Ep 98: Our Birth Story - Part 3: Q&A

We're getting deep and real about bringing Oisin earthside, answering all your questions about birth, fear, and how partners can dance together in this sacred ceremony of birth. Meg shares her journey of complete surrender while Jacob reveals how he learned to hold space without getting in the way.

This isn't your typical birth story - it's a raw, unfiltered look at what happens when you trust your body's ancient wisdom and let go of everything you think birth "should" be. Whether you're preparing for your own birth journey, supporting someone who is, or just curious about what unassisted birth really looks like, this conversation will change how you think about birth forever.

They also riff off on:
• Why we chose to birth without fear (and how we got there)
• The delicate dance of masculine presence in birth
• How to support without saving
• What real surrender feels like in labor
• Creating an unbreakable birth bubble
• Building trust before the big day
• The art of holding space (without hovering)
• Preparing your nervous system for birth
• Protecting your sacred space
and so much more...

🔥 Love this episode? Don't forget to subscribe and share your thoughts in a review. We love hearing from our listeners!

🔥 Let's stay connected:
• Follow Meg: @the.meg.o
• Follow Jacob: @thejacoboneill

🔥 Want more?
⚡ Grab our relationship freebie: https://meg-oneill.com/relationship-freebie
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⚡ Join Full Spectrum Woman: https://meg-oneill.com/full-spectrum-woman
⚡ Connect with Lesley: https://www.instagram.com/lesleypowellbirthkeeper/

🔥  Listen to the other episodes here:
Ep 95: Birth story Part 1: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/ep-95-our-birth-story-part-1/id1667686687?i=1000675946442

Ep 96:Birth Story Part 2: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/ep-96-our-birth-story-part-2/id1667686687?i=1000676851388

Ready to dive deeper? We work with individuals and couples - slide into our DMs to learn more!

#sacredbirth #birthwithoutfear #naturalbirth #divinefeminine #sacredmasculine #birthstory #podcast #intimacy #relationships #consciousness

Episode Transcript

Unknown (00:00):
Yeah, I just in the really challenging moments,
because there were, there wereintense fucking moments, I just
kept coming back to my only jobis to surrender. How can I give
myself over to this even more,and even in part of the labor, I
think this was in my transition.
I started saying yes, yes, yes,yes, as the contractions were
moving through me. And it was away of kind of being like, Yes,

(00:21):
I give myself over to this, thisintensity. Yes, I give myself
over to what is happening. I'mnot trying to resist it. I'm not
trying to push it down. I'm notscared of it. I'm just giving
myself so fucking completely tothis experience. You

(00:43):
music, yo, yo, yo. Lovers,welcome, welcome. Welcome to
sex, love and everything inbetween. We're the O'Neills.
You're here with Megan Jacob,and this is the place we have
really uncensored conversationsabout sex, intimacy and
relationships. We're superexcited you're here. Enjoy this
episode.

(01:06):
Hey, lover, hi. How are you? I'mgood. Yeah, you look amazing.
Thank you. You sound amazing.
Like my accessory. Love youraccessory. What do you call him?
Oh, I call him, yeah, oh, she,oh, she. I have a very sexy baby
carrier right now, though,you're very happy with that. I'm
very happy with it. Thank you.
Out of Pope, yep,whatever they're called, they

(01:27):
areI love. I was anti them because
I thought they're a bitfeminine. That's like, I'm a
man. I don't carry a baby in thecarrier. Then I put it on. I was
like, carry a baby in thiscarrier everywhere I go. Now,
when I was pregnant, Jacob waslike, I was like, I'm getting a
carrier, and we've got thebamboo carrier, and then we'll
have this. He was like, I won'tbe carrying the baby in that.

(01:49):
I'll just and I was like, Whatdo you mean? He's like, I'll
just be holding the babywherever we go. I'm like, Okay.
And very quickly, I didn't sayanything, but very quickly, you
realized it's good to have yourarms free. And I didn't realize
that you had to carry them allthe time. Like when you sit them
down, they wake up. And, youknow, I was like, I thought you
carried it for like 10 minutes.
They fall asleep, they put themdown, yeah, then they sleep for

(02:11):
like three hours. But that's notwell, our baby doesn't do that.
Our baby is a contact never. Heloves to sleep upright, yes, on
us at all times,but we are back. This is part
three of the birth series. Howmany parts are we doing?
Three and then we're doing apostpartum episode now, okay,

(02:33):
yeah, so, and we didn't want todo so many, but we got so many
birth questions. We weren'tgoing to do this episode, but I
thought I would just answer thequestions on Instagram stories.
But I gave you guys the optionon Instagram stories to vote,
and everyone wanted, well, noteveryone, majority wanted,
everyone. Majority wanted apodcast episode. So here we are.
We're gonna answer a bunch ofyour birth related questions,

(02:55):
and some of them we kind ofcovered in, well, we didn't
cover them specifically, butthere was, like, you know, we
told the story in part two. Soif you haven't heard the birth
story, go back to part one andtwo. But we're just going to be
answering your specificquestions today. Yeah, and these
will kind of give us theopportunity to, like, hone in on
the specific questions as well.
I feel like we did a really goodjob of explaining the the

(03:15):
experience of the pregnancy andthen the birth. And then this
will give us a chance to speakto some of the key themes, I
think, which, which are veryreal in the birth world for a
lot of people. Shall We? We?
Shall okay. There was a lot ofquestions similar to this, did
you at any stage feel scaredduring birth? If, yes. How did

(03:38):
you navigate this? And there'salso some questions around, did
you have fears, Jacob, did Ihave fears? Were these fears
present in pregnancy, and didany of them actualize in birth?
So just a question about, werewe scared? Did we have fear?
Yeah, do you want to answerfirst? No,
you don't have fears. Or youdon't want to answer first?

