Podcasts about Rebozo

"I wish they would be less afraid... Instead of having health care, we have health scare. The things that make the baby usually help the baby come out. And if you didn't make the baby that way, the things with someone you love during the process of having the baby can really bring you from a place of fright to a place of delight.." —Theresa Lasbrey Peters "Pleasurable birth is when we accept the pain, accept the hardship of birth, but we shift our focus to pleasure and joy and to the sacredness that we can experience." —Bettina Zagoni "These need to become like natural language— orgasmic birth and sexuality and stuff like that— starting with us as healthcare providers, and then to the mothers and to the grandmothers and to all the people around. We need to start doing that." —Alejandra Lozano   Ep 166 Description:  Parents and providers are starting to question why pleasure is missing from childbirth education and care. Many people want a birth that feels safe, connected, and aligned with how the body actually works. This episode offers a clear look at how pleasure, intimacy, and trust can shift fear-based systems and restore human-centered care. Theresa Lasbrey Peters, Bettina Zagoni, and Alejandra Lozano share how discovering the science and practice of pleasure changed their work and the families they serve. Their accounts show how small changes in language, touch, and expectation lead to calmer births and deeper bonding. Tap play to hear practical ideas that can change how you prepare for birth and support others during labor. Topics inside: • What a pleasurable birth looks like in real practice • Why pleasure is a valid tool for coping with pain • The benefits of slow midwifery and intentional environment • Provider fears that limit physiological birth and how to address them • Training pathways and community support for practitioners • Concrete techniques partners and caregivers can use today   Connect with Debra! Website: https://www.orgasmicbirth.com  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/orgasmicbirth X: https://twitter.com/OrgasmicBirth  YouTube https://www.youtube.com/c/OrgasmicBirth1  Tik Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@orgasmicbirth  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debra-pascali-bonaro-1093471    Episode Highlights: 03:02 Meet Theresa, Bettina, and Alejandra 08:50 What is Pleasurable Birth? 12:13 How Pleasure Changes Outcomes 18:46 Misconceptions About Orgasmic Birth 25:11 What Providers Need to Know: Fear vs Trust 32:39 How the Practitioner Program Transforms Practice 39:10 Join the Orgasmic Birth Practitioner Program 45:18 Valuing Information and Community Support Around Pleasure 49:01 Vision: Pleasurable Maternity Care   Resources: 

Rebozo 29 OctubreSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Komunitní porodní asistentka Štěpánka Trappová odpovídá na nejčastější otázky týkající se její profese.Co ji přimělo opustit nemocniční systém? A co by dělala, kdyby nebyla porodní asistentkou?Čeká vás krásné a milé povídání, které zaujme i ty, kterých se porod zrovna netýká.

Parfois, une femme en travail se met à pousser… alors que, techniquement, ce n'est pas encore "le moment". Son col n'est pas complètement dilaté. Est-ce un problème ? Est-ce dangereux ? Est-ce qu'il faut forcément intervenir ? Dans cet épisode, je te parle de ces instants charnières qui nous confrontent à la patience obstétrique, à l'observation fine, à la puissance du corps… et à la confiance.C'est une question qui m'a été posée récemment et qui résonne avec une naissance vécue il y a quelques jours à la maison de naissance. Une femme a commencé à pousser avant la dilatation complète, et tout l'enjeu a été de discerner : est-ce son réflexe d'expulsion ? Ou est-ce elle qui pousse consciemment pour "en finir" ?Je t'explique ce qu'on observe en tant que sage-femme. Comment on fait la différence entre une envie irrépressible de pousser et un effort volontaire, parfois lié à l'épuisement, à l'impatience ou à une tension émotionnelle.Tu comprendras dans cet épisode :Ce qu'est une envie précoce de pousserPourquoi ce n'est pas forcément problématiqueCe qui peut créer ce besoin de pousser (position du bébé, poche des eaux, sensation de pression…)Et surtout, ce qu'on peut faire pour accompagner sans brusquerOn parle de tout ce qui peut être mis en place :Les changements de posture Les techniques de relâchement L'usage du rebozo, de l'homéopathie, et de la visualisationLa puissance de l'accompagnement émotionnel, de la présence, des motsJe partage aussi cette histoire magnifique d'un partenaire qui, par ses mots et ses images mentales, a permis à sa compagne de lâcher prise et de laisser le corps faire son œuvre.On déconstruit ensemble les croyances : non, une envie précoce de pousser ne veut pas forcément dire danger. Oui, le corps peut savoir ce qu'il fait. Et parfois, le col s'ouvre sous la pression, sans l'aide d'un geste médical.Si tu accompagnes des naissances ou si tu prépares la tienne, je te souhaite de trouver dans cet épisode des ressources, des pistes et beaucoup de réassurance.

In this week's show, Lian is joined by Sophie Messager. Sophie bridges worlds that rarely meet. A former reproductive physiologist with a PhD, she traded her microscope for holistic practices after experiencing the transformative power of an empowered birth. Her decade-long journey as a doula, birth educator, and author of Why Postnatal Recovery Matters deepened her exploration of the rhythms surrounding women's transitions. Now a holistic life transition mentor, Sophie guides women through significant life thresholds – from birth to perimenopause and beyond. Her unique combination of scientific expertise and spiritual insight allows her to serve as a compassionate space holder for those seeking to harmonise their analytical and intuitive selves. In this episode, Lian and Sophie explore the ancient and immediate power of the drum… how it once belonged to priestesses and women of the land, how it was silenced by culture and religion, and how it is now returning as medicine for body, mind, and birth. Together, they trace the threads of history and lived experience, revealing why rhythm has always been a companion in times of transformation. Sophie shares her journey from research scientist to doula, and the moment a single drumbeat opened a path that has carried her ever since. They speak of birth rooms where drumming restored sovereignty, of hospitals where rhythm returned power to a woman's body, and of the everyday rituals that root us in calm and clarity. They also explore what happens when women collectively reclaim the drum: the nervous system shifts, the mind quiets, and a deeper wisdom becomes audible. At its heart, this is a conversation about remembering… rhythm as medicine, voice as courage, and community as the ground of healing. We'd love to know what YOU think about this week's show. Let's carry on the conversation… please leave a comment wherever you are listening or in any of our other spaces to engage. What you'll learn from this episode: How women once held the drum as a sacred tool of fertility, labour, and trance… and what was lost when that rhythm was silenced Why a steady beat can shift brainwaves, calm anxiety, and even transform the experience of birth How reclaiming the drum today awakens both personal sovereignty and a wider cultural remembering Resources and stuff spoken about: Visit Sophie's website Buy Sophie's book: Why Postnatal Recovery Matters Sophie's online courses about perinatal & life transitions rituals: Drumming for birth Postnatal rebozo massage and closing ritual Rebozo techniques for an easier birth The art and science of postpartum wrapping How to run a Mother blessing How to prepare for a nurturing postpartum Join Sophie on social media: Instagram Facebook Linkedin Youtube   Join UNIO, the Academy of the Soul. This is for the old souls in this new world… Discover your kin & unite with your soul's calling to truly live your myth. Be Mythical Join our mailing list for soul stirring goodness: https://www.bemythical.com/moonly Discover your kin & unite with your soul's calling to truly live your myth: https://www.bemythical.com/unio Go Deeper: https://www.bemythical.com/godeeper Follow us: Facebook Instagram TikTok YouTube Thank you for listening! There's a fresh episode released each week here and on most podcast platforms - and video too on YouTube. If you subscribe then you'll get each new episode delivered to your device every week automagically. (that way you'll never miss a show).

Aujourd'hui, j'ai le plaisir d'accueillir Anne Bélargent.Anne est doula depuis plus de dix ans, et elle est aussi la fondatrice de l'approche Slow Rebozo.Le Rebozo, c'est ce tissu traditionnel venu d'Amérique centrale dont vous avez-peut-être déjà entendu parler, notamment pour le soin de resserrage du bassin après l'accouchement.Dans cette conversation, Anne va nous raconter comment elle a découvert le Rebozo, et comment elle l'utilise aujourd'hui pour accompagner les femmes, avec beaucoup de douceur et de présence — bien au-delà du simple post-partum.Elle partagera aussi sa vision du soin, de ce que signifie le mot slow pour elle, et la façon dont on peut s'approprier ce tissu pour se faire du bien, dans notre quotidien.Belle écoute ✨ Sandra *****   Les liens mentionnés dans l'épisode : Les châles Rebozo Ilado : https://www.ilado.fr/63-chales-rebozoLe site Slow Rebozo : https://slowrebozo.fr et son annuaire : https://slowrebozo.fr/annuaire-rebozo/*****   Découvre Mèr(e)veilleuse, le guide qui t'accompagne sur le chemin d'une grossesse sereine, d'un accouchement en confiance et d'un post-partum en douceur ✨Je t'invite à rejoindre notre communauté de futures et jeunes mamans en t'inscrivant à notre newsletter et en nous rejoignant sur Instagram  ✨ Pour en savoir plus sur la marque Ilado et découvrir nos Bolas de grossesse et nos rituels bien-être pour les mamans et les bébés www.ilado.fr  ✨                  *****   deuil,deuil périnatal,grossesse,maternité,maman,future maman,fausse couche,parentalité,méditation,accouchement,bébé,accouchement naturel,future maman,méditation future maman,enceinte,méditation grossesse,naissance,méditation femme enceinte,relaxation grossesse,hypnose grossesse,méditation grossesse 1er trimestre,méditation grossesse 2ème trimestre,méditation grossesse 3ème trimestre,méditation grossesse accouchement,méditation grossesse sereine,désir d'enfant,méditation prénatale,accompagnement à la grossesse,préparation à l'accouchement,projet de naissance,grossesse consciente,accouchement physiologique,méditation guidée,visualisation positive,affirmations positives,naissance naturelle,naissance physiologique,naissance respectée,post-partum,puissance féminine,chant prénatal,méditation post-natale,doula,sage-femme,femme enceinte,pleine conscience,PMA,accompagnement PMA,conseils grossesse,relaxation future maman,allaitement,témoignage accouchementHébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Les MaMaS ! Notre voyage autour du rebozo avec Yaël FLAUDER se termine avec cet épisode. Rappelez-vous, le 13 février dernier, nous vous offrions un magnifique premier épisode sur les origines et l'histoire de ce tissu dont on entend beaucoup parlé dont on connaît finalement peu l'essence ; puis, un second temps d'échange portait sur le lien entre le rebozo et la femme ; un troisième épisode nous réunissait autour du soin rituel rebozo et ce dernier échange avec Yaël vous permettra d'ouvrir votre regard sur le rebozo, votre pratique avec ce tissu vers d'autres horizons en allant explorer son usage dans l'accompagnement des bébés, enfants, personnes âgées ou encore, les hommes, les pères...Une fois de plus, Yaël vous transcende par son savoir et la richesse de ses transmissions qu'elle a reçues au Mexique. Tous les épisodes de cette magnifique mini-série sont disponibles sur toutes les plateformes d'écoute ainsi que sur Youtube !Je vous souhaite une belle écoute les MaMaS et n'hésitez pas à partager cette mini-série aux mamas qui vous entourent !Pour retrouver Yaël sur Instagram : @yaelflauderPour retrouver MAM'ELLES sur Instagram : @mamelles_lepodcastSur YOUTUBE et Facebook :  MAM'ELLESMon site internet : mamelles.frMa boutique en ligne : Boutique - MAM'ELLES (mamelles.fr)MAM'ELLES est un podcast réalisé par Marion TERTEREAU. Vous pouvez retrouver tous les épisodes sur votre plateforme d'écoute préférée ainsi que sur YouTube. On se retrouve chaque vendredi !Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Dans ce nouvel épisode, j'ai le plaisir de recevoir Blandine Sachetat, infirmière de formation depuis 2010 et créatrice de l'Odyssée du Bien-Naître. Passionnée par la maternité et la périnatalité depuis son plus jeune âge, Blandine accompagne les femmes et les familles au travers de divers soins tels que les massages pré et post-natal, le thérapeutique bain bébé ou encore le resserrage du bassin Rebozo dans cette période charnière qu'est la maternité. En 2024, elle fonde Le Nid d'Aglaïa — La maison de la femme et de la périnatalité dans le Pays de Gex, aux portes de Genève. J'ai la joie de faire partie de son équipe et d'exercer dans ce lieu cocooning, où soin de soi et sororité sont les maîtres mots. Dans cet épisode, Blandine nous dévoile son parcours, à la fois de soignante et de cheffe d'entreprise, et partage ses conseils à quiconque souhaiterait monter un projet ambitieux comme le sien. J'ai adoré notre échange et j'espère qu'il vous passionnera autant que moi ! Bonne écoute.--------------------Ressources mentionnées :- Pour une naissance sans violence, Frédérick Leboyer- L'Odyssée du Bien Naître : https://www.lodysseedubiennaitre.com/Instagram de Blandine : https://www.instagram.com/lodyssee.du.bien.naitre/- Site internet du Nid d'Aglaïa : https://leniddaglaia.com/Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/le.nid.daglaia/*Certains liens peuvent être affiliés.Si vous souhaitez soutenir le podcast, vous pouvez :- me laisser un avis 5 étoiles et un commentaire sur Apple Podcasts ou Spotify- faire un don sur Tipeee : https://fr.tipeee.com/le-podcast-de-la-psycho-nutrition/Mille mercis à vous. ♥️--------------------✨ — Ma newsletter privée The Wellness Space✨ — Wellness Reset — La méthode pour sortir de l'alimentation émotionnelle✨ — Mon concept Home Body Yoga®✨ — Me rejoindre sur Instagram : @claireponcet_Crédit Musique — Frédéric Stehle : https://soundcloud.com/furycuuryHébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Vous l'attendiez ! Le voici ! Le troisième épisode de notre mini-série dédiée au Rebozo avec Yaël FLAUDER. Souvenez-vous nous vous avions proposé un premier épisode sur l'histoire et les origines du Rebozo, ce tissu dont on parle beaucoup sur la toile mais dont on connaît finalement peu l'essence... Puis dans un deuxième épisode, Yaël était venue vous parler du lien entre ce tissu, le Rebozo, et la Femme : plus précisément comment ce dernier permet de nourrir, soutenir et accompagner chaque pas-sage que traverse la Femme tout au long de sa Vie et quelques soient les épreuves...Aujourd'hui, c'est un troisième épisode dédié au soin rituel Rebozo que nous vous offrons. Alors que ce rituel connaît un essor important, à l'heure actuelle, en France, nous avons pensé opportun de revenir une fois de plus sur l'essence de ce rituel, de ce soin rythmé, de ce temps de pause où nous sommes enveloppé.e.s du rebozo et lové.e.s par 4 mains tendres, bienveillantes et réconfortantes pour nous accompagner dans les différents passages, presque initiatiques, que permet le soin rituel Rebozo.Yaël, de par la richesse de son savoir et des transmissions qu'elle a reçues au Mexique où elle a enfanté, vous permet de plonger au cœur de ce rituel, de son ouverture à sa fermeture.Un échange toujours aussi vibrant, enrichissant et puissant, grâce à la douceur de Yaël et la profondeur de sa réflexion...Je vous souhaite une belle écoute les MaMaS !Pour retrouver Yaël sur Instagram : @lyaelflauderPour retrouver MAM'ELLES sur Instagram : @mamelles_lepodcastSur YOUTUBE et Facebook :  MAM'ELLESMon site internet : mamelles.frMa boutique en ligne : Boutique - MAM'ELLES (mamelles.fr)MAM'ELLES est un podcast réalisé par Marion TERTEREAU. Vous pouvez retrouver tous les épisodes sur votre plateforme d'écoute préférée ainsi que sur YouTube. On se retrouve chaque vendredi !Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Dans cet épisode, j'ai envie de te parler d'un truc profond, intime… Le deuil de la maternité. Oui, ce moment où tu te rends compte que c'est fini. Que tu ne porteras plus la vie, que ton ventre ne s'arrondira plus, que tes bras ne tiendront plus un nouveau-né qui est le tien.J'ai reçu la question d'une auditrice : "Je n'aurai plus d'enfants, et j'arrive pas à tourner la page… est-ce que c'est normal ?" Et tu sais quoi ? Cette question m'a bouleversée. Parce que moi aussi, je me la pose parfois.Alors dans cet épisode, je te partage ce que je ressens, ce que j'ai vécu avec mes 5 grossesses, mais surtout… ce que c'est que de réaliser que cette partie de moi s'éloigne. Je te parle de ce vide, de cette puissance qu'on quitte, de ce silence aussi… Parce que la société ne nous prépare pas à ça.Mais je veux te dire : ce deuil-là, il est légitime. Et il mérite d'être honoré. Je te partage des clés, des rituels comme le Rebozo, l'importance de se retrouver entre femmes, de parler, de créer autrement. Et surtout, je t'invite à ne plus être seule. Viens dans la Communauté Authentique, viens poser tes mots, viens te sentir portée.Cet épisode, c'est pour toi. Pour nous.Liens vers les profils de médias sociaux- mail :melyssa@sagefemmeautetique.com- Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/sage_femme_authentique/?hl=fr- La Bulle Maison de Naissance :- Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/labulle.mdn- Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/labulle.mdn/?hl=frHébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

