Bad Ass Mother Birther Feat. Flor Cruz

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:21):
little secrets. And you know how we turn up at
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That's October twenty first at the tear a Gram Ballroom.
Click the link in this episode description and get your
tickets today.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
There's a lot of layers here, but if you had
any type of like traumatic birth, that is a whole
layer that you are adding on to trying to get
back into your own skin. Because even someone just putting
their fingers inside of your body to check your service
when it's you don't want it, it's not a medical necessity,
or and someone didn't even ask for your informed consent.

(00:56):
What do we call that? Assaults?

Speaker 3 (00:58):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Rape?

Speaker 2 (01:00):
And so we have a lot of this rape culture
that has leaked into the birthroom, and then we send
people home with their babies and go now, get.

Speaker 4 (01:09):
Back to fucking right, welcome back to good mom's bad choices.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
I'm Erica and I'm Meila.

Speaker 4 (01:37):
Happy Wednesday, Happy hump Day, bitches.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
That's aggressive. I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
I feel like we've said that many times. I think
at this point they know that bitch is a term
of endearment.

Speaker 4 (01:48):
Somebody probably would listen for five seconds. It is like
turning this shit off.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Come back, just kidding.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
We only say bitch twenty two thousand times in one hour.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
You have no idea how like we start. We start
the retreat like, Hi, welcome to our retreat. Welcome bitches.
I'm like, this is means goddesses in our language.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
We've had a lot of four pep talks when we
do proper things like public speaking.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
Where we're like, don't say bitches, don't say don't say bitch,
don't say anything about about Jesus, don't say pussy, don't
don't say anything mean about the Christians or the whites.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
Don't do that.

Speaker 3 (02:21):
Oh yeah, don't say anything about the whites. Someone we
have not We had whites oi other retreat. We always
have white people to retreat. We have white people in
our community.

Speaker 4 (02:29):
We have best friends that are white, but we're always like,
this is not white people shit. And some of them
was like they asked Aaron, our our white friend at
the retreat.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
Like, did you feel a way that they kept saying
white people shit?

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Someone asked her that.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
She was like, she asked me, She's.

Speaker 4 (02:43):
Like, I wanted to really ask Juicy Jay and Aaron
if they felt offended about you saying white people shit.
I was like, they're here, There's no way they could
be offended by it. I was like, they know, they
already know what they're coming into. There are our friends,
they know some shit as white people shit too.

Speaker 3 (02:59):
It's true.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
You know one thing about us is we're gonna tell
it how it is.

Speaker 4 (03:04):
And we've been doing it for five years and now
we're pretty confident in saying all the all the non
the non PC things online. I'm proud to be a
non PC person.

Speaker 3 (03:15):
I'm working on. My boyfriend tells me all the time,
do you need PC training? And I do? How are you?
What's going on?

Speaker 2 (03:24):
I'm good.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
I'm still tanned, so I'm happy about that me too.

Speaker 3 (03:28):
I feel like sunkissed goddess.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
I am.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
My lips are glossing. We had a podcaster in our
studio one hour before this, and I was looking at
her on the screen. She's so fucking gorgeous. Shout out
to Unglamorous Truths podcast. And I was looking at her
lips and I was like, I want my lips to
look as glossy as hers. I'm what, it's my turn
to record, so maybe I've accomplished it.

Speaker 4 (03:49):
Shout out to good Good Media, our studio manifestation that
we're sitting in. If you too are looking for a
place to record your PC or non PC podcasts, we've
all come both right here in Studio City, California.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
And if you don't know what Studio City, California, it's
LA because some people. I feel like when people hear
Studio City, if they're not from here, or if they
maybe are they just moved here, they're like, where the
fuck is Studio City.

Speaker 3 (04:11):
It's Hollywood Hills. We're south of the Boulevard, so it's
Hollywood Hills. You know where that is, don't you? What's
wrong with us? I just got some really good news,
so suddenly I'm just very chipper. A bitch is automatically happy. Wow,
It's crazy how.

Speaker 4 (04:29):
Life can life and bring you down the man's always
trying to bring us down with bills and applications and stuff. Responsibility, responsibilities.
I literally told my friend the other day. I told Danielle,
I was like, I don't want to die or anything,
but what.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
I'm sick of living?

Speaker 1 (04:46):
Can you please never start a conversation like that? I
literally told her living.

Speaker 4 (04:50):
I was like, I like living and shit, but like
the responsibility of being an adult is over fucking whelming.

Speaker 3 (04:56):
And every time I think about it, it never ends.

Speaker 4 (04:58):
It's never gonna end as long as i'm the future
of my life is adults.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
Well, I think you just have to embrace it, and
you have to just get into it and stop rejecting it.
I know life will keep fucking with you the longer
you keep trying to reject it.

Speaker 3 (05:10):
I've been giving myself a lot of pep talks, like
we're adults. Now, you're a big girl, you gotta do stuff.
You're gonna be rich soon, Everything's gonna be okay.

Speaker 4 (05:18):
You live in a mansion just like the white people,
and the only worries are going to be like, you know,
like vegan ice cream or regular you know. I keep
telling myself that, but every time, like adult shit, happens.
Then I start crying and I'm like, it's not true.

Speaker 3 (05:32):
You're not an adult yet.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
You are.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
I know. I've been telling myself this for fifteen years.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
You are an adult. You couldn't wait to grow up
when you were fucking being a little Hoochi. So now
you're fucking grown. I'll grow my life. Now grow up,
you little Houccie.

Speaker 3 (05:46):
I'm an adult who grow up?

Speaker 1 (05:48):
You want to be grown?

Speaker 3 (05:49):
You want to be grown. I'm an adult, Hucie.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
You are grown. Associ I've been.

Speaker 3 (05:55):
Married, Hucci. I'm an adult wife Ucci Hoochie wife. I'm
going to put that on my bio, the Houccie Wife. Actually,
me and Orlando started a couple's podcast because we're still
I mean, not a cup podcast. Whoa a couple's Instagram
because we're corny as fuck. And it's called Uccie Mom
and Dad.

Speaker 4 (06:15):
So if you haven't followed it yet at Hoochie Mom
and Dad, you couldn't tell us. Sasha told us that
name in Miami. She's like, you guys are like hu
Chie mom and Dads.

Speaker 3 (06:24):
I'm like, that's it. That's the name. We were so proud.
We couldn't wait to change the name. We're like, yeah, hoochie,
Mom and Dad. I like that.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
It's catchy, isn't it. Anyway, Well, you guys, it is
not Houccie August. It is bad birthing August, bad as
bad ass birth in August. And I'm super duper excited
because we have a special guest today, highly requested guest
actually from the community. We have Floor Cruise aka Badass

(06:56):
mother Birther on Instagram because that's how people recognize people
these days. So welcome to the show floor.

Speaker 2 (07:04):
Hi, welcome, thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
And the floor is a birth educator. She's a doula.
She's a mom of four or five five. Oh shit,
you are a saint, you really are. Oh my god, damn. Actually,
I was reading your story and like you got like
you got pregnant, like quickly after like having your like
you one of your children. And I was telling you that.
I was like, she was reading it.

Speaker 3 (07:25):
She was reading it to me at breakfast.

Speaker 4 (07:26):
She was like ten months postpartum, she had another baby.

Speaker 1 (07:30):
She must be crying.

Speaker 3 (07:33):
She must really love this ship, because holy.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
Shit, I just love my man's dick. That's really all
it boiled down to, man. But I did cry. I
was very in tears and just like, oh my gosh,
this is going to be so overwhelming, like this is
a lot really fast.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
What baby number was that?

Speaker 2 (07:51):
That was baby number three?

Speaker 3 (07:53):
Oh girl, I commend you.

Speaker 1 (07:54):
So you had just had baby number three and this
was baby number four? That was you thought you were okay.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
So one of my kids is my husband's first, okay,
from his marriage. So that's my my the child that
I didn't have to give birth to.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
Your bonus child, yes, my bonus child.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
So yeah. So my second one was a sea section,
and then I got pregnant ten months after my sea section,
and so that was my first v back baby. So
I had her like twenty months postpartum. I was already
popping out another kid.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
Well, you know, you propaly did it right. All your
kids are close in age.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
They're like, are they really are? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (08:28):
So I'm so. I First of all, I'm obsessed with
your Instagram?

Speaker 2 (08:32):
Are you?

Speaker 1 (08:32):
I am? And I think Mila too. Mila's been obsessed
with birth since the moment I've before I met her,
but since the moment I met her, I was like
she was showing Luna birth videos and like look at this,
and I was like Okay.

Speaker 3 (08:44):
Whoa, how did you think that was aggressive of me?

Speaker 1 (08:47):
I mean I had I had never considered showing my
child like my baby, other like babies being born, and
it wasn't like it was definitely like okay, well it
shouldn't be weird. But I I for sure was like, okay,
this is a bit much. But obviously, if you ask
me now, I don't think it's.

Speaker 3 (09:02):
I may have scarred her for life because.

Speaker 4 (09:04):
She doesn't want to have kids and don't have kids,
and I was like, shit, maybe I shouldn't have given
shown her birth videos at three.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
I think as adults we process that stuff different because
we've spent our whole lives not seeing it and not
being exposed to it, and so it feels different in
our body. But smaller children are not really born afraid
of birth, and they understand things a lot differently than
adults do, and they're not scared of it, that's true,
and so when they see it, it's like, oh, it's

(09:32):
a baby being born, as opposed to an adult that
hasn't been exposed to that their whole life, and they
see birth as a scary medical event or gross. When
they see it, they're like, holy shit, like, this is
a lot to take in.

Speaker 4 (09:43):
Well, that's true because like I probably didn't see birth
until like I actively went looking as an adult because
I started to get like really curious about it. But
like imagine not even like having any idea of what
it looks like until you're in the birthroom. That's why
motherfuckers we passing out and shit, right, because they're like,
oh shit, this is crazy and it is crazy. But like, yeah,
I think it's like a fear, a built in fear,

(10:04):
because we haven't been exposed to it.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
Right, And the research backs that up.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
You know what, now that I'm thinking about it, I
was just reflecting on when was the first time I
actually saw birth, And it was when I got pregnant, right,
It was not before because A I never even considered
having children like that until I had my abortion and
then I was like, okay, maybe I do want kids.
And then I got pregnant again and then I was like, Okay,
maybe I should see what this looks like. And I

(10:30):
remember being like, oh shit, this is terrifying, and maybe
had I seen it when I was younger, it would
obviously have been more normal, normalized. How old are your kids?

Speaker 2 (10:41):
My oldest is seventeen, and then I have a twelve
year old, seven year old, six year old, and a
three year old.

Speaker 1 (10:47):
Do they look Have they seen your Instagram page?

Speaker 2 (10:49):
Yes? And actually at my last home birth, my other
younger two were there with me when I was giving
birth to them, and I really felt confident in doing
that because they have seen a lot of the birth images.
I really helped them to understand what they're going to
be seeing, the sounds that are possibly going to be
coming out of me, the fluids, the people who are

(11:10):
there with me helping me give birth, and so they
were just as cool as cucumber. And the baby came
out and he was like, can I go play Nintendo?
As I'm on the floor holding a baby brother. It was,
you know, nothing shocking for them, But I think it's
really hard when you are finding out that you're pregnant
and trying to process what you should have known your

(11:33):
whole life, and I'm in a span of nine times months.
That's really fucking hard well.

