just mommy or
Speaker 4: daddy issues. Sometimes it's issues with their spouse or partner.
Speaker 4: That's I was gonna say, it's a big one. The
Speaker 4: number one thing I prescribe leading up to birth is
Speaker 4: lots of sex. And you guys need to get in
Speaker 4: a good routine now, So what is your self honoring
Speaker 4: date night that you have every single week no matter what.
Speaker 4: He doesn't schedule work or anything. You don't schedule anything.
Speaker 4: This is your time just to connect, child free, whether
Speaker 4: you have other children or you don't. Because here's the
Speaker 4: thing is, we do this as women, do we not?
Speaker 4: We put the children first because that's a good thing
Speaker 4: to do as a mom. Be self sacrificing for your children.
Speaker 4: Then if there's anything left, that's gonna go to my manner,
Speaker 4: my partner, right, and then there's nothing left for me,
Speaker 4: And I'm just this empty vat of nothing that can't
Speaker 4: pour into anyone. And it's completely fucking backwards. I can
Speaker 4: say fuck on this thing right now. I'm like, it's
Speaker 4: completely fucking backwards. It's completely fucking backwards. So what I
Speaker 4: teach is, Okay, let's get in alignment with you. Let's
Speaker 4: be super honoring to you, selfish but fucking honoring, right
Speaker 4: so you can show up as the best partner in spouse,
Speaker 4: which that should be. The second thing is nurturing your
Speaker 4: relationship because children are master manipulators and they're master at
Speaker 4: divide and conquer. So if they don't see a united front,
Speaker 4: they are going to divide and conquer to get what
Speaker 4: they want. Right you guys, even when you yes, even
Speaker 4: when you're not on the same page and you do
Speaker 4: not agree at all, those children need to think that
Speaker 4: you have each other's back and you agree no matter what.
Speaker 4: That's massive. That's huge. So I teach all of these things. Now,
Speaker 4: tell me what this has to do with birth. I'm
Speaker 4: teaching like how to have a healthy relationship, how to
Speaker 4: have a good sexual and physical relationship, connecting with each other,
Speaker 4: supporting each other, being in the right headspace before you
Speaker 4: go in there to have a baby. That's huge. This
Speaker 4: is big work we're doing, especially for first time parents,
Speaker 4: right right, you know, I.
Speaker 3: Just say, okay, all those things seem like, yes, we
Speaker 3: need all those things. But you meet people at certain
Speaker 3: points in their life and their journey and their relationship,
Speaker 3: and sometimes like I just feel like it not all
Speaker 3: those They're not going to hit all those marks. No, No,
Speaker 3: nine nine times out of ten, nine times at a
Speaker 3: time they are they're they're not happy in their relationship
Speaker 3: even though they're having a baby. Maybe they're having a
Speaker 3: baby to fix the relationship, or they just got pregnant
Speaker 3: or whatever. Or for me personally, when I got pregnant,
Speaker 3: like it was a distraction from our relationship and suddenly
Speaker 3: we had something to come together on. And then once
Speaker 3: the baby was here, we realized, oh shit, we haven't
Speaker 3: worked on anything and we're.
Speaker 4: Two different people.
Speaker 3: Are fucked.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3: That is a lot of parents, and like, so I think,
Speaker 3: like how so, I mean, I guess you just do
Speaker 3: what you can and try to encourage it. And also
Speaker 3: men talking to men about all those points. M M.
Speaker 3: I mean if I think about like my baby daddy,
Speaker 3: if like you were my doula and he was saying
Speaker 3: all these things to him, he would have been like,
Speaker 3: fuck this.
Speaker 4: But see, it doesn't it doesn't all come out like that.
Speaker 4: So I'm giving you guys, like the breakdown.
Speaker 3: It's like easy, like it's like you probably ease into it.
Speaker 3: I'm just thinking about like the people that you know
Speaker 3: are having are pregnant now listening to this and are like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, I have so much work to do.
Speaker 6: Oh my god, But I'm so happy because so many
Speaker 6: people don't even know they need to know, they know
Speaker 6: they have to.
Speaker 3: I wish that like for me, like my birth story
Speaker 3: was that I didn't want to have and I saw
Speaker 3: the business of being born. It definitely encouraged me to
Speaker 3: have a home birth. My partner was not supportive, my
Speaker 3: doctors were not supportive. I didn't have any point of reference.
Speaker 3: None of my friends have kids. I was just on
Speaker 3: this journey by myself. My parents definitely were like, wait,
Speaker 3: you want to have a baby where I know? Yeah,
Speaker 3: So I just was like, fuck it, I'm going to
Speaker 3: just do it at the hospital. I have great insurance.
Speaker 3: It's going to cover ninety percent of my birth.
Speaker 4: Which your story, by the way, is very similar to
Speaker 4: most women's.
Speaker 3: Just you know, I even had a doula come and
Speaker 3: talk to us, and my partner at the time was
Speaker 3: just like, well, why are if there's an emergency, we're
Speaker 3: going to go to the hospital. Why don't we just
Speaker 3: go to the hospital. Why are we doing this? Like
Speaker 3: he was such an assholder. And then and what ended
Speaker 3: up happening was I ended up you know, my doctor
Speaker 3: encouraged me to get induced because my baby was too big,
Speaker 3: getting bigger and bigger.
Speaker 4: Yeah, your massive large baby.
Speaker 3: She was there, Yeah, it was. She was getting so big,
Speaker 3: her head was huge. Well I had a sea section, no,
Speaker 3: of course, but like I didn't want to have a
Speaker 3: c section that was not in my birth plan. But
Speaker 3: everything went wrong after the after getting induced.
Speaker 4: Everything went wrong where you start.
Speaker 3: So like you said, like, you know, there's this point
Speaker 3: of like where I was in labor and I went
Speaker 3: within myself. It almost makes me sad because I didn't
Speaker 3: do that. I didn't have to. I was under drugs.
Speaker 3: I didn't feel anything. The fact I was chilling.
Speaker 5: Why they they gave you drugs.
Speaker 3: I mean when I started induced. When I got induced,
Speaker 3: my contractions were so intense. There was no build up.
Speaker 3: It was just like level ten.
Speaker 6: Yeah, when they inter when they start intercepting with ship,
Speaker 6: it goes downhill.
Speaker 3: It was no like oh yeah, I think it was like,
Speaker 3: oh my god. And so I was like, I need epidurals.
Speaker 3: When I had the epidural and then I was in
Speaker 3: labor for thirty hours under epidural, but I wasn't like laboring. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So I'm like, I'm almost like, I like when she
Speaker 3: said that, I was like, I wish I knew what
Speaker 3: that felt like.