In this episode, Julie welcomes Sophia from Mexico City, who shares her mental, physical, and spiritual journey towards achieving her VBAC. Sophia discusses the challenges she faced in navigating the healthcare system in Mexico, and what she did to find a truly VBAC-supportive provider. While preparing for her VBAC, Sophia had a hard time finding well-documented VBAC stories from Mexico, so she hopes to inspire other women through her story. Sophia and Julie talk about the role of a mother's intuition in the birth space. Making confident decisions when you feel safe and supported is so powerful!Coterie Diapers - Use code VBAC20 for 20% offHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Julie: Good morning, Women of Strength. It is Julie Francom here with you today, and I am super excited to talk with our guest today, Sophia. She is from Mexico City, Mexico, and her VBAC story takes place there as well. I absolutely love hearing birth stories from all over the world, so I cannot wait to hear Sophia's story. But before we get started with that, I do have a really short and sweet Review of the Week. This one is from Google. It's a Google review and she says simply, "Great people sharing great information. They make me feel less alone in my journey to a VBAC". I'm so grateful for that review. I think that that is one of the most important reasons why Meagan and I wanted to start The VBAC Link is because our own journeys felt very lonely at times even though we were connected to the birth world and we had a strong birth community, there are certain parts of wanting a vaginal birth after having a C-section that are just very, very lonely. We are grateful for that review. We hope that whoever is listening now also feels a little less alone in this journey because we absolutely love you, and we are so grateful that you are here with us.All right, let's get going. I have Sophia here today. Like I said, Sophia's from Mexico City, Mexico. I'm just going to sit down and be quiet and listen because I have heard lots of really interesting and crazy and cool things about Mexico City, so I'm excited to hear her birth experience there. Sophia is the mother of Luca and Rio. I just said that. I'm just reading her bio right now. She says,  "I'm a Mexican and live in Mexico City." Perfect. She is a passionate advocate for women's rights and strongly believes in the magic that results from women building together, connecting, and supporting each other. Her motherhood journey has been very humbling and healing, and she is obsessed with talking about birth. Me too, girl. I am obsessed with talking about birth as well, so I'm excited to hear your story. I'm just going to go ahead and let you take it away, and we're going to talk.I'm sorry. I said I'm going to let you take it away, but really, I'm going to keep talking for just a second. I loved reading through your story, sharing about your birth team and prodromal labor and the different things that you did to keep labor going and moving along. I am really excited to talk at the end after we hear your story about some different things that you can do to prepare for a VBAC, both mentally, physically and all of the ways. So now for real, I'm going to let you go ahead and share your story with us. Thank you.Sophia: Well, thank you so much for having me. It's truly a dream come true to be here in the podcast. I'm just really honored to tell my story because, when I was starting to prepare for my VBAC, I found it really hard to find well-documented VBAC stories coming from Mexico and in general, from the global South. So I just hope my story helps other women living in similar contexts. So I guess I'll start with the story of my unplanned C-section. So half a year after my husband and I got married, we were ready to have kids. We met on Tinder. We dated for three years, and both of us really had had the opportunity to travel the world and do amazing things. We felt like we had a good pre-kids life, and we were just ready to start a family. I was 34 at the time, and I always wanted to try to get pregnant before I became 35. I got pregnant really fast actually, like the first try. So we were so shocked and excited and surprised. At the time, we were both working remotely in Europe. We were slowly making our way to Australia because my husband is from Australia. This was 2021 and as some of you might remember, Australia was under super restrictive lockdown. No one could come in. No one could get out, so we had not seen his family for three years, and we were just waiting for the ban to lift to be able to go in and spend some time with them. This is an important part of the story because while I was in Europe, especially in Belgium and in Australia, my pregnancy was taken care of by midwives. Especially in Australia, it's really normal that all healthy pregnancies are attended by midwives, and only those special cases or complicated ones are taken by gynecologists. So my pregnancy was a really healthy, enjoyable one. I am one of those women that really loved being pregnant. I was very lucky with both of my pregnancies. But this experience was so influential because in Mexico, although we have this wonderful history with midwives in Spanish called parteras, and that's actually where the use of Rebozo comes from, this practice continues mostly in rural and particularly in indigenous communities. But in the cities, there is a really concerning high rate of unnecessary Cesareans. There's this narrative that C-sections are the easy way out. I would even dare to say, in the 80s, it became sort of a socioeconomic status thing. Women who have access to private healthcare would just opt for a C-section either because their doctor recommended it to do so or because they just thought it was the easy way out. People would say, "Why would you put yourself under unnecessary pain if you can just go get a C-section?" Like it was nothing, right? So actually, most of the women that I know had a C-section, but having the experience with midwives, I decided I really, really wanted to try to have a natural birth. So I started getting informed. I actually work in philanthropy. I work on social justice issues, so I'm very well connected to feminist and women organizations, especially in Mexico City. I remember that there were all of these colleagues working to defend obstetric rights in Mexico City. I knew that they had a really good network of doulas. It was through them that I connected remotely with my doula, Neri Fernandez, who is amazing. We spoke on Zoom, and we clicked right away. She started preparing me for my return to Mexico. The plan was always to come back to Mexico during the third trimester so I could have my baby here. She started preparing me with the reality that it is to have a natural birth in Mexico City. She told me, "Honestly, there are very few truly labor-friendly hospitals and also very few labor-friendly gynecologists. A lot of them are going tell you that of course they're gonna support you in a natural labor, but around week 37 or so, they're gonna suggest going on a C-section by week 39." So, she gave me this list of questions to ask my gynecologist, the one that I had been seeing for the past five years. So she told me, "Once you get back and you go to your appointment, just use these questions for your conversation with him." At the time, I was very naive, so I was like, oh, I'm sure he's going to support me. I'm not worried about that. Anyway, I came back to Mexico, I went to my appointment, and honestly, in the first five minutes, I noticed that he wanted me to have a C-section for no reason. So I was like, oh, my god. Okay. So I told her, "Neri, I really need to contact another service provider." She gave me a list of labor-friendly doctors. And she told me, "There's this doctor whose name is Adriana. She is a gynecologist. But the way that she works is very similar to a midwife, the way that she treats her patients and the way that she respects the woman's body and everything. I think you're really gonna like her, but you should know that she can be a little bit tough. She's a hardcore feminist, and she truly believes in women's capacity to give birth, so she's not going to pamper you." Anyway, I went in. I met her. I loved her right away. She took me, which I was so appreciative, at the time, taking my case because I was already in my third trimester, and things continued to evolve smoothly. I mention this because since I got pregnant really easy, since everything was going smoothly, that's what I thought it was going to be in the case of my birth. I just thought that things were just going to develop like that.Julie: Oh my gosh. Can I just say that I thought the same with my first? I had the easiest pregnancy. I loved being pregnant, just like you, and then all of a sudden, wham-- preeclampsia, induction, C-section, and I was like, what happened? Yeah, anyway, sorry. I just had to add that in.Sophia: I think it happens to a lot of women.Julie: Yes.Sophia: So anyway, week 40 arrived, and there was no sign whatsoever of labor. And one mistake I made is that I told everyone about my due date. I'm an open book. So I told everyone just out of excitement. But then once the due date passed, people started reaching out, like, "Hey, how are you doing? Is baby here yet? Is everything all right?" That really threw me into a bad mental state. I started to get really scared and doubtful. I was just not mentally well at that time. I was just full of fear. I didn't accept it at the time. I was telling everyone that I was fine, but internally, yes, I was in that state. And now also thinking back, I think I prepared myself a lot physically. I have been practicing yoga for 10 years. I was doing a lot of prenatal yoga, etc., but I don't think I prepared myself mentally enough. Anyway, after week 41, Adriana, my doctor said, "I think we have to start discussing the possibility of an induction. Maybe by week 41.3 we can do a very gentle induction unless something else happens." I think two days after we spoke, I lost my mucus plug, so that was exciting, but then nothing was happening. Then we were almost at week 41.5, and she said, "I think at 41.5, I should induce you." But the night before the induction, I woke up in the middle of the night with a very intense feeling. I went into my living room. I sat on my birthing ball, and my water broke like a big gush like the movies. They tell you that's never gonna happen, but that happened to me. Contractions didn't start. But at that time, I didn't realize what this meant. I didn't know that this meant I was actually going to be on a clock after my waters broke. So I was actually very excited. I thought, okay, by tomorrow, I'm going to have my baby. This is amazing. I told my doctor. I told my doula, and they said, "Okay, well, no matter what, just come here to the birthing center."At the time, my doctor had a birth center, and the plan was always to labor there and then go to the hospital when I was closer to giving birth, because I just feel safer that way. And that was the plan with my insurance, etc. So I went the next morning to check me, and I was only at 3 centimeters. So she told me, "I'm going to recommend that you just go back home. Rest. Eat your favorite food. Try not to think about this too much, and when things escalate, just let me know." The problem then is that nothing escalated for a whole day when I went to sleep. And that night, I didn't sleep out of excitement mostly, but I was already feeling some contractions. I mean, I thought they were intense, but little did I know that they were not the most intense part. And then the second night, I also didn't sleep because now I did start getting contractions, a bit stronger ones. So the next morning, I went back into her practice. She checked me, and I was about a 5. And she said, "Things are progressing, but they're progressing quite slowly, so I'm going to give you a tiny dose of Pitocin just to make sure that things keep progressing." I stayed there in the birth center, and I was with my husband, and I was with my doula. And honestly, I remember that day very fondly. My husband and I danced. We used the shower. We used the Rebozo. We just the ball, the peanut ball and everything, but things were not progressing. It was 7:00 PM, and I was only at 7 centimeters, and we were already reaching 40+ hours. And as you know, once your water breaks, I mean, at least in Mexico, they recommend that you have your baby within 48 hours because otherwise you start risking infections. So I told my doctor, "I just want to go to the hospital. I need a change of scenery, and it's just gonna make me feel better." So we went to the hospital. The hospital did have this birth pool. I went into the water and just things stalled. I didn't progress after that. This whole time, they were checking my baby's heart rate, and it started raising a lot, like, scary a lot. It wouldn't regulate. Fear just took over my body, I think. She looked at me and she said, "Sophie, I think I'm going recommend that we go for a C-section." I looked at my doula, and my doula just nodded. I was so tired and so ready to meet my baby that I said, "Okay, yeah, let's go for a C-section." Once I decided that, it was the longest 40 minutes of my life because I thought, "Oh, well, I'm going to get under anesthesia now." But the anesthesiologist took an hour to get there, so I was in a lot of pain. Then we went into the OR, and to be fair, my gynecologist did everything possible to have a gentle Cesarean. We had dim lights. We had my playlist on. The whole focus was on me. Both my doula and my husband were with me. They were holding my hands. But the one thing that makes me sad about that is that I couldn't stay awake. I was so exhausted, so I was just asleep the whole time. I only woke up when I heard my son, Luca, crying. So exactly on week 42, he was born. I just remember someone in the OR yelling, "It's a huge boy." So he weighed 8 pounds, which is not massive, but for Mexican standards, he's really big. And Luca is a Taurus baby. He's determined, he's stubborn, and you cannot pressure him to do anything. He always does everything at his own pace, and this was just the first evidence of that. So anyway, luckily, he was okay. It was a rough recovery because I was just really not prepared for a C-section. It was challenging to get breastfeeding. He had difficulties to latch. It just took me a while to heal what had happened. But the one thing I do remember a lot is that when I was in my room, the doctor and my doula both came in and they said, "Sophie, we just want you to know that you and your baby are amazing. You did everything right. You just had so many things against you. But if you ever want to get pregnant again and go for natural birth, you can do it." That really stayed with me the whole time. So 18 months after Luca was born, my husband and I decided to get pregnant again. Again, we got pregnant the first try. I mention this not to brag about my fertility or anything like that. I know it's a sensitive topic, but for me, it was important because it was the first step to recover my confidence in my body and believe that I could really do this because once I started getting informed about VBAC, I realized that the healing I had to do was more internal. I really had to believe that I could do it. So I decided to stay with the same service providers, with the same doctor and the same doula, because they knew, they really knew my story. Well. And I called my doula, Neri, and I was like, "Hey, Neri, why are you doing this summer? Do you wanna have a baby with me?" And she was like, "Of course." Both my doctor and my doula recommended that I joined maybe like an online community of VBAC women. I had no idea what VBAC was. So then I found The VBAC Link website, the Facebook group. I took the VBAC class for parents. I found it so helpful. And for me, the fact that it was full of hardcore data, it was just so, so important. So in terms of physical prep, I tried to remain active, but I wasn't honestly doing as much yoga as before because I had a toddler. I was working full-time. I was running after my 2-year-old, and I really loved that my doula told me, "Don't get too stressed about working out. Just play with your kid. Play with your kid on the floor. That's going to be enough activity for you." I also really love that this time around, my gynecologist was not even telling me how much I weighed. I really loved that approach. It was just a really, really joyful pregnancy. Again, it was a healthy pregnancy. I did go to the chiropractor this time, which I didn't do last time. I also went to acupuncture sessions, and I did that the last time. I went with the same acupuncturist because I also thought it was good that she knew what happened before. I also took raspberry leaf tea and dates after week 36. So I did all of that physical prep. But what was different this time, I think it was my mental preparation. So as I said, I really, really tried to focus on healing internally, believing in my body, and believing in myself. So with my doula and also using the some of the guiding questions and stuff from the VBAC class, we started mapping out my fears. So she was like, "What are you afraid of?" And I said, "Honestly, I think what I'm most afraid of is that my waters break again before I start labor." So I remember asking in the VBAC Facebook group, "Hey, does anyone know anything about preventing PROM?" Someone suggested taking vitamin C. So I started doing it. And, this time, I felt so much more connected with my body, with my baby, with my intuition. At week 26, my baby was breech. And I remember asking again in the Facebook group, like, "What would you girls do?" And people told me, "You can do Spinning Babies. You still have enough time for baby to get in position, but it's always easier to move a baby when they're still small." So I did Spinning Babies, and my baby turned. So that was amazing. The other thing that is I consider being part of the mental prep is that I was also in a very different space, spiritually speaking. I am honestly not a religious person. I'm not the most spiritual person in the world, but this time I paid attention to a lot of signs. There was this one occasion that I was in my office, we were moving my office, we were moving to another place. And someone hired a shaman. Like a shaman, but it's an indigenous sort of magic priest because we all wanted to do some cleansing, like spiritual cleansing, before moving into the new space. She told me, "I don't do cleansing of pregnant women because it's not good for the baby, but I could give you a blessing". So I was like, "Yeah, of course." So she did this whole ritual. She told me, "You didn't have a natural birth before, did you?" I was like, "No, I had a C-section, but I'm trying for a VBAC." And she said, "I'm really certain that you're going to get it. I'm very sure that that day when you go into labor, your ancestors are going to be with you. I'm certain of it." And she also said, "There's something that characterizes you and has characterized you your whole life, which is having clarity and determination, Sophia, so this is not gonna be the exception." And she gave me this candle, and she told me, "Please, light this up when you go into active labor just to call your ancestors to be there with you." So I was like, "Okay, great." Then also on week 36-37, I had a nesting party. I invited a lot of friends over to help me prepare the house for baby. A friend of mine brought the tarot cards. She told me, "Do you want to pick a card?" And I was like, "Okay yeah, why not?" So I picked a card. That card was the card for strength. It was number eight of the major Arcana that depicts a woman taming a lion through the application of subtle force. That was so symbolic for me because it was strength. The picture really stayed in my head, and I had to think, obviously, about Woman of Strength. So there were all these symbols out there that just really put me in a very different mental state. So anyway, the day I went into labor, it was just one day before my due date. And this time, I didn't tell anyone about my due date. Only my mom and obviously, my husband knew. So one day before the due date, I started getting contractions. I had two weeks of prodromal labor, and I had that before in my first pregnancy, so I knew what it was. I mean, it can be so frustrating because you start getting prodromal labor, but it doesn't escalate, so you get sad. But I knew this time what it was, so I was trying not to pay too much attention to it and just continue with my life. But that day, I started getting real contractions. I knew that what I had to do was to go rest. I did do Miles Circuit. And anyway, I was pretty happy. But then 24 hours after, labor completely stopped. I was so scared of the story repeating itself, so fears started sneaking in. All the doubts. I started thinking, maybe natural labor is just not for me. I was crying. I was sad. I texted my doula and I said, "Neri, I'm just really bummed. I think this is not going to happen. I think I'm going to have a C-section again." She said, "Whoa, wait, I'm going to your house right now." She lives really close to my house. So in 15 minutes, she was here. This was at 8:00 in the morning of the due date, like week 40. And she said, "I think although baby is already engaged," because we knew it was already engaged, "I think it's not in the most optimal position, so I'm just gonna use the Rebozo." And we used the Rebozo. She told my husband and my mom how to use it. That was pretty magical. And then we also did a lot of Spinning Babies exercises. She said, "But aside from this, just try to relax. Everything's going to be okay." That day, I had my 40-week appointment with my doctor. I went and that was a game changer because she checked me, she checked my baby and she said, "Both of you are fine. Everything is okay. Please try to go home and relax. Do anything that makes you get oxytocin." She was like, "Why don't you go and eat or get a bath or eat cake in the bath?" And I was like, "Okay, that's a really specific suggestion, but why not?" So that made me feel much better. And she said, "I do recommend that you call the acupuncturist and tell her what's happening to see if she can give you an extra session." So I called my acupuncturist and she told me, "I'm an hour away from Mexico City because I'm teaching at a university, but I'm on my way there. I'm going to see you because I know you can do this." It was so sweet of her. She drove all the way here, she gave me a session and she told me, "I never do this, but I want to see you again. This was at noon." And she told me, "I want to see you again at night. Come here at 8:00 PM, and I'm going to give you an extra session that is specific to help baby get in a good position and to descend."So I was like, okay. So I went home. I actually came back and went to listen to Meagan's because I remember that she had a story of failure to progress. I listened to that episode. It was so helpful. So then I went back to the acupuncturist at 8:00 PM, and during the session of acupuncture, I felt a super strong contraction. Because what had been happening is that my contractions were intense, but they were really short. They were only 30 seconds. So when I was there, I knew that was a minute or longer. Anyway, after the session, I came back home, and they always recommended to walk after the acupuncture session. I went walking with my husband, and active labor started. It was clear, and it was so intense. It really started every 15 minutes, then every 10 minutes, then 7, then 5. So at 5:00, I texted my doctor and my doula, and they were like, "Okay. This is fantastic. Let's wait until you are 3-1-1." So every three minutes, one minute long for one hour. But I felt like things were going super fast. So I told Neri, my doula, "Can you please come see me?" Because she always told me the timing between contractions and the duration is important, but it's even more important that I see how you're acting. So she came. And in the meantime, my husband was packing the last things to go to the hospital. I also was pretty relaxed in the sense that my mom was taking care of my toddler, so I was really relaxed about that. My husband had become an expert in helping me put pressure in my hips during each contraction. He was packing and helping me, and he was just a rock star. He was offering me water, and he was my biggest cheerleader. Neri arrived, she saw me and she's like, "Okay, it's time to go to the hospital." So I was like, "Okay. So we went into the car." At this time, I was already in a lot of pain. Contractions were so long. They were 1:20, some of them, a minute and a half. It was super intense. I couldn't see anymore. I was just holding to the back seat. I was sitting in the back, just facing the other way. And here is where all the mental preparation really stepped in because I was remembering all of the affirmations that I was listening to. I was remembering all of the stories that I heard. I was also obsessed with watching birth videos. So all of that was going through my head. I love them so much. My dad, who was my favorite person in the world, passed away seven years ago. I could really feel he was there. It was just crazy. So anyway, I was doing all this mental work during each of the contractions while in the car. And this was at midnight, and we were very close to the hospital. The road was blocked, completely blocked by construction. And we were like, "Oh my god." I was in labor land. I was not paying attention to details, but I could hear in the back my husband and my doula getting a bit worried. My doula went out of the car, and I could hear her telling the police guys and the construction workers, "Hey, guys, we have a lady here that's in labor. If you don't let us through, she's going to have her baby here." And it was like, "Wow. Okay." So they opened the road just for us. We went through. We arrived to the hospital. And it's crazy at that time because you only do the few things that you can do in between contractions. I went into the room. This time, it was a different hospital. The room was so lovely. I remember it being a peach color. We had essential oils. We had my playlist. Again, my husband was my biggest cheerleader. Five minutes later, my doctor arrived, which made me feel so much better. And she's like, "I'm going to check you." I was already at an 8. So that was super exciting because it was already past what I had achieved last time, and then my water broke. My doctor said, "Sophie, I need you to look to me in the eyes and listen to me." So I looked at her and she said, "Sophie, this baby has to be born now, so I need you to start pushing." I was still not at 10 centimeters. I think I was 9 or something. But what they didn't tell me at the time is that my water already had meconium, and my baby's heart rate was starting to have some significant declines. But luckily, he was recovering. I was very thankful later on that they didn't tell me all of this because I was just so focused. So anyway, I tried different positions. First, I went and sat down on what we call a Mayan chair. I did all fours. So I think I pushed for an hour or an hour and a half. I just remember it being very magical in the sense just seeing my doctor, my doula, and my husband working together, cheering me, communicating even without words. Everything was just flowing. But still, baby was not being born, and pushing was so much harder than I thought. And also, I guess because I was not at 10 centimeters yet, I was not having the super urge to push, but they were guiding me to do so, and it was really, really great guidance. So finally I went into throne position, which, honestly, was the last position that I thought I was going to give birth in, but it felt all right. I was a second away to give up and to tell them, "You guys, I think I cannot do this." But then I remembered in all of the podcast stories that I listened to that usually when you're at that stage, it is because baby is about to be born. So then my doctor told me, "Sophie, baby is almost here. Do you want to touch their head?" We had decided this time not to know the sex until birth, so I had no idea if he was a boy or girl. I touched the head and that was so, so, so exciting. So I was like, okay. It just gave me another rush of energy. My doula said, "I really think two more pushes, and you're going to meet your baby." So I pushed once. The little head popped out and then it went back in. And then this whole time, they had been telling me to try not to push with my throat, but with my abdomen. But then they said, "This time when you push, push with all of your strength. If you feel like screaming, scream." So I pushed so hard. I screamed. My baby was born at 2:22 AM and baby started crying right away. I started yelling, "I did it. I did it. I can't believe it." And yeah, just for a few seconds, I had no idea if he was a boy or girl because I right away put him in my chest. And then my husband looked and he said, "Oh my god, it's a boy." And yeah, people asked, "So what's his name?" And we said, "His name is Rio." Rio in Spanish means river. And it also stands for the flow of life. I really, really think it really honored the way that he arrived into this world. And honestly, he's a pretty chill and easy going baby. So it was honestly the best day of my life. And later my doula, my doctor and I just, just went through the whole story. And again, we all said, I think my mental and spiritual state of mind was very different. This time was much more positive. I also really felt held by my drive. I had this chat of my all my best friends in this WhatsApp chat, and they were all rooting for me. And also, remember I told you there was this shaman, like this magician priest who told me that I was going to be able to do it? They gave us a candle. My mom lighted the candle when we went to the hospital, and the candle turned off by itself at 2:20 and Rio was born at 2:22. So that was pretty magical as well.Julie: Wow.Sophia: Yeah. And just the last thing I'll say about the story is that also, my gynecologist and my doula were also in a different state of mind. They had had a lot of VBAC experience which was great. And my doula always told me, "It doesn't matter how your baby is born. What matters is the experience, and that you really feel this connection with your baby. But in this case, Adriana told you to push this baby out, and you understood the assignment. You literally delivered your baby, and you had the baby when you were asked to do so, and that in itself is strength." So, yeah, that's my story.Julie: I absolutely love that. Just all of it. What a journey. I'm sorry. I'm trying to figure out where to start. I took some notes as you were talking, and I just think it's so incredible, all of the different things that you did to prepare. I really like what your doula told you during your pregnancy about your personality that you've always had clarity and determination. It was something like that. She said, "Clarity and determination is your personality." I love that because I think sometimes it's easier to advocate and fight and navigate having a VBAC when that clarity and determination is already something that comes naturally to us. It's not something that comes naturally to everybody. It's not good or bad or assigned into a category. It just is. And like me, I'm incredibly stubborn, and I will fight sometimes harder than I should to get the things that I want or desire. And I think that my stubbornness played a huge part in working towards that. Sometimes it's just easier to advocate for yourself when you already have those strong personality traits.Sophia: So yeah, for sure.Julie: But it's okay because you don't have to have those strong personality traits inherently in order to get your VBAC. There are lots of other things that you can do and lots of other things that are on your side as well. I wanted to touch on some of the things that you did to prepare. You took the VBAC class which is amazing. I love our VBAC class. It's really incredible. Lots of good information. I feel like obviously, it's pretty well-rounded and has lots of different characteristics and addresses all of the different learning styles and things like that. Things for the data junkie like me, and things for the people who are more holistic minded, things that are more mentally mental preparation focused, and things like that. You talked about Rebozo, Spinning Babies, and learning how to relax your mind and your body, the positioning of the baby, acupuncture. You hired a very, very good doula and provider who both had lots of VBAC experience. That was also something that was really important to me. I interviewed, I think, like 12 doulas when I was preparing for my first VBAC because I really wanted a doula who had a VBAC herself and supported lots of VBAC families. I don't think it's necessary that to have a doula who has had a VBAC herself in order to have a really solid VBAC doula. I don't think that's necessary, but that's something that was important for me.Sophia: Yeah, for sure. For me, too.Julie: Yeah. Yeah. I wanted midwives who had done lots of VBACs, and that was really important to me. Now it's not, like I said, necessary, but it's something that you can put in your toolkit to prepare. So I feel like a lot of times I hear people say something to the effect of, "I tried all the things, and I still didn't get a VBAC or I tried all the things and I didn't get a vaginal birth." And you know what? Some people try all of the things and don't get a delivery method that they want. And some people do literally nothing and have a perfect birth. I want to just tell you that birth is inherently unfair. Sophia: Yeah.Julie: Especially with the way our system is set up to handle pregnant women, and babies, and labor, and all of that stuff. It's inherently unfair. Sometimes you can do everything and have a completely unexpected birth experience, and sometimes you can and do absolutely nothing. My sweet sister-in-law is getting induced tomorrow. She knows absolutely nothing about labor and birth and delivery. She has no desire to know anything. She knows absolutely nothing. She's getting induced tomorrow, and I'm just really trying start hard to stay in my role as supportive sister-in-law when I see some choices that she's making that might influence her birth in a way that she doesn't want, but also, I don't think the outcome really matters to her, to be honest. I just don't think how the baby gets here matters. And that's okay. It is. That is okay. I guess my point of all of this is that you don't have to do all of the things. I feel like some people say, "I feel like I don't want to miss anything." What you need to do is learn about the things that are available to you, and then gravitate towards the ones that resonate well with you. Maybe you don't even care about Spinning Babies or what position your babies in, but you really want to focus on nutrition and getting your mind ready and finding a supportive provider. Cool. Do those things.Sophia: I really tried to enjoy this pregnancy because I only plan to have two kids, so I was like, maybe this is my last pregnancy. I just wanna make sure I enjoy it. I even did a photo shoot with my family and stuff. I just really enjoyed it. I know that for some women, it stresses them to think about all this prep, but for me, this time around, it just made me feel good just being informed and things like that. And honestly, to have a VBAC in a context like Mexico is not a minor achievement. The system is so set-up to just go into C-sections. So yeah, it was just a lot of challenges against me, but I was really lucky that I had really good service providers by my side that were supportive. My doula told me, "When we saw that you had meconium, and we saw that your baby's heart rate was descending, I'm sure any other doctor would have sent you to the OR, but Adriana, your doctor, really believed that you could do it, so that's why she decided to just give you a chance and you did it." That's just really important as well.Julie: Yeah no, I agree. If you want to do all the things, if doing all the things makes you happy and helps you feel prepared, then by all means, do all the things. I don't think you should do nothing. Let me clarify that. I think you should do something, at least one thing. But do the things that really resonate with you. I saw an Instagram post yesterday, I think. I'm trying to find it now. I think it was maybe on the account called Trusting Birth or something like that, but basically it said that there are studies that show-- nope, it is not trusting birth. Dang it. Gosh, dang it. I really want to find it. It was something about how there are studies that show that women when they're pregnant, make smart choices. Okay? They make smart choices. That doesn't mean they go deliver in the hospital and have an epidural. It's not a blanket statement, right? They make smart choices, which means they let their intuition guide them. No, not smart choices. Safe choices. Safe choices. And what is safe depends on the parent and the baby and the pregnancy. When you let women guide their own care and give them options, they make the safe choice. Now, the safe choice is different, like we just said, but the choice that is safest for them at the time. There is a study to back that up. And gosh dang it, I wish that I could find it. I'm literally on my phone right now thinking of all the different accounts it could be. I wonder if I liked it. Dang it. Anyway, if I can find it, I will have Paige, our podcast transcriber, link it in the show notes. I'll send it to her. But anyway, it was really interesting because that's what we've been advocating for all along. Trust in your intuition. Trust your gut. Trust your internal guide. You will make a safe choice. And if that's birthing at home, if it's birthing in the hospital or whatever it guides you to, if it's acupuncture, Spinning Babies, massage, getting a doula, not getting a doula, doing a VBAC class or what VBAC class to do. All of those things are safe choices that you can make for yourself. Now, dang it. I just want to hang out here until I can find it. Sophia: No worries.Can I add one more thing?Julie: Yes, please do while I keep looking.Sophia: Yeah. Talking about the safe choices, I think one of the things that made me feel very safe and allowed me to really focus on the contractions and the pushing is just knowing that my birth team was really on my side, like my doctor, my doula, and my husband. Most women who I know in Mexico have to spend a lot of time advocating for their obstetric rights, so not having to worry about that and just focus on my birth just made me feel really safe and just being able to know that they believed that I could do it.Julie: Awesome. Yes, I agree. I agree. Believing in yourself is a big thing. Granted, sometimes you'll believe in yourself. I think when I say believe in yourself and trust yourself and trust your intuition, it's not trust yourself that you can have a VBAC, although that is very important. That's important. But trust yourself that you will navigate the birth in a way that's safe and healthy for you and your baby, and that might be a repeat C-section. It might be a home birth, an unassisted birth, a hospital birth, but trust yourself that you will be able to guide yourself safely through the birth process whatever that looks like. And guess what? I found the post. I had liked it, and I just had to go into my activity in my Instagram history. It's from an Instagram account called Intentional.Birth. Intentional.Birth. And it says that there's a PhD biologist and doula, Sophie Messager who bridges the scientific and intuitive worlds of birth at the induction equation. So I think maybe that's the induction equation. Oh, I guess I don't know what the induction equation is. Anyway, so the post shows though, it says, "Research shows that women make safe choices. Because of the constant communication between the woman and the baby, women tend to know when something is wrong, and they also tend to know when something is right. Ignoring a woman's instincts is a very stupid thing to do." I like that. Women's instincts tend to know when something is right. I hear that all the time. This is what it sounds like.It sounds like, "Oh, my doctor recommended an anatomy scan at 32 weeks, but I just don't feel like that's necessary." Yeah, it's because you know something's right. Or, "I know measuring for a big baby isn't really evidence-based, but I just think I want to do it." That maybe feels like something is right, the big baby scan or whatever. Or maybe that something's wrong, right? "My doctor brought up inducing at 39 weeks. And normally I would say no, but it just feels like the right thing to do." That is your intuition. Or, "My doctor said maybe we should induce at 39 weeks, but I just don't think that that feels. That doesn't feel right to me." And so you wait. That's your intuition. Like those comments, trust that you know when your baby is safe. You know when something's wrong. You know when something's right even if you can't literally define it. Follow those feelings. They're important, and there is science to back it up.Sophia: That's how I felt when my baby was breech. I had this intuition that I'm going to be able to turn it around and, everything's going to go well, and it did. I love that there's this study backing up the importance of following your intuition.Julie: Yeah. So go check it out. It looks like, it links to the study at Sophie. That's your name? No, you're Sophia.Sophia: People call me Sophie.Julie: So yeah, there we go.Sophia: It's all connected.Julie: Yeah, there we go. It's all connected. Sophie Messager. That's M-E-S-S-A-G-E-R. That is the PhD biologist who is linked with the host. I'm going to follow this lady right now. Transformational Journey Guide for Sacred Shifts. Incredible. All right, awesome. Well, thank you so much, Sophia, for sharing your story with us today. I loved talking with you. It's incredible for everyone birthing in Mexico and Mexico City especially, we know there are a lot of similarities between the United States, but there's also some differences, and different challenges to navigate. So we appreciate hearing your perspective and your experience, and I just really enjoyed having you here with me today.Sophia: Likewise. Thank you so, so much.ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Voici le deuxième épisode de la mini-série sur le Rebozo que je vous propose avec Yaël FLAUDER, praticienne et transmettrice du soin Rebozo.Le premier épisode était dédié aux origines et à l'histoire du Rebozo ; ce tissu dont on entend beaucoup parlé mais dont on connait peu finalement l'essence, l'histoire, la symbolique... Cette fois, pour ce deuxième rendez-vous, nous vous proposons d'explorer le lien entre le Rebozo et la Femme. Précisément, comment le Rebozo peut venir soutenir et accompagner chaque pas-sage de la Vie d'une femme : à travers la maternité, la ménopause, les menstruations (avec les ceintures de lunes) mais aussi pour soutenir le deuil périnatal ou tout simplement le quotidien des femmes, des filles, des bébés... Un épisode une fois de plus riche en transmissions grâce aux connaissances de Yaël, à savoir faire et son savoir être !Si vous souhaitez en savoir plus sur Yaël FLAUDER et notamment sa propre expérience d'accouchement à la maison dans un petit village du Mexique il vous suffit d'écouter l'épisode 61 de MAM'ELLES LE PODCAST sur votre plateforme d'écoute préférée ET si vous souhaitez écouter l'épisode 1 de cette mini-série, il vous suffit de vous rendre à l'épisode sorti le 13/02/2025.Je vous souhaite un beau voyage au cœur de cette belle transmission avec Yaël !Pour suivre Yaël sur Instagram : @yaelflauderPour suivre MAM'ELLES sur Instagram : @mamelles_lepodcastSur YOUTUBE et Facebook :  MAM'ELLESMon site internet : mamelles.frMa boutique en ligne : Boutique - MAM'ELLES (mamelles.fr)Pour m'écrire : mamelles.lepodcast@gmail.comMAM'ELLES est un podcast réalisé par Marion TERTEREAU, juriste, podcasteuse et conférencière. Vous pouvez retrouver tous les épisodes sur votre plateforme d'écoute préférée ainsi que sur YouTube. On se retrouve chaque vendredi !Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Gina's first pregnancy was with twins, which limited her options for care to a hospital birth. During this labor, she faced immense pressure to receive an epidural, undergo various interventions, and was even made to give birth on the operating table in the operating room “just in case.” Despite all of this and the atmosphere of fear surrounding twin births, she managed to deliver both babies naturally in the hospital, on that cold operating room table. Her second pregnancy was with a singleton, so this time, a midwife could legally attend her birth at home, and Gina jumped at the chance. She found the perfect wise woman to walk alongside her during the pregnancy. This experience allowed her to heal some of the scars left by her previous, medicalized birth and to deeply reconnect with her Mexican heritage through cultural birth practices, such as using a rebozo, and having the maternal grandmother cut the umbilical cord. Gina says that this birth experience deeply reconnected her to her lineage and inspired her to dive into learning more about the sacredness of pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on  Spotify or Apple Podcasts!  Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth Do you have a birth story you'd like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at contactus@healingbirth.net Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto

Voici une mini-série de 4 épisodes dédiés au Rebozo, avec naturellement un premier échange sur ses origines et son histoire. Qui mieux que la merveilleuse Yaël FLAUDER pour en parler ! Les MaM'Elles Addicts vous l'aurez reconnue... puisque Yaël est déjà passée derrière mon micro, dans l'épisode 61, pour nous partager l'histoire de sa maternité, précisément de l'enfantement de sa fille dans une petite ville mexicaine. Riche de ses 7 années passées au Mexique, Yaël est revenue en France enrichie d'une vision nouvelle de part les connaissances, les savoirs et les transmissions qu'elle a reçus là-bas, au plus près des femmes sages mexicaines.Cet épisode a été pensé et créé dans le but de vous informer sur les origines et sur l'histoire de ce tissu dont on entend beaucoup parler : le Rebozo. Un échange nécessaire sur ce tissu, cet outil auquel on rend honneur, ici, en racontant sa genèse...Je vous souhaite un beau voyage à travers l'histoire cet "outil d'inclusion qui n'a pas de frontières" (selon les mots de Yaël) ! Pour retrouver Yaël sur Instagram : @yaelflauderPour écouter l'épisode 61 avec Yaël sur sa maternité : EP61 - Un accouchement dans une petite ville mexicaine. | MAM'ELLES I Un voyage au cœur de la Maternité.Je remercie la merveilleuse femme qui a reçu une transmission de Yaël et qui a pris la photo de la pochette de cet épisode.Pour retrouver MAM'ELLES sur Instagram : @mamelles_lepodcastSur YOUTUBE et Facebook :  MAM'ELLESMon site internet : mamelles.frMa boutique en ligne : Boutique - MAM'ELLES (mamelles.fr)Pour m'écrire : mamelles.lepodcast@gmail.comMAM'ELLES est un podcast réalisé par Marion TERTEREAU. Vous pouvez retrouver tous les épisodes sur votre plateforme d'écoute préférée ainsi que sur YouTube. On se retrouve chaque vendredi !Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Naomi Rossignol est un "petit oiseau migrateur", comme elle le dit si bien, qui vient dans cet épisode semer les graines de son savoir et de ses connaissances sur l'art du tissage des fibres naturelles. Naomi est française, née à Hong-Kong. Elle a toujours été portée par les voyages depuis son enfance sur un voilier jusqu'à ses 16 ans où elle partait découvrir l'Australie, puis la Russie. Elle a vécu plusieurs années en Asie et a voyagé plus récemment au Mexique, au Guatemala... Naomi a mené pendant plusieurs années une vie de danseuse classique casi- professionnelle. Alors qu'à la fin du Conservatoire, elle part à la frontière entre le Laos et la Birmanie, elle y rencontre des familles dans lesquelles les grands mères filent, brodent et tissent sur le pas de leur porte pour confectionner leurs propres vêtements. Là commence à germer en elle, la question suivante : comment sont confectionnés nos vêtements et avec quels matériaux ? Naomi vous embarque, alors, sur son chemin ô combien riche en épopées, en transmissions, en connaissances, en savoir Faire et savoir Être... Un Véritable voyage sur la symbolique du filage, du tissage et de la broderie dans et hors nos frontières... Un échange qui mène à une prise de conscience sur les vêtements que nous portons, sur les traditions ancestrales et artisanales afférentes au tissage et sur notre relation au tissu...Sans oublier, toute cette transmission que nous offre Naomi sur la genèse du tissage, sur ses rencontres avec les sages femmes à travers les pays qui sont, pour beaucoup, tisserandes...Sur l'accompagnement qu'elle propose aujourd'hui aux Femmes avec les ceintures qu'elle tisse, brode et/file. Naomi termine cet épisode avec un message fort sur l'appropriation culturelle... Un message construit et constructif sur l'origine du rebozo, sur l'histoire même de l'humanité qui n'est finalement que mouvement...Un épisode extrêmement riche d'apprentissages et de découvertes, nécessaire à notre meilleure compréhension de notre lien au tissu au-delà des cultures...Je vous souhaite une belle écoute les MaMaS !Pour retrouver Naomi sur Instagram : @padmakshi.textile@rossignol.naomiPour se procurer son livre qu'elle a co-écrit avec Camille BRABANT :  Fait maison - Filer les fibres naturellesPour retrouver MAM'ELLES sur Instagram : @mamelles_lepodcastMon site internet : mamelles.frHébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Ep 132 Description:  “Giving birth is like dying away from all your past, and you'll become a new person that is going to have a lot of new skills. When you close, you give yourself the moment to realize that you're a wise woman now that is becoming a mother.” —Alejandra Lozano Rituals and pleasure— two powerful elements that can transform the birth experience. In the second part of our interview with Alejandra Lozano, we dive deeper into the rituals and pleasure that can transform the birth experience.   Alejandra is a dedicated Mexican midwife with over 11 years of experience supporting women through pregnancy, birth, and beyond. Her passion for honoring cultural wisdom and empowering women is evident in her work. Tune in as Alejandra shares insights on rebozo, sobada, postpartum closing rituals, and practical tips to cultivate pleasure throughout the childbearing journey.   Connect with Debra! Website: https://www.orgasmicbirth.com  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/orgasmicbirth X: https://twitter.com/OrgasmicBirth  YouTube https://www.youtube.com/c/OrgasmicBirth1  Tik Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@orgasmicbirth  Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debra-pascali-bonaro-1093471      Episode Highlights: 03:00 Exploring Rebozo: Its Use and Benefits 07:56 The Role  Rituals in Mexican Midwifery 13:37 Practical Tips for Preparing for a Pleasurable Birth 18:46 Join the Orgasmic Birth Program   About Alejandra:  Alejandra Lozano, is a dedicated Mexican Midwife with over 11 years of experience walking the sacred path of supporting women through pregnancy, birth, and beyond. Alejandra's journey into midwifery began with the birth of her son, Mariano— born at home, in water, and surrounded by midwives. That transformative experience awakened a calling in her heart to walk this path. Her first mentor, her midwife, guided her initial steps. But Alejandra's thirst for deeper knowledge took her south, where she immersed herself in traditional Mexican midwifery. There, she connected with midwives who taught her ancestral practices such as Sobada (healing massages), Rebozo techniques, herbal medicine, temazcales, and sacred rituals. Each practice, rooted in love and community, shaped the way Alejandra now walks with women. Today, Alejandra combines this ancestral wisdom with her intuition, creating a space of trust, compassion, and connection for the women she serves. She doesn't consider herself a traditional midwife in the strictest sense—having been born in the city—but her spirit is deeply tied to the roots of our traditions. She continues to travel and learn, bridging the gap between modernity and ancestral wisdom, offering her gifts with reverence for the lineage of birth.  In addition, Alejandra is a special friend and our Orgasmic Birth social media Creatrix. She reaches the wisdom of the rebozo in all our doula workshops and is one of our Orgasmic Birth Pracitioners.  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alepartera/   

Ep 130 Description:  “Rituals are related to pleasure.” —Alejandra Lozano   Rituals have the power to transform the childbirth experience, unlocking deeper layers of intimacy, pleasure, and connection. The journey from pregnancy to postpartum can become a profound rite of passage by honoring ancestral wisdom and incorporating sacred practices. In this episode, we explore how these time-honored traditions can reshape the way we approach one of life's most transformative events. Alejandra Lozano is a dedicated Mexican midwife with over 11 years of experience walking the sacred path of supporting women through pregnancy, birth, and beyond. Her own transformative home water birth ignited a deep calling to immerse herself in the richness of traditional Mexican midwifery practices. Tune in as Debra and Alejandra discuss the integration of ancestral rituals in childbirth and postpartum care, exploring the power of practices like Sobada, Herbal Baths, and Rebozo to foster intimacy, connection, and a holistic approach to this life-changing experience.   Connect with Debra! Website: https://www.orgasmicbirth.com  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/orgasmicbirth X: https://twitter.com/OrgasmicBirth  YouTube https://www.youtube.com/c/OrgasmicBirth1  Tik Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@orgasmicbirth  Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debra-pascali-bonaro-1093471      Episode Highlights: 04:15 Alejandra's Birth Experiences 11:12 Post-Birth Transformation 15:04 Connecting with Midwives 18:02 Integrating Rituals into Prenatal Care and Birth 24:44 Supporting Women in Labor with Sobada 28:42 The Role of Touch in Midwifery    

Dans ce vingt-troisième épisode de La Maison du Père-Nolille, rencontre Justine, ancienne infirmière devenue praticienne en soins bien-être.