Speaker 4 (11:37):
Because it's already like there's so much changing change happening
in your body already, and then you see this video
for the first time, like and then it almost seems like, oh, no,
this is what I have to look forward to the
end of this. It seems like daunting and that was
the reason, Like, I think I really started showing lun
a birth too because I was like, you will be
my dula when it's time for me to have another baby.
So I was trying to, like even animal births, like
just trying to show it, like normalize it as much

(11:59):
as possible because I realized, like, yeah, total impossible.

Speaker 3 (12:06):
I mean, you could do it.

Speaker 1 (12:07):
You will be my duela.

Speaker 3 (12:10):
She wants to.

Speaker 4 (12:11):
I think I think I want her to be my
support one of my support people. Well of course, yeah,
totally not like my soul doula, Like I'll give you listen,
it's way cheaper if I'd let Luna do it.

Speaker 2 (12:22):
And as a dula, I've had lots of clients who
have hired me who already have kids, and my job
as their doula was to also help the child understand
and give them certain jobs during the birth, like bringing
water or giving massage or just putting a hand on
the parents shoulder. They like to be involved in a
lot of that stuff. But I think that also leads
them into understanding bodily autonomy, which is a whole other

(12:46):
leg because especially if you have a child who has
a uterus, that child is going to have a menstruation
and possibly abortions and miscarriages, pregnancies, right, all of these things,
and so you want to build that foundation of like,
this is a person giving birth, and this is a
person who has taken the choice and the bodily autonomy

(13:07):
to do this in this location with this person and
showing them all of those things, so it can lead
into a multitude of different conversations with your kids.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
And you know, just for those that are listening that
aren't familiar with Floor's Instagram, I want you, if you
don't know Floor's Instagram, I want you to pause the
episode right the fuck now, and I want you to
go on Instagram and I want you to look up
bad Ass mother Birther because your instagram is very it's,
for lack of a better word, graphic. Yes, it really
shows all facets of birth. And personally, I have a question,

(13:42):
and this is just selfishly my question, because how the
fuck are you not flat? Because not that I want
you to be fled, I want you, I want I
think what you do is so important. I'm just curious
because we can't even post a side titty without even
getting flags, and I must.

Speaker 3 (13:57):
Have a boyfriend all the time.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
I'm like, how the that I can witness birth on
Instagram but my side titty is flagged?

Speaker 2 (14:03):
Well? Interesting because when I first started wanting to show
more graphic stuff, that really was the issue at that
time was that Facebook and Instagram were gatekeeping a lot
of this shit and didn't want to show any of
that stuff. But then you can go watch someone be murdered, right,
and all kinds of other shit on other people's channels.
And so Katie Vigos is from Empowered Birth Project, and

(14:27):
she started a whole campaign to have Instagram and Facebook
change their policies in regards to birth, postpartum and lactation,
and so they included that as part of the community
guideline once that happened. But the problem now is is
that the robots don't recognize what is sexual nudity versus birth,

(14:49):
postpartum and lactation. And so when that policy changed, I
just so happened to be the person that they sent like,
this page is directly childbirth education, please protect, So they
put this layer of protection around my page. Every once
in a while, shit sneaks in there because the robot
doesn't really understand. But I did have this good layer

(15:10):
of protection that was keeping the instagram floating.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
Got it?

Speaker 3 (15:14):
I think I follow her tooka mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (15:19):
I'm curious. I was reading up on you and I
know that you know your first birth was a sea
section and mine was not. Mine was also a C section.

Speaker 2 (15:28):
My first was a vaginal or what and the second
one was.

Speaker 1 (15:31):
Secon sea section. I know that you said your first
generation your family moved from So I'm I always think
because I think in Latin American countries, and maybe this
is me being ignorant about birth in the Latinmerican countries,
but I feel like there's a lot more home birthing
at home or birthing at home, and so it was

(15:54):
was that ever something that kind of was in your
home life growing up? Like did your parents like were
you born at home or your parents born?

Speaker 2 (16:02):
I was a sea section baby and so was my sister.
My brother was a vaginal birth. But the thing is
is that when your parents come from a country where
they lack access to medical care, and then they finally
get to a country to where they have medical care,
it's your baby in a hospital.

Speaker 4 (16:21):
Well, America like like dresses it up like that you
have a privilege, and doctors will dress up like you're
so privileged to have access to.

Speaker 3 (16:31):
Just like vaccinations and hospital care. Like if anything goes wrong,
you're American. George over here can birth my baby and
clock out at eight o'clock like, funk out of here.

Speaker 2 (16:41):
And that's exactly what it was. It's like, well, we're
in America now, and like we need to like get
all this access and so but my grandmother did have
lots of home birds and gave birth to her children
all naturally and vaginally. It's just what was done. You
hired a ba and that was that was it. It
was normal, it was child. But then when we start
moving back this way to our original homelands, right that

(17:04):
were like stolen from us, things change because we start
to think that the degrees and the medicalization is top
tier shit, but if you look at the numbers, it
hasn't been top tier shit for quite some time, right,
And so we have to look at what is the
foundation of the systems that we're birthing in, and foundationally,
it's a system that was built on torturing, enslaved black women.

(17:31):
So that's a whole other layer that people aren't discovering, right, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:36):
No people, I mean, you know, America likes to sweep
a lot of shit under the carpet.

Speaker 2 (17:39):
Oh I don't. I like to talk about it openly
because it's like, we can't be shocked at where we
are in this nation with birth. You have to look
at the fucking foundation. Okay, Doctor Sims, the you know,
father of dynacology, was performing surgeries on enslaved black women

(17:59):
in the eighties forties without anesthesia.

Speaker 4 (18:01):
Because they thought we didn't feel pain or that we're
like subhuman.

Speaker 2 (18:06):
And all of that still carries into the systems that
people birth in are birth na currently today.

Speaker 3 (18:12):
Absolutely, they feel like, oh, like if you're a minority,
you may don't have money.

Speaker 4 (18:17):
They don't take that, don't prioritize your your pain or
like you're like whatever you're saying about how you feel,
they're just like they know better than you. They assume
they know better than you. And women are dying, you know,
like and like you know, I'm sure you've seen that
documentary about that husband and wife, the black couple and
the wife died during childbirth.

Speaker 2 (18:35):
Oh, Kira Johnson.

Speaker 4 (18:36):
Yeah, yes, and just that, like I think sometimes, as
like people of color in America, we have this, we
have this idea that if we assimilate and we talk
like this, and we talk like them, and I you know,
I'm a professional, and I have a good job, and
I drive a car, whatever.

Speaker 3 (18:53):
The fuck the things are that you think that you
have to.

Speaker 4 (18:56):
Check off the box to be respected in this country,
you know what I mean. So we do those things
to assimilate to whiteness, and still, you know, you're still
like put in positions where you're you know, you're you.

Speaker 3 (19:06):
Die in childbirth or in medical care, you're still black.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
Still assimilate all you want, and it doesn't matter. It
doesn't matter your education, how much money you make, it
doesn't matter because the foundation is still fucking there. In
order to get rid of that, you'd have to burn
the whole fucking system down and start all over. Who's
gonna fucking do that?

Speaker 4 (19:24):
And and that's another thing, Like I watched another documentary.
I don't know if it's from the Business of being born,
but there, you know, there's like talking about the history
of uh, just the history of childbirth in this country.
Was like when they've created obg y ns, and they're like,
they need some shit to do. They're like, because there's
not a lot of surgery, it's happening on vaginas.

Speaker 3 (19:45):
So they're like, I know it. We'll do We'll cut open,
we'll cut up in pregnant women.

Speaker 4 (19:47):
And they had they started a campaign, a propaganda campaign
against black midwives, and they like put these images on
posters that were like you want a mammy aunt your
mama birth and your baby or do you want to
come to and they still and they still do that shit,
you know, so they put they put these images in
places so that it made it seem that, you know,
you're doing something like unsterile or like some back end bullshit,

(20:11):
when in fact, like obgyns, there's relatively new, you know,
like that for thousands of years, people have been been
being birthed.

Speaker 2 (20:19):
Yes, humanity has been utilizing midwid free care, right, because
you're talking about a system that tried to take over
and then also try to tell Black people that they
couldn't birth within that system and so go fuck yourself.
And so this is where black and midwives started to
come in to help the community. Right, But we know
that a direct tool to helping people now is accessible

(20:42):
midwind free care, independent midwod free care with black midwives.
We know that that's a tool, but you know the
government's going to turn a fucking blind eye to it
because that's what they fucking like to do. The state
of Alabama really, really badly needs access to midwives. They
have one of the worst maternal and infant mortality rates.

Speaker 4 (21:04):
I was born in Montgomery, Yes, one of the worst,
and it was racist then and the eighty eight My mom,
of course, my mom still is.

Speaker 3 (21:12):
My mom wasn't married.

Speaker 4 (21:13):
She was in college, and because they weren't married, they
wouldn't let my dad come into the labor room. And
she was like twenty two in college and like she
was a luck. Can you imagine being in alone giving
birth with the doctors who don't know And in fact,
the first hospital she went to it.

Speaker 3 (21:27):
They turned her away.

Speaker 4 (21:28):
She had to drive to Montgomery, like there was like
a you know, to a bigger hospital, and still they
because they weren't legally married, they wouldn't let him come
into the room. And like I think about that sometimes,
but like you know, we're all you know, spiritual and shit,
but we'd I haven't like considered where the parent was
in the process of birth and how that imprints on
you as an like as.

Speaker 2 (21:49):
A trauma as an infant. Yeah, it's a trauma that's
passed down to you, but then passed down to your child.
So it's like all this generational trauma since way back
then gets passed down from generation to generation to generation,
which causes you know, that excess pain that we're feeling
during childbirth that we don't know where it's coming from.

(22:11):
It causes the pelvic floor to kind of lock up
to hold the baby from descending right, And this is
just part of the trauma playing out physically. And it's
not a failure within our own bodies that we can't
birth our babies. It's this generational trauma that has been
passed down from person to person to person, and the
system within itself isn't making it better, right, because you're

(22:34):
asking someone to leave their home in the middle of labor,
which in and of itself is the first intervention. Our
bodies really don't feel don't feel comfortable leaving our homes
in the middle of labor to birth our child, to
go to get in a car to birth in a
place where they're strangers where you've never been, lights, sounds,
and the place. It's the place where you associate with death, disease,

(22:57):
literal sickness, and there's a hierarchy that's in there, right, you.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
Are speaking to my whole experience. Yeah, And when I
read your your sea section experience was very similar to mine.
And I remember, like I my first instinct was to
get a doula, but I was like very unsupported in that,
in that idea, and it was my first child. I
was twenty six. I was like, I don't know what
I'm doing. Okay, fine, I guess I won't give birth
at home, but I'm gonna I don't want any sort

(23:21):
of you know, I want to give natural birth. But
my my doctor from the beginning was very was talking
about se sections that like my third appointment and ready, yeah,
grooming me and then like even after, you know, after
I had my my daughter and I went back, was
like patting herself on the back of like, look how
small and clean the scar that I gave you is

(23:41):
like I'd rather not have next time when you have
your second child, It'll be so easy. We'll just open
that little at least open that little scar. But I
was like, bitch, you think I'm coming back here? That
is so yeah, Like she was really she kept talking
about how she was known to create like very natural
small incisions.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
And that's when we have to understand too, is that
obi's are surgeons. You're hiring a surgeon to be a
part of a process that is physiological. The chances that
it's gonna end in surgery is big and that's just fact.