Speaker 4: I don't even know you're You're right. Everything you're saying
Speaker 4: is right. And so many moms say that to me,
Speaker 4: especially my v back mamas, and they're like I feel
Speaker 4: like I was robbed of somebody totally. And I tell them,
Speaker 4: to be honest, you were you were, You were robbed
Speaker 4: of the experience that is, it's this beautiful journey. So
Speaker 4: this is how I like to explain it. So everyone
Speaker 4: in today's society, men and women are like have an
Speaker 4: issue of going outside themselves looking for answers. Right, We're
Speaker 4: always looking for the answers outside of ourselves. Never do
Speaker 4: we think to go inward. We weren't taught to do that.
Speaker 4: So when you're in labor, you go through this journey
Speaker 4: of like, somebody's gonna save me. Somebody's gonna save me.
Speaker 4: It's my partner, it's my spouse, it's the doula, it's
Speaker 4: the doctor, it's the midwife, the nurse. Somebody's gonna fix this.
Speaker 4: Somebody's gonna save me. The white horse is coming in.
Speaker 4: And all of my moms, that every single one of
Speaker 4: them that have achieved a completely natural birth, finally get
Speaker 4: to a point in their labor where they look at
Speaker 4: me and they want to give up, and they ask me,
Speaker 4: how much longer is this going to fucking do? And
Speaker 4: my answer is always the same, it's up to you.
Speaker 4: And there was one specific one where I remember we
Speaker 4: were sitting at her bathroom together. I spent a lot
Speaker 4: of time in the bathroom with women a lot. Yeah, well,
Speaker 4: it's it's a normal place for you to open up
Speaker 4: and feel privacy, and so it's a very safe space
Speaker 4: for most women. So we're in the bathroom and she
Speaker 4: looks at me and she's like, I'm just how much
Speaker 4: fucking longer is this going to take? And I said
Speaker 4: it's up to you. And I remember looking at her
Speaker 4: and within seconds something shifted and she got serious and
Speaker 4: she's like, Okay, let's do this. She didn't say that,
Speaker 4: but you could tell that was her energy and I
Speaker 4: could see this, this wave of energy move through her
Speaker 4: and I'm like, oh shit, things are gonna start progressing.
Speaker 4: So I ran and grab a talent through it underneath her.
Speaker 4: As soon as she shifted positions, tons of bloody show,
Speaker 4: which indicates cervical change, and within thirty minutes we had
Speaker 4: to leave for the hospital. First time. Mom shouldn't have
Speaker 4: it should's taken her way longer than from the point
Speaker 4: that she shifted at and within a few hours the
Speaker 4: baby was born. And it was the internal shift that happens.
Speaker 4: So the thing that we're talking about that I feel
Speaker 4: women get robbed of and it makes me sad, it
Speaker 4: makes me hurt for you, it does because that is
Speaker 4: your right of passage. Because what happens in that shift
Speaker 4: is you realize nobody's coming to fucking save me. There's
Speaker 4: no white horse. There's no white horse. And you go
Speaker 4: inward and your body takes over, and suddenly your contractions
Speaker 4: are far more intense, they're closer together, your whole labor
Speaker 4: is more intense, but you're handling it completely differently. It's
Speaker 4: almost like a meditative state, and it's something beautiful to watch.
Speaker 4: And some women, my sister in law's a great example.
Speaker 4: This is the girl who goes into the hospital when
Speaker 4: she's contracting and says, I'm ready to have my baby,
Speaker 4: and they say, oh no, you're only two centimeters dilated,
Speaker 4: contractions are too far apart. She's like, give me thirty minutes.
Speaker 4: She goes and does two hundred squats. She comes back
Speaker 4: in and she's like, give me my upidor and my
Speaker 4: potosa now, and she pushes her baby out five hours later.
Speaker 4: She's a freak of nature. She loves to have these
Speaker 4: medicated births to control the whole situation. That makes her
Speaker 4: happy and that's empowering to her. But for a lot
Speaker 4: of women, they don't want that. They want the process,
Speaker 4: even if they go through it and decide they hated it,
Speaker 4: they wanted the opportunity to Yeah, So it's kind of
Speaker 4: My stance is like, I don't give a shit how
Speaker 4: you give birth. You should give birth, how you feel
Speaker 4: safe and empowered, and how you want to give birth.
Speaker 4: There is zero judgment. I wanted the few duelers who
Speaker 4: believes in epidurals you should do it how you feel best. However,
Speaker 4: I don't think that anyone should take that choice from you,
Speaker 4: and that happens. It happens to a lot of people.
Speaker 3: And so it's so funny that you said that you
Speaker 3: specialize in feedback because after my C section, and that's
Speaker 3: how I knew my doctor, I was bultless some bullshit
Speaker 3: and she's like this, and I didn't realize at the
Speaker 3: time she's like a celebrity doctor. I had no idea. Like,
Speaker 3: my friend worked at theater Sina. She even going to
Speaker 3: her forginocology. She told me she was great. I hadn't
Speaker 3: even told my mom I was pregnant yet and she
Speaker 3: was like, you have to go see at this doctor,
Speaker 3: and so I just started to go see her and
Speaker 3: then I just went on this journey with her. Now
Speaker 3: she doesn't even take insurance, like people are paying her
Speaker 3: full price to deliver their babies. I think Chloe Kardashian.
Speaker 3: Actually she delivered Chloe Kardashian's.
Speaker 4: Baby, but most of those women don't.
Speaker 3: On the Kardashians, I was like, this bitch, I was
Speaker 3: not her. I was like embarrassed, Okay, thee who my
Speaker 3: baby is on the FUS? What kind of function is this?
Speaker 3: But after I had the baby, she.
Speaker 4: I came.
Speaker 3: I would come for checkups and she was like, yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, when you have your next baby, it would
Speaker 3: be so easy. We'll just I'll lease, like I can
Speaker 3: just fix that scar. And I was like, wait, so
Speaker 3: you're already telling me I'm going to have another C
Speaker 3: section and she's like, well, yeah, that's that's the best option.
Speaker 3: I'm like for you, because you get paid, you get
Speaker 3: to leave when the fuck you want to leave, like
Speaker 3: I didn't. I like, I had watched so many birthing
Speaker 3: videos because even though I decided to have the birth
Speaker 3: at the hospital, I still was like I want to
Speaker 3: have it the most natural way. I want the baby.
Speaker 3: I want my baby to call up to me, yea.
Speaker 4: To crawl up to Yeah, yeah, the breast crawl.