Today, I have the privilege of welcoming three beautiful Postpartum Doulas onto the podcast who are going to share with us wisdom & understanding around Postpartum and their very own special offerings in Postpartum care. As Postpartum Doulas, we understand the importance & value of care and education, but we also know that Postpartum is a personal and intimate experience and that a woman needs to feel safe and comfortable with those that she invites into this space. So, I thought it would be helpful to interview a range of doula approaches to helping women at this unique & special time, so that if you are curious about postpartum care or seeking a postpartum doula, you will have insight in knowing what to ask to find the right fit.Welcome to the podcast ladies. Let's dive in.full youtube presentation here: https://youtu.be/Bei_sSlo30IOlivia, Ysaline, DamarisOlivia:Olivia is a traditionally trained postpartum doula from Sydney. Her other qualifications are as a registered nurse and a holistic health coach specialising in nutrition and hormonal health. Her mission is to help elevate your health and recovery after you have your baby, using the ancient wisdom practice of Ayurveda. Ayurvedic postpartum care has been tried and tested for thousands of years and has brought health and vitality to many new mamas. and Olivia is here to educate and help implement this beautiful wisdom, when supporting mamas, so that they can continue to have health and vitality for many years to come. Olivia works with mamas in different ways, through in-home postpartum support, online postpartum education and planning, closing of the bones ceremony and holding seasonal mama circles. Special sauce: Ayurvedic Postpartum support, Closing of the Bones ceremony. https://www.instagram.com/backtonourishingmamas/https://backtonourishingmamas.com/homepageYsaline: Ysaline is a Doula & Life Coach. Born and raised in France, she is now happily living in Sydney with her family, dedicated to empowering mothers and nurturing a sense of belonging.Creating a nurturing environment is essential for the well-being of the entire family from conception to postpartum and beyond, she provides tailored support. Ysaline's role as a doula and life coach extends beyond the prenatal and postpartum periods, offering continuous support throughout the parenthood journey.With a natural affinity for mothers and babies, her journey began with a dream of becoming a midwife. After a decade-long career in business, she followed her heart back to her true calling.https://www.instagram.com/mamamour.ysa/Special sauce: Rebozo massage and carehttps://www.instagram.com/reel/C-J67gWzf9D/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3DDamaris Lee:Damaris is a Postpartum Doula in Sydney with a background as a private midwife in Germany. After moving to Australia, she founded Mum's Oasis to enhance the care mothers receive after birth. She offers an online postpartum education course, as well as pregnancy and postpartum massage and in-home postpartum care. With over eight years of experience, her mission is to help families create a nurturing environment that supports birth recovery, mental well-being, and strong parent-child connections.Special sauce:

Mots de Pauline @pauline.dubromez : « J'aimerais que vous puissiez écouter ce témoignage avec le regard du système de personnes/élements qui entouraient la naissance de mon enfant :  le lieu (à la maison et au CHU), les personnes médical (ma SF AAD, l'équipe du CHU, le gynécologue ami de la famille), mon conjoint, mon bébé, moi et mon corps (mon corps physique et la pathologie Cholestase Gravidique).  Je tiens à le préciser car c'est important, que la cholestase s'est déclarée à 4 jours du terme de ma grossesse, que j'étais en travail et qu'à chaque instant mon bébé allait très bien. Les décisions prises durant cette expérience n'auraient pas été les mêmes si je n'avais pas été en travail, si je n'étais pas quasi à terme, et si mes résultats d'analyses avaient été différents. Par ailleurs, nous étions entourés de personnes expérimentées dans leur domaine : ma SF AAD, l'équipe du CHU très à l'écoute et respectueuse, et notre gynécologue, amis de la famille, qui a pu aussi nous donner un second avis.  Chaque décision a été prise en tenant compte de tous les éléments du système précédemment cité. Et c'est ce que je vous invite à faire, si vous vous retrouvez dans une telle situation.  Cette naissance illustre parfaitement ce que veut dire "entre science et sacrée".  Je vous souhaite une douce et belle écoute, Pauline » Quel bel échange autour du positionnement, de la posture, du choix et de l'expression verbale face à une nouvelle ou plusieurs qui viennent chambouler les souhaits d'une naissance. Plusieurs thématiques sont abordés avec ce regard de la communication avec soi, avec l'autre, pour faire ENSEMBLE. On parle d'accepter l'autre dans sa réalité et de parler avec son coeur pour prendre des décisions éclairées et se sentir respectée. C'est aussi une valorisation de la capacité d'une personne à laisser le courant de la vie la porter là où elle doit cheminer. Vous retrouverez : 7min : Le projet de base pour la naissance de bébé 2 9min : Accueillir le diagnostic de la Cholestase Gravidique, réflexion autour des décisions et dialogue avec le corps médical 43min : Créer sa propre réalité et choisir un transfert au CHU  53min : Accouchement et Macrosomie Foetale  57min : Choisir une intervention extérieure, se laisser surprendre par le corps, Spécificité Utérus Pendulaire, Rebozo pendant accouchement, Lâcher Prise 1h05 : Ramener la femme dans son mental 1h10 : Oser s'affirmer 1h13 : Position de naissance sur le dos 1h15 : Porter dans ces cellules son projet de naissance 1h16 : Accueillir son bébé  1h20 : Naissance dirigée du Placenta 1h24 : Prise de sang du cordon 1h26 : Placenta Lotus 1h30 : Sortie anticipée +3h S'accueillir Soi, Reconnecter à son Pouvoir Intérieur, Se Lancer, Communiquer pour faire ENSEMBLE Étude sur la cholestase https://www.fmcgastro.org/textes-postus/no-postu_year/cholestase-gravidique/ prendre rendez-vous avec Pauline: https://cal.com/paulinedubromez Elle propose une séance en communication quantique découverte gratuite Cet épisode a été enregistré le 21 mars 2023. Je m'appelle Charlotte Ordoux ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @charlotte_doulacoeur ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ , doula , autrice du livre jeunesse en cours de création @naitre_mammifere et j'ai l'honneur de vous offrir ce podcast. Pour me soutenir, je vous invite à partager cet épisode, à le commenter et à contribuer en vous rendant sur ma page tipeee: https://fr.tipeee.com/recits-ocytocyques/ #recitsocytociques #cholestasegravidique #placentalotus #doula

¿Sabes qué es el rebozo? ¿Quieres conocer a una guardiana del proceso del parto? En este episodio Alina Valdivia Maldonado, matrona chilena nos explica que es el rebozo, sus beneficios, y hablamos también de la fisiología del parto, el acompañamiento y mucho más! Ella es una verdadera guardiana del parto y su sabiduría ancestral te encantará sin duda. Códigos de descuento de nuestros patrocinadores:LILLYDOO nos da este código con un 10% descuento LILLYPARTO10 en sus tres primeras cajas de pañales que puedes utilizar en su web www.lillydoo.com/es/. Código activo hasta el 30 de octubre 2024WELEDA nos regala un 20% de descuento en su web aquí todos los productos de bebé Caléndula y Mamá con el código de descuento PAULAWELEDA, activo hasta el 31 de diciembre 2024.Soy Paula Ripol, autora de Dar a luz con hipnoparto y fundadora de myBabymyBirth y mi misión es que consigas tener tu mejor parto ganando conocimiento para entender tus opciones y con herramientas para vivir tu embarazo y parto desde la calma.Síguenos en Instagram para ver vídeos y contenido sobre el parto.Suscríbete a nuestro canal de Youtube.Descubre nuestro recursos gratuitos.Descárgate ONA app gratis, tu contador de contracciones u olas con las relajaciones de hipnoparto.Adquiere el Pack Digital de Hipnoparto, nuestro curso de hipnoparto online que haces a tu ritmo.Descubre nuestros cursos grupales de HipnopartoSoy Paula Ripol, autora de Dar a luz con hipnoparto y fundadora de myBabymyBirth y mi misión es que consigas tener tu mejor parto ganando conocimiento para entender tus opciones y con herramientas para vivir tu embarazo y parto desde la calma. Síguenos en Instagram para ver vídeos y contenido sobre el parto. Suscríbete a nuestro canal de Youtube. Descubre nuestro recursos gratuitos.Descárgate ONA app gratis, tu contador de contracciones u olas con las relajaciones de hipnoparto. Adquiere el Pack Digital de Hipnoparto, nuestro curso de hipnoparto online que haces a tu ritmo.Descubre nuestros cursos grupales de Hipnoparto

Yaël vient dans cet épisode vous parler de sa naissance de maman à San Cristóbal, au Mexique.Alors qu'elle était professeure des écoles en France, elle devient enceinte après un court séjour du papa de sa fille sur le territoire et décide, alors qu'elle était enceinte de 3 mois et demi, de partir au Mexique pour vivre ce voyage de la grossesse et de la naissance.Yaël raconte comment elle a été accueillie dans cette ville où les différentes nationalités et cultures se mélangent.Yaël vous embarquera au cœur de sa naissance de maman à travers les us et coutumes de ce pays. Un accouchement à la maison accompagnée d'une sage-femme, de son compagnon, au milieu des montagnes mexicaines. Un enfantement bercée par les vagues du vortex de la naissance et qui nous permet de renouer avec la puissance naturelle de la femme, notamment en raison du fait que sa fille est née en siège.Un voyage qui continuera lorsque Yaël vous parlera du rituel du placenta qu'elle a fait, de son post-partum toujours bercée par les traditions amérindiennes.Yaël reviendra aussi sur la formation qu'elle a reçue en tant qu'assistante sage-femme là bas. Une expérience riche qui a nourri les transmissions qu'elle organise aujourd'hui en France à travers des cercles de femmes, des retraites, des soins rebozo...Yaël revient sur ses 7 années au Mexique qui l'ont vue naître maman comme une véritable ascension spirituelle, un réalignement de son être avec une clairvoyance nette sur les différentes visions de voir ou percevoir la naissance. J'invite toutes les mamans à écouter cet épisode tellement il est puissant dans sa reconnexion à soi, sa confiance en soi... La richesse qu'apporte les traditions d'autres pays sur notre propre vision de la maternité permet inévitablement de nous pousser à créer notre propre maternité. Je vous souhaite une belle écoute les MaMaS !Pour suivre Yaël sur instagram : @yaelflauderPour retrouver MAM'ELLES sur Instagram : @mamelles_lepodcastPour me suivre sur Instagram : @marion_tertereauMon site internet : mamelles.frMa boutique en ligne : Boutique - MAM'ELLES (mamelles.fr)Pour m'écrire : mamelles.lepodcast@gmail.comMAM'ELLES est un podcast réalisé par Marion TERTEREAU. Vous pouvez retrouver tous les épisodes sur votre plateforme d'écoute préférée. On se retrouve chaque vendredi pour un nouvel épisode.Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