Speaker 3 (24:15):
Well, obi's are not trained in patience. They're not. They're
like they're doing a job.

Speaker 4 (24:20):
They're clocking in and clocking out and trying to get
the fuck on, or.

Speaker 2 (24:22):
They're training pathology and assessing risk at every corner. They
think that the baby just coming out alive is the
only thing that when in reality, that's the bottom. If
you had a house, a baby that's alive is in
the fucking basement. Like, there's so much more that we
that we can be doing for people, even if even

(24:45):
with the experience, because you have to understand that how
you feel during the birth is going to directly affect
the baby postpartum, the baby. You have to ask yourself
why we live in a nation where their number that
the one are the hop reasons why parents die in
the POSTPARTU phase is suicide.

Speaker 3 (25:04):
Hmmm, I didn't even know that.

Speaker 2 (25:06):
Okay, why are we not fucking talking about this? Why
are we just brushing it under the rug? A lot
of these things are directly correlated with how people are
being treated. They're not being allowed to participate in their care.
They don't want you to advocate, they don't want you
to know your choices. They don't want you to to
make informed decisions, to say no to anything. They want

(25:26):
you to comply and and lay the fuck down. And
then when the baby doesn't come out because the mammal
generally doesn't like that whole scenario that you're put in.
Your body's gonna protect your baby. It's not a failure
of you, it's your body fucking works, So funna stay
in right, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
I mean when I when I got to the hospital,
the first thing I did when they gave me my
bed was cry, And everyone was like, why are you crying?
And I was like, I'm terrified, Like I'm this where
people That's exactly what I said, this is where people's die. Like,
I'm not supposed to be here. This doesn't feel natural
to me. And I was already doing the unnatural thing
and getting induced because my doctor said, oh, you've reached
that special magical date that I told you mattered, and

(26:07):
your baby's getting too big. You won't be able to
You're gonna end up getting a C section if we
don't induce you. And you know, now, obviously I'm a
lot more knowledgeable and I would never have allowed anyone
or anything to get in the way of what my
intuition was telling me. But when you don't have the information,
and even I guess I had access to the information
at that point, but I was really allowing other people's

(26:28):
fear to make choices for me. Yeah, And it's just
so unfortunate because I know that so many women encounter
this where they feel they've really lost the experience. And
I still kind of mourn that, like, I don't know,
if I want to have another child, that's you know,
we'll see, but there is a part of me that

(26:50):
I want that experience back that I didn't get, like
because I in my mind, I had a whole idea obviously,
you know, like God, you make plans, and God laughs
at that, but that was not the plan. That was
not God's plan, No, it was that wasn't doctor tallybody's
plan okay, And she really didn't give a fuck about
what my plan was. She fearmongered me because the moment

(27:11):
I told her I want to have a doula, she said,
you know, or a midwife. She said, do you know
how many dead babies I've delivered?

Speaker 2 (27:16):
Like? How?

Speaker 1 (27:17):
How that was?

Speaker 3 (27:19):
She's like traumatized.

Speaker 1 (27:20):
Why don't you think about that for your second baby?
For a first now when I'm twenty six and healthy
and capable.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
And that's the mindset that a lot of people have
when they're having their first baby. They go, well, I
have to see if my body works first before I give.

Speaker 3 (27:33):
Well, if you got pregnant, I think it works right.

Speaker 2 (27:35):
And then you go to your your OB and you
talk about it and they go, oh no, no, no, no,
do not do Midwiffrey, I do not support that. It's
very dangerous.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
Well kind of man, I was going to say, it
was kind of stupid for me to even ask her opinion,
because I was literally telling her I wasn't going to
be like I was. She was gonna be out some
money for me, you know. So it's almost like you
got to know better to just not even ask. You
just got to do what you got to do. And
that's not to say that you can't have a doula.
And if you choose to have a hospital birth, like
you can have a doula you know support you in
that experience as well. And I think that's also a

(28:05):
misconception of you know what people think doulas do.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
No, it's not just for people who want to have
an unmedicated physiological birth. I've definitely had people hire me
to have a schedulcy section because they wanted the support.
They wanted someone to walk them through the doors and say,
I'm going to be right here with you, and you know,
I'm going to help you latch your baby as soon
as the baby comes out, and help you advocate the
role of the doula is what you want. The role

(28:31):
of the doula to be with whatever birth plan it
is that you want, because we know, and the research
shows us, when someone is making their own choices and
they aren't participating in their care a lot of the time,
it's not the outcome of the birth, but how they
were treated and felt throughout the whole fucking process. Right.
So let's say if your second baby, you plan out

(28:52):
your birth, but you're going into it informed, You're doing
all the things that you felt you were robbed from
the first time. If in the event that that shit
goes left, you probably will have a good feeling of
like I did what I could, and you know this,
this is how this baby needed to be born.

Speaker 4 (29:09):
I that mean for me, Like I was twenty six
or twenty seven, and I had already made up in
my mind I am not going to the fucking hospital.
The doctor kept telling me just go look at the
maternity wards. I was like, I'm not going. I'm not going.
I don't want to see it. I don't care, and
you're not going to make me. She's like, just in case.
I was like, not just in case, bitch, I'm gonna
And I kept asking her like, can you just be
at my apartment building and happen.

Speaker 3 (29:30):
To be in the area when I give birth at
my house? And she was like, now I'll lose my license.

Speaker 4 (29:35):
But I had done a lot of research and like
on hypnover, watched the Business of being born. I had
a friend, a close friend of mine, who birth to
a set of twins in her you know, in her
living room, like.

Speaker 3 (29:45):
Twelve hours apart. So I knew that I could do it.
I wrote out my birth plan. I was specific, like
if I have to go to the hospital, don't offer
me medicine. They didn't listen to any of that shit.

Speaker 4 (29:55):
And you know, I ended up having to I end
up having to go anyway, And it was it was
my first lesson in which you make a plan and
God says whatever. But you know, overall, despite the fact
I was induced because I had preclamcy and I didn't
want to be there, I did have a good I
had a good experience at the hospital because from the
jump I let my doctor know as like, I'm young,

(30:17):
but I'm not dumb. And also you have to think like,
as any medical professional, when you invest hundreds of thousands
of dollars in your degree and your and your certification,
you don't want anybody to come tell you.

Speaker 3 (30:32):
Like about what their home research. You're protecting the degree
and the money you've invested in this this white coat,
you know.

Speaker 4 (30:41):
And I just feel like, you know, even though I
didn't birth the way I want you, and I like
want to have another baby so I can do it
at home, I do feel like birth is supposed to
be so fucking empowering. You know, it's like I always
call it like a rite of passages.

Speaker 2 (30:56):
It's a human experience.

Speaker 3 (30:56):
It's a human experience. It's a right of passage.

Speaker 4 (30:58):
It's like this, there's this insane thing your body does
that you just watched. Like, literally, women are the closest
thing to God. We literally are the portal from heaven
to Earth or wherever where wherever we come from that
we are.

Speaker 3 (31:12):
Everyone's trying to figure it out.

Speaker 4 (31:14):
And so it's just like when you take like away
your I feel like I feel like like the ob
movement was like I don't know which came first, like patriarchy,
but like it's it's it's it's one and the same, yea,
Because you're you're removing the power from women physically and
in the most in a in a place in your life.
You're supposed to be the most empowered and the most

(31:35):
like confident in your body.

Speaker 3 (31:36):
And they're like, no, bitch, just lay down and listen
to us.

Speaker 2 (31:40):
And here's the thing though, but they've been grooming us
all our lives to do that. How many of us
go to get a pap smear? Here's your little gown,
lay down, put your feet in the fucking stirrups and
scoot your ass all the way down to the end
of the table, and I'm gonna do what I need
to do down here. So our whole lives, we've been
groomed to do this.

Speaker 3 (32:00):
That way, to literally disconnect from our bottom half.

Speaker 4 (32:03):
Absolutely, literally put a paper towel, like, put the paper
over and look.

Speaker 3 (32:07):
Up at the sky.

Speaker 4 (32:08):
Yes, absolutely, you're literally preparing to disconnect with the bottom
half of your body. And for women, I feel like
our womb is our heart, like this is like a
very It's very much connected. And if you disconnect from
that part of yourself, then you can fuck around and
let anybody do anything because you're just like fuck.

Speaker 2 (32:24):
Absolutely, And they do the same shit at birth. So
then you go to give birth, and when they tell
you to do that, you've been doing it all your life,
so you're just gonna comply because you're used to it.
So at some point you have to realize, what is
it that I want to do with my own bodily
choices and my autonomy. My last pap smear that I had,
I hired a midwife. I had to come into my home.
She did my pap smere in my bed. I inserted

(32:47):
the speculum myself. It was self guided and it was
probably one of the most empowering experience I've ever had
with having a PAP smear.

Speaker 3 (32:56):
I didn't even think that you could do that. You know,
that was an option.

Speaker 2 (32:59):
Look at your local mid wives. A lot of them
do self guided pap smears and do it inside of
your house. I had mimosas, I had snacks. I made
it into a whole vibe and I was like, I
was like, yes, let's check out this pussy and see
what's going on.

Speaker 3 (33:13):
I'm never going back to the day.

Speaker 1 (33:15):
Can you tell our audience the difference between a doula
and a midwife.

Speaker 2 (33:18):
So adula is there to help advocate for you, to
help support you and your choices, to help give you
some education. They're there there to give like physical support,
emotional support, mental support. It doesn't really doesn't matter where.
Some doulas do have their own boundaries. Some doulas will
not go into a hospital system and that's just that

(33:41):
doula's own boundary. Some just do homebirds, whatever the case
may be. But a midwife is more clinical. They're going
to be doing like your blood tests and your blood pressure,
your pulse, checking in on the baby. They're doing more
of that clinical stuff. But a lot of midwives also
do have a lot of that that doulainness in them

(34:02):
when they're at your birth. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:06):
Yeah, I think a lot of people don't like I
think I didn't even really understand I had met with
a when I got pride, and I met with a doula,
which I thought now they're thinking of. I thought she
was going to be the one that was going to
be facilitating my birth. But I think a lot of
people don't really know the differences between each.

Speaker 2 (34:21):
So, I mean, there are some people that are called
birth keepers, and so they kind of show up in
a different in a different facet, and a lot of
them show up for people who are giving home birth.
So it's almost like having a free birth, unassisted birth,
but with someone who's there a little bit some stuff, right,
who knows a little bit more stuff, which free birth

(34:41):
is also an option. But I think whatever path you choose,
you have to take this radical responsibility over your body
and your baby, right, and that means getting educated and
trying to gain access to things. But we live in
a country that doesn't want to give us access. Makes
it really fucking hard.