Speaker 3: She like took the baby away. I just like I
Speaker 3: was on the table half dead and then they put
Speaker 3: the baby on my face. But the like then I
Speaker 3: started researching feedbacks and like, can you explain to our
Speaker 3: listeners have a lot, of course, a lot of women
Speaker 3: that have had these sections that feel like their only
Speaker 3: option is to have another one, or they're scared, or
Speaker 3: for me, my doctor said, like a vback, it is
Speaker 3: not a good idea.
Speaker 4: Right, it's fair, Okay, So a lot of fear. So
Speaker 4: here's the thing. This is called fear mongering, and unfortunately
Speaker 4: everyone's responsible for this. I see midwives do it. I
Speaker 4: see nurses, doctors, juelas, I see everyone use fear mongering.
Speaker 4: So the example if you're mongering is saying something out
Speaker 4: of fear to get you to see their side. So
Speaker 4: I can come on here and tell you how amazing
Speaker 4: the option of natural birth is, or I can tell
Speaker 4: you how awful the alternative of a hospital birth is.
Speaker 4: They're both mean the same thing, but which one's more effective?
Speaker 4: Me telling you how amazing something could be for you
Speaker 4: or me sing the shit out of you into doing
Speaker 4: something that I don't think you should do that you
Speaker 4: think is amazing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're actually helping exactly.
Speaker 4: So what doctors do. The most common term I hear
Speaker 4: with youback is your risk of a uterine rupture doubles
Speaker 4: when you have a vwback. Well, the percentage we're doubling
Speaker 4: from here is like point zero zero two percent to
Speaker 4: point zero zero four percent, so we're still talking less
Speaker 4: than a one percent chance of a uterine rupture. The
Speaker 4: other things that play a huge role is it used
Speaker 4: to be the type of incision, it used to be
Speaker 4: the way the cesarean was performed. We don't perform those
Speaker 4: type of cesaians anymore. So unless you had one fifteen
Speaker 4: twenty years ago, that's not a concern either. You're at
Speaker 4: the same risk virtually for a uterine rupture, so we
Speaker 4: take the same precautions we would as we normally do. Right,
Speaker 4: So basically this is the only in my opinion, there's
Speaker 4: only two things I see as a risk factor when
Speaker 4: it comes to be back. The first one is and
Speaker 4: it's funny because you have different hospitals, say different things.
Speaker 4: Cedars is actually really great at feedback. A lot of
Speaker 4: my feedbacks are there, and there's other fantastic doctors there,
Speaker 4: just you know that I work with all the time.
Speaker 4: But there's another awful hospital that I can't legally say
Speaker 4: the name of it. I can't because I can get
Speaker 4: like black belt from the hospital. So there's this terrible hospital.
Speaker 4: It's awful, and they they require that you get into
Speaker 4: if you're going to fedback because they need to control
Speaker 4: the situation because it's all fear, right, they require that
Speaker 4: you go in, you get induced, and you have an
Speaker 4: epidural and they're monitoring you every second of your labor.
Speaker 4: If you're going to even attempt a feedback, they're called
Speaker 4: a tolac. It's a trial of labor. Okay, trial yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: So that's super fear like a trial, like, oh, let
Speaker 3: me let me try and maybe not kill my baby.
Speaker 4: You're not super capable of this, but we'll try me.
Speaker 3: You can try. I mean, if you want to risk
Speaker 3: your baby's life.
Speaker 4: No, totally, it's fucking bullshit, right. So the alternative to
Speaker 4: that is I recommend you actually don't have any interventions
Speaker 4: if you're going to be back because picture a uterus
Speaker 4: like this. Okay, so for our listeners, you can picture
Speaker 4: like a big balloon in your hand and you've got
Speaker 4: both hands on either side of the balloon that's blown
Speaker 4: up and when you squeeze it, that's like your uterus. Right,
Speaker 4: So your contractions come like this, and they give you
Speaker 4: a break, and contractions come like this, and then there's
Speaker 4: another break in between contractions. Well with the potosin a
Speaker 4: lot of times you go from zero to one hundred.
Speaker 4: It's like this, right, And most of the time people
Speaker 4: don't understand what drugs are being used for induction. So
Speaker 4: there's something called mesoprossel or servadel. So basically what that
Speaker 4: stuff is made of is pig and bolsperm. That's what
Speaker 4: it's made of. Animal hormones, yes, basically, so, Yes, it's
Speaker 4: inserted vaginally and it's reality, it's very much so. But
Speaker 4: think about think about the uterus for think about the
Speaker 4: uterus for a cow. It's probably the size of you
Speaker 4: that has a cabinet, right, So we're contracting a very
Speaker 4: there's a lot of there's a lot going on here, right.
Speaker 6: Putting it in a human cervix that isn't really right.
Speaker 4: It we're really. I mean, it's it's dangerous. So when
Speaker 4: you have a uterist that's just like not it's when
Speaker 4: you introduce interventions, that's when there's side effects. That's when
Speaker 4: shit goes back. So I highly recommend for my moms
Speaker 4: who do want to have a trial of labor attempt
Speaker 4: to view back, to go as natural as humanly possible, okay,
Speaker 4: and to not have any interventions that are medically unnecessary.
Speaker 4: And you can do a v back at home, yes,
Speaker 4: absolutely So it depends on the state that you're in,
Speaker 4: because I'm assuming some of the listeners are, you know,
Speaker 4: not in California. In California, you can have a you
Speaker 4: can have a view back. The thing is, you just
Speaker 4: have to be a good candidate for out of hospital birth,
Speaker 4: so you can't have like be high risk or have
Speaker 4: a history of certain things that could cause that to
Speaker 4: happen again. But feedback is perfectly done safe at home.
Speaker 6: I had preclamsy it I can't. I might at high
Speaker 6: risk next time.
Speaker 4: Automatically, No, not automatically.
Speaker 3: It's so funny because v back, Like when I first
Speaker 3: heard that term, I literally felt like maybe like my
Speaker 3: uterus didn't work the right way anymore, Like that because
Speaker 3: they I was cut open, that now I had scar
Speaker 3: tissue and that had something to do with the reason why,
Speaker 3: because they didn't explain it. It was just like, no,
Speaker 3: you can't do it, so just don't even think about it.
Speaker 3: This is this is your option. And so I just like,
Speaker 3: so that's another reason why I think I was like,
Speaker 3: I'm never having another kid again.
Speaker 4: It traumatizes you. And I hear just so.
Speaker 3: Many women are still have the beliefs that I had.
Speaker 3: I mean, thank God, like you know, I've been able
Speaker 3: to I've taken it upon myself to do more research.
Speaker 3: But like I really was like, oh, I'm like, my
Speaker 3: uterus is broken. I can't. I fucked it up and
Speaker 3: this is my only way of giving.
Speaker 4: Somebody told you that you were inadequate pretty much, and
Speaker 4: it's bullshit. It's bullshit.