During her first labor, Emily experienced a hyperactive uterus where she had constant squeezing with no breaks and minimal dilation. She was at a birth center but after exhausting all coping options decided to transfer to the hospital. After receiving an epidural and Pitocin, then detecting meconium, Emily was ready to consent to a Cesarean. Emily's second birth was a planned Cesarean, then her third and fourth births were both VBACs. Emily describes how even though her provider was the same for both vaginal deliveries, her experiences were so different. With her third, Emily had a beautiful pushing stage and easy recovery. However, pushing with her fourth felt rushed and she experienced a fourth-degree tear. Meagan and Emily share the importance of making your preferences known in every aspect of labor and delivery so your support team can speak up when you are not able to. Needed WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello, Women of Strength. We have a 2VBA2C story for you today. We were just talking about it before we started recording all of the acronyms. I was like, “Oh, you're a VBAC after two C-sections story.” And your baby is 8– wait, did I see that right? 8 months? Emily: He's 9 months now. Meagan: 9 months. Emily: He's almost a year. 8 months, 9 months, 10 months, somewhere around there. Meagan: Still very little, still very fresh so I'm excited for you to share his story and your other babies' stories. We have Emily by the way. This is Emily. Hello, Emily. Emily: Hi. Meagan: Remind me. Where are you located? Emily: I'm in Texas. Meagan: Okay, you're in Texas. Awesome. Okay you guys, we're going to share her stories. We do have a Review of the Week so I want to hurry and get into that and then we'll jump into Emily's stories. This Review is from Rachel and it says, “Thanks for giving me the confidence to have a VBAC. I am glad I found this amazing podcast when I was newly pregnant with baby number two. After a long, traumatic experience that ended in a C-section, I was cautiously hopeful that I would have a VBAC. Using information that I learned from hearing other people's stories on The VBAC Link, I felt confident and prepared for the birth of my son. On October 9, 2020” so that was four years ago, “I had a beautifully redemptive VBAC and welcomed our boy into the world. Thank you so much for helping me achieve my dream.” Women of Strength, that review is for you. You and your stories and your participation in the community and on Instagram and all the places is seriously what builds this community up and helps these other Women of Strength find the courage just like she said and find the education.I'm so excited for you, Rachel. Congrats and as always, if you have time to leave a review, please do so. It helps other Women of Strength find stories. Meagan: Okay, Ms. Emily. Let's get into this. So you have four babies now. Emily: Yes. My oldest is about to be 7 and my youngest is 8 months or so. Meagan: Okay, so you were having your first C-section as I was pregnant with my VBA2C baby. Emily: Yeah, it was 2017. Meagan: When you had him? Emily: When I had her. I had three girls and then my youngest is a boy. Meagan: Yes. My VBA2C was in 2016 so just right before, yeah. Awesome. Okay, well I'm going to turn the time over to you. Emily: Sure. So my first pregnancy, I actually found out I was pregnant on my honeymoon when we were in Mexico. Meagan: Oh my gosh. Emily: Yeah. I was stressed out and working out a bunch and all of this planning the wedding. I expected my period to come while we were there so I'm like, “Oh, it's going to be the worst. I have all of these white clothes and I'm going to be on the beach and I'm going to have my period.” It just didn't come so it was right at the start of our honeymoon. I was like, “Let's take a test. I don't want to be drinking margaritas for the rest of the week,” then of course, I was. We came back from the honeymoon with another big announcement. I feel like a lot of people's stories is that you didn't know any better and you just showed up at the hospital and you did what the doctor said. I was the exact opposite at that point. I was reading all of the things. I read the Ina May book. I had a midwife at a birth center and I was going to the chiropractor constantly. I was doing all of the things to be ready to give birth at the birth center without medication and all of that. That's just not how it ended up. I think I was around 36 weeks and she was breech. I was going to the chiropractor all of the time trying to get her to turn. I was doing Spinning Babies. I was doing acupuncture. I was going upside down all of the time. I was finding swimming pools to do handstands and all of the things. I did moxibustion where you smoke–Meagan: Uh-huh, on your Bladder 6. Emily: She was still breech so my midwife set me up with the breech guy. People come to him from all over to do breech vaginal deliveries so I started seeing him. This was when we were living in Houston so I started seeing him and we did all of the things to try and get her to turn and ended up having a version. I went in. I had an epidural. They manually turned her and then afterward, they were monitoring me in the room and the nurses were like, “Okay, well do you want to be induced now?” I was like, “Nope. I've got a plan. I'm going home.” So I left the hospital after that. She stayed head down and then I went to 42 weeks and at about 42 weeks, I went into labor but my labor was weird. I was getting contractions but there was no break between them. It was just constant, squeezing pressure. I was texting my midwife asking, “I don't know what to do. I can't time them. There is no in-between.” It was mostly my back and after, I think it was 3 hours and I was like, “I can't do this. This is too weird.” I didn't have any guidance for what to do if you're not able to– they weren't broken up at all. Meagan: Were you dehydrated at all? Emily: No, I don't think so. I'm not sure. We finally went into the birthing center and it stayed that way for a really long time. We were there throughout the night. I was on a birthing ball and my husband was just elbow into my back for hours. I couldn't sleep because it was just constant pain. I tried the Rebozo scarf. We did all kinds of things while I was there. I will say though, I should have had a doula because my midwife kind of just left the room and was gone. She was somewhere in the center probably sleeping. I don't know. She would come in every once in a while and we were really just left to our own devices in there. We had done I think it was a six-week class. We went in every week trying to prepare. Yeah, we were just in this room together in the middle of the night really tired and in a lot of pain not knowing what to do to get this going. At one point, I was on an IV. She had given me all of the pain stuff that they can give you. At one point, she was like, “I've done all of my–” I wish I could remember. Meagan: I've exhausted all my tools type thing. Emily: Yeah, I've given you as many doses as I can in a time period. We did the catheter. That came out at some point. I think it was Monday when I went in there and then Wednesday when I ended up leaving there. At one point, she was checking to see. She was looking at my cervix and my water broke. There was a bunch of meconium and it was green crazy. She just looked at me and was like, “I think it's probably time for you to go.” I got back in the car in rush-hour traffic in Houston and headed to the hospital. There was a nurse in the back seat with me holding my IV bag. My husband drove us there. She had called the doctor who did my version so I had already met him and known him and known that he was pretty progressive as well doing breech vaginal deliveries and I know he did breech twin deliveries. He was a very cool guy so I felt good about that. We went. He was like, “All right. Let's do an epidural. You can sleep. You can relax and all these things.” That's what we did. I think I had the epidural for 8 hours and I was at 6 centimeters. They were like, “Okay, what about Pitocin?” I feel like they did give me a lot of time and I hate the saying “give me” but they gave me a lot of time and by the end of it, I was exhausted. I was done and ready to get her out. I only made it to 6 centimeters after all of that. It was 3 days of labor. By that time, just get her out of there. She was almost 10 pounds. She was big. Yeah. The C-section, that all went fine. I found recovery to be especially hard. My body was already so tired. Meagan: Exhausted. Emily: Exhausted. I wasn't prepared for it. I didn't expect it to be as painful as it was, but yeah. I know some people kind of just pop right up after and are moving around. That was not my experience. That was my first. I feel like I had 10 experiences in one. I did the midwife birth center thing. They tried to get my labor going with an epidural. I had already been there for an epidural once so by the time I was getting the second one, it was whatever, and then the C-section also all in that one pregnancy. Yeah. I feel like it was three births in one.But yeah, then we got pregnant with my second. I talked to my midwife again. She was like, “I don't do VBACs,” so the first person I called was the guy who did my C-section and my version. I said, “I want to do a VBAC.” He was like, “All right.” He was very cool about it and awesome. It was another really easy pregnancy. I got to the end. I was 41 weeks. Meagan: So you carry longer. Emily: Yes. I was 41 weeks with her and I went in for an appointment and they did a sonogram and I was like, “Please can you check my cervix? I just have to know where I'm at.” Yeah, I hadn't dilated at all and he was like, “Well, your sonogram's estimating that she's going to be 10 pounds also.” My mom had been in town at that point. They were trying to be there for the birth and helping me with my toddler and she had to leave the next day because my sister was being induced in Dallas. She had been staying with me for that whole last two weeks and it was like a now or never she's going to be gone. I'm already 41 weeks. I was also teaching and so every day, I was walking into work so pregnant. 1000 comments like, “You're still here? You're still pregnant?” It just felt like I was sick of it. Then hearing the 10 pounds, I was like, “All right. Let's just have a C-section I guess.” He left that up to me. I feel like he would have if I said. He wasn't even doing cervical checks at that point. It was me who asked for it. He left it up to me and he agreed when I said, “Okay. I guess we'll just do a C-section.” That one was different because it was scheduled. We went in the next morning. It was easy, breezy, and a little bit better of a recovery since I wasn't already so exhausted at that point. But yeah. I had a newborn and a toddler and a C-section again. It was rough. It kept opening because I was picking up my toddler. I went back to work I think when my second was six weeks old. Yeah. It was a lot. Those were my first two C-sections. Very different experiences for both of them with the same doctor. Then COVID happened and I finished the school year teaching online when COVID happened and my husband was working in oil and gas. We decided we were going to move to my parents' ranch. I finished the school year online from there and he was working with my dad. My dad does custom home building so that was something he wanted to get into. It was kind of the perfect segue out of there. Meagan: Mhmm. So where were your first two babies born? Emily: Houston. Meagan: In Houston. For people who are interested in breech, are you willing to share that provider's name? Emily: Yes. His name is Dr. Alfredo Gei. Meagan: Okay. Emily: Yeah. I mean, he was great. I don't know if he's still working or not down there, but he was awesome. He was a very, very cool guy. He was very calm, very respectful, friendly, and all of the things. Meagan: Yeah. Yes, good. Emily: Yeah. We moved up to my parents' ranch in Glen Rose, Texas. I finished the school year online. I decided I would stay home with my two kids. I think by the end of that summer, we were ready to have our third. It was perfect timing. I was staying home. We had my parents there. My husband had an easier work obligation working with my dad and all of that so I got pregnant with my third. That pregnancy was wild. We had a lot going on. I guess it was my first experience having a pregnancy that didn't go super smoothly and whatever test and all of the normal things you do like blood testing if you choose to do that. Everything came back weird so I'd have to go in and retest. I think at one point in the beginning, they thought she might have Down Syndrome so it was like, “Well, you can do the amnio to find out or you can wait until that anatomy scan.” I spent that time just waiting until 20 weeks to find out if she had Down Syndrome or not. I tried to do the gender test, one of those home ones. My first two were a surprise and with her, I just wanted to know. I needed something. I wanted to know what was going on in there. We did one of those gender tests and it came back inconclusive. Whatever could go wrong was going wrong with the pregnancy. I had found an OB/GYN who was VBAC-friendly who worked with a group of midwives so it was him and a bunch of midwives. I started seeing him and them because I thought– oh, I didn't even mention. When I had my second baby, they predicted her to be 10 pounds. She was 7 pounds. It made me so mad. It made me so mad. Meagan: Okay, so now I have a question for you because we talk about third-trimester ultrasounds. At 41 weeks, that is normal because they do non-stress tests and all of those things. Would you have chosen a different situation or would the scenario be the same because of your mom and convenience and all of that? Emily: That's a good question. I would like to say that I would have at least given myself a couple more days at that point, just a couple more days to see maybe. I always think, What if I had gone into labor in that next couple of days instead of the C-section? Would she have come out easier being 7 pounds and not 10 pounds? Of course, I thought, Maybe it's my pelvis. Big baby, small pelvis, and all of these things. I don't know. It's hard to say. I was really ready to have her. Meagan: Absolutely and you were given an opportunity. That goes to speak where you are in your pregnancy. That's a vulnerable state. That's a very vulnerable state. But you had her and it was an okay C-section and your mom was there and all sorts of things. Emily: Yeah. She came out and then they brought me back to the room and my mom was there. She got to meet the baby then drove all the way back up to Dallas and my sister had hers. They are a day apart. Meagan: Aww, that is so fun. Emily: Anyway, with my third, I was seeing him and I had some weird blood testing results and weird stuff happening at the beginning. It was the end of COVID sort of so COVID started around spring break. I got pregnant around that summer and by the next spring, it had been quite a while but hospitals and stuff still had all of those weird rules in place about people being in the room and all of the things. It was the tail end of that. My husband got to come in for the anatomy scan. He was there with me in the room when she did all of the scanning and everything and then he had to leave when the doctor came in. He went and waited outside in the car and the doctor came in and my first question obviously was, “Did you see any Down Syndrome markers?” They said, “No.” They didn't see that, but her head circumference and her cerebellum were measuring in the first percentile. The normal range is 1-100 and she was right there on the cusp of being abnormally small. He dropped that bomb on me while I was in there by myself. He waited until my husband had left. He told me that I was going to need to go and see a maternal-fetal medicine specialist and then I could come back after that. I left that appointment just in shambles not knowing what was going on or what to expect or what that meant and then I had to wait for an appointment to see a maternal-fetal medicine specialist. At that point, I just threw the whole VBAC idea out the window. It was all about what was going on with the baby and keeping the baby healthy and all of those things. My mom is a NICU nurse so I was like, “Well, I'm going to give birth at the hospital that she works with because if my baby goes into the NICU, I want her to be there, and all of these women that I had known her working with for 30 years.” I went to see a maternal-fetal medicine specialist. I switched providers and hospitals and I went to where my mom was working. I went in and they measured her cerebellum for the rest of my pregnancy. It was every other week or so I would go in and they measured. She stayed on that very tail end the entire time. I want to say that she might have reached the 6th percentile by the end in growth so it was still pretty precarious not really knowing what the deal was there. But by all accounts, she was healthy. They weren't giving me any kind of diagnosis or suspicions about anything. She kept falling in the normal range which meant they weren't going to do any further testing. They could have done an MRI or something on my stomach at one point but they didn't do any of that. I think around 34 weeks, I had an appointment and I was just like, “You know, if we're good to have a VBAC, I still want to do that.” I just looked at my provider and was like, “This was my plan. I don't see why it still can't be my plan. I've got two toddlers at home. I really can't have another surgery. I don't want to do that.” She was like, “Okay. Awesome.” I was expecting a fight. Meagan: You're like, you do. You really, really do. You expect this, “No” or “But, well–”. Those are the things that you automatically assume so when you have a provider who's like, “Okay, cool,” you're like, wait what? It throws you off. Emily: Yeah. I left there with a skip in my step. Meagan: I bet you did. Emily: Right after that, I contacted a friend of mine who is a doula and I started working with her. She shared your podcast with me so I was listening, listening, listening to as many episodes as I could in those couple of weeks and it was very helpful. I'm not a confrontational person or even a person who previously was good at advocating so I was mostly listening. I already knew what the hospital situation looked like. I already knew what a C-section looked like so I was really listening for how do these conversations happen with doctors and what does that look like when you're advocating for yourself? What are the words that I need to use? I listened for a lot of those kinds of examples of this is what I can say if she says this. This is what I can come back with or suggest if this happens. So that was very helpful for me to just go in and can we do a Foley? Can we do a Cook's? Meagan: To feel prepared to have that conversation. Emily: Yeah. I know at one point, they wanted to schedule an induction and I said, “Well, what if I just don't come?” She was like, “Well, we can't drive to your house and bring you,” kind of response. “What if I don't want to do Pitocin and all of this? Can you do a Foley or a Cook's?” I really came into those appointments with more of a two-sided conversation and not just “We're going to do this. We're going to do this. We're going to do this.” I remember I got there at my 36-week appointment and my nurse was like, “Okay, go get undressed.” I didn't get undressed. I just sat there with all my clothes. She came back in and I was like, “I don't want that. I don't want my cervix checked.” Meagan: Good job. Emily: Yeah, she didn't know what to do with that. She was like, “I think she's going to want to look.” I was like, “Well, why?” Meagan: I don't want it. Emily: “I don't want to know. It's going to get me in my head. What's going to change if I'm 36 weeks?” Obviously, that was the norm there to start doing that at that point. What happens if I'm 1 centimeter? What happens if I'm 3? I'm still going to go home. I remember that was the first time I did something out of the norm there. I didn't even say the whole doula thing since it was the end of COVID. They were still working out who was allowed in so I asked for a doula and they didn't know if they could even have them so we were asking the hospital for hospital policies and calling up there asking all kinds of questions. By the time we did show up, everybody there was like, “She's here. She's here.” My mom worked there too so it felt a little bit like maybe everyone else was walking on eggshells with me because– Meagan: Because of your mom too. Emily: Well, my mom too. She was working that day so I probably couldn't have had her if she had come in as an extra person with us, but she was working and so she just showed up in our room in her scrubs and everything. I went into labor. Meagan: What gestation on this one?Emily: I was 37 weeks. Meagan: Whoa! So way earlier. Emily: Yes, way earlier. It was Easter. I started having contractions during the whole Easter thing. I'm hiding eggs struggling around the yard and I went to bed that night thinking, This feels like it's it. They were not painful but they were stronger than the regular Braxton Hicks so I went to bed and I think at 3:00 or so in the morning, they started waking me up. I tried to keep sleeping until 6:00 in the morning. I woke my husband up and was like, “You've got to figure out getting the kids to school and stuff. We're going to be going into the hospital.” It was about an hour drive. So I got in the bath. My doula told me to get in the bath and she gave me some different positions and stuff to do so I did all of that and that sped things along a whole lot. I did some curb walking and then yeah, I showed up at the hospital ready to have her and I want to say I was in labor there for three or four hours. I asked to speak to the– is it the anesthesiologist who does the epidurals and stuff? Meagan: Yep. Emily: I told her that I wanted a walking epidural. A lot of people don't know that there is a range. You can have it on full blast or you can have just a little bit. She gave me a very light epidural. I was able to still move in the bed and get in different positions. They had the bar over the bed at one point. They wanted to do an internal monitor at some point because my heartbeat and the baby's heartbeat, they could not figure out where to put the strap. I declined that. The nurse really just had to stay in there with it pressed to my stomach for hours. Yeah, that's what we did. I moved around. There was a peanut ball at some point and then yeah. They checked my cervix and my water broke. I don't know if that was on purpose or not, but I then had another water break at a cervical check and things went pretty quickly after that. I think I pushed through three contractions. Right before I started pushing, my OB came in and said she was leaving and that another doctor would be coming in. I was like, “Does he know? Is he cool?” I was so confused. But yeah, he came in and he was great. He asked if I wanted a mirror. I know that he was using oil and he had a hot compress and whatever. Meagan: That's awesome. Emily: He let me pull her out so I reached down and I grabbed her. It was all very cool. We were blasting Enya's Sail Away. It was a whole vibe. Meagan: I love that. Oh my gosh, I can just picture it all. Emily: It was very easy. Hardest pregnancy, easiest labor and birth. Yeah, she came out. I would say she slid out, but pushing wasn't hard. I could see what was happening. I don't know. I felt very comfortable. Meagan: Good. Emily: I felt ready. Meagan: Good. At the end, was anything going on with her? Emily: Yes. That's another whole long story. She didn't pass her newborn hearing screening so when they do the hearing test, it's a couple of days after you have the baby. She didn't pass and they thought, Oh, she might have fluid in her ears and this and that. You'll have to go back and do it again in a week or so. We went back and did it again and she didn't pass again. We had to go to the Children's Hospital and they did another type of hearing test and we found out that she was deaf. Yeah, we went down the whole hearing aid route and that. Healthwise besides her hearing, she was having a really hard time holding her head up. I think we started having a PT come when she was 4 weeks because her head was just flopping all over. I guess she was diagnosed with a gross motor delay and so we did PT until she started walking at 2.5. We had the option of doing genetic testing and all of that to find out the reason for the hearing loss and we just kind of thought, What's it going to change? She's still not going to be hearing after all of these tests so whatever. We will just deal with what we've got going on right now. She got hearing aids at 4 months. We were going in and they would do all kinds of tests and stuff. She still wasn't responding to any sound so they wanted to do cochlear implants and in order to do that, you have to have an MRI. They look at everything structurally to make sure you are a good candidate for cochlear implants. They look at the nerve and the ear canal and all of those things. They came back and they said, “She can get them. She's a good candidate for that, but here's what we saw with her brain on the MRI.” She had white matter abnormalities which are just when they go in and they look, if you have all of these white spots, they indicate inactivity so she had a bunch of that that they couldn't explain and she had a cyst somewhere in there on some groove. I have forgotten all of the lingo at this point. They wanted to find out what the cause of all of those things were. They also didn't want to give her cochlear implants if they thought that these areas were going to grow so then we started doing all of the genetic and DNA testing. They wanted us to wait a year to do her next MRI and the cochlear implants to make sure in that year time period they didn't grow at all. We were just like, “We can't do that. One, we can't wait a year to find out if our child has this thing that's taking over her brain and two, it's a critical time for learning language and speech and all of those things.” We settled with 6 months so we waited another 6 months. We did another MRI. They checked. Nothing grew. She was still making growths and learned to crawl and all of those things. She just did everything about a year behind. Yeah, we did cochlear implants and we all learned sign language and that's how we communicate. Yeah, it's been 3 years now. She just started the deaf preschool last week. Meagan: Awesome. Emily: And now bringing it home with baby number four. Meagan: Baby number four who is 9 months old? Emily: Yes. He was a surprise. We had a lot going on with my third daughter. I've got Eloise who is 7, Violet who is 5, and Matilda who just turned 3. We thought, Maybe we'll have another. Let's see what's going on with her. Let's get her into kindergarten. Let's get her speaking and signing and all of these things. Then we had surprise baby number four. He ended up being a boy so that was fun. He was born in July of last year. Meagan: Okay. Emily: During all of that, our insurance had changed so I couldn't go back to the same OB/GYN and I went to another one at that same hospital. After I had my third, my hormones were just so wild and crazy and I had a lot of anxiety and obviously stress from all that was going on with her. I went in and I was like, “I just want to figure out what's going on with my hormones.” I remember the doctor asked me about my previous pregnancies and births and stuff. I told her, “I actually had a VBAC with Dr. So and so at this hospital.” She said, “Oh, if you want to do that again, you've got to go somewhere else because we don't do that here.” Meagan: But you're like, “But I did do it here.” Emily: I was like, “Don't worry about it because I don't want to have another one.” Of course, a few months after that, I ended up getting pregnant again so our insurance had changed yet again. If you have a baby who has special needs, you've got to get the insurance thing figured out all the time. We changed again. I was able to go back to the same doctor so when I was pregnant with him, I saw her and she was like, “I'm guessing you're going to want another VBAC.” I said, “You're right.” Same thing. I didn't let them check my cervix. I didn't have a late-term sonogram. I went into labor with him. I got induced. That's right. I got induced with him. Yeah, yeah. I was 41 weeks again. Meagan: Okay. Emily: I was so expecting another early one and then I got to 41 weeks and we started talking about inductions and stuff. I said, “If I come in and do this, I'm going to want to do Foley or something again.” So that's what we did. That put me into labor right away. I think I was 1 centimeter so they were able to put that in and it just went from there. I will say this about the fourth with the same provider. I specifically in my birth plan said, “No students.” I feel like I had already done all of that. I had already allowed all of them. I had paid my dues to society by letting them in. I had a student who did my epidural with my second. I was done. I was done with that. I didn't want a bunch of people in the room. When it was time to put in the Foley, she wasn't available so they were like, “Do you mind if a resident does it?” I'm like, “That's fine.” The question was raised about breaking my water. I think I was over 6 centimeters at that point when they were asking about breaking my water and I was like, “Eh.” I talked to my doula. She was there again. I talked to my doula about it and we decided that was okay to get things moving along. They said, “Oh, well she's not available still. Can a resident come in and do that?” I was like, “Okay.” Then it was time to push and deliver and a whole team of people came in. I was in the thick of it. I had another really low-dose epidural so I was still feeling a lot. I also thing one thing about the low-dose epidural managing pain and staying on top of pain is a real thing and you can reach a certain point where there's not much you can do about it where you are too far. That's where I got with that. Even though I had the epidural, I was too far along at that point for it to do much. I was like, “Turn it up. Turn it up.” It wasn't making any difference so just know that's something that does happen. When it was time to push, my doctor on her wheelie stool just scooted out of the way and someone else showed up. Meagan: What? Again? Emily: From the background and it was like, “Push, push, push!” The vibes were very different. I'm not sure why that happened because as far as I'm concerned, nothing was happening with me medically and nothing was happening with him medically to necessitate me to push vigorously. I had not been pushing for hours. I got him out in under 30 minutes. It felt like there was this need for me to get him out of there and get him out quickly. I'm not sure why that happened. So I guess it was a resident who was down there. There was no oil this time. There was no hot compress this time. There was more pulling during the pushing part and I ended up tearing fourth degree all the way. It was awful. Same provider, different experience. She's retired now. I wouldn't go as far to say that I'd recommend her to other people having a VBAC. I think she was more– what's the word? Not VBAC-friendly. Meagan: Tolerant. Emily: Tolerant. I think she didn't think I was going to get there so she said yes thinking that's not how it was going to go and we'd never get to that point where I was in labor there ready to push. That's what happened both times so it was thrust upon her also. She's not a bad doctor or anything. That's my one takeaway from that one. You're pushing and there's a lot of people in the room and there's a lot going on and you're very much focused. I wish that I or someone else in the room had said, “Oh wait, what's happening down there? Why is this person coming in? Why are we doing this so quickly? What's this need to rush?” Yeah. That's my takeaway from that one. At the end of the day, I had an easy pregnancy and an easy delivery. I did have another vaginal, but it also came with some bad as well. It was a bad recovery for me for sure. Meagan: You know, I think that's something to note. Like you said, you got your vaginal birth and everything, but not every vaginal birth always ends with an easy recovery or an easy experience or even a positive experience so it does help to have that support team but here you go. Still even then at the last second, you got switched out on like you did last time too. That's weird. I'm like, was she not confident in delivering babies or what? That's interesting. Emily: I don't know. I'm not sure. Of course, afterward, I'm like, If she had stayed sitting there, would I have torn as much? Meagan: Exactly, yeah. Emily: If I was pressured to go so quickly, would I have torn as much? I left that one feeling, What just happened? I talked to my doula afterward about it and she was like, “You know, I wish I had said something,” but unless we had talked about it before, for her to stop a doctor in the middle of what they are doing without me having already told her, “Hey, I don't want this,” it's weird. Meagan: It's a really tricky situation. As a doula, I will say it's very tricky when you're like, I don't like what I'm seeing, but she's not saying anything and didn't say anything to me before this. I would assume she doesn't like this, but at the same time, yeah. Like you said, it's tricky. You don't want to step on people's toes. You don't want to change the atmosphere. It doesn't sound like the atmosphere was exactly peaceful either, but yeah. Gosh. That's hard. Emily: Yeah. It was another unexpected thing. I hadn't prepared for that scenario. I had it in my birth plan that I didn't want students, but then I had said yes to them for these things, so I can see how we got there, but yeah. For those wondering, I pushed him out to Shania Twain's Man I Feel Like a Woman. There were some good vibes in there. Meagan: I'm loving all of your music choices. That is amazing. Oh my gosh. Well, I'm sorry that it was that type of an ending. I am happy for you that you were able to have both of your vaginal births. But it's such a good takeaway and a great note. Women of Strength, think about those things too even with pushing, what you are wanting. Talk about this to your team. “If nothing's wrong, if nothing is emergent, I need it to be this way,” because that is for sure tricky. I wanted to talk about way into the first birth. I wanted to give a couple of suggestions for people who are having a hyperactive uterus where the uterus is just too active. It's not releasing. Sometimes that can be a baby's position working through and trying to get into the right position and the uterus is trying to help but a lot of the time it can be due to things like dehydration or I know that sometimes if there's a UTI or an infection or something like that, that can cause a hyperactive uterus. Sometimes people just have hyperactive uteruses but with a uterus that is just not letting go like yours, something that a midwife a long time ago within my doula career suggested to a client of mine was called cramp bark. Cramp bark, yeah. It's a tincture and you can take it. It can try to help relax the uterus so if you are having really long prodromal labor or like Emily where her uterus just wouldn't give up and it was just constant– and you said it was in your back. Emily: I had that wrap-around experience. It was like, I'm in a whole lot of pain but it's right here in my back. It never eased up. No, and then I wasn't dilating at the same time after all of this time of being like that. I think it was definitely her positioning. She was sunny-side up by the time the C-section did happen. Meagan: That's what I was thinking. Were you dehydrated or was it a positional thing? A positional factor can do that. Sometimes the uterus needs to relax so we can work with position. I know you were working with position but your uterus wasn't giving up. Sometimes you can increase your hydration, but cramp bark and always, always, always ask your provider about it, but it was actually something that a midwife and I think Julie took it with one of her babies with her prodromal labor too and it helped her as well. I just wanted to bring back that note of if you're having that hyperactive uterus, there could be a few things like hydration, position, maybe it's an infection that is undetected or maybe you've just got a great uterus that likes to keep squeezing. Thank you so much for sharing all of your beautiful stories. I'm so happy for you and congratulations. Emily: Thank you for having me. ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Today I speak with Ysaline, mother of two, life coach and doula. Ysaline recounts her own very different postpartum experiences, in part due to her father passing just two months after her baby was born, and one baby being born during the time of the Covid 19 pandemic, a period when there was no clear vision of the future and so much uncertainty as to when she could hug her overseas family again. We chat about the unrealistic expectations we often place on ourselves as mothers, the beliefs we may carry around sadness, crying and sleep, and the powerful transformation we go through and why support, care and help is vital to every mother. Ysaline shares her beautiful practice of Rebozo massage, rooted in Mexican cultural practices for releasing physical tension, working through the emotions, slowing down and deeply honouring the complexity of all of life's transitions.Ysaline runs womens circles in Sydney and monthly Mums' Cafe Connect meetups in Redfern in both English & French languages.I hope you enjoy the episode.Shownotes:YSALINE'S INSTAGRAM: @mamamourYOUTUBE VERSION: https://youtu.be/c6znPbGKL3I

Avec le slow rebozo, Anne Berlagent développe sa propre approche de ce soin unique, entre la danse et l'étreinte. Elle enveloppe, dépose et accompagne, elle a l'art de s'harmoniser avec le tissu et le rythme de ses clients. C'est un rythme lent, celui qui permet un ressourcement profond et une connexion authentique. A écouter absolument ! ******** Pour vous inscrire à nos podcasts premium c'est par ici ********** Retrouvez le texte de l'épisode sur notre blog. Abonnez-vous sur Itunes pour recevoir les notifications et en nous laissant un avis, vous nous envoyez des bulles de bonheur ! Suivez notre actu sur FB @2minutesdebonheur et sur insta @2minutesdebonheur, vous profiterez gratuitement de pleins de trucs, d'astuces et de mises en pratique liés au podcast de la semaine. Inscrivez-vous à la newsletter, vous serez ainsi notifié de nos nouveaux épisodes et vous recevrez un bon de réduction de 5% sur notre site. Et surtout, partagez nos épisodes à tous ceux qui veulent prendre le temps d'être heureux !

Ophélie est maman d'un petit garçon de deux ans. Elle est doula et accompagne les femmes et les honore dans chaque pas-sage de leur Vie à travers la photographie, les soins et diverses cérémonies.En début d'épisode Ophélie revient sur la décision qu'elle a dû prendre lorsqu'elle avait 15 ans, "un âge où ne devrait pas prendre ce genre de décision". Ophélie apprend qu'elle est enceinte pour la première à cet âge et décide naturellement de faire une I.V.G. Cette dernière aura un impact déterminant sur toute sa vie de femme et de mère puisqu'elle lui ouvrira plusieurs portes vers un cheminement profond sur la maternité a posteriori de ce pas-sage qu'elle a vécu majoritairement seule, même si soutenue et accompagnée par son petit ami de l'époque.Ophélie revient sur ce moment où les professionnels de santé l'ont infantilisée, sans lui expliquer, l'accompagner dans ce qu'elle traversait. Mais aussi, sur cette honte d'en parler à sa propre mère : lui annoncer dans une même phrase maman "maman je ne suis plus vierge, je suis enceinte".De cette expérience marquante pour elle, en tant que femme, Ophélie a cheminé jusqu'à accueillir une nouvelle âme des années plus tard. Elle explique comment elle s'est purifiée, "nettoyée", de cette histoire in utero pour accueillir la Vie à nouveau en ne se sentant plus "sale", et sans culpabiliser. Cette étape est passée notamment par une phase de jeûne et d'abstinence sexuelle. Ophélie vous parlera également de son souhait profond d'enfanter naturellement à domicile, en dehors d'un milieu hospitalier. Elle vous partage comment elle a dû s'adapter à sa naissance et celle de son fils, qui a pris un tournent différent de celui qu'elle envisageait. En effet, elle a accouché en plateau technique avec un déclenchement en raison de son dépassement de terme. Ophélie met l'accent sur l'importance de traverser l'intensité de la douleur de l'accouchement, car l'enfantement en lui-même n'est rien qu'un moment instantané comparé à notre transformation en tant que mère qui nous suivra toute notre vie. Enfin, elle vous livrera en toute authenticité son expérience en famille d'accueil au Mexique auprès d'une Muchahanotamment. Elle y a appris l'importance de la communauté de femmes, du lien entre les femmes. La richesse de cette transmission lui a ouvert la voie : "d'être au service des femmes". Depuis lors, elle n'a jamais cessé d'œuvrer d'accompagner les femmes en leur rappelant toute cette puissance et ce pouvoir qu'elles ont en elles. Ophélie vous dévoile ainsi des rituels en ce sens qui permettent de révéler et réveiller cette puissance.Cet épisode est extrêmement envoûtant, autant qu'Ophélie elle-même et ses photos d'ailleurs où elle met en lumière les femmes à travers des photos qui racontent une histoire, un témoignage...Je vous souhaite les MaMaS un merveilleux voyage auprès d'Ophélie et une belle écoute !Pour suivre Ophélie sur Instragram : @ophelie_melchior Pour retrouver MAM'ELLES sur Instagram : @mamelles_lepodcastPour me suivre sur Instagram : @marion_tertereauSur YOUTUBE et Facebook :  MAM'ELLESMon site internet : mamelles.frMa boutique en ligne : Boutique - MAM'ELLES (mamelles.fr)Le Programme Naissance Holistique : PROGRAMME EN LIGNE - MAM'ELLES (mamelles.fr)Pour m'écrire : mamelles.lepodcast@gmail.comMAM'ELLES est un podcast réalisé par Marion TERTEREAU. Vous pouvez retrouver tous les épisodes sur votre plateforme d'écoute préférée. On se retrouve chaque vendredi pour un nouvel épisode.