Speaker 1 (34:58):
They don't want to give us access and they want
to share us all the way around, all the way down,
all the way down. I was looking at your website
and you have education on a failure to progress, and
I was thinking, Wow, what a fucked up thing to
say to someone in pregnant, like while they're, you know,
trying to give birth. Sorry, you failed to progress, so
now we.

Speaker 2 (35:16):
Have to take work.

Speaker 1 (35:17):
Yeah, And actually that's what happened to me. And I
was like I failed, Like okay, and it can actually fail.

Speaker 2 (35:25):
Giving birth or could we just wait a little bit longer? No? Okay, yeah,
because you have to ask yourself, well, why are we
such a fucking rush all the time? But when you're
giving birth within a system and you are in their
labor and delivery floor, you are taking a really fucking
expensive real estate from them. And why I want you
to baby fucking out. They want their liability to be
over and they want you to fucking go home. They

(35:46):
want to flip that room, and they want to make
it like the reason why it didn't happen for you
is because your body failed.

Speaker 3 (35:53):
And your baby could die and you could die. And
that's always that's.

Speaker 4 (35:56):
Always the immediate always the immediate go to because they
know any any woman, any mom, is going to immediately
be like no, like it's like if you if you like,
like if you even remotely suggests that that's a possibility,
are of course.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
Our instinct is going to be like, oh no, I
don't and I don't want to be the reason why
my baby.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
Right. But here's the thing. When someone's baby dies within
a hospital, there's no shame around that from the community.
Baby dies at home, it's your fault. Now you're still
dealing with the grief and also your community fucking ridiculing
you for doing that and not just going to a hospital.

Speaker 3 (36:37):
And then you're thinking to yourself like did I fuck up?

Speaker 1 (36:39):
Is it right?

Speaker 4 (36:40):
And you know, and a lot of people don't even
this is another thing, is like babies die.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
Babies die, they do, and nature has a really high
tolerance for death as opposed to us humans, We don't
have a really high tolerance for death, you know, as
it should be, right, it's what keeps us alive and going.
But nature is nature, right, and nature is gonna do
what it does, and a lot of times we don't

(37:05):
know what it's going to do, right, early on in
my doulah career, I did witness a mother lose her
baby in labor, and I didn't know how to process that.
I didn't have the skills to process that. All I
knew was that nature did its fucking thing and there
were no answers and I just needed to show up

(37:27):
for this for this mother. But I had a really
hard lesson, really early on in my dula career of
how nature really doesn't give a fuck about us. Sometimes, No,
it really fucking doesn't. That's a hard pill to swallow.

Speaker 1 (37:39):
It is, it is, But it's when you put it
that way, that nature doesn't have like it doesn't.

Speaker 2 (37:44):
Nobody's exempt from nature, right, nobody's exempt from it.

Speaker 3 (37:47):
As much as we think we are, I know. And
that's the thing.

Speaker 4 (37:50):
A lot of things in Western like the medical system,
are over medicalized and sometimes unfortunately I think, like this
is not a popular statement, but like the over medicalization
of birth is saving babies that maybe didn't and weren't
supposed to be here, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (38:04):
You know what I mean, like over and that's part
and that's also part of it, right, is that we
have we are saving a lot of babies that and
otherwise would have ended up in a miscarriage or a
still birth or whatever whatever the case may be, right,
And that's everyone's decision to decide. There are some people
out there that don't want an intervention. They're like, if
this is what nature is deciding for me, then this

(38:25):
is what nature is deciding for me. But most people
if they are told that something could probably happen to
your baby, and we're and we're gonna intervene. Yeah, And
in those instances, we are really grateful to have interventions.
So people have that option, right, And so we're not
saying we don't want access to interventions. We're saying, stop
fucking overloading us with fucking interventions that is then leading

(38:49):
to poor outcomes and can lead your child being harmed
or dead, right, or even just you. Right. Because when
I went to go have my v back was really adamant.
I was like, I this this baby's coming down my
pussy period period. I don't go fuck what anybody has
to say, it's gonna it's gonna happen, right. But also

(39:09):
I chose to be back because I know for me
or anyone having a repeat c section is a higher
risk of you dying, right, And so I had to
have a conversation with my husband of like, I want
to be alive. I want to be alive, and if
it comes between me and the baby, always choose me. Damn,

(39:29):
always fucking choose me. Yeah, because I have family, I
have friends, I have I have other kids. I need
to be alive. And so for me, having a v
back was having access to safety and being alive. But
if you ask most OB's they'll be like, absolutely not,
we're scheduling you're a repeat.

Speaker 4 (39:48):
Yeah, and then they'll scare you again, like your incision
is gonna burst when you try to push it through.

Speaker 2 (39:52):
Absolutely and this is you brought up Kia Johnson for
Kiera for mom's shout out, and that was part of
of the system doing what it does. So instead of
offering a vback and saying, hey, a V back could
probably reduce your chances of hemorrhaging, would you like the
option to try for a vback, it was like, no,

(40:13):
we're gonna do a repeat C section and the repeat
C section leads to a hemorrhage. Then to a system
who doesn't want to listen to black parents, right, Yeah,
it's a real thing.

Speaker 1 (40:25):
It is it is. That's why it's so important to
really have so much, do your due diligence, and just
sit with yourself and know exactly what the fuck it
is you want and your body wants, right, But that
can be hard when you're like when you're young and
you don't even know who the fuck you are, You
don't you know. We asked our patrons, Oh, we asked

(40:47):
them if they had any questions for you, And there
was one that kept consistently coming up. Shout out to
our patrons, Hey, y'all, they wanted to know if you
guys had any if you had any advice for newly
pregnant moms, Like, what would be the one big, big
piece of advice you would give to a newly pregnant mom.

Speaker 2 (41:04):
Do not, people please when it comes to your pregnancy
and birth.

Speaker 1 (41:08):
Do not?

Speaker 2 (41:09):
And especially as women, we've been raised to people please,
to take into consideration everybody's feelings around us, and that
we come fucking last. And people still take that people
pleasing to their births right, and they start listening to
what their friends are telling them, to what their partners
are telling them, to what their family is telling them,
and they start sabotaging their own birth, slowly but surely

(41:32):
already as they're pregnant, right, Because maybe I can't tell
you how many times people have said I really want
a home birth, but my partner is that's supportive, and
I have to go to the.

Speaker 1 (41:41):
Hospital that I should. I wish, I wish I would
have asked you this question eight years ago, because it's
literally exactly what I was say.

Speaker 4 (41:48):
Like people pleased, but because then there's the under the
the other layer that like, if I solely make this
decision and I don't listen to my partner and something
happens again, it's going to be on me.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
Well, it's a it's almost takes the responsibility off a
few ways too, though, because if something does go wrong
at the hospital, it's the hospital's fault. It's not my fault.

Speaker 2 (42:08):
Absolutely, it's that radical responsibility that we were talking about.

Speaker 1 (42:11):
But it's like, if you want to be a mom,
you better get ready to have radical responsive But.

Speaker 2 (42:14):
Also you have to have those conversations with your partner
of like, I'm the one who's giving birth to this child.
You have entrusted me to take care of this child
in the womb right and to eat healthy and to
move my body and do all these things, but you don't.
You don't fucking trust me to give birth to our child.
How does that fucking pan out?

Speaker 1 (42:32):
Right?

Speaker 2 (42:32):
You know what I mean? I'm lucky enough that I'm
married to someone that anytime I wanted to do something,
he was like, you know what, babe, it's your body.
You're the one that has to give birth to this baby.
I trust you, and I'm on board with whatever it
is that you want to do. I got lucky in
that aspect, But I also wanted found a partner, right.
I manifested that of like, I need to find a

(42:54):
partner that's gonna back me up on a lot of shit. Right,
So it's almost a part of the defect of the relationship,
and it bubbles to the fucking surface, and it's like, well,
how do you think parenting is gonna work out for you?
Wants the baby's born if you can't, if you can't,
even if you don't agree on this, or even if
your partner's not even open to learning, because there's so
many partners that aren't. They're like, I don't want to

(43:16):
hear none of it. I don't want the education, I
don't want shit, you know, And It's like why.

Speaker 3 (43:21):
Because they they they go with the idea that like
the doctor knows best.

Speaker 1 (43:25):
No, well that well the doctor knows best or all.
They're also grooming their partner to be that mom that
has to take care of everything. You got it, You're
the mom, You got it figured out, you got it.

Speaker 3 (43:36):
Do what I say, you know.

Speaker 1 (43:37):
And it's like it's being able to make that decision
early on, no matter how young you are. It's really
a lesson in just how you really have to be
radically ready to make these huge choices, because yes, the
first choice is the giving birth in the hospital, right
like or not in the hospital. Like, I'm not gonna

(43:58):
get birth in the hospital. I'm gonna against my family.
I'm gonna do what my intuition is telling me to do.
And then you give birth, and then you realize like,
oh shit, like I also have to be radically ready
to be a fucking mom and make decisions for my
child because I can't people please. You cannot be a
mom and be people pleasing.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
No, you can, but it doesn't work outa generally, And
all the people that were there telling you all this
shit are not they're helping you take care of the child.

Speaker 1 (44:25):
The fact the first is anybody out now, it's literally
the first lesson, and you have to figure this shit out.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
You have to figure it out on It's all on you.

Speaker 1 (44:32):
Therefore, don't let someone else decide your fucking birth plan.

Speaker 2 (44:35):
Yes, absolutely, and like plan for if things do go
in a different direction, right, because we can plan to
have a home birth all we want. But again, nature
has their own fucking plan for you sometimes. So it's like,
if there is a transfer to the hospital and there
is a change of plans, you have to stay participating
in your care. How am I choosing to move forward

(44:55):
with this? If I am gonna need some type of
augmentation or an induction, you need to stay participating in
that every single step of the way. And you can
turn all that shit off if you if you want
to write nothing's nothing's permanent, you know, But I think
it's the loss of control is what makes people feel

(45:17):
like shit.

Speaker 3 (45:18):
Right, because then you're just like, fuck it whatever, All
this shit's just happening to you, not with you, not
to exactly.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
And because we're mammals and we have all these hormones,
we have tend to be friend we have trauma bonding.
There are all these things that can potentially happen that
we're not even realizing is happening in those moments. And
then you get a year away from the birth, the
oxytocin wears off, the fog is fucking clearing, and you're like,

(45:46):
holy fuck, what happened? What the fuck happens? It's even there?

Speaker 4 (45:51):
Yeah, Yeah, And then I think that's why it is
very important to train your partner into like so they
know because sometimes maybe not we won't be the position
to adocate for yourself, and so your partner needs to
be like on the same page as you so they
can walk the doctor outside or whatever the fuck it' say.
Listen here, motherfucker, this is what we're doing, you know,
because they will take advantage of you once you're there.

(46:12):
Once you're like in the hospital setting, it's so easy
to go down this like spiral of whatever they want
what they want to like yes, but they want to happen,
and like even you know, like the people pleasing is
so real. There was a time like even when I
was I knew from the beginning I wanted to have
a home birth, and my mom had all types of
shit to say, and my number one thing was nobody
say shit to me about what you want for my pregnancy.