Speaker 6: I think that's why it's so important to do your
Speaker 6: research when you become frigent. I think actually in like
Speaker 6: communities for like black and brown women, like it's not
Speaker 6: I just think it's just not a culture that's really
Speaker 6: explored period.
Speaker 5: Like you get what you just think you're going to
Speaker 5: the hospital.
Speaker 6: It's gonna hurt, it's going to be intense, it's scary,
Speaker 6: and then you give birth. So I think it's like
Speaker 6: even to have a birth plan like I like to
Speaker 6: have if I had a doula, I had a very intense,
Speaker 6: like you know, you you don't want drugs, you don't
Speaker 6: want this, and then you're just drugged up, you don't
Speaker 6: know what the fuck is happening, and they're not explaining
Speaker 6: shit to there's fear, like but even I had a
Speaker 6: very descriptive, very researched, well three page like birth plan,
Speaker 6: but because I didn't have a doula, and I end
Speaker 6: up going to the hospital, like no one was.
Speaker 3: There to make sure.
Speaker 6: Yeah, like they went against what the fuck I wrote down,
Speaker 6: and then later like I guess they realized it and
Speaker 6: then had like make copies so as people were coming on.
Speaker 5: Because that's actually really like a legal thing.
Speaker 6: I've documented specifically what I don't want you to do,
Speaker 6: and you've done it anyway.
Speaker 5: So I think it's so important.
Speaker 6: To do your research even if you can't, okay, I
Speaker 6: can't afford a duel or can't afford a midwife, to
Speaker 6: still have some like some direction of where you want
Speaker 6: to go, because a lot of doctors expect you to
Speaker 6: not be in performed.
Speaker 5: And that's and that's.
Speaker 6: How they can really use fear because if you don't know, Ship,
Speaker 6: and you's like, you don't know they're saying fifty, you
Speaker 6: know your your chance doubles. You don't know what's fucking
Speaker 6: from two point point two zero's.
Speaker 3: Doctor told me that that do you know how many?
Speaker 3: When I told I want to have homeber, she do
Speaker 3: you know how many home birth still born babies I've delivered?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 4: She totally she said that.
Speaker 3: She said, do you really want to risk your first child?
Speaker 3: Why don't you just have your first child at the hospital,
Speaker 3: see how that goes. You want to have another one,
Speaker 3: you can, you'll, you'll, you'll know how the process works.
Speaker 5: I would have been like, well, how many? I want
Speaker 5: to know specifically? How many have you?
Speaker 3: Wasn't that aggressive?
Speaker 6: I know I was such an aggressive patient. That's why
Speaker 6: me and my my un are friends.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I was talking, mad Ship, I was, I need
Speaker 6: you to be more specific about the numbers.
Speaker 1: I feel like.
Speaker 6: I was like, I feel like you paid a lot
Speaker 6: of money for medical school and now you feel entire
Speaker 6: like you feel you have to tell me these things.
Speaker 6: But let's be honest. This is bullshit. Anyway, we have
Speaker 6: some listeners who had some questions for duelas okay, and
Speaker 6: she wants to know what are there? Well, you think
Speaker 6: you've covered the benefits of being a doula.
Speaker 5: The cost? What is your costs? Generally?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so everywhere is different. So I live in a city,
Speaker 4: a town called Santa Clarita, which is a suburb of
Speaker 4: La Right, So dula's with similar credentials and similar training
Speaker 4: and similar experience to me that live like in the
Speaker 4: heart of La they charge twenty twenty five hundred, three
Speaker 4: thousand or more sometimes, especially if they're like celebrity or
Speaker 4: high Adula is very very pricey. This little family suburb
Speaker 4: town I live in a lot of those moms can't
Speaker 4: afford that as much. So it depends. I have different packages.
Speaker 4: But my services they go anywhere from like the fourteen
Speaker 4: hundred to the seventeen hundred price range.
Speaker 3: And are you with them from the beginning of whatever
Speaker 3: they hire and after care to or how does so?
Speaker 4: I tell all of my clients hire me as soon
Speaker 4: as you humanly possibly can. Even though I am a
Speaker 4: birth doula. My special right, like we talked about, like,
Speaker 4: my approach is a lot of that inner game, right,
Speaker 4: we need more time together In the beginning, I have
Speaker 4: books I want you to read. I have homework. I
Speaker 4: want you doing right. So I hire me as soon
Speaker 4: as you can. From the moment they hire me, they
Speaker 4: have complete access to me. When they go into labor,
Speaker 4: I meet them at their birth and I stay with
Speaker 4: them until about an hour afterwards, make sure that their breastfeeding,
Speaker 4: while their skins to skin the placenta is delivered. Well,
Speaker 4: they're healthy, they feel good. Then I kick everyone out
Speaker 4: because it's time for them to bond as a family.
Speaker 4: You probably remember that with Alana's birth. After so long,
Speaker 4: I was like, okay, there's twenty people learn everybody needs
Speaker 4: to go right because it's time for them to bond.
Speaker 4: Then I do a postpartum visit to make sure that
Speaker 4: everyone is doing well and nursing well and she's not struggling,
Speaker 4: everyone sleeping and eating things like that. But she still
Speaker 4: has access to me. So she needs to send me
Speaker 4: a text message or needs resources, or is having trouble
Speaker 4: with an issue, or wants to shoot me an email
Speaker 4: or call me, she still has access to me.
Speaker 3: Okay, what about how do you and the midwife collaborate,
Speaker 3: like do you oftentimes are you usually like does a
Speaker 3: midwife oftentimes suggest you to her client or do sometimes
Speaker 3: it's totally separate, like you don't even know this midwife. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and you guys, but do you guys have communication together?
Speaker 3: It is important that you guys have like a relationship
Speaker 3: or like, you know, some sort of planned.
Speaker 4: To Yeah, totally. So it kind of varies. So I
Speaker 4: work a lot off of word of mouth, so I
Speaker 4: have fabulous marketing and I can get people finding me
Speaker 4: online all day long. But I found that those are
Speaker 4: actually my least favorite births. I found that my favorite
Speaker 4: births have been through somebody who recommended them because we
Speaker 4: like attracts like and we're similar minded, so there's a
Speaker 4: really good connection in bond there. So my clients, wherever
Speaker 4: they're delivering, I go to them. So if they're delivering
Speaker 4: at hospital, we go to the hospital. If they're delivering
Speaker 4: it with a midwife, I go to them. So I'm
Speaker 4: completely separate from their care provider. But there is a
Speaker 4: lot oftors and midwives who do recommend my services because
Speaker 4: they see the difference in their patients when they show up.