"Quand on parle d'"ANA", accouchement non médicalement assisté, je n'adhère pas trop à ce terme-là, parce que OK il n'y a personne de médical avec moi mais je suis totalement assistée parce que j'ai toute une communauté autour de moi qui m'accompagne avant pendant et après l'accouchement. Je ressens l'image que dans l'ANA, la femme est toute seule et dans mon vécu, ça n'a pas été le cas. J'adhère plus au terme : enfantement libre et autonome."Clémentine est maman de 5 enfants. Elle revient dans cet épisode sur la naissance de chacun d'eux avec en parallèle son propre cheminement, sa propre évolution ...Clémentine a donné naissance à sa première fille à l'hôpital, avec péridurale... Une première expérience qui l'a marquée et qui lui ouvrira la voie vers la naissance à domicile pour ses 4 autres accouchements avec puis sans la présence d'une sage-femme. Clémentine vous livre ses choix, ses décisions, en conscience. Elle revient sur ce besoin d'être en contact avec ses enfants, de se sentir libre d'être auprès d'eux à l'instar de notre espèce, les mammifères et de décloisonner les espaces de chacun en s'adaptant les uns avec les autres.Clémentine vous parlera aussi "allaitement" puisqu'elle a allaité ses 5 enfants et pratique actuellement le co-allaitement. Elle vous partagera également des petites astuces précieuses telles que le serrage de la tête, très intéressant en post-partum mais aussi le massage des seins !Enfin, Clémentine vous expliquera comment naturellement, au fil des ses naissances, elle se savait intrinsèquement destinée à prendre soin des femmes. C'est ainsi qu'elle s'est formée au métier de doula puis plus précisément à celui de gardienne des naissances. Aujourd'hui, à travers son village et sa communauté, LA TANIERE SACRÉE, elle encourage chaque femme à réveiller le pouvoir qu'elle a en elle d'être actrice de son enfantement et de sa maternité.Cet épisode vous fera voyager au cœur de la maternité sauvage et sacrée... avec la merveilleuse et douce Clémentine !Je vous souhaite une belle écoute les MaMaS !Pour retrouver Clémentine sur Instagram : @tanieresacree_maternitesauvagePour retrouver MAM'ELLES sur Instagram : @mamelles_lepodcastPour me suivre sur Instagram : @marion_tertereauSur YOUTUBE et Facebook :  MAM'ELLESMon site internet : mamelles.frMa boutique en ligne : Boutique - MAM'ELLES (mamelles.fr)Le Programme Naissance Holistique : PROGRAMME EN LIGNE - MAM'ELLES (mamelles.fr)Pour m'écrire : mamelles.lepodcast@gmail.comChant d'intro et de fin - La signification de ce chant lakota (amérindien) est la suivante : " Gratitude d'exister ici et maintenant, gratitude pour chaque moment obtenu où je suis né, grandi enseigné et retourne sur terre pour naître". Il est chanté par Claire-Lyse von Dach.MAM'ELLES est un podcast réalisé par Marion TERTEREAU. Vous pouvez retrouver tous les épisodes sur votre plateforme d'écoute préférée. On se retrouve chaque vendredi pour un nouvel épisode.Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Would you consider using an enema during the labor process? In today's birth story, we're chatting with Alyssa Reeves, wife to Kirk and mama to twin boys Sam and Niko and daughter Zooey. And while there's a lot more and totally magical elements to Alyssa's story, she's the first mama on the show to share her experience of using an enema during her transition phase of labor. We're so grateful for her open and informative sharing on how helpful it was for her in preparation for pushing. So now other mamas listening to the show can learn from Alyssa's experience and have another possibility for themselves if they have similar challenges during birth. As a long-time listener of the show, Alyssa was excited to pay it forward and be a part of the conversation that helped her in her own journey. We talk about her process of choosing home birth and the comparison between that and some of the traumatic elements of her first birth with her twins. Also the support of her birth team and a lot of the resources she used in preparation and during birth itself. Links From The Episode: Orgasmic Birth - https://www.orgasmicbirth.com/about/what-is-orgasmic-birth/ Business of Being Born - http://www.thebusinessofbeingborn.com/ Rebozo technique - https://www.orgasmicbirth.com/rebozo-techniques-unfolded/ Offers From Our Awesome Partners: Needed: https://bit.ly/2DuMBxP - use code DIAH to get 20% off your order Splash Blanket: https://bit.ly/3JPe1g0 - use code DIAH for 10% off your order Esembly: https://bit.ly/3eanCSz - use code DIH20 to get 20% off your order More From Doing It At Home: Send us your birth story: https://bit.ly/3jOjCKl Doing It At Home book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3vJcPmU DIAH Website: https://www.diahpodcast.com/ DIAH Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doingitathome/ DIAH YouTube: https://bit.ly/3pzuzQC DIAH Merch: www.diahpodcast.com/merch Give Back to DIAH: https://bit.ly/3qgm4r9 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

El rebozo 12 OctubreSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bienvenue dans Care constellaire, le podcast du soin qui nous connecte les uns aux autres.Je suis Anne Favier, naturopathe et accompagnante de professionnel.les du bien-être. Care constellaire, c'est aussi une série d'ateliers à destination des accompagnant.es.Aujourd'hui, je reçois Eugenia, qui est une « aide maman », une « comadre » d'origine guatémaltèque en Bretagne, pour un entretien passionnant sur le rebozo et le détournement des pratiques ancestrales dans les dynamiques d'appropriation culturelle.Tu peux me retrouver sur instagram : @annefavierbarthelery et participer à mes ateliers Care constellaire sur les questions d'inclusivité : https://calendly.com/annefaviernaturo/care-constellaire-inclusivite?month=2023-10&date=2023-10-09 J'anime également l'espace de formation La Pilule Rouge avec Selma Sardouk, et nous ouvrons en octobre une nouvelle thématique trimestrielle pour les professionnelles de l'accompagnement : l'appropriation culturelle ! Pour y accéder, il faut passer par une formation de base de 2h qui te met à niveau fissa pour manipuler les notions de base comme l'eurocentrisme ou la colonialité. Tu peux nous suivre sur Instagram @la.pilulerouge et t'inscrire à la prochaine session : https://calendly.com/annefaviernaturo/pilule-rouge-formation-de-base Après un incroyable replay pour débunker le rebozo, Eugenia propose un atelier en ligne pour prendre soin des mère sans faire d'appropriation culturelle : « Matri-Care ». Vraiment, fonce ! Tu peux la retrouver sur Instagram, @mamm_jamaril et sur son site internet, jamaril.com Si tu as aimé cet épisode, n'hésite pas t'abonner, à laisser 5 étoiles sur ton appli de podcast, à laisser un commentaire, à le partager sur les réseaux sociaux, à tes amies, à tes contacts !Ma boite mail et mes mps sont ouverts ! A bientôt ! Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.

Per chiudere questa 4 stagione del podcast e per agevolare i nuovi arrivati ho deciso di dedicare le prossime settimane a puntate in cui troverete qualche minuto di ogni puntata delle edizioni precedenti in modo da poter avere un'idea generale degli argomenti trattati e andare comunque in modo facile ad ascoltare proprio la puntata che più di altre vi tocca e incuriosisce.Oggi trovate il recap delle prime 4 puntate della stagione 1 del 2019/2020:Ascolta la puntata Lucia Primo - fisioterapista mindful che ci parla di come i colori di una fascia portabebé influenzano l'atmosfera e la relazione col mio bambinoAscolta la puntata con Valeria Conti - ostetrica che ci racconta cos'è e a cosa serve il rebozoAscolta la puntata con Sarah Martini - pedagogista e istruttrice yoga bimbi che ci spiega meglio in cosa consiste una classe di yoga per bambini e come può essere utile per la crescitaAscolta la puntata in cui vi parlo delle origini del babywearing, che vi racconto un pò del dietro le quinte e di me, del perché ho scelto di formarmi sul babywearing e come mai è una pratica che mi sta molto a cuore - il mio libro lo trovate comodamente qui!****************************************************************************************************************Prenota una chiamata conoscitiva con me e scopri il mio programma Stelle nascenti: affiancamento per mamme e bebè - il percorso che ha supportato e sostenuto più di 200 mamme ad affrontare i primi anni di crescita e sviluppo dei loro cuccioli.Scegli lo slot a te più comodo cliccando qui o accordiamoci direttamente su WhatsApp.Scrivimi anche se hai bisogno di ulteriori chiarimenti o info specifiche, puoi farlo anche via email a info@micaelacuoreacuore.itSeguimi su Instagram, mi trovi su questa pagina Instagram

Dalai Lama, Poder Prieto, Luz y Rebozo, y mucho más en la interacción con todos uds ¡Escucha nuestra temporada exclusiva en Podimo! https://podimo.com/latam/herejes Apoya Herejes: https://www.patreon.com/herejeselpodcast Merch https://www.staymetal666.mitiendanube.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

BrownTown again invites Hannah Linsky (she/her), vintage stylist, seller, educator, and liver and breather of all things fashion to unpack the politics of dress. In part 2, the friends go macro and discuss fashion within current and historical social movements and its impact on policy and popular culture. From Scottish Resistance to the Black Panthers to Iran's Hijab Protest Movement and everything in between, we understand that dress communicates strong cultural messages. Though often created out of specific contexts, these stylings last generations, travel across cultures, and make us investigate our notions of respectability, autonomy, and mobilization. “If fashion resists power, it is also a compelling form of it,” (Tansy Hoskins). Listen to Episode 85, Part 1! GUEST: Hannah Linsky is a vintage stylist, seller, occasional model and avid collector. She lives and breathes fashion and loves playing dress up almost as much as she loves talking fashion. She is a recent graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she earned her Master's in Art Education. Her work Revolutionary Dress (site, Instagram) centers around examining historical movements through the lens of dress."Past social and political movements provide a basis for conversations about race, class, gender, sexuality, ability and culture, while dress acts as a vehicle to move the conversations from past events to the personal, present and future. Learning about the power of dress in historical movements allows for a wide range of new material to supplement common subjects already covered in educational spaces. It opens up space for discussions about social structures, culture and self-reflection."  -RevDress Mentioned in episode:Hoda Katebi's Work -- Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Websiteon WGN-TV,  "You don't sound American"on France's hijab ban and the Iran hijab protests (1, 2)2016: Beyoncé at 2016 Super Bowl and #RememberRekia Action in ChicagoNWA, Los Angeles Raiders, and the Straight Outta LA documentary (1, 2, 3)SoapBox's What's Beef? documentary on neoliberalism, gangsta rap, and NWAMexican RebozoPunk Attitude documentary and Pistol TV Miniseries CREDITS: Intro soundbite from Hoda Katebi on WGN-TV. Audio engineered by Kiera Battles. Episode photo by Hannah Linsky. --Bourbon 'n BrownTownFacebook | Twitter | Instagram | Site | Linktree | PatreonSoapBox Productions and Organizing, 501(c)3Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Site | Linktree | Support

" Le toucher vient redonner confiance en soi. Le massage allège le corps et quand on se sent plus léger on a les idées plus claires. Quand on se masse on a des pensées positives qui viennent. Quand on se masse soi-même notamment c'est un moment qu'on se donne pour soi, pour se nourrir, c'est finalement un massage conscient...  Océane est une maman célibataire d'une petite fille de 3 ans et demi. Après un riche parcours professionnel à l'écoute des besoins spécifiques de chacun, elle est aujourd'hui auto-entrepreuneure, masseuse consciente (comme elle se décrit) au sein d'un cabinet qu'elle tient en binôme avec sa collègue. Le Massage a toujours été central au sein de sa famille d'origine vietnamienne et d'adoption française. Elle nous décrira les différents massages qu'elle pratique, notamment l'atelier spécifique pour les bébés avec le massage Shantala ou encore le soin Rebozo. Elle nous racontera aussi comment elle a préparé son accouchement à son domicile avec une doula amérindienne et une sage-femme française. Elle a fait 25 heures de travail chez elle dans la fumée de Tabac (plante sacrée féminine), avec une piscine, des massages... avant de partir en urgence avec les pompiers car la tête de son bébé était coincé dans son col. Elle est passée d'un accouchement désiré très naturel à un accouchement ultra médicalisé avec une sortie par forceps de son bébé notamment... Sur le plan personnel, Océane est née au Vietnam avant d'être adoptée à l'âge de 6 ans par une famille française. Elle nous livre notamment les raisons de cette adoption en développant sa résilience sur ce traumatisme. Océane est également autrice du livre "Automassages du soir" aux éditions JOUVENCE qui décrit des rituels en lien avec les quatre saisons. Un épisode extrêmement riche de cette Femme, MaMa très inspirante à bien des égards... Pour suivre Océane sur instagram : @air_et_mere Pour suivre Océane sur facebook : Océane Chavanel Pour suivre MAMAS LE PODCAST sur instagram : @mamas.lepodcast   Pour me suivre sur instagram : @marion_tertereau Sur YOUTUBE et Facebook :  MAMAS LE PODCAST  Pour m'écrire : mamas.lepodcast@gmail.com Chant d'intro et de fin : Mbele mama: Traditional. Arrangement: Keruna EN/ To all mothers: a Swahili salute bubbling from a well. FR/ A toutes les mères : un salut swahili jaillissant d'une source.  MAMAS LE PODCAST est un podcast réalisé par Marion TERTEREAU.  On se retrouve à chaque nouvelle lune et pleine lune pour un nouvel épisode.    

Lexman Artificial interviews Peter Norvig, a computer scientist who is the Director of Research at Google. They discuss Peter's work on artificial intelligence and his experience working at Google. Lexman and Norvig discuss various aspects of AI, including its potential for mischief and ruin. Throughout the interview, Norvig is careful to share his insights and observations about this rapidly expanding field.

In today's episode of Speak like a Mexican Podcast, I'm gonna read a text about mexican costumes. This is a text that can help you to practice your listening. You will find the transcript below We would like hear from you, if you have any question or you opinion on how to improve this podcast please send us an email: https://www.speaklikeamexican.com.mx/ https://www.speaklikeamexican.com.mx/mexican-spanish-lessons-online/ Transcript: Trajes típicos mexicanos Los trajes típicos mexicanos son muy brillantes y hermosos. Hay muchos diseños diferentes de trajes tradicionales. Algunos de ellos se utilizan para celebraciones y días festivos, algunos, para ceremonias, otros, para festivales. Las características principales de los trajes típicos mexicanos son: La protección solar, es por eso que los hombres usan sombreros y la ropa está hecha de materiales naturales, y mucha ropa es blanca. Muchos colores, la tela de las prendas en su mayoría tiene muchos colores y está bordada. La ropa es elegante, las faldas son largas, las flores se usan a menudo para embellecer el traje, el peinado y el tocado. El traje tradicional de los hombres mexicanos ha cambiado muy poco durante siglos. Pero no podemos decir lo mismo de la ropa de mujer. La mayoría de los trajes derivan de una mezcla de la cultura indígena y europea. La ropa de los hombres por lo general no es tan colorida como la de las mujeres. Los trajes tradicionales están hechos de varios tejidos: lana, algodón y seda. Por lo general, los colores de la vestimenta tradicional son el rojo, el marrón, el verde y el amarillo. Los mexicanos solían teñir su ropa con componentes naturales, pero hoy en día no tienen que hacerlo. Las prendas de vestir de hombre más populares y conocidas en México son el sarape, el traje de charro, el sombrero, la guayabera y el poncho. El Sarape es una prenda de colores vibrante, se utiliza como abrigo tipo chal y también como manta. El traje charro es un traje especial bellamente bordado que se usa en el Día de Muertos. Sombrero es un sombrero mexicano de ala ancha. Este sombrero está hecho de paja o fieltro grueso. Protege el cuerpo del sol. Esta parte de la ropa es la más reconocible en todo el mundo. Guayabero es una camisa o traje liviano que se usa tanto como vestimenta informal como formal. Está hecho de algodón y muy a menudo está decorado con pesados bordados. Guayabero es el atuendo perfecto para el calor mexicano. ROPA TRADICIONAL DE MUJER Las prendas de vestir femeninas más populares y conocidas en México son el huipil, el rebozo, la falda mexicana (tienen varios nombres en diferentes regiones. Huipil es una túnica sin mangas, hecha de algodón o lana. Se lleva con falda. El diseño de esta pieza depende de una región, creencias, estado civil, etc. El huipil es una de las prendas femeninas más populares en México. Rebozo es un chal hecho de algodón, lana o seda. El color del rebozo representan la región y la comunidad. Esta pieza del traje típico mexicano se usa no solo como vestimenta, sino también para transportar productos y mercancías, incluso bebés. Las faldas mexicanas pueden ser hasta los tobillos o hasta las rodillas. Están hechos de algodón, lana, seda y encaje. Muy a menudo son anchos, brillantes y bordados. A las mujeres mexicanas también les gustan mucho las blusas. Hay una gran variedad de blusas. Pero por lo general están bellamente decorados con encajes, bordados y muy coloridos.