(46:34):
I don't give a fuck. We're not talking about it.
It's not up for debate. My mom's like you are
quite sh doesn't fucking matter. And the more you let
people like actively have these conversations with you, the more
you start to question your intuition and question what you're
doing and if it's the right decision. And it's like
that's why you and your partner really need to be
like heavily on the same page, because the doctor's going

(46:56):
to try and change your mind. Your mother in law,
you're like all types of all types people are going
to tell you they know better than you, even though
it's your fucking body. And and like you said, like
the people pleasing start so early and girls, you know,
and like it goes all the way back to like Okay,
well he took me out to eat and it's late,
so fuck it. I'm gonna fuck him, you know, Like

(47:16):
he's asked me seventeen times just fuck it, like just
lay here, you know what I mean. And it's like
it starts, it starts that early, and then like he's
like earlier.

Speaker 2 (47:25):
That rolls, and that rolls right into the birthroom. You're
in that bed, you're you're fucking tired, you're emotionally exhausted,
and here you don't know what to do next.

Speaker 1 (47:34):
And here's your man doctor that's never given And then
tell you this person that.

Speaker 2 (47:40):
Walks in, and the hospital clearly lets you know who's
in the hierarchy. Right, You got the person who's in
the gallon, you're at the bottom at the hierarchy. And
you have the nurse, the nurses weren't in their fucking
outfit that shows you who's next. Then you have the
white coat that walks in and they're like, whoa right,
and so they're already putting this costume together for you

(48:01):
to strip you of shit immediately, right. And so now
this person comes into the room and you're like, just
fucking get this baby out and done.

Speaker 3 (48:09):
Right, I mean the fucking there.

Speaker 2 (48:11):
And that's not consent, No, that's not informed consent. And
this is why having support in those systems, even at
home at birth centers is so crucial and vital to
be able to say, time out, time fucking.

Speaker 4 (48:25):
Out was your journey to like to your duela hood,
that word was your journey to birth, like being a
birth educator. Was it because of the experience you had
giving birth or was it something you've always been interested in.

Speaker 2 (48:38):
You know, when I was small, we lived in an
apartment complex and one of our neighbors had a very
very fast berth and gave birth to her baby on
the couch, and that was my first witness of seeing
a woman just by herself just roar her baby out,
and that left a really huge, like big impression on me,

(49:00):
like I could cry just thinking about it, and seeing
that at such a young age, I was like, bruth
is fucking amazing, Like our bodies are incredible. Her body
was just doing what it needed to do right. And
then when I had my first baby, I was very naive.
I was young, I didn't know my body, I didn't
know pregnancy, and I thought that I was gonna be

(49:22):
able to just go into the hospital and just say, hey,
I just want ab and t turns out I wasn't
that fucking easy. When I got there, nobody there was
making it easy for me to do the things that
I wanted to do, and I ended up giving birth
the way the system wanted me to give birth, And
by the time my baby was born, I felt so
disconnected from him. Like I felt like someone handed me

(49:44):
a stranger's baby, Now take care of it. And I
was just like, wow, okay, like you know you love
this child, but there's also a layer of connection, and
that connection wasn't there, and it took me time to
really build that connection with the baby, right, So, and

(50:04):
I just felt funny in my gut. I was like,
this shit just feels funny. Why do I feel like this?
Like just the way that I was treated and how
it unfolded just doesn't feel fucking right, you know. And
that's when I started this discovery of like looking at
things and what are doulas and pregnancy and like home birds,
well like midwives go to your house and there's spirt

(50:24):
centers and all of this stuff. And so that kind
of launched me into being a birth worker.

Speaker 5 (50:32):
Right.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
But in that meantime, I was a stripper for six
years full time. So I was shaking my ass and
titties in the club giving lap dances while my heart
was yearning to like be with people and help them
birth their babies. Right, But like stripping also was a
layer of building my autonomy. I can say that of

(50:53):
taking charge of my body, no don't touch me. Yeah, no,
I don't want to give you a lot dance.

Speaker 1 (51:00):
Well, I want to play a game of Trigger with you,
because wow, I didn't know. That's a fun fact. We
didn't know about Flora Cruz, former stripper, birth worker. We
have a game on our show called Trigger, and what
we do is just say a word and you say
the first thing that comes to mind and allows us
in our audience to kind of get to know you quickly.
I should have put stripper on here, but I didn't

(51:21):
know you ready. Don't ever think it's okay love sex, marriage, work,
sex while your kid is home. Ooh sneaky fingering ass
or looking asso fingering ass, pregnancy sex, yummy. I had

(51:46):
none of that.

Speaker 2 (51:47):
Oh god, I had the best riass when I was pregnant.

Speaker 1 (51:53):
Yes, oh Jesus, I know nothing of this life.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
Religion is non existent for me.

Speaker 1 (52:02):
In vitro science, orgasmic birth, oh, normal. Favorite trait about yourself, I.

Speaker 2 (52:15):
Would say, my resilience.

Speaker 1 (52:17):
Well, now I gotta add this stripper song.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
Stripper song. You know, I danced to a lot of
like slower songs and rock. I wouldn't say I was
like a crazy type like on stage, I was more
of like sensual, like I wore like cute lingeride like
dresses and like because I wanted to appeal to a
certain type of customer, and a lot of those customers

(52:43):
that had a lot of funds and wanted to be
regular customers really wanted more women who were smart, who
were able to hold a conversation, who were able to
ask them about their day make them feel good. Wasn't
necessarily about lap dances. It was just like, come talk
to me, pay for your time.

Speaker 1 (53:02):
So it was.

Speaker 2 (53:02):
Almost like that was playing into the customers that I
wanted to attract, versus walking out on a bikini and
just shaking your ass and jumping all over the pole
at that at that time would have attracted customers who
were like, here's twenty bucks, you know what I mean?
Can you get your number? Can you talk later?

Speaker 1 (53:18):
Like out here, you're kind of building up, building it
up exactly.

Speaker 4 (53:23):
What about cannabis and pregnancy, I think cannabis actually actually
we should know. I'm gonna we're gonna hold that for
a Patreon. I know that's like a It could be
a touchy subject for people, like smoking weed during pregnancy
and during like like breastfeeding, so like, well, we'll answer
that question and get your your feedback.

Speaker 1 (53:43):
So if you're not part of our patron community, you
better go ahead and click the link in this episode
of description and join our patreon A Good Mom's Bad Choices,
because that's a question. We get asked a lot about
cannabis and pregnancy, Like I can't at least once a week.

Speaker 3 (53:56):
I can do all the time.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
But you know why people ask you that a lot,
because you're you. You feel safe to people, well good
feel safe, source of safe, You're a source of safety
for them, because that's not something that people talk about openly.

Speaker 4 (54:09):
Well, I think people, Yeah, I mean, I've, I've I've
I've said openly that i've I smokedweed while I was pregnant.

Speaker 3 (54:15):
So I think also people a kid in my DM's like, hey,
I heard you say.

Speaker 4 (54:18):
I don't know why I'm doing the whisper voice because
in the DM but I feel I always feel like
they're whispering to me.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
On whisper mode in the DMS. Is that even possible?

Speaker 3 (54:27):
It should be.

Speaker 2 (54:30):
Lover money, love because money you can always fucking come
by giver or receiver receiver.

Speaker 1 (54:39):
Oh okay, most toxic trait Ooh, I get mad so fast. Oh,
what's your sign with the quickness? Capricorn? Really cappy cappy Capricorn?
Are you interstrology?

Speaker 2 (54:53):
No?

Speaker 1 (54:55):
No, not at all. Okay, hospital birth, yes, most pain
you've been in that wasn't physical.

Speaker 2 (55:06):
Ooh, most pain probably when my son had a seizure
and I it hurt me to not be able to
help him, like just on an emotional level, just like
really painful. And then just all the poking and prottying
that the hospital wanted to do, just like really hurt

(55:28):
me so bad.

Speaker 1 (55:30):
I can imagine when you see your baby.

Speaker 2 (55:31):
Oh, it's just like one of the most helpless things
I've ever been through.

Speaker 1 (55:36):
Pet peeve.

Speaker 2 (55:38):
Oh my god, which which fucking one? Bro? Like, my
husband's over there, he's over there laughing. My biggest pet
pet peeve, I would say, is God.

Speaker 1 (55:54):
Damn.

Speaker 2 (55:55):
I hate it when a dude is a Sarah husband
to his mama, so mom's born. I can't I really
can't stand that. Emotional incest ship, emotional emotional fucking incest.
Did that man's already married girl leave him alone? He's
married to his mom?

Speaker 1 (56:14):
Oh no, that.

Speaker 3 (56:14):
Happens so.

Speaker 1 (56:16):
Well. Speaking of that childhood.

Speaker 2 (56:21):
Trauma.

Speaker 1 (56:21):
Mm hm, your childhood was traumatic, I.

Speaker 2 (56:24):
Would say yeah, for me, it was.

Speaker 1 (56:28):
Therapy.

Speaker 2 (56:29):
Yes, absolutely, it's a good thing. Masturbation, Oh, it's a necessity.

Speaker 1 (56:37):
Do you masturbate on your own? Like, aside from your
husband this morning? Where was he at?

Speaker 2 (56:42):
Yeah, he was watching TV. I love that the hotel
room had with like the hand handle thing, you know,
And I came out of that room. Oh I'm a shower,
just so you know, like the pressure on that handle
thing was not quite strong enough, but a bitch really
did try.

Speaker 1 (57:00):
Right now. Love language, food, food, more kids.

Speaker 2 (57:11):
Hell, no, you're done.

Speaker 1 (57:13):
Absolutely not, you're done. Favorite sex position.

Speaker 2 (57:17):
I like the spooning position a lot. I just I
don't know, it just feels it's so much better in
that position, and I just feel like there's a lot
more like contact with the person.

Speaker 3 (57:28):
It feels like a morning sex like position.

Speaker 2 (57:31):
Yeah, it's very loving.

Speaker 3 (57:32):
Ye.

Speaker 2 (57:33):
Yes, it's roll over and stick.

Speaker 3 (57:35):
I'm hardly awake, and it.

Speaker 1 (57:37):
Also requires it doesn't require a lot of energy.

Speaker 3 (57:40):
We're both just like we're resting sex.

Speaker 2 (57:42):
My husband already know the boies.

Speaker 1 (57:46):
Well, all yeah, that's you poke it out a little.

Speaker 2 (57:48):
Bit exactly exactly.

Speaker 1 (57:52):
I got. Oh my gosh. Favorite position during pregnancy.

Speaker 2 (58:03):
Doggie definitely, Yes, definitely doggy. Yeah, it just feels like
the penetration was a lot deeper and like it like
your service is so full of like blood at that
time and it's sensitive, and it just felt like deep
to preenetration felt so good and like you just reached
down and like stimulate yourself.

Speaker 1 (58:21):
Yeah, I was.

Speaker 2 (58:22):
I was really bummed when the pregnancy was over. I
was like, well, there was all my good orgasms because
it's for me. It was like a hundred times more
intense during pregnancy. It was like out of this word,
give me that the moon.

Speaker 3 (58:35):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (58:37):
Last question, biggest regret, biggest regret.