Speaker 4: There's you know, two or three midwives here in LA
Speaker 4: that I work really closely with that are always referring
Speaker 4: to me and they're fabulous, And a lot of doctors
Speaker 4: that theaters even pass out my cards to their patients.
Speaker 4: They're like, Hey, you want to be back, you want
Speaker 4: a natural birth, you need to call this chick.
Speaker 3: Do you find that if you because you might not
Speaker 3: have interaction with a midwife thear for doing a home
Speaker 3: birth or whatever, that is there like some sort of
Speaker 3: hierarchy between midwife and dula. Is there some sort of
Speaker 3: like spoken like not all the time? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I know, but like I just feel like I don't know,
Speaker 3: like you're walking into a situation where you maybe never
Speaker 3: met the midwife. The midwife has been supporting the woman
Speaker 3: this time, and then here comes someone else to support
Speaker 3: and they're like, it can be weird.
Speaker 4: No, it totally can. Know it totally who you're meeting.
Speaker 3: You guys need to be on the same page. You know,
Speaker 3: you don't know who you're wanting you too. And I
Speaker 3: think sometimes it becomes a little it becomes personal. You're
Speaker 3: you're assisting some through the birth and you almost get territorial.
Speaker 4: Of your yes, whatever. So newer dulas that I'll mentors
Speaker 4: sometimes I encourage them to not do that, because it's
Speaker 4: really easy to get territorial. Right. So if I had
Speaker 4: never met your doctor before, and your doctor is saying
Speaker 4: things to you that are not quite true and not
Speaker 4: quite accurate, Let's say I was at your last birth,
Speaker 4: I'd be a little pissed and I'd get a little territorial.
Speaker 4: But that's where we really have to check ourselves as
Speaker 4: dulas and be like, this is not my birth right.
Speaker 4: I'm here to help her find her voice and what
Speaker 4: she wants to do, not to save her. And there's
Speaker 4: a lot of dulas that are still trying to save
Speaker 4: people are trying to relive their own birth story, So
Speaker 4: we have to be careful with that. But it's also
Speaker 4: understanding the difference between the hat that adula wears and
Speaker 4: a care provider. So I'm not here to make medical
Speaker 4: decisions for you, right, I'm not here to give you
Speaker 4: medical advice. I'm here to support you emotionally, physically, informationally,
Speaker 4: and give you the facts, right, the evidence based, unbiased
Speaker 4: information of what your real choices are, so you can
Speaker 4: choose what's best for you. So when I'm approaching that way,
Speaker 4: it's gonna go a lot better most of the time regardless,
Speaker 4: but it is true sometimes. I've worked with one midwife
Speaker 4: one time, and she's a fantastic midwife, but she actually
Speaker 4: recommends she tells people not to get du lists, and
Speaker 4: it's her own personal shit she needs to work through
Speaker 4: because she likes feeling like the safer. She loves that
Speaker 4: feeling of id for this woman. And I did this
Speaker 4: right totally. And my whole thing is like, I want
Speaker 4: you to have such a beautiful birth. I want you
Speaker 4: to take my coaching so well. I want you to
Speaker 4: be so coachable and teachable, and I want to do
Speaker 4: such a good job that you felt like you didn't
Speaker 4: even need me, and I was just there holding space
Speaker 4: for you, a fly on the wall in case an
Speaker 4: emergency happened. And that's ideally my favorite birth. Honestly.
Speaker 5: The woman is empowered and.
Speaker 4: When I've coached her well enough that she just rocks
Speaker 4: her birth and I'm just there to support you.
Speaker 3: Know that. Do you recommend that if you are going
Speaker 3: to go, if you are having a home birth or
Speaker 3: birth center birth whatever with a mid way that and
Speaker 3: you also want a doula, that you connect the two together.
Speaker 4: Like that you, Yeah, you can, but just don't be
Speaker 4: too pushy with it. So I have had I had
Speaker 4: a childbirth educator, which I'm one myself, but I had
Speaker 4: a childbirth educator once she teaches just a hypno birth
Speaker 4: thing and she was like, oh, you need to do that.
Speaker 4: Just does hypno birthing. And it's so basically there's many
Speaker 4: different types of labor rightiet they're supposed to be kind
Speaker 4: of quiet because typically you have your headphones on and
Speaker 4: you're and you're listening to the affirmations and the things
Speaker 4: that help you go inward and go to that meditative state.
Speaker 4: It's basically how I would describe it in like pretty
Speaker 4: simple terms. Even though there's lots of ways to do it.
Speaker 6: I did this, and I really recommend researching, Like who
Speaker 6: are you going to tap into? I think when I
Speaker 6: realized I was in the hospital and I was getting
Speaker 6: induced and I was like, okay, I started looking on
Speaker 6: my phone and I end that moment, don'tload this app,
Speaker 6: and literally I don't know why no one fucking turned
Speaker 6: it off, but for hours I'd done like an Australian
Speaker 6: and she's like.
Speaker 5: You'll, baby is waiting to meet you.
Speaker 3: All.
Speaker 8: Baby is calming down, y'all baby?
Speaker 3: Wait? Is that because I sent you that that expectful thing.
Speaker 3: You're like, as long as their voice isn't fucking annoying.
Speaker 3: It was like that meditated.
Speaker 5: I can't forget it. I don't know why I was
Speaker 5: too I don't know. I was too hypnotized to turn
Speaker 5: that bitch.
Speaker 6: Off, y'all baby, and not white to mate you that
Speaker 6: is hlarious USh.
Speaker 5: Y'all baby down. Afterwards, everyone's making fun of me, like
Speaker 5: what the who.
Speaker 4: Is this bitch? And you're like you let the bitch
Speaker 4: keep playing?
Speaker 5: And then I had like I had, like girl, I
Speaker 5: printed out affirmations.
Speaker 6: Yeah, bring my affirmations from the table, like, let them
Speaker 6: table on the wall.
Speaker 1: I love the.
Speaker 6: Reading and listening and you'll, baby, my baby is coming
Speaker 6: suddenly you're Australian.
Speaker 4: Oh my, that's hilarious, my baby.
Speaker 5: I'm sure the nurses were like, this bitch is crazy.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, I love it.
Speaker 6: Sometimes I trying to dance the baby down and like,
Speaker 6: I've never seen this method.
Speaker 4: I was like, it's new, it is new, actually, oh
Speaker 4: my god, oh my god, that's hilarious. You're okay, that
Speaker 4: made my day?
Speaker 5: Do your research and who you're gonna listen to for
Speaker 5: eight hour streight.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, so that's I guess the point of a
Speaker 4: huge part of hypno birthing would be to do it
Speaker 4: prior to labor and be very familiar with it so
Speaker 4: you know what you're doing when it happens and you
Speaker 4: go into it. It's not some crazy Australian bitch. But
Speaker 4: there's many different ways of you know, there's lamas, there's
Speaker 4: the Bradley method, there is hypno babies, there's hypno birthing,
Speaker 4: there's birthing from within, which is one of my favorite things.