“Your story is 50% yours and 50% your baby's.” After having a crash C-section under general anesthesia, Jennifer planned to have a peaceful and redemptive vaginal birth at home. Jennifer shares how she still found peace and redemption through her VBAC, even though things didn't go exactly as planned. If for some reason, your home or birth center birth is transferred to the hospital, know that it's okay. Know that you didn't do anything wrong. Nothing failed, the story is just changing. You're turning the page and it's going to a new place. It's okay to change!Additional linksJennifer's Instagram and Photography WebsiteThe VBAC Link Blog: Deciding Between HBAC and Hospital BirthThe VBAC Link Facebook CommunityHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull transcriptNote: All transcripts are edited to correct grammar, false starts, and filler words. Meagan: Good morning, everybody. This is The VBAC Link and we are excited to bring you another VBAC story today. We have our friend, Jennifer, who is in California, and guess what? She is also a birth doula. I love when birth doulas share their stories because I feel like sometimes as birth doulas, while we are in labor, we forget all of the doula things. I always like to hear sometimes how we as birthing doulas will labor because for me, when I was in labor, there were some things that I knew I probably should have done but I wasn't in that doula mindset. I couldn't think, “Oh, I should do Rebozo apples right now.” And so I love hearing what doulas do and don't do. I love that because it's just a reminder that even we as doulas can benefit from having a doula in the room. So I'm excited to hear your story, my love. Review of the WeekBut of course, we have a Review of the Week which is from RosiP87 and she says, “This podcast is empowering and healing.” she says, “The VBAC Link has been exactly what I needed but I didn't know it. Listening to the podcast has been healing and helpful in processing my C-section after my first baby. Julie and Meagan are informative and engaging to listen to. I know that I will have a different birth experience with my second baby because of the information and confidence that I have gained through listening to this podcast. Thank you so much, ladies.”Thank you, RosiP. That was back in March, so definitely write us when you have your baby and let us know how things went. Thank you so much for writing a review. If you haven't written a review yet, we would love your review. You can head over to Apple Podcasts or Google Play. You can go over to Facebook. You can leave us an actual Google review on our website or if you would like, send us an email with the subject “Review.” We would love to add your review and possibly read it on the next podcast. Jennifer's StoryMeagan: Okay, Jennifer. We are going to turn the time over to you. We were just talking a little bit about you becoming a doula. I would love to hear why you became a doula, what inspired you, and maybe how being a doula helped you during your birth as well. Jennifer: Hi, thank you for having me. I appreciate it so much. Meagan: Yes, thank you for being with us. Jennifer: You guys were a huge part of my journey through this, so I'm really excited to be here.Meagan: I love that because we can't physically be with everybody but I love that we can just be with people on their journey, even if it's just a sliver. If it's following our Instagram, following our blogs, or listening to the podcast, it just makes me feel so special. I feel like I have attended so many births through listening to all of these birth stories and then kind of being a doula on the side on this podcast. Jennifer: Yes, absolutely. You guys have definitely helped thousands of women, I'm sure. Meagan: Well, awesome. Well, share your stories with us. Jennifer: Yeah, so I know you just asked how I became a doula and I'm still fairly new to it. I'm going slowly because I have two little kids. Meagan: Yep, being a doula with children is hard. Jennifer: It's really hard. Yeah, it's definitely tricky to navigate, but it's so rewarding. I think even just doing a little bit here and there–Meagan: Yep. One or two is so great, yeah. Jennifer: Yeah and really, it was just my original C-section that inspired me to become a doula because I was always interested in birth, but after I went through a really scary situation that I wasn't prepared for, I just wanted to make up for it by helping other women go through their journeys and hoping to help them avoid going through some of the more traumatic stuff if they're educated and advocated for, and stuff like that. Meagan: I love it. I love it, love it, love it. Well, welcome to your journey. I'm excited to see you grow. Jennifer: Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm excited too. Meagan: Do you have an Instagram for your doula work? Jennifer: You know what? I don't. I just use my personal one, but I'd be happy to give you that. Meagan: Yeah, if you want anyone to go follow you, feel free to share it. Jennifer: Yeah, I can just send it to you because my last name is kind of confusing. Meagan: Perfect. Send it and we will add it to the show notes. Jennifer: Perfect. Awesome, thank you. Meagan: Okay. Well, feel free to share your stories. I'm so excited to hear them. Jennifer: Sure. So I guess no VBAC is a VBAC without a C-section, so that's where I'll start. I was 24 when I had my first baby. I had always wanted to become a mom. I was always super interested in birth even when I was a teenager. I'd always watch all of the birth stories and all of that stuff on TV and all of the things that make birth sound really scary. I was still interested in it. I guess I'll just jump right in. I was 40 weeks exactly on the dot. I was laying in bed at night and I was feeling super uncomfortable. I got up to go pee and my water broke. I had taken a Bradley class and I was just preparing to labor at home for as long as I could, but I was confused when my water broke because, in Bradley, they would teach, “10% of people have their water break first. It's probably not going to happen to you. Here's what to do if it doesn't, basically.”So when my water broke, I woke up my husband and I was like, “Dude. My water broke. I think we should just go to the hospital. Isn't that what you're supposed to do?” And he was like, “I don't know. Are you sure?” So I called them and they said, “Well, we have to tell you to come in,” and I was like, “Okay, I guess I'll go in then.” So I took a shower and went in. I got there and I was 1 centimeter dilated, of course. I was having contractions and everything. I kind of expected to be barely dilated, but I just–Meagan: That's where I was, too. Jennifer: Your water broke first?Meagan: My water broke, and then I walked in there and they were like, “You're maybe a 1.”Jennifer: It's like, “Oh my god.” Hearing that is just like, “Okay, we have a long road ahead of us.”Meagan: Uh-huh. Jennifer: Yeah, but they said, “We're going to keep you because your water broke,” and blah blah blah blah, all the things they normally tell you. So we were in triage for a couple of hours and then they got me a room. That's when the contractions really started kicking in. I was planning an unmedicated birth, but I was pretty surprised from the get-go how intense it was. My husband was just rubbing my back and everything. I was doing fine. I was just leaning forward through all of the contractions and breathing. I think around 5:00 or 6:00 a.m., we called our parents and they came. It just started getting so intense at that point and I just wasn't as prepared as I thought I was for the sensations. My mom and my husband were rubbing my back and everything was just getting so intense so fast, on top of each other. They checked me and I was 4 centimeters. I was just like, “Oh my god, dude. What? How?” I kept going, though. I labored for, I don't know, maybe another four hours. They checked me again and I was at a 6. At that point, I was just like, “I can't do this anymore. If this is going to get more painful, I can't do it.” I asked them for something at that point, but not for an epidural. I did not want to get an epidural, so they were like, “Okay, well let's try the laughing gas.” I tried that and I don't know about anyone else, but I could not keep that thing on my face at all. I just couldn't.Meagan: I had it too and I was like, “I need something to hold it for me,” because while holding it, too, I would get kind of like, not sleepy-sleepy, but drowsy. Jennifer: Yes. Like, out of it. Meagan: Out of it a little bit. I couldn't apply the pressure that I needed for it to be on my face, and then I'd forget, and then my hands would drop, and then it would fall. I was like, “Can someone just hold this for me? Because I can't.”Jennifer: Oh my gosh, I know. It's like, the thing that you have to hold your own. Meagan: Yeah. You can't have anyone else touch it. That's the rule.Jennifer: Exactly. Meagan: Yeah. Jennifer: Oh I know. Yeah, that was terrible because I was like, “Okay, if I could just get this thing to work properly, maybe I could keep going,” but it didn't work like that. Everyone was, not yelling at me, but just like, “Hold it on your face. Just hold it there.” I was like, “I can't.” It was horrible. So I was like, “Screw this. Let's forget about this.” So they were like, “Do you want to try fentanyl?” I was like, “I really don't want fentanyl,” because my whole take on the situation was like, “How is it that I'm not allowed to take Advil but I can take fentanyl?” It just didn't make sense to me. Meagan: Right? Jennifer: So I was like, “Okay, let's just do the epidural then.” They were like, “Well, that has fentanyl in it too.” So I was like, “Okay, whatever. I'm not going to get through this without it,” or so I thought. I ended up getting the epidural. I was 8 centimeters at that point and it worked right away, but then immediately after I had got it, his heart rate dropped really low to 70. Immediately, they were just like, “Okay. We are taking you to the OR. We've got to get this baby out right now.” So they rolled me to the OR and I was freaking out the whole time, of course. My parents were in there and they were just talking. They had no idea what was going on. They threw my husband some scrubs and they rolled me in there. Everyone was just like, “What? What happened?” No one else was paying attention, but by the time they got me in there, his heart rate stabilized. They were like, “Oh, never mind.”Meagan: It's actually really common for babies' heart rates to drop after an epidural. Jennifer: Yeah, which at the time, I didn't know that. The nurses were telling me, “We have never seen this before.” Meagan: What?!Jennifer: Yes, and since then, I've been like, that's either a huge lie or this is their first time being a nurse. Meagan: Yeah, that's interesting because I see it all of the time as a doula. Jennifer: Yeah. Meagan: Sometimes, it's getting more fluid. Sometimes, it's stabilizing mom's blood pressure. Sometimes, it's just changing the position because they sit you up, you curl over, and then they lay you flat on your back. Between those three positions, baby's like, “Whoa, what the heck?” And sometimes, it's just slightly moving to the right or the left and it can recover. Jennifer: Yes, yes. And since then, I've learned that. I also know that my blood pressure is naturally really low so that probably has something to do with it. Meagan: Yep, yep. Jennifer: Yeah, so they rolled me back in and they were like, “Just kidding, you can have a vaginal birth,” and I was like, “Okay.” So they checked me again. I had a million cervical checks and they were like, “Okay, you are at a 9.5. The baby is coming soon,” and I was like, “Okay cool.” So they were like, “You just have a little cervical lip.” They put a peanut ball in between my legs and I lay there for two hours. Nothing was happening. I was feeling a lot of pressure, but I wasn't feeling the urge to push. It was just a lot of pressure if that makes sense. The nurse next to me– I remember just laying there and I was like, “Oh my gosh. When is something going to happen?” I was just over it at that point. And the nurse was sitting next to me on her computer and she was like, “You know, I know you don't want medication, but the doctor and I really think that the lowest dose possible of Pitocin might get this baby out right now.” I was like, “I don't know. I don't feel comfortable with that.” She was like, “We can just do a 2, the absolute lowest dose, and we really think it will help.”I was like, “Uh, okay.” So they did that and once again, immediately, his heart rate dropped really low. Everyone came rushing into the room again and I was just laying there freaking out. It just got so frantic so fast. This nurse started saying, “Okay, it's been three minutes without a heart rate. Three minutes, four minutes, five minutes,” just counting it like that. The doctor was right there and she was like, “Okay, push. Just push.” I tried once and she was like, “Not like that. No, no, no. You're doing it wrong. Just push.” I was just so flustered. Meagan: Oh my goodness, yeah. Jennifer: Yeah. It was crazy. The nurse next to me just continued saying, “Seven minutes, eight minutes, nine minutes,” and eventually, the doctor was just like, “Okay, we've got to get this baby out.” So once again, they rolled me back into the OR. I'm a first-time mom. I've never given birth before and I'm like, “Is he alive? I don't know.” So they rolled me back there and they moved me onto the table. The nurse put the doppler on my belly and she could not find his heartbeat. She was just moving it all around my stomach and couldn't find it. I was screaming and crying. I was like, “Is he okay?” And they were just like, “It's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. Stop screaming.” I just felt so unsupported at that moment. No one could understand how I was feeling. The anesthesiologist came in and he was like, “Look, we are just going to have to put you under. We have to get him out now.” I just burst into tears and I was like, “I'm not going to be awake for the birth of my son? Is there any other way to do this?” He eventually agreed. He gave me all kinds of stuff and he was like, “Okay, let's just try this when you're awake.” So he gave me all kinds of stuff. I was feeling fairly numb, but not all the way numb. I could feel them doing everything they were doing, but it wasn't severely painful. I was still screaming. I think I was just so scared. My husband wasn't in there the whole time. They wouldn't let him in until maybe halfway through the surgery.Meagan: What?!Jennifer: Yeah. He came in eventually. Meagan: Jeez. That's scary for him and super scary for you too. Jennifer: It was. It was really scary. I just felt so alone laying there on this cold table not knowing if my baby was okay. So he came in and he was freaking out worse than me the whole time. I just have to say that at the beginning of my labor when I was laboring without pain medications, he was puking in a bag in the corner because he was so freaked out. Meagan: Oh no. Jennifer: And I was getting mad at him. I was like, “I should be the one puking right now, not you.” Yeah, it was sad. But anyway, he came into the room and he was holding my hand. He didn't say a word. He was just looking into my eyes, crying. I was screaming back at him. Eventually, I felt them lift something out of me and it was him. He was crying and it was the best moment of relief. I couldn't believe he was okay. They put him over the drape and they took him back immediately. My husband went back there and they were weighing him and stuff. I was just asking my husband, “What does he look like? What color is his hair?” I kept asking, “Can I have my baby? Can I have my baby? Can you put him on my chest?” They were like, “No, you can't see him yet.” It ended up being 45 minutes before I got to see him. I was just so sad to have to be asking what he looked like. It just felt so wrong. Meanwhile, they were stitching me back up and that's when everything started kicking in, all of the numbing stuff they gave me. I started feeling like I couldn't breathe or swallow. It was numb up to my throat. My husband came back and I was just like, “I can't breathe. Something is wrong.” The anesthesiologist was standing above my head talking on the phone. I was just like, “Excuse me, help. Help!” and he just kept talking on the phone. I so vividly remember that moment of feeling like I was going to die and no one–Meagan: Not being acknowledged?Jennifer: Yes. Yes. I look back at it now and I'm like, “I probably wasn't going to die, obviously.” But when you're feeling that way–Meagan: Yeah, but when you're feeling that way your mind's not like, “I'm going to be okay.” It's like, “I don't feel like I can breathe.” Jennifer: Yes. Yes. Meagan: That's where your mind is and it's not able to really go anywhere else.Jennifer: Exactly. It was a scary moment and my husband had to be like, “Hey, help her. Please help her.” So anyways, he gave me more stuff. I don't know what any of the stuff was. I do have my records, but I mean, it's all scientific talk, all the stuff I never planned on having. Anyway, they eventually rolled me into the recovery room and when we were on our way there, that's when they put him on my chest. His name's August. They put August on my chest and I just remember thinking, “Are you sure this is my baby?” I remember everyone talking about this moment of bliss and love. I didn't feel anything. I just felt like there was a baby on my chest. It was really sad. Meagan: Yeah, disconnect a little bit. Jennifer: Definitely disconnect. I think I was just so traumatized by the day. Meagan: Oh yeah, and medicated. Jennifer: Yes, and so heavily medicated that I just couldn't think at all. You know, once we got back to the room and I started breastfeeding him, that connection started slowly building. I was puking all night because of the anesthesia. It was just hard. The next day, I started feeling so in love with him. I started feeling how most moms feel, but I really struggled after that because I just felt like my body was broken. I didn't give birth to this baby. This baby was cut out of me. Maybe I couldn't have done it. I'm not a real woman, you know? I struggled with those feelings for a really long time. I also felt like something was missing. I loved him so much the first year of his life, but I was just like, “Why am I not happy? Why am I trying to escape motherhood somehow?” I don't know. I wanted to be with him, but I just felt like there was just some overwhelming sense of sadness over my life during the first year. I had severe anxiety. I was so scared to leave him anywhere. I couldn't sleep at all because I just wanted to stare at him. It was just not how I pictured motherhood. That's when I started thinking about VBAC and being a doula and everything. I started going on these long walks every day with my son because that's when COVID hit. I couldn't go to the gym or anything, so I just went on walks every day and I would listen to your guys' podcast for at least an hour, at least an episode a day. It just brought me so much relief at that moment hearing other women who have also gone through the same thing and other women talking about how they felt broken too. I knew I wasn't alone. So thank you for your podcast. It helped me so much. Meagan: Aw, that makes me feel so happy.Jennifer: Yes, you should. Meagan: And thank you for all of those who have shared their stories leading up to yours to help you and just like you are doing right now. Every story pays it forward.Jennifer: Absolutely. I think there is so much magic in women sharing their stories together. It just makes them feel so much more united. Meagan: Absolutely, yep. Jennifer: Definitely. So fast forward, my son was– how old was he? 22 months or something? I got pregnant again. It was our first try. We really wanted that age gap, so it was awesome. This whole time, I had been living, breathing, and eating VBAC. All I wanted in life was to have a VBAC. I knew it was going to be different. I was going to go a different route. I was so freaked out about the hospital at that point. I knew I didn't want to go back. I sought midwifery care and I had this beautiful, amazing midwife. Her name was LaMonica. She was so laid back, so calm, and so trusting of my body. Anytime I had concerns, she would just be like, “You're fine. You're going to do fine.” She just never made a big deal about anything. It just felt normal. That was exactly what I needed. I spent so much of my pregnancy journaling, meditating, and talking to the baby. I knew that I was capable. I just wanted to cut everything else out from my life that wasn't serving me, I guess. I didn't watch any TV or listen to any negative birth stories or anything. I didn't talk to anyone about my plans who weren't going to be supportive of them. I just didn't want anything negative in my head. We were planning a home birth and I was really excited about it. I was 40 weeks and 6 days, I think, or 40 weeks and 5 days. I was starting to get a little bit nervous about the time limits and stuff that California has on home birth. For anyone who doesn't know, you can't be 42 weeks or over. They would have to transfer care. I was still a week away, but we were talking about it a little bit about what happened if– I was just so freaked out about the hospital. It was starting to stress me out really badly. She was like, “Well, I could sweep your membranes if you want me to.” I was like, “Sure. I guess the worst that could happen is nothing.” You know? So I got my membranes swept and then not the next day, but the day after– I was having a lot of prodromal labor that whole week. I had nights where I would have sensations that were ten or fifteen minutes apart or closer all night, and then I would wake up and they would go away. This night, in particular, I was having the same sensations all night. I woke up and they didn't go away. I had a feeling like, “Maybe this is it. We'll see.” I got my membranes swept, so I knew that it was a possibility. I was just doing my daily things, hanging out with my friends, and taking care of my son. My husband, around 1:00 or so, put my son down for a nap. I'm a photographer too, so I was sitting at my computer editing on my birth ball and I was noticing, “Okay. These are still here and they are getting a little stronger and closer together.” I went to the bathroom and my mucus plug came out. I was like, “Yes. Sweet. That means things are happening.” My dad had invited us over for dinner that night and I was like, “Let's still go. I might be in early labor, but who cares? Let's still go.” He lives about two miles away from my house. I was like, “Huh, maybe I should walk.” Oh, and just to preface, I had been so weird the whole pregnancy about the baby's position because I just wanted him or her, we didn't know the sex, in a good position to come out the right way. We went to Disneyland at around 35 weeks pregnant and I sat in a car reclined the whole time, then I sat in this massage chair reclined and I was like, “This one time won't hurt,” but it was so weird because after that weekend, he– turned out to be a boy– was OP and he stayed OP. I did everything in my power to turn him occiput anterior, but he just wanted to stay sunny-side-up. I decided to walk to my dad's house because I thought it might help kick things into gear and it might help with his position. I put my son in his stroller and I started walking there. I was having the waves every five to seven minutes. They were definitely getting to the point where I had to breathe a little bit through them, but they were fine. So I walked the two miles, and then I got to my dad's house. My husband and my dad were talking, my son was playing, and we ordered pizza and stuff. I was just standing in the corner swaying my hips. My dad was like, “So is baby might be coming soon?” I was playing it cool. I didn't want to make a big deal. By the time the pizza got there, I was not hungry. I ordered this healthy pizza with cauliflower crust and stuff and I was like, “I should probably eat something because I have a feeling this will be the last time I want to eat.” We were all sitting at the counter and everyone was eating their pizza. I was standing, leaning over the counter, swaying my hips, and eating my pizza. A couple of minutes after that, my husband was like, “You look like you need to go home.” And I was like, “Yeah, I think so.” It was starting to get to the point where I couldn't keep it on the down low anymore. My dad, once again, was like, “Do you think the baby is coming this week?” We were about to leave and I was like, “I'm pretty sure I'm in labor right now.” He was like, “Really?” I was like, “Yeah, I think so.” So we went home and we put my son to bed. I was brushing my teeth and swaying. I went to go lay down with him and I was just thinking, maybe I can go to sleep for a little bit. I definitely couldn't, but I was able to lay for maybe 30 or 45 minutes. My husband was still out in the living room feeding the cats or something. I texted him from the room and I was like, “I think it's time to set up the birth tub and everything else.” He set up our living room so beautifully. He hung up all of these lights and put up the birth tub. It was just exactly how I wanted it. It was so peaceful and beautiful. He went to bed and I really wanted, throughout my pregnancy, to labor by myself for a while. I just think it's so amazing how powerful women's bodies are and I just wanted to experience that without distraction. So I came into the living room and the kitchen. I was laboring alone and just listening to music, swaying, setting up some last-minute stuff, hanging up my affirmations, and everything like that. The contractions started getting closer and closer. By the time they were four minutes apart, I called my doula and I had her come over. It was probably 11:00 or 11:30 p.m. at this point. I probably started active labor around 7:30 or 8:00. So she got there and by the time she got there, I could hardly answer the door. It just seemed that it was progressing so fast. I was handling them really well. I was just on my hands and knees basically the whole time. By the time she got there, they were three minutes apart, so we called my midwife and she came over around midnight. I was just like, “Can I get in the tub? I want the tub so badly.” Originally, I didn't want any cervical checks, but she was like, “Would you want one just to make sure you are far enough along to where it would be a good idea to get into the tub?” I consented to that and she said I was 8-9 centimeters. We were all stoked and all celebrating. We thought that it was going to be sometime soon. So I got into the tub and was vocalizing through the contractions and everything. Everyone was being super supportive. I didn't want anyone to touch me, but it was really, really awesome having the support just in the room. I learned a lot as a doula through that experience because I was like, “Gosh, I don't always need to always be doing something. I don't need to always be touching someone or doing anything. I can just be there holding space and it means so much.”Meagan: Yes. I was going to say that holding space is sometimes one of the most powerful tools as a doula that we can have and bring to the space. Jennifer: Absolutely. Just having that feminine energy in the room, knowing that these people are here for me and they believe in me, made it feel just so amazing. So I was in the tub and they were bringing me water and stuff. I felt fine. It was intense, but it's just crazy looking back at both birth stories and how I wrote out the birth stories. The first one was all about pain and, “I can't do this,” “This is so hard,” and “I'm dying.” I thought I was going to die. This time, all of my words were just, “It was so amazing.” it just flowed. It was intense, but I didn't think it was painful, at least at this point. So I was laboring all night in that tub. Mind you, I was at 8-9 centimeters at midnight. So at 10:00 in the morning, my midwife asked to check me again, and I hadn't progressed at all. I was just like, “Oh my god. This is crazy. I haven't slept. Nothing's happening.” I wasn't feeling the urge to push and my contractions, I did notice at the moment, were spacing out. I was just like, “What is the deal?” I couldn't pee by myself. I eventually peed a little bit. It was just so hard for me. I felt like I couldn't do it and my midwife was like, “You know, nothing is wrong. We could stay here as long as you want to, but do you want to? I don't want to force you. You're doing great, but do you feel like you're suffering?” Because she could tell. The energy was shifting at that point. She was like, “Why don't we go do some side-lying releases on the bed and we will see if that helps?”There are so many things that I wish I could have done, but you know, when you are laboring, you can't doula yourself. Meagan: No, exactly. That's what I was talking about earlier. Even as a doula, you can't doula yourself. It's so weird. Jennifer: Yes. Meagan: There was a time where I should have been like, “I should get up on hands and knees and do shaking the apples with the rebozo.” It wasn't in my mind. I didn't think about it and I didn't have my doulas there quite yet. I had my cousin and I could have had her do that, but I just wasn't in that space. Jennifer: Yes, yeah. When you are in labor land, you can't think logically. You are just thinking of what's happening now. Meagan: Mhmm, yep. Exactly. Jennifer: So that was a bummer, but we did the side-lying releases and that's when things became painful. I did ten contractions on each side and I was just like, “Nope. Nope. I'm going to go take a nap. This is what's happening. I need a nap.” So I had this in my head that I was going to go to the hospital and take a nap there, even though I was fully dilated and that clearly wasn't going to happen, but that's what I wanted to do. So they packed up all of my things for me and got in the car. Wyatt, my husband, had the windows down and I was roaring through these contractions. We were at these red lights and I was like, “Oh my god, these people. I don't even know what they are thinking right now,” but I didn't care. We pulled up to the hospital and I walked in. We weren't supposed to be there. They called ahead of time, but I was just walking through the entrance, leaning over on things and making all of these crazy noises. Everyone was staring and trying to get me to sign papers. I was just like, “Dude, no.” We got into triage and stayed there for what felt like forever, but it turned out to be, I think, two hours altogether before I got this epidural that I thought would save my life and let me sleep. My head space was thinking, “I'm not going to get a vaginal birth if I don't get rest,” because I had been up all night doing this. I had been dilated almost fully all night. It was just so tiring. So I got this epidural and it failed. 100%, it failed. I was just so bummed out because I was like, “What about my nap? I was going to take a nap. I need this nap!”They were just like, “No. That's not going to happen.” The doctor there broke my water. My water hadn't broken yet. Not something I wanted, but at this point, I was like, “Do whatever.” He was like, “Well, it looks like we are going to have a baby. Start pushing.” I didn't feel the urge to push, but I had been dilated for so long. I just went along with what they said. I pushed and at this point, my legs were getting numb, but I still felt that the contractions were getting more intense. It numbed my legs, so I got stuck on my back, but I could still feel everything. It just made everything painful. I couldn't be in my positions anymore. I couldn't move. At this point, I'm screaming my lungs out, telling my husband, “I am not doing this for one more second. Just cut this baby out of me. I can't do this.” He was just so supportive and amazing and looking at me straight in the eyes. He had tears in his eyes and he was just like, “You are doing this. You are going to do this. You can. You can do this.”The nurse next to me was like, “I'm not letting you go into a section. You're way too close. You are going to do this.”Meagan: Aww. Jennifer: The doctor as well. I was like, “No. Just get him out. Can you just pull him out?” Him, but I didn't know it was a boy. He was like, “Nope. Nope. You're going to do this all by yourself. You're going to get this baby out.” I pushed for two hours forcefully which was definitely not something I wanted to do, but it happened and eventually, he started crowning with the doctor's manual manipulation. He was having to reach his hands in because my son was OP and his head was kinked to one side. That explains why he didn't want to come out. But eventually, he came out. My husband got to announce, “It's a boy.” We were just bawling. We couldn't believe that it happened. It was the best moment of my whole life. It was the sweetest thing ever. I just couldn't believe it. Everything made sense once he came out. I got that moment that I missed with my other son. It was really awesome because this doctor was so amazing. He was asking as I was crowning, “Everything is really tight. You're going to tear. Can I cut you?” I was like, “Can you not cut me?” I was like, “Can you not?” He was like, “Okay.” No pushback at all. I tore naturally and my husband was like, “Hey, please don't wipe him down at all,” and they didn't. They didn't wipe him down. They didn't touch him. He was screaming and he was on my chest. The placenta came out right away. It must have been three minutes because someone said the word “Pitocin” and I was like, “No, thank you. I don't want Pitocin.” We just skipped that part and they were like, “You know, usually we do it for hemorrhage management.” I was like, “Yeah, but I'm not hemorrhaging, so can we skip it?”Meagan: Yeah. Jennifer: They were like, “Sure, yeah. That's fine.” They were like, “Is it okay if we cut the cord?” I was like, “Can you just put the whole placenta on my stomach?” And they did that. They didn't cut the cord at all. They just left the placenta attached to the baby on my belly for 30 minutes. It was so awesome. I got to see everything in its glory. Everything I missed the first time was happening. They were like, “Well, I'm assuming you don't want any of these newborn procedures, right?” I was like, “No,” and they were like, “Okay, fine.” They didn't give me any pushback. I was GBS+. I chose with a lot of thought. I decided not to get antibiotics and we didn't do any of the newborn procedures after. No one gave us any trouble at all. We were just so respected and it felt like family around us. No one made us feel bad for our decisions at all and I profusely thanked the team. I was like, “Thank you so much for letting me still be in charge of this.” Meagan: Yeah, yeah. Jennifer: The doctor was like, “I wish more that doctors let women have their stories the way they want them to. I wish that more women were respected.” I just don't think he'll ever know what kind of impact he made on me and my husband. It was just something we never thought we would get in a hospital. The last thing I wanted to add was that even though I was horrified about ending up at a hospital, every dream I had about this baby– I had so many dreams that I was having this beautiful, vaginal birth. The weird thing was that they were all in the hospital. Every single dream, he was born so peacefully in a hospital. I was just thinking, “Why can't I picture this happening at home?” But I feel like, in the end, it was just the way it was meant to be. I'm grateful for the whole experience. Meagan: That's so awesome. So awesome. Jennifer: Yeah, it was so amazing. Thank you. Meagan: I love that, especially going from having a transfer, that even though you were in a new environment, they really tried to keep the same feel and desires in place, and they listened. They weren't like, “Nope. We have to do this. Nope. We're going to do this. It's policy.” It was like, “Okay, you don't want this? We don't have to do this.”Jennifer: Exactly.Meagan: That's really how it is, but it's not how it happens a lot of the time. Jennifer: Yes. Meagan: It's okay to say, “No, I don't want that.” Whether you are planning a home birth or not, you don't have to have these things happen just because you're in the hospital. You don't.Jennifer: Yes. Meagan: And so that's something I wanted to also send a reminder about because you can advocate for yourself. You really can. Jennifer: Yes. Yeah, and I thought that it was going to be a fight. The best surprise was that it was a respectful, “Okay,” instead of, “You know, you really should do this. Your baby could die.” Blah blah blah blah. I know the risks. I came in knowing the risks and benefits to everything and no one pushed back on it. They let me do what I wanted to do as his mom. Meagan: Mhmm, mhmm. I love that. I love, love, love that. Congratulations. Jennifer: Thank you. Meagan: Yeah. We have a blog all about how to choose where to birth. I want to talk about how even if you choose to birth at home or a birth center or out of the hospital, and then it happens to go back to the hospital, that's okay. It's hard because so many times in our world, we think, “Oh, we failed. We didn't get to do this.” I even worried about that. I was in labor for 42 hours and things were just moving really slowly. I was stalling out and hanging out there. I was at a 4 and I think at a 6. They were doing NSTs on me at the birth center. I was thinking, “They're going to transfer me. This is it. I'm going to transfer.”At that moment, my doula looked at me and said, “Yeah, that's something that's being discussed but nothing is happening yet.” In my mind, I said, “Okay. If this happens, you have to be okay with it. That's okay. You're just going to change locations. That's it.” And that's okay. It's okay to change locations, so I want to remind anyone out there if for some reason, a home birth or a birth center transfers to the hospital, know that it's okay and you didn't do anything wrong. Nothing failed. It's just that the story is changing. You're changing the page and it's going to a new place. It's okay to have changed. Jennifer: Yeah, and I think it's also important to remember that your story is 50% yours and 50% your baby's. Meagan: Yeah. Jennifer: Your baby might need something different than you need or something different than you want. You can't control someone else's destiny.Meagan: Absolutely, yes. Yes. I love that. 50% yours and 50% your baby's. I love that so much. So yeah, if you want to read more about home birth after Cesarean options or HBAC options, we have a blog about it in deciding what's best, hospital or home. It's different for everybody. We encourage all people to follow their hearts, their minds, their guts, and what resonates with them. If a home birth doesn't resonate and a hospital does, great, and if a hospital birth doesn't and a home birth does, great. This is your birth. Your birth. You get to choose. So congratulations again and thank you so much for sharing your story with us. Jennifer: Thank you so much for having me.ClosingInterested in sharing your VBAC story on the podcast? Submit your story at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Julie and Meagan's bios, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Se dice y se cuentan muchas cosas acerca de las brujas, hay innumerables historias de terror acerca de ellas en el canal y en varias paginas web. ¿Debe ser por algo no creen? Sobre todo por que inclusive en tiempos actuales estas experiencias con lo paranormal siguen ocurriendo a propios y extraños y no importa si no creas en ellas, después de tener contacto con una lo harás. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Nous allons parler aujourd'hui de nos vies de femmes, et plus particulièrement d'une tradition Mexicaine qui en sublime les rites de passage, les temps forts de changement dans nos vies : le soin Rebozo.Plutôt connu en post-partum pour accompagner les nouvelles mères dans ce rôle à appréhender et les aider à se reconnecter à leur corps, Amélie nous explique que cela n'est pas la seule utilité de ce soin. Elle nous parle aussi de la manière dont elle le pratique, de ce puissant lien de cœur qu'elle ressent en prenant soin des femmes et de son parcours jusqu'à la découverte du Rebozo !Une très belle rencontre et un épisode à ne manquer sous aucun prétexte, si vous avez comme moi une passion pour le féminin !À vos casques !—Pour retrouver Amélie, son travail et peut-être vous offrir un soin qu'elle pratique avec sa binôme Céline Royon, rendez-vous sur son site internet et sur son compte instagram !Amélie souhaitait également vous proposer des ressources pour continuer à cheminer vers ces sujets :Le livre Sorcières, sages-femmes et infirmières de Barbara Ehrenreich et Deirdre EnglishLe livre Donner naissance d'Alana ApfelLe reportage “A story of Rebozo, through the eyes of a Mexican midwife”>> DÉCOUVREZ LE TOUT PREMIER PROGRAMME AUDIO D'INITIATION À LA NATUROPATHIE !