Speaker 2 (58:41):
My biggest regret was definitely not standing up for myself
maybe a little bit more when I had my C section. Yeah,
that's probably one of my my biggest regrets. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:54):
Well I'm curious because you know, you said you were pregnant.
I'm not pregnant. You said you were still sexual during pregnancy,
and then you know, after pregnancy, you had babies quickly after,
so you're sexually active obviously as I was. And I
think a lot of women, you know, they struggle with that,
they struggle with trying to get back into their bodies

(59:15):
and feeling like their bodies, their body is theirs post pregnancy.
What what what did you do or what what was
the thing that kind of allowed you to kind of
stay in in that mindset and allow your body to
still want to receive after you know, giving so much,
because I think a lot of women are like, there's
no way I want to be touched after pregnancy, Like

(59:37):
what was the thing that you or what do you
think was the thing that still allows you to want
to be intimate right?

Speaker 2 (59:44):
Well, one, there's a lot of layers here, but if
you had any type of like traumatic birth, that is
a whole layer that you are adding on to trying
to get back into your own skin. Because even someone
just putting their fingers inside of your body to check
your service when it's you don't want it, it's not
a medical necessity, or and someone didn't even ask for

(01:00:06):
your informed consent, what do we call that? Assaults?

Speaker 1 (01:00:11):
Rape?

Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
And so we have a lot of this rape culture
that has leaked into the birthroom, and then we send
people home with their babies and go now get back.

Speaker 1 (01:00:20):
To fucking right.

Speaker 3 (01:00:22):
Now, serve your house.

Speaker 2 (01:00:23):
I really did right because you haven't been wanting to
have sex with him the whole pregnancy, and you know,
poor thing, you know poor.

Speaker 3 (01:00:34):
I would say, if you don't get to it soon,
I would say.

Speaker 2 (01:00:37):
I didn't feel like right back into my own body
until I had like my first like v back where
I felt like really like a lot more in control, educated,
made decisions for myself. My partner was really educated, really
on board with me, there with me every step of
the way. So that was a layer of connection more
that I had with him, more bonding that I had

(01:00:59):
with him. He showed up in a space of like
protecting me, being my king, you know, protecting me and
protecting his child. And so after you have the baby,
I'm just with looking at him with googly eyes, just
like I fucking love you so much and I'm so
horny right now. Right, So I feel like you have
to have your partner in that capacity, if you have

(01:01:22):
a partner of showing up for you in that space
to allow you to show up, you know, as a person, right,
because usually when someone has a baby, their own fucking
identity is being a fucking mother after that, and they
do that, so it's I can't stand it because they
go into your room every two minutes after you have
a baby.

Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
Hey mama, Hey mama, Hey mama, Hey mama, hey mama.

Speaker 2 (01:01:46):
Like I have a name, I'm a person. My whole
identity is not being a fucking mother, now you know
what I mean. So we almost strip people of that
as soon as they enter parenthood.

Speaker 4 (01:01:56):
Oh my god, it's so true, and it's so normalized,
Like no one you anymore, despite the fact that you
just birth this baby.

Speaker 3 (01:02:02):
They're only asking about the kid.

Speaker 4 (01:02:04):
And you know, like after I gave birth, there was
this feeling of, like you said, like being poked and
like you're just like a machine. Like I remember like
someone being in the room and my legs just being
sprawled open, and I didn't even give a fuck, Like
I didn't even feel like I was there, Like no
one cared that I was there. And I think there
is like a level of like ritual that has to
take place in your body, like in whatever it is

(01:02:24):
for you, in order like for you and your pussy
first and foremost, so that you can like still stay
connected to it in that process during pregnancy after birth,
because especially when you go to the hospital, there's there
things are being done to you and then you're just
like it's like I said, it's like you're just disenacted
from your bottom half.

Speaker 3 (01:02:45):
You're just like there.

Speaker 2 (01:02:46):
And it becomes a portal of information for people.

Speaker 1 (01:02:49):
Well, I think too, especially if you don't have if
you don't have a partner, like say you're having having
your child as a single mom or you know, shit
happens right, you don't have that support, like how how
do you get back into your body? And I think
a lot of it is is the ritual. And you know,
we have this beautiful golden vagina. I don't know if
you If you're on YouTube right now, you can see

(01:03:10):
beautiful chrome vulva.

Speaker 3 (01:03:14):
I'm so proud of it. I ordered it from Australia.
It took forty thousand days to get here.

Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
Literally, I was waiting for wheeks, one horse and carriage.

Speaker 4 (01:03:22):
I mean it looks like it could have right, it
looks like it got delivered to.

Speaker 1 (01:03:26):
The most beautiful Crimson vulvibe I think I've ever seen
in life.

Speaker 3 (01:03:30):
See my pink clip.

Speaker 4 (01:03:31):
It's beautiful and it opens up and like I got
it for TANTR school, but it's pretty much one of
my most prized possessions now that I waited ninety days,
but yeah, like I think even we've been having it
in the office and people are like, oh, I'm like, yeah,
what do you what do you think this is?

Speaker 3 (01:03:47):
It's the Yoni office.

Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
Well, I mean in the act, like they don't watch
porn like you watch porn on a regular basis. But
everybody's to be honest, like.

Speaker 3 (01:03:54):
Everybody came through this portal.

Speaker 4 (01:03:55):
You guys get like get acquainted and especially you as yourself,
get acquainted with.

Speaker 2 (01:04:01):
Your look in the mirror, look in the mirror.

Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
And you know, people have rituals for like their skincare routine,
their workout routine, but we don't have rituals for our
most intimate part, the part that really a is the
portal of life builds confidence. I always tell people, when
you feel confident in this part of your in your womb,
in your vulva, like it inevitably affects all parts of

(01:04:24):
your life, you just walk with a different sense of confidence.
And I'm just so grateful for Honeypots. The honeypot has
given us all these amazing products to create your own rituals.

Speaker 3 (01:04:33):
And I've been creating the rituals.

Speaker 1 (01:04:35):
Baby girl. They have this amber wood sandalwood foaming wash,
which is amazing. It keeps your pH balanced. It feels
amazing on your most intimate parts. And then the next
step would.

Speaker 4 (01:04:47):
Be using organic moisturizing lubricant. Not only is it loubing
you up, but it's moisturizing your labia.

Speaker 3 (01:04:54):
And most people don't put a lot of.

Speaker 4 (01:04:56):
Time and effort into moisturizing their labia, but it could
could dry and important to keep it moisturized.

Speaker 3 (01:05:02):
I love this shit. It smells so good too.

Speaker 1 (01:05:04):
I like this. This is essential stimulating serum, and I
love this because it actually it activates the sensations. More
so if you are someone that maybe suffers with not
I don want to say suffers, but struggles with numbness,
because that can be a thing, especially after a pregnancy.
This product right here, the central stimulating serum, is amazing
for that, and it has vitamin E, alo peppermint. And then,

(01:05:27):
last but not least, when you finally get to fucking
or coming, hopefully coming fucking or coming, these intimacy wipes,
they're also pH balanced, so you're not gonna be using
your nasty little rag that some your someone's son, nasty

(01:05:49):
son has in their little drawer next to their bed. No.
I just love how Honeypot has put so much effort
into really creating and helping women create rituals around connecting
back to their womb, connecting back to their vulva, connecting
back to themselves, because ultimately that is really really builds
so much more confidence and it's one of the ways

(01:06:09):
you start building autonomy in your body and being able
to advocate for yourself because you're connecting to yourself and
you're not ashamed of what your body can do.

Speaker 4 (01:06:17):
So I'm gonna start asking women, like, you know, I
was like, oh my god, what's your skincare routine?

Speaker 3 (01:06:21):
Your skin looks bomb. It doesn't really look bomb. I'd
be like, what's your vulva routine?

Speaker 1 (01:06:25):
Yeah, if you don't, you don't have one.

Speaker 3 (01:06:26):
You don't have one.

Speaker 1 (01:06:27):
That's crazy like that, that's kind of crazy. You should
go to honeypot dot Co slash GMBC and get twenty
five percent off and step up your ritual with your
vulva care.

Speaker 4 (01:06:37):
I think I'm going to start doing like YouTube videos
and now they're like step one. I'm gonna be like,
I'm just use my golden Yoni like step one. You
could you know, you know, yeah, normalize having vagina care
vagina rituals with honeypop.

Speaker 1 (01:06:56):
I mean maybe if I would have had a ritual,
I would have wanted to have sex after ignancy, but
I really, I literally felt so I didn't have I
maybe had sex four times during my pregnancy, not counting
really and I had to force myself. And then after
pregnancy again I had so much shame because I hadn't

(01:07:16):
had sex during pregnancy and now the baby wasn't in
me anymore, and I still didn't want to have sex.
And I couldn't understand why because I was attracted to
my partner.

Speaker 2 (01:07:24):
Of course, not you're stripped of modely autonomy. Yeah, that's
gonna be the repercussion.

Speaker 1 (01:07:28):
But I but I didn't even associate it with that.
I just was like, I'm just tired and this is
just normal, and you know, you know, and I was
looking at my partner, I was like, I do want
to have sex with you. I just maybe, like later,
maybe tomorrow, will let try in four days and.

Speaker 2 (01:07:43):
People, a lot of parents are really burnt the fuck out,
Like a lot of these daddies are not stepping in
and helping in the middle of the night am. They're
forcing people to do all the child rearing all on
their own. That's not fucking sexy, and it's not fucking sexy.

Speaker 1 (01:07:58):
It's single.

Speaker 4 (01:07:59):
Single parenting in a marriage or in a partnership is
worse than just being prepared to be well.

Speaker 1 (01:08:04):
That's the thing too, is like for the men that
are complaining about their women after birth and not wanting
to fuck, Like, what are you doing to make them want?

Speaker 2 (01:08:11):
They're not doing the dishes, they're not vacuuming and not
doing lunch. Something get in the middle of.

Speaker 1 (01:08:16):
Something has changed, Like a big thing has happened. Whatever
you used to fucking do probably ain't gonna work no more, sir.
You don't just get to roll up with a hard dick, no,
Like you need to massage me, you need to light
some candles that the mood make me feel sexy, because
a lot of times that's a big part of it, too,
is that we don't feel sexy in this new body
that we have. And it's and you might think we

(01:08:38):
feel sexy but it looks sexy, But we really need
that validation and we really need that love, and we
need that care. And I think a dish extra Yeah,
go above and be hones it's necessary. Someone's just fucking
you and being done. Then they're just using you to masturbate, right,
I'm not. They're just using your pussy as a way
to masturbate.

Speaker 2 (01:08:57):
They're not really getting to that level with you and
giving you what you need.

Speaker 4 (01:09:03):
And it's traumatic, Like I remember feeling after giving birth
like everybody was using me, like taking from me, and
my baby was sucking me fucking dry. People kept like
no one was asking about me, and like taking and
taking and taking. And then my fucking baby daddy asked
me for some head and I literally almost fucking killed him.
I couldn't believe that he had that fucking audacity to

(01:09:25):
asked me for some more shit.

Speaker 3 (01:09:26):
And I was just like I couldn't believe it. Like
it took.

Speaker 4 (01:09:30):
I felt so disconnected from my body, and it does.
It takes like levels of intimacy, just like kissing, like
you know, affirmations like maybe talk to my pussy nice.
I don't know, she's been through a lot, lots has
happened here. I'm fucking confused.