Speaker 4: There's so many different ways you can spend this right
Speaker 4: And basically, to answer your question earlier, there was a
Speaker 4: childbirth educator who was like, she's not an adequate to
Speaker 4: love for you because he's not certified in my course.
Speaker 4: She needs to come pay eight hundred dollars and be
Speaker 4: my assistant and be in my course. It was such
Speaker 4: full shit. So I straight up called her up and
Speaker 4: was like, so let's chat right. So it's hard, because yes,
Speaker 4: you want to connect them as much as you can.
Speaker 4: But the reason why I called her is because I
Speaker 4: made it very clear to my clients well before they
Speaker 4: took this course. Listen, I have done it all, I've
Speaker 4: learned about it all. The problem I have with just
Speaker 4: doing hypno babies, and to any listeners out there that
Speaker 4: had the most amazing experience with hypo babies, more power
Speaker 4: to your sister. I'm not hating. I'm so happy. I'm
Speaker 4: so happy for you. But not everyone has that experience.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: Sometimes that doesn't work, or it's some crazy Australian biship
Speaker 4: pisses you off. Right, it doesn't work all the time.
Speaker 4: Sometimes what you need is very different. Sometimes you need silence,
Speaker 4: some times you need visualization. Everyone's different. So I like
Speaker 4: to pull out all of the tools and see what
Speaker 4: works best for you in that moment and what you need.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: So they were very pushy about, like she wants you
Speaker 4: to take her course. So I finally called her up
Speaker 4: and I was like, listen, this is all my experience
Speaker 4: I've had. I've read a lot in hypno birth, I've
Speaker 4: done a lot, I've experienced a lot of hypno birth,
Speaker 4: and I don't believe it's the only way. If my
Speaker 4: clients want to go this route, that's awesome, but I
Speaker 4: don't have time. I'm not coming to take your course.
Speaker 4: I flat out told her I was really and.
Speaker 6: I appreciate you suggesting a third party that I need
Speaker 6: to take your goddamn course. Right.
Speaker 4: It was really shitty the way she handled it, unfortunately,
Speaker 4: but it is what it is. Hopefully she's changed your
Speaker 4: ways a little bit since then.
Speaker 3: To go off of that, as a duela, have you
Speaker 3: ever had to pass like step away from an unexpected
Speaker 3: mom because you guys were not vibing and like just
Speaker 3: because I know, it's just a sacred space that you
Speaker 3: hold together.
Speaker 4: It's so sacred.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So like, how does are you spicky about your client?
Speaker 4: I also interview my clients, okay, and I tell all
Speaker 4: of them. Alana will tell you this. I tell all
Speaker 4: of them, Okay, you're going to go interview one or
Speaker 4: two or maybe three other duelists, not ten or twelve,
Speaker 4: because they're all gonna mess together and you're gonna forget him.
Speaker 4: I've had clients do that, just one or two and
Speaker 4: see of you vibe with and a lot of times
Speaker 4: like oh no, but we love you. I'm like, just
Speaker 4: go see because what if you loved somebody more. Two
Speaker 4: times in eight and a half years, I've had a
Speaker 4: mom come back and be like, oh, my God, I
Speaker 4: feel like I'm breaking up with the love of my
Speaker 4: life because I love you so much. But you were
Speaker 4: right like this other person is like my soulmate. I'm like,
Speaker 4: it's all good, sister like that, So you should be
Speaker 4: with like we're having a baby. This is serious stuff.
Speaker 4: So that's happened twice.
Speaker 6: That's how I am with my last clients. We're not
Speaker 6: gonna have this is not gonna work.
Speaker 4: It's not working. So I have had that. I've had
Speaker 4: two berths where one of them I literally had to
Speaker 4: kick her husband out of the room and he I
Speaker 4: still worry. She was on my mind yesterday when I
Speaker 4: was on a walk, and I haven't seen her in years.
Speaker 4: I still worry about her to this day. He's not
Speaker 4: a healthy man, and I fear for her and that
Speaker 4: whole family. He knew how and it was for her
Speaker 4: to do everything natural, and as soon as he saw
Speaker 4: her in pain, he just started screaming at both of
Speaker 4: us as she needs to have a SA section. It
Speaker 4: was very traumatizing for her. I had to kick him out.
Speaker 4: Once he left, she was fine and he came back
Speaker 4: way too soon. He's just very, very unhealthy man who
Speaker 4: needs to do a lot of work.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 4: It's not evil man, it's not about man. He just
Speaker 4: needs a lot of help, you know. And then their
Speaker 4: second time around, she came back and she was like, hey,
Speaker 4: your prices have gone up significantly since our first birth
Speaker 4: with you. And I was like, well, that's because I
Speaker 4: was a newer Duela. I was only charging like, I
Speaker 4: think a thousand bucks at the time, and I'd given
Speaker 4: them a discount and they'd gone up a lot. She's like,
Speaker 4: they're almost double the price, which they weren't, and she
Speaker 4: was trying to get me to come down really really low,
Speaker 4: and I was like, I physically can't. I have to
Speaker 4: run a business and I can only take so many
Speaker 4: clients per month, right, I don't like your husband and
Speaker 4: I you know. And I went to one of my
Speaker 4: mentors at the time and I'm like, I don't know
Speaker 4: what to do because I don't want to be at
Speaker 4: that berth. But I'm fearful for her if I'm not.
Speaker 4: I had to really think about it and for a
Speaker 4: long time for her. Yes, yes, And I had in
Speaker 4: it for a really long time, and I just gave
Speaker 4: it up to God in the universe, and I'm like,
Speaker 4: what is meant to me is going to be. And
Speaker 4: I told her this is the bottom line, this is
Speaker 4: what I can come down to, and if you can't,
Speaker 4: that's okay. I wish she the most beautiful birth. Contacts
Speaker 4: me like a month later and she's like, we found
Speaker 4: a different Duela. Thank you so much, we love you.
Speaker 4: I'm like, no problem getting email from her a year
Speaker 4: and a half later. She had a terrible, horrific birth experience.
Speaker 4: She's having a really hard time with her husband, and
Speaker 4: she didn't love her doula, and she just she poured
Speaker 4: out in that email. I fucking hated my birth. I
Speaker 4: hated my Duela, I hated everything. I wish you were there.