Nous allons parler aujourd'hui de nos vies de femmes, et plus particulièrement d'une tradition Mexicaine qui en sublime les rites de passage, les temps forts de changement dans nos vies : le soin Rebozo.Plutôt connu en post-partum pour accompagner les nouvelles mères dans ce rôle à appréhender et les aider à se reconnecter à leur corps, Amélie nous explique que cela n'est pas la seule utilité de ce soin. Elle nous parle aussi de la manière dont elle le pratique, de ce puissant lien de cœur qu'elle ressent en prenant soin des femmes et de son parcours jusqu'à la découverte du Rebozo !Une très belle rencontre et un épisode à ne manquer sous aucun prétexte, si vous avez comme moi une passion pour le féminin !À vos casques !—Pour retrouver Amélie, son travail et peut-être vous offrir un soin qu'elle pratique avec sa binôme Céline Royon, rendez-vous sur son site internet et sur son compte instagram !Amélie souhaitait également vous proposer des ressources pour continuer à cheminer vers ces sujets :Le livre Sorcières, sages-femmes et infirmières de Barbara Ehrenreich et Deirdre EnglishLe livre Donner naissance d'Alana ApfelLe reportage “A story of Rebozo, through the eyes of a Mexican midwife”>> DÉCOUVREZ LE TOUT PREMIER PROGRAMME AUDIO D'INITIATION À LA NATUROPATHIE !

Je suis très heureuse de vous proposer une nouvelle série d'épisodes que j'ai intitulée « Femmes ressources ». Une fois par mois, vous pourrez écouter une femme qui vous parlera d'une expertise qu'elle met au service des autres femmes pour leur apporter du soin, du soutien, de la puissance, de la souveraineté. Vous découvrirez ainsi, au fil des épisodes, tout une palette de ressources, d'outils et de pratiques à explorer au gré de vos envies et de vos besoins. Pour vous ouvrir de nouvelles voies d'exploration, vous offrir un nouveau regard sur vous-même ou encore vous donner un moyen de traverser certaines épreuves de votre vie. Pour inaugurer cette série, j'ai le plaisir d'accueillir Anne Belargent. Anne est doula, et s'il y a un outil qu'elle aime particulièrement utiliser pour accompagner ses clientes, c'est le Rebozo ! Quand j'ai rencontré Anne, ça a été comme une évidence de lui demander de vous parler de sa pratique. J'ai aimé le mélange de puissance et de douceur qui émane de cet échange, à l'image du Rebozo lui-même … j'espère que vous le ressentirez vous aussi ! Je vous laisse découvrir l'épisode sans plus attendre et je vous souhaite une belle écoute :) ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Si vous aimez ce podcast, vous pouvez le soutenir en vous abonnant, et en mettant des étoiles sur Apple podcast, 5 de préférence, ça m'aide beaucoup ! Vous pouvez aussi le partager autour de vous :) Retrouvez toute l'actu de Divines sur Instagram : @divines_podcast Crédits : Production : Anne Francin Musique : Beautiful Chorus (Hymn of Healing) Identité visuelle : Violette Lovecat ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: RÉFÉRENCES Vous pouvez retrouver Anne sur sa page IG : @anne_doula_paris Et le site https://www.rebozotherapy.com/ regroupe toutes les offres dédiées au Rebozo, dont la retraite du mois de juin : https://www.rebozotherapy.com/copie-de-retraite-pour-les-doulas

Hiba, 34 ans, est une guérisseuse. Ostéopathe, accompagnatrice en prénatalité et parentalité, elle pratique des soins venus du monde entier, comme le soin Rebozo. Ensemble, nous avons parlé de comment nos corps sont inextricablement liés à la nature et à leur environnement. Convaincue que notre corps est à l'image du monde dans lequel nous vivons, elle pratique l'alimentation intuitive, une démarche qui l'a beaucoup aidé dans son processus de guérison de l'hyperthyroïdie. Le ventre est un sujet central dans sa famille et dans sa vie. Il représente le tout, et est le siège de grandes retrouvailles et de partage.Ressources utilisées pour écrire l'épisode :- https://www.r22.fr/antennes/radio-pratique-s/Teaser/entretien-avec-alexis-zimmer- https://microbiomeconservancy.org/- https://usbeketrica.com/fr/article/comment-guerir-notre-deuxieme-cerveau- https://www.sciencesetavenir.fr/archeo-paleo/evolution/homo-deus-quand-l-homme-se-prend-pour-un-dieu-par-yuval-noah-harari_116564Ce podcast, je l'ai créé pour faire circuler l'expérience des femmes, leurs vécus et leurs cheminements, pour que vous puissiez gagner du temps sur les thématiques qui vous intéressent ou vous préoccupent. J'aimerais beaucoup avoir vos retours sur cet épisode et sur tous les autres, savoir ce qui vous a plu ou manqué, et ce que vous aimeriez explorer ou entendre.Écrivez-moi sur Instagram, je suis toujours très heureuse de vous lire et d'échanger avec vous !Je facilite aussi régulièrement des cercles de parole sur le sujet du corps, mais aussi sur la colère, l'amitié entre femmes ou l'intime. Toutes les infos sont sur le site.Pour nous raconter votre histoire, écrivez nous à aurelie@ceciesttoncorps.com.Texte, voix, réalisation, production : Aurélie DoréMontage & mixage : Roger MiddenwayMusique originale : Jet Trouble - Lost in AweIllustration : Bertille de Salins Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.

Matthew, Hiram and Shawn are joined by Michael "Bozo" Rebozo president of UPSLN RCRDS for a super funny and informative interview and a conversation so crazy that I can't even sum it up here. https://www.instagram.com/michaelrebozo/ https://www.instagram.com/upsilonmusic/ https://youtu.be/k6TmA467toc

Dans cet épisode Jeane reçoit Marie, doula à Annecy. Marie nous fait découvrir son métier et nous plonge dans son univers en nous présentant le soin rebozo, le yoni steam... Ressources utiles pour suivre l'épisode : Site internet : www.chemindenaissance.com Instagram: @chemin_de_naissance Facebook : s'abonner L'ouvrage Pour une naissance sans violence, éditions Points : acheter Soutenir Basilic : instagram.com/basilicpodcast/ basilicpodcast.com Production : Jeane Clesse Musique : @Klein Graphisme : Mahaut Clément & Coralie Chauvin Mix : Jeane Clesse Si cet épisode vous a plu, n'hésitez pas à laisser plein d'étoiles et un commentaire sur la plateforme Apple Podcasts et surtout à vous abonner grâce à votre application de podcasts préférée ! Cela m'aide énormément à faire découvrir Basilic à de nouveaux auditeurs et de nouvelles auditrices.

Nous allons parler aujourd'hui de nos vies de femmes, et plus particulièrement d'une tradition Mexicaine qui en sublime les rites de passage, les temps forts de changement dans nos vies : le soin Rebozo.Plutôt connu en post-partum pour accompagner les nouvelles mères dans ce rôle à appréhender et les aider à se reconnecter à leur corps, Amélie nous explique que cela n'est pas la seule utilité de ce soin. Elle nous parle aussi de la manière dont elle le pratique, de ce puissant lien de cœur qu'elle ressent en prenant soin des femmes et de son parcours jusqu'à la découverte du Rebozo !Une très belle rencontre et un épisode à ne manquer sous aucun prétexte, si vous avez comme moi une passion pour le féminin !À vos casques !—Pour retrouver Amélie, son travail et peut-être vous offrir un soin qu'elle pratique avec sa binôme Céline Royon, rendez-vous sur son site internet et sur son compte instagram !Amélie souhaitait également vous proposer des ressources pour continuer à cheminer vers ces sujets :Le livre Sorcières, sages-femmes et infirmières de Barbara Ehrenreich et Deirdre EnglishLe livre Donner naissance d'Alana ApfelLe reportage “A story of Rebozo, through the eyes of a Mexican midwife”>> DÉCOUVREZ LE TOUT PREMIER PROGRAMME AUDIO D'INITIATION À LA NATUROPATHIE !

Join your host Annette Perel as she speaks with Midwife and Childbirth Educator, Nubia-Earth Martin.They discuss several current events issues including the Derek Chauvin trial, a medical violence incident at a birth center, and a controversy surrounding the cultural appropriation of the Rebozo technique used by Mexican midwives.This podcast is also a platform for listeners to voice their questions and tell their stories. Find the show on Instagram (@clearbirthpodcast) or send an email to clearbirthpodcast@gmail.com.Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe and thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today's episode, Elle and Taylor sit down with Jill Magoffin, a certified birth Doula and postpartum Doula with DONA INTERNATIONAL. In addition to being a Doula, Jill is also trained as a New Parent Educator and Newborn Care Specialist. Additional Doula training has included courses such as Hypnobirthing and advanced Rebozo skills for birth and postpartum care. They discuss comfort care and self-care during pregnancy, labor and delivery, and postpartum. For full shownotes and resources for this episode, please visit: https://ellekennedyphotography.com/2020/12/01/11-comfort-care-and-self-care-with-jill-magoffin/

Join your host Annette Perel as she speaks with Montse Olmos.They discuss the Montse's journey to birth work, the history of the use of the rebozo in Mexico, and how cultural appropriation has led to a misunderstanding and misuse of the rebozo.This podcast is also a platform for listeners to voice their questions and tell their stories. Find the show on Instagram (@clearbirthpodcast) or send an email to clearbirthpodcast@gmail.com.Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe and thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode I am sharing Part 2 of Steffi's birth stories. You can find the first part of her birth story in episode 21. Today we hear about the 13 week pregnancy and birth of Star Baby. Steffi gives a profoundly beautiful and detailed account of the physical and emotional process of miscarriage and the months of grieving which followed. She shares more about some of the different techniques and rituals she practices and provides for pregnant, birthing and postpartum women, including the Closing of the Bones ceremony, Rebozo, Birth Circles, and turning of a breech baby. Steffi winds up this episode with the story of her final pregnancy and birth with youngest son Manu. Manu's birth was very fast, just a couple of hours of very intense labouring, and was followed by an extended first stage where Steffi actually ended up manually assisting with delivering her own placenta. Steffi's story depicts a physically straight forward story of miscarriage which was safely managed at home. Like any birth a miscarriage comes with the potential for risk & it is essential to be well informed & appropriately cared for when choosing to remain at home. I would like to acknowledge that this episode contains strong emotional themes around grief and loss, as well as very honest and raw descriptions of the actual process of miscarriage. If you're feeling that this might be triggering for you, I have noted the timing that we move onto Manu's birth in the show notes, so you can skip straight to that and come back to Star Babies birth story at another time when you're feeling ready to listen. That being said, if you have listened to part one of Steffi's story you will already know what a beautiful story teller she is, and I think she navigates this topic in the most gentle and respectful way. This episode is laced with so much profound wisdom and is true medicine for women in their childbearing years, so I'll let Steffi share her story.   If you would like to see some more photos of Steffi and her beautiful children, head over to my instagram @keepbirthwild.podcast.   During this podcast Steffi makes mention of Mapuru & The Arnhem Weavers http://www.arnhemweavers.com.au/ & Aunty Minmia  http://www.dromanabooks.com.au/home/events/quandongtree.htm   Steffi also speaks about The Closing of The Bones & the of the use of Mexican Rebozo. You can find more information about traditional Mexican approaches to birthwork & to purchase traditional rebozos at  https://www.naolivinaver.com/index.html & https://lamatriz-105776.square.site/ And for those wanting to learn more about the practice of womb/ pelvic steaming you can visit @steamychick on instagram. Thank you again for listening and keep an ear out for the next episode!

Was Bebe Rebozo the most kindest, generous man you'd ever know, or a fiend who combined the worst aspects of Rasputin and Al Capone? Transcript, references, and more at https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/be-my-bebe/