Speaker 3 (01:09:43):
And that was the thing. I wasn't expecting to feel
that like disconnected from my body after giving birth. I
was just like, what the fuck just happened?

Speaker 2 (01:09:51):
Well, people have normalized that though, that disconnection as well.

Speaker 4 (01:09:54):
Because no, women are not talking about it. No, like
afterwards your pussy hurts when you laugh?

Speaker 1 (01:10:00):
Yeah, I had no fucking on yourself after a C
section and not know why you peed on your sleep
or feel it.

Speaker 2 (01:10:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:10:07):
As a doula, is this is something? Is this something
kind of like you ever touched on with your clients,
like the after like I'm sure you do aftercare, right,
but like connecting back with their bodies and like getting
back into I guess feeling like yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:10:21):
And I usually start with asking him what is it
that you need that you're not getting right now? And
it's usually a whole ton of shit. The floodgates open
of all these things that they're needing and wanting that
they're not getting from their family, their their friends, the
people that they work for. There's so much right because

(01:10:43):
you can't just have a wet pussy on command like
that requires certain fucking elements and fluffy in place, you
know what I mean? And so that's where I start
with them, is what is it that you need that
you're not getting in this moment? Let's try to fix
that is that's a big question, you know.

Speaker 4 (01:11:01):
That's a part of like a part of our Tanser
training is like non violent communication, and it's like how
do I feel? Observing how you feel and then asking
what like and then what do I need to bring
myself to like a tense spot. And it's like for women,
we're so we're not often asked what is it that
you need? And so when someone poses the question, you're
like literally fucking confused.

Speaker 2 (01:11:20):
Some people don't know. Yeah, I don't. I don't even
know that I can have needs because there used to
being givers on their whole their whole lives right and everything,
everything in their family unit is contingent on you giving
two hundred at all times.

Speaker 3 (01:11:36):
Not receiving. Yeah, you know, we forgot to ask you
earlier in the show, but we always ask our guests, Uh,
if you have a affirmation for our listeners.

Speaker 2 (01:11:47):
My affirmation is birth is as normal as life gets.

Speaker 3 (01:11:52):
Earth is as normal as life gets.

Speaker 1 (01:11:55):
That's true.

Speaker 2 (01:11:55):
Yeah, it's a normal bodily function.

Speaker 3 (01:11:58):
None of us would be here.

Speaker 2 (01:12:00):
It's a normal boly function. People give birth, thousands of
them every day. By the second. It's a normal thing.
It's a normal process.

Speaker 1 (01:12:10):
I mean, we've normalized watching porn, should be normalized watching birth,
watching birth videos as much as you watch porn.

Speaker 3 (01:12:18):
I like, I've forced Orlanda to watch my birth video
when we were just dating. I was like, hey, look
at this something, and he's like, I don't hate.

Speaker 4 (01:12:26):
Like totally unsolicited, did not ask for this shit at all.
And then I'm he watched it and he called me
like fifteen minutes later like I'm crying.

Speaker 3 (01:12:33):
It's like I know, right, it's beautiful.

Speaker 2 (01:12:35):
It's beautiful. Sex, death, and birth are all within the
same realm, and the veils very thin between all of them,
and so that can also be a reason why people are.

Speaker 3 (01:12:44):
So scared of it, because it's close to day.

Speaker 1 (01:12:47):
It's just just in this thing altogether. I think one
thing too that people don't always have a real understanding
is is like how how much does having a duela cost?
Like I think people think either for people that can't
afford to go to the hospital, or it's a luxury,
and that it's like this thing that's beyond their means,
And I think I'm just curious, like what is an

(01:13:08):
average going price just for someone who's listening that's maybe
considering hiring a doula.

Speaker 2 (01:13:13):
That's going to depend on where you live, what skills
the dula actually has, because some dulas have had extra
training like in spinning babies and things like that, they
have these extra tools that they have. But I would
say maybe the going rate is anywhere from like seven
hundred to fifteen hundred, which for a lot of families,

(01:13:34):
that's a lot of fucking money, right, that's for a
lot of families that's not accessible. So you have to
ask yourself, can I find a duel within my community
that can help me? If you are a low income
and can't find the funds, there are lots of dulas
who do do community work, who will do a sliding
scale for you. I've definitely done work for free for

(01:13:57):
some people that just didn't have the money really needed
to support, like single mothers really had no support system
and bartering. Do you have something that you can barter?
I've had people barter me lawyer services, Like what you need, girl,
you got some criminal shit, like you need to clean
up contracts, you need red some records, Like like what

(01:14:18):
do you want? What can I barter you for dula services?
So like, yeah, definitely barter, what do you have to offer.
There's lots of dulas who will be like, fuck yeah, that's.

Speaker 4 (01:14:26):
So important to just asking about the price point of
like a doula. Even like, like I said, I was broke,
I really wanted to have a home birth that I
didn't have, like the five grand, but it was only
five grand back then, I know, now I was like nine.
I mean it ranges, but like and like the system
doesn't make it accessible because you can't get adula or
midwife with insurance because they want to. You know, it's
a system obviously, but just like the fact, like the

(01:14:50):
like the hospital price for birth is like thirty grand
that they charge your insurance, and like it's actually significantly
lower to have a midwife. But because Medicare or Medicad,
most of these health insurances will not cover it. People
just say fuck it, I don't have like I'm already
planning on having a baby. I don't have an extra
fucking five or ten grand. That's a lot of money

(01:15:11):
when you're planning to have a baby, and you got
to have a nursery and like you know, and like
all these other things. But it's just like again, they
make it so difficult to trust your body and do
the do the thing that's mostly comes most natural time.

Speaker 2 (01:15:25):
And these insurance companies don't even understand that if they
gave made mid wiffree care more accessible, that would lower
how much they're fucking spending.

Speaker 3 (01:15:33):
Right, because they're literally you guys would.

Speaker 2 (01:15:36):
Be spending less if you guys made mid with free
care accessible because physiological birth, there's.

Speaker 1 (01:15:42):
Not a lot of money in that, right, And that's
why because you don't really need to do there's your
body is just doing.

Speaker 2 (01:15:48):
What it needs to do exactly. But if we keep
living in the space of thinking that midwives are unintelligent
and dirty and dangerous, then this is where it's all
gonna lead us. Right, But like, consider if if you
don't have that many the funds for dual, reaching out
to someone who does community work in your area, and
if you're having a baby shower, ask these bucks to
kick in on a doula Hey, ten bucks, twenty bucks.

(01:16:13):
Start really thinking about like the things that you're buying
a lot of that stuff you're not gonna use for
your baby.

Speaker 3 (01:16:18):
I don't need half that shit.

Speaker 2 (01:16:19):
Right, You're spending like three hundred dollars on a fucking
white things exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:16:24):
The baby.

Speaker 2 (01:16:25):
That's money that can go to to some somewhere else
if you really wanted it to. And a lot of
these dealers will take payments.

Speaker 4 (01:16:33):
Oh when I was when, like I guess Lena might
have been like two. But I was doing lashes and
like I have a mobile spot. I was doing lashes
at people's houses. And I was doing this woman's lashes
and there was like a nice white family in the
suburbs and she was like, yeah, I'm gonna have to
hurry up and wrap this up because they're coming to Yeah.
She was talking to her husband like they're coming to
baby proof the house.

Speaker 1 (01:16:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:16:54):
We spent like three thousand dollars babyproofing the house.

Speaker 5 (01:16:57):
I was like, bitch.

Speaker 3 (01:16:59):
I was like, white people are crazy.

Speaker 4 (01:17:01):
Like I had a glass table, the baby figured the
fuck out, okay, Like, and she was feeling around like
humans tend to do. I'm like, so they're coming over
to put those little plastic things in all the plugs.

Speaker 5 (01:17:13):
Yep.

Speaker 4 (01:17:15):
Literally, I was like, I'm in the wrong motherfucking business.
I couldn't even believe there was a service that came
to baby house.

Speaker 2 (01:17:23):
There's services for damn near everything. Everything.

Speaker 1 (01:17:28):
Everything is fearful. Everything is gonna hurt as harm as
to kill us.

Speaker 3 (01:17:31):
And then and we allow the fear to penetrate, we
allow the anxiety like and.

Speaker 2 (01:17:35):
That's the core of it.

Speaker 1 (01:17:36):
We can't do anything. Everything is outside of us, is
what they want us to believe, including birth.

Speaker 3 (01:17:41):
Right right, even though it literally is inside of us.

Speaker 1 (01:17:44):
Literally, Well, they don't want us to know how strong.

Speaker 2 (01:17:47):
Imagine if if they allowed people to realize how strong
and capable they are. That's really dangerous.

Speaker 3 (01:17:53):
It's kind of like psychic about it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:55):
That's really dangerous. Like they don't want bitches to know
really how strong and capable they are.

Speaker 1 (01:17:59):
They don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:18:00):
It's just like they took away mushrooms and LSD. They're like,
we can't let them know that they have, Like, we
can't let them have access to this psychedelic that's gonna
let them know that like they.

Speaker 1 (01:18:08):
Are God never you know, you need to keep them
accessing only that two percent of their brain exactly.

Speaker 4 (01:18:14):
I mean, honestly, birth is like the supreme natural psychedelic.
You start to be like, oh shit, a bitch, I'm
on fire, I am super human. I don't need none
of this ship. Take these cards off me. Exactly get
me off this monitor, bitch. I don't need this goddamn ivy.
I'm hydrated. You know, you get so like for really,
it gets so clear after birth, like if you're empowered

(01:18:37):
in it.

Speaker 1 (01:18:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:18:39):
But speaking of fear, I know you're you're wondering about
your Tarot card reading. Yeah, I was like, we should
pull this the SIGs of pinnacles. It looks like a
rich man is like giving crumbs to to the homeless?

Speaker 2 (01:18:52):
Am I the crumb giver or the crumb taker?

Speaker 1 (01:18:58):
Looks like he has lots of wealth to share knowledge?

Speaker 3 (01:19:02):
Okay?

Speaker 4 (01:19:02):
It says giving, receiving, sharing wealth, generosity, and charity. So
you may be like the wealthy man in this card,
sharing your wealth and abundance with others. As you are,
you have accumulated great wealth and are now in a
position to offer financial assistance to those in need. You
give generously through charitable donations, tithing, or fundraising, and enjoy

(01:19:25):
the good feelings associated with helping others, even if you
are not financially wealthy. You offer up your time, energy, love,
and support to those who are in need, knowing it
will be appreciated. Giving of your time or your wisdom
is often just as spiritually fulfilling as giving away money
or gifts, and intangible gift of your presence is received

(01:19:46):
just as well, if not better. There may be times
when you wonder if you can truly afford to give
generously to others.

Speaker 3 (01:19:52):
And the wise advice that the six of.

Speaker 4 (01:19:54):
Pinnacles is to trust that every contribution you make is
valued and will come back threefold.

Speaker 3 (01:19:59):
And you are, you're giving us the wealth of empowered birth.

Speaker 2 (01:20:04):
Yeah, y'all choosing gonna have three of mine cars more
often because that ship was pretty was pretty.