Speaker 4: I miss you. I want you in my life. She
Speaker 4: really poured out, and I felt awful, but I was like,
Speaker 4: I knew that I wasn't supposed to be there because
Speaker 4: I do get protective and I'm sure they're like, I
Speaker 4: had to kick him out of the first birth. I
Speaker 4: can't imagine what I would have had to have done
Speaker 4: the second time. So I have had a few situations
Speaker 4: like that. I have. On one occasion, I saw a
Speaker 4: doctor he should literally be in jail for the way
Speaker 4: he physically abused this woman. Oh my god, it was
Speaker 4: fucking horrible. Literally, that man should be hospital like jailed,
Speaker 4: like imprisoned. He's it was terrible. He physically abused her.
Speaker 4: You know, I've seen that, and I had to really
Speaker 4: step away and make that choice, Like do I leave
Speaker 4: this room because I can't handle this anymore. But I'm
Speaker 4: not supposed to say anything right, like I can get
Speaker 4: big trouble. I'm not supposed to speak on my client's
Speaker 4: behalf right, And there was nobody else there with her,
Speaker 4: so I'm like looking at the nurses and I'm telling
Speaker 4: her to speak up for herself, and I'm doing the
Speaker 4: best I can. You know, that was another awful situation, unfortunately.
Speaker 4: But other than that, out of all the other clients
Speaker 4: I've had, like, those are my worst times where I've
Speaker 4: had to decide if this was something I should be
Speaker 4: a part of or not.
Speaker 3: I have one other question. Yeah, but we could go
Speaker 3: all day and I'm like, I'm like, all the questions
Speaker 3: are flowing. Have you ever been present for a stillbirth?
Speaker 4: Okay, thank god, I have it going wrong?
Speaker 3: And like, how do how do you support after.
Speaker 4: That things going wrong? Yes, I've been a part of
Speaker 4: that that's really hard as a doula, even for someone
Speaker 4: like me who will very proudly say I have a
Speaker 4: gift for it. I have a gift for when everything
Speaker 4: else is going wrong, I'm the calmest person in the room.
Speaker 4: So even then for me, there's it's difficult. The worst
Speaker 4: I can come that comes up to mine right now
Speaker 4: is I had a mom who baby was not still born,
Speaker 4: but baby was completely not responsive at all, no breathing,
Speaker 4: no nothing. We called nine one one. It was a
Speaker 4: home birth, and not to scare people from home birth,
Speaker 4: because we are trained. Midwives are trained equally, if not
Speaker 4: in some cases better to handle like a newborn resuscitation
Speaker 4: better than the hospital is even right, so we call
Speaker 4: nine one one. They started resuscitation on the baby. And
Speaker 4: the reason why this one was so hard for me
Speaker 4: was because the parents were good friends of mine, longtime
Speaker 4: good friends. I mean, it was very very personal, and
Speaker 4: I knew something was off during the labor because they
Speaker 4: wanted to birth. I have to be mindful of what
Speaker 4: I say right now because legally there's only so many
Speaker 4: things I could say. But where they wanted to birth
Speaker 4: that they were unable to outside of the home, so
Speaker 4: they ended up at the apartment they were living at,
Speaker 4: and she felt very uncomfortable and unsafe there. She felt
Speaker 4: like her neighbors could hear her. It wasn't the right
Speaker 4: space for her. So long story short, baby is completely
Speaker 4: non responsive, called nine one one full resuscitation, and I
Speaker 4: just looked at mom and dad and dad was losing it,
Speaker 4: and I just said, you, guys, the only thing you
Speaker 4: can do right now is you need to talk to
Speaker 4: your baby, because that baby needs a reason to live
Speaker 4: right now. That baby needs to hear mom and dad
Speaker 4: and know that there's something waiting for me. So they
Speaker 4: started singing Wheels on the bus, which they they used
Speaker 4: to read the Wheels on the Bus book. Yeah, I know,
Speaker 4: I'm getting hill. And they used to read Wheels on
Speaker 4: the Bus book to their baby when she was in womb.
Speaker 4: And oh god, chills everywhere in my legs. And they
Speaker 4: started singing wheels on the bus and I'm like, keep going,
Speaker 4: keep going. And what felt like, you know, twenty thirty minutes.
Speaker 4: It was actually three minutes, which is a long time.
Speaker 4: But baby started screaming. Okay, before the paramedics or anyone
Speaker 4: got there. Babies find baby screaming and afterwards, Mom was
Speaker 4: okay because her baby was on her chest and she's like,
Speaker 4: my baby is here. So she was fine because all
Speaker 4: she needed was that baby. But for Dad, Dad's like
Speaker 4: watching the love of his life and his baby. He
Speaker 4: just experienced. He was not well. He was not well.
Speaker 4: So that was me again wanting to lose my own shit,
Speaker 4: but not in taking Dad to the corner and doing
Speaker 4: some serious duel of work. And I'm like, listen, paramedics
Speaker 4: are going to be here in a minute. This is
Speaker 4: what's going to happen. These are the steps, this is
Speaker 4: the process. Legally, technically, baby mom don't have to go
Speaker 4: to the hospital after that because they're all totally fine.
Speaker 4: But we recommended in that specific situation for specific reasons
Speaker 4: like baconium and things like that, that we wanted baby
Speaker 4: to be seen at the hospital anyways, So we knew
Speaker 4: they were going to go to the hospital and that
Speaker 4: I just just preparing him for what's going to happen,
Speaker 4: because it is so rare that something like this happens. However,
Speaker 4: how do you think the medical staff is going to
Speaker 4: treat them when they get there with their baby and
Speaker 4: tell them.
Speaker 3: They got a home burn?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Because total totally it's going to be awful. And here's
Speaker 4: the thing. No, everything's totally fine. And here's the thing.
Speaker 4: I have been a part of a lot of transports.
Speaker 4: Some of them were medically necessary, some of them were
Speaker 4: Mom just needed an epidirl and she's been laboring for
Speaker 4: three days, and the poor they needed a break. You know,
Speaker 4: we're not opposed to, Hey, mom needs to go to
Speaker 4: the hospital's go hospital, right. So I've been a part
Speaker 4: of a lot of transports, and there have been times
Speaker 4: where the paramedics have shown up and they know the midwife,
Speaker 4: she's their midwife right for their babies, or they know me,
Speaker 4: I'm their Dulan. They're like, hey, and they're so loving
Speaker 4: and so awesome. And we get there and we know
Speaker 4: those doctors and nurses and they're super receptive. But that
Speaker 4: is not always the case. There are many places all
Speaker 4: over the country that it's exactly what you guys said.
Speaker 4: It's a lot of fear, it's a lot of bullshit,
Speaker 4: and I just I just prepped him for the worst
Speaker 4: to come. And they did get treated really bad when
Speaker 4: they first got there.
Speaker 6: But and just for the record, because I have watched
Speaker 6: a lot of birds online, if you watched like animals birds,
Speaker 6: Sometimes the baby's laying there for a minute or two.
Speaker 5: Three minutes.
Speaker 4: And yes, sometimes I know this.
Speaker 6: Sounds crazy, that like the primal instinct for the mom
Speaker 6: the animals like never panic.
Speaker 5: They're just like I've watched an elephant.
Speaker 4: Just give them a little bit. Yeah, they're just letting
Speaker 4: them know, like, hey, you need to live now. And
Speaker 4: that's a mom and dad were doing when they're singing.
Speaker 4: They're just letting them know.
Speaker 5: Hate.
Speaker 4: I know you recognize this voice, give you a reason,
Speaker 4: let's go, because it's.
Speaker 6: Literally even like I read about like rubbing on the spine,
Speaker 6: like there's it's literally, you guys in transition that's happening.
Speaker 5: A soul is encompassing a vessel y. So sometimes they're
Speaker 5: like where am I coming? I don't want to go.
Speaker 6: I hate that place again again jumps it off as.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, sometimes I need a minute. But for
Speaker 4: the record, Jamila, just so you know, that same family
Speaker 4: as planning baby number two right now, years and years later,
Speaker 4: they are planning a home birth, and they said they
Speaker 4: would not have changed a single thing the way that
Speaker 4: they did it.
Speaker 3: That's amazing, not a single thing. That must feel so
Speaker 3: good for you too in your work. Well, thank you,
Speaker 3: thank you for what you do. I'm glad I be
Speaker 3: able to talk to you, especially because I do want
Speaker 3: to have a kid at some point, Like, yeah, I
Speaker 3: want to know that. I like, I feel thank god
Speaker 3: now I have more support I have, you know this podcast.
Speaker 3: I have a community of women that we listen to
Speaker 3: that I feel like are my friends that you know,
Speaker 3: we just and I get to speak to people like
Speaker 3: you where I feel supported. You know, So this time around,
Speaker 3: no matter who baby, daddy, family, ain't nothing penetrating what
Speaker 3: the fuck.
Speaker 4: I want to.
Speaker 3: Sometimes you have to say fuck it and go with
Speaker 3: your some conversations.
Speaker 6: You got to let people know I'm not it's not
Speaker 6: a conversation. It's not up for discussion. I've made my
Speaker 6: decision and this is me.
Speaker 4: I'm not discussing it.
Speaker 3: And whether that's a hospital, whether that's home birth, whatever
Speaker 3: it is.
Speaker 6: Mom in law, mama, dad and sister brother, like, it's
Speaker 6: not a discussion.
Speaker 4: Only that's so true.
Speaker 6: True, respect my decision. It's my birth, it's my experience.
Speaker 6: Even Daddy and.
Speaker 5: Have a birth plan, and that's it.
Speaker 4: You have to be so honoring in that way.
Speaker 5: Yeah, honor yourself.
Speaker 3: And with that said, I know you have kind, you
Speaker 3: have a read you have the so female network that
Speaker 3: you have resources for your listeners to tap into if
Speaker 3: they're considering whatever they're considering and they need support. So
Speaker 3: let us absolutely find you and all your amazing work.
Speaker 4: So I'm a CEO. I own three different companies and
Speaker 4: the most recent one marries all of this, so everything
Speaker 4: women's health. You're trying to get pregnant, trying to not
Speaker 4: get pregnant, You want to be back, you want a breastfeed,
Speaker 4: you want a hospital birth, it doesn't matter what you're
Speaker 4: looking for. We have a community that is a membership site.
Speaker 4: There's a ton of free resources on there. It's so
Speaker 4: Dashed female dot com. And I have a book that's
Speaker 4: coming out that's the first step that starts to teach
Speaker 4: one and how to connect with their bodies and use
Speaker 4: tools like essential oils, meditation, mindfulness to help that process. Right.
Speaker 4: That's getting ready to come out too, And you can
Speaker 4: go to the site. You can get the book there,
Speaker 4: you can get free resources, you can sign up for
Speaker 4: the free newsletter and just get support, unbiased, evidence based
Speaker 4: support wherever you're at in your journey. Girl, We just
Speaker 4: want you to do you and we want to love
Speaker 4: on you and that's it.
Speaker 5: Thank you, You're welcome.
Speaker 3: So is that the best place for them to find you?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know. So website is great, so dash
Speaker 4: female dot com. But other great resources Instagram is the Doulah.
Speaker 4: Instagram is grounded Mamas m a m as so dash
Speaker 4: female right for so Female. And then I have a
Speaker 4: wellness Instagram as well, which is at the dot dream
Speaker 4: dot Thinker, so the dream Thinker with dots in between,
Speaker 4: and I give to away tons of resources and information
Speaker 4: there as well that you guys can DM me, email me,
Speaker 4: connect with me and my assistant directly there and get
Speaker 4: all this support.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you so much for coming.
Speaker 4: Thank you for having me so fun to connect with us.
Speaker 4: I know, crying in your arms, I'm so proud, but hey,
Speaker 4: this was only one time. Girl. At some point I'm
Speaker 4: going to have you crying in my arms.
Speaker 5: This is probably true. Well, we'll catch you guys later.
Speaker 3: Make sure you follow us at Good Mom's Underscore, Bad Choices.
Speaker 3: Follow go to our website, Good Momsbad Choices dot com,
Speaker 3: subscribe to our newsletter by some merch. You can also
Speaker 3: watch this episode on our Patreon. I know you guys
Speaker 3: like to hear our sex dyvoy this, but also we're
Speaker 3: kind of cute. It's so sam so you probably want
Speaker 3: to watch, So go check out our patreon. We have
Speaker 3: some cool stuff on there to other offers, and.
Speaker 4: That's it right.
Speaker 6: Also, we're going to do a meet up at Hollywood
Speaker 6: Cemetery on August tenth.
Speaker 5: It's Voice in the Hood. If you're in La, you needs.
Speaker 3: To come for West Love is dding.
Speaker 5: We're bringing tequila.
Speaker 3: You must buy tickets now. They might be sold out
Speaker 3: already by the time you heard this episode.
Speaker 5: Okay, bye bye bye.
Speaker 1: Tie.
Speaker 3: How beautiful.
Speaker 2: It's nothing more than two way a time storm. I've
Speaker 2: never been in love like this before. Now let me
Speaker 2: pray to keep you from the parables that will surely
Speaker 2: come to life for you, my friends, has just beyond.
Speaker 8: And I thank you for choosing me to come through
Speaker 8: to life to be a beautiful reflection of his grades.
Speaker 8: See I know how to gain so great is only
Speaker 8: one se