Speaker 3 (01:20:09):
Spot on girl every single time. There's like literally every
single time, I'm.

Speaker 2 (01:20:14):
Not the crime catcher, be me.

Speaker 3 (01:20:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:20:19):
And I also saw that you you have a DULA
program as well, so you're paying it forward like we
have a I'm sorry, a mentorship mentorship.

Speaker 2 (01:20:25):
I'm starting my first mentorship program. I just feel like
I can reach more people in that capacity. If I'm
passing down my knowledge to other doulas, that can spiral
into thousands of people utilizing that.

Speaker 3 (01:20:41):
How long is the program I want to be a doula.

Speaker 2 (01:20:43):
It's a mentorship that's four months, okay, And so a
lot of the dulas who are coming into the program,
are like a newer trying to find themselves as a doula.
What they want to offer, what kind of clients they
would like to manifest for themselves, the business side of it,
how do I start getting clients? And even a lot
of the other stuff that people don't want to talk about,

(01:21:05):
which is what do we do with secondary trauma? What
do we do with racism?

Speaker 1 (01:21:10):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:21:10):
What do we do with someone losing their baby and
having a poor outcome? What do we do with feeling
like you're one hundred percent responsible for someone's birth?

Speaker 1 (01:21:20):
What do we do with that?

Speaker 2 (01:21:21):
Do you do with that? Those are big emoments?

Speaker 5 (01:21:23):
Do you do with that?

Speaker 2 (01:21:24):
Really big emotions?

Speaker 3 (01:21:25):
I mean, what do the doctors do keep they just
go see you in six weeks exactly?

Speaker 1 (01:21:30):
Do you have what before we leaeve? Because I know
we got to get out of here. I'm just curious
what is like the what is the type of client
that you would take on versus the one you wouldn't
as a doula? Like is there a client have you
been clients there? Clients who are like yeah, no.

Speaker 2 (01:21:44):
Thanks, yeah, the kind of client that I wouldn't take on.
If someone someone thinks that having their birth is one
hundred percent contingent on me getting that for them, right,
if they're trying to handle over the responsibility to me
to unravel their fear, to unravel their traumas, I can't

(01:22:04):
do none of that for you. Like that's all work
that's within you that you have to unravel. Can I
guide you to those places and give you a map?
Surely I can, But I can't do that right, Like
I can't pick your provider for you, right, and so
I don't. I tend to not pick clients that want
to hand over all that responsibility to me, or clients

(01:22:27):
that I've had. One lady ask me one time, Man,
I wanted to flip the fucking table, she said. She said,
So if I don't have a vaginal birth, do I
get to pay you less? What? I was like, bitch,
bye girl bye. But as of now my calendar is full.

Speaker 1 (01:22:41):
See you never.

Speaker 4 (01:22:42):
But you know what, I think people underestimate women don't
really realize the amount of trauma that comes out comes
up during pregnancy. It could be like a relationship with
your mom, like you know, like how you know how
you were parented, Like there there's shadow work that is required,
you know, during pregnancy and after that like that, people
don't really put it like shed a lot of light

(01:23:03):
on you. No, I'm happy you said that. There's a
responsibility that you have as you know, the birther to
you know, dig into some shit that maybe you've ignored before.

Speaker 3 (01:23:11):
And sometimes it's like sexual trauma.

Speaker 4 (01:23:13):
Yes, sometimes it's like, you know, parental shit, you know,
your relationship with your parents. But there are definitely it's
a spiritual like.

Speaker 2 (01:23:20):
It's a spiritual journey or it's a human experience. It's
gonna uncover all the pieces of you that you thought
you had buried really fucking deep, and it could potentially
bring up memories that you didn't know were there before.
And all of it could be unraveling in the middle
as you're trying to give birth. And so I do
have those conversations with my clients previous to them giving birth.

(01:23:40):
Is there anything you want to tell me? Do you
have any traumas, any experiences, anything that you want to
talk to me about that we can start unraveling now,
because it's going to be harder for me to help
you when we're doing it in the moment of your
giving birth, and it's not going to be as helpful
in the moment.

Speaker 3 (01:23:55):
Any fear stored in your body and your wolves, that
shit will come up when you're like or wherever you
don't feel empowered. It'll like trigger some feelings from like
maybe a time you didn't feel empowered in your body.
So yeah, I think that's like something that we don't
talk about enough.

Speaker 2 (01:24:10):
That No, and you have to create an extra space
if you know that you're going into your berth with
these these layers, you have to create a bigger space
of safety with your team, which is talking to them
of I don't want you touching me unless I give
full informed consent. I don't want your hands inside of
my vagina. I don't want strangers in the room. I

(01:24:32):
do not want the lights on. I do not want
to hear any sounds setting real lines in the sand. Right,
because one birth is really simple, but it's also very complex,
and any one little thing can completely stop or slow
the labor and sabotage the whole fucking thing. Right, we
have to be really protective in that space.

Speaker 1 (01:24:56):
It makes me almost want to do it again.

Speaker 4 (01:25:00):
Like half don't tell Orlando, but like half the reason
I want to do it so I can have a
home birth.

Speaker 3 (01:25:04):
I already told them, like I don't really do chi.

Speaker 1 (01:25:06):
Orlando doesn't want to have a home birth.

Speaker 3 (01:25:08):
No, I that's most reason.

Speaker 1 (01:25:10):
Don't tell Orlando, but he's editing this whole episode.

Speaker 3 (01:25:12):
It's more of that. I want to Half the reason
I want to have a baby is just to have
a home birth.

Speaker 2 (01:25:18):
Now, let me ask you this, what would happen if
you didn't have a home birth?

Speaker 3 (01:25:21):
Yet I'd be fine. I mean, I've done it.

Speaker 2 (01:25:24):
And that's the question that I ask a lot of
people too, because they want to do over. Yeah, They're like,
I want to do it, like I just want it
to be how I wanted it the first time. And
I have to ask them, what is are you going
to spiral if it doesn't work out the way you
want it to Because that's a possibility, right, because nature's
gonna nature do. Nature's gonna do its thing right. But

(01:25:46):
if you stay participating in your care, when if the
shift happens, right, like, it'll make us feel better about
the outcome, right, Because that was definitely a thought in
my mind, Like sure I wanted to be back, but
what if I don't get my baback? How the fuck
am I going to feel like I don't. And even
till now, I'm like, I don't even know what would
have happened to me if I would have had another

(01:26:06):
C section. I really don't know. I think I would
have really spiraled, to be quite honest. And so that's
if that's the possibility, how do we move with that?
How do we move with that? Because a lot of
people go into their pregnancies going my body just works
and everything's just gonna be fine, and then it doesn't work,

(01:26:27):
and it's like, I wish I would have never thought
that my body just works.

Speaker 1 (01:26:30):
You have to just surrender to the birth.

Speaker 2 (01:26:32):
You have to surrender to the birth that is for yours, right,
but like you have to surrender when you feel like
you've ticked all the.

Speaker 1 (01:26:41):
Boxes right, like I'm informed everything that I know that
this time I did it, and then and then you
let it go, and then you let it go.

Speaker 2 (01:26:50):
With my home birth, that was definitely the intention that
I set for myself was I'm going to do all
this leg work and then when I'm actually in labor,
I'm not going to fucking think about anything. I'm just
going to give birth and that's gonna be it. And
that's the intention that I had, and that's what happened.
Nobody even saw my vagina until my baby's head was

(01:27:11):
coming out. I had no cervical exams, nothing. I was
just simply moving through the contraction one at a time
and not thinking of anything else.

Speaker 3 (01:27:21):
Right, You can't think about much else. No, not a
lot of brain power happening.

Speaker 2 (01:27:27):
Just no. And that's part of the problem with advocating
for yourself right, because when you're giving birth, you lose
this kind of layer of being able to think adequately
and make those informed decisions in that moment because you're
on this birth planet. You're not supposed to come off
of that birth planet to make fucking decisions right and
dealing with people and coercing you and feel and all

(01:27:47):
that shit.

Speaker 1 (01:27:48):
I'm doing my my biggest job of all time right now.

Speaker 2 (01:27:50):
It's the equivalent of like trying to have an orgasm
and someone's like, here's this algebra. Literally to come at
the same time while you're doing right, like birth has
to take you to the highest capacity of oxytocin that
you're ever gonna have in your life for this baby
to exit your body out of your vagina. Anything that

(01:28:11):
interrupts that it's gonna fuck. It's gonna fuck with it,
because that's just fucking nature, because nature goes, Wait a minute,
is it not safe to give give birth to this baby?
Is their predators out here? Why do we suddenly have
adrenaline and quarters on? And why are we thinking about things?
What the fuck is going on?

Speaker 1 (01:28:26):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:28:27):
It's natural?

Speaker 3 (01:28:28):
That's true. Well, thank you so much for this is
I could talk to you forever about birth.

Speaker 1 (01:28:34):
I love birth.

Speaker 3 (01:28:35):
I love birth.

Speaker 4 (01:28:38):
For those of you listening, we're gonna we're gonna stick
around a little bit longer and ask Flora a couple
after dark questions on Patreon. I also just remember that
my birth video is on Patreon too nice. So if
you want to see me give birth, it's beautiful. You'll
cry and you want to hear you know, Flora shed
some light on cannabis and pregnancy and all those good things.

(01:29:00):
Be sure to join our Patreon at patreon dot com.
Backslash Good Mom's Bad Choices and you know where to
find us. Good Mom's Underscore Bad Yeah, Good Mom's Underscore,
Bad Choices. And I'm Mela Underscore map with two p's, and.

Speaker 1 (01:29:15):
I'm Erica at Watch Erica and Flora. Where can our
people find you? Tell them all the things whatever you
want them to know.

Speaker 2 (01:29:21):
Badass mother Birther on Instagram, on Facebook, I am a
Badass Mother page and I'm also on YouTube. You can
go to my website which is a Badass mother Birther
dot com and read a whole bunch of other reading materials.
Is join my mentorship if that's what you want to do.
I also do childbirth education, which is four weeks loaded

(01:29:43):
with information physiological birth interventions, how to handle if the
plan goes left, see sections, epidurals, all the good stuff
that everybody I believe needs to know before they have
a baby.

Speaker 1 (01:29:56):
They do well. Thank you so so much, and you guys.
I want to remind you guys that we are going
back on the road, so make sure you click the
link of this episode description. Come to our LA show
on October twenty first at the Teogram Ballroom. I'm so
excited to turn up with you guys. It's been a minute.

Speaker 5 (01:30:16):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:30:16):
Our last tour was called was it Good Mom's Gone Wild?
Oh yeah, and this tour is Confessions of a Good Mom.

Speaker 3 (01:30:25):
You know, we keep it sexy, so it's going to
be a little naughty.

Speaker 1 (01:30:30):
You have anything to confess, make sure you hit the
number in this episode description and call our hotline share
your hories. We need some hories. Please share your hories.

Speaker 4 (01:30:38):
Eight one eight, two one three zero seven four nine
and we'll see you guys next week.

Speaker 5 (01:30:43):
Bye, spot Ellen J.

Speaker 3 (01:31:05):
Solova record the Lalas and Elass

Speaker 1 (01:31:17):
M hm

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Bad Ass Mother Birther Feat. Flor Cruz