(03:59):
I don't know. No, I might myanswer is, I don't think I had
fears in the birth space, likewhen during the birth I had
store a lot of stories come up,and a lot of because of the way
that we approached birth andpregnancy without any

(04:19):
medical attention, there was alot of unknown. So I had a lot
of,not necessarily fear, but had,
like, a lot of like, oh my god,what ifs what if? What if? But
then as soon as the labor kickedin, there wasn't, there wasn't
fear for me, no. And I didn'tjust to speak into what I felt
from you. I did not feel anyounce of fear in the birth

(04:43):
space, and even in pregnancy,you never really projected you
were very clear that you wantedLeslie there in the moments that
I was like, maybe we could justdo it ourselves.
Yeah, it was very clear that youwanted you. You wanted some.
And they're supporting just thespace as well. But I don't think

(05:03):
that was coming from a space offear. That was just more this
would feel energeticallyappropriate, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But that wasn't like, yeah. Thatdidn't feel like fear, no, um.
And that was like the energeticsof a birth space, any kind of
ceremony, the energetics areparamount. They're so fucking

(05:24):
important.
And I did not feel you bringingany ounce of fear into the birth
space, which allowed me to justbe so fully present in what I
was experiencing. Yes, and Ithink this is the work of both
the woman giving birth and herpartner is to do the work. And I
feel like this is one of thereasons why we have a nine month

(05:46):
pregnancy, or about that is toruthlessly meet any ounce of
fear in the body so that you canenter into the ceremony of
birth, clear yes, and liberatedof any stories that aren't going
to serve you and liberated, of,yeah, any fear that's embedded
in the body, and you don't haveto do that in the nine months,

(06:08):
but if you don't do that withinthat time, or you haven't done
that before falling pregnant,I truly believe that is going
you are going to meet that Inthe ceremony of birth. There's
no escaping that, or you mightfind yourself in a birth
experience where you'rebypassing that ceremony and
giving your power away tosomeone else.

(06:35):
Yeah?
So yeah, I just I feel like youdidn't, I didn't feel any fear
from you, and I just think thatwas such an imperative,
important part of thatexperience that enabled me to
have the birth that I had. Yeah,and
obviously, like, it's your it'syour rite of passage, it's your
experience. Buta man's energetic state can

(06:56):
heavily influence a woman inthat birth, in birth, and your
environment is so, so importantwhen giving birth. And I was
aware that I was a part of thatenvironment, yeah, so
even before you were pregnant,obviously I was doing a lot of

(07:16):
work to build a nervous systemthat was capable of being with
someone who is going through ainitiation,
which is thinking, then there'sso much of a focus in our
culture when a woman is pregnanton fitting out the nursery and
painting the nursery wall andmaking sure the nursery looks
perfect and beautiful. Andwhen I think of like I do, birth

(07:39):
for me is a rite of passage.
It's a ceremony that isn't,that isn't what is necessary in
leading up, that isn't thenecessary preparation for the
rite of passage of birth. Ourculture doesn't really speak
into the importance of, yeah,ruthlessly scanning our body and

(08:00):
looking for fear that mightexist around bringing a child
into the world and birthing. Andthis is, again, this is for the
woman, and this is for herpartner as well. And the other
piece that really, like, didn'tfeed any of those stories we
were ruthless in like, scanningand like, I know that you were
very clear on making sure yourbody was, you know, your

(08:21):
emotional body, the somatic partwhere you were very, very clear
that you were a vessel that isgoing to bring this baby into
the world healthily and happily.
Yeah, but we didn't feed any ofthose stories with bullshit. We
weren't listening toanyone that was giving us
information that would create usthat would take our power away
or make us second. Guess whatis, you know, innately, the most

(08:43):
natural thing a woman can do,yes. So we were really clear on
not on meeting our own fear. AndI'll speak into what arose for
me in a moment. But yeah, wewere so fucking clear if anyone
was projecting anything into ourspace that wasn't ours. Yes,
even sometimes I felt that frompeople. I didn't feel a lot of
it, to be honest, no, but I wasI, we just weren't available for
that. Yeah, like, no one reallycame and was like, you should

(09:06):
have a midwife there, or youshould do this. Maybe that's
what some of the people aroundus were thinking. But we
energetically sent out themessage that we're not available
for you questioning this. Youbringing your own fear. That's
yours, correct? You think ifyou've got a fear of us birthing
at home without anyone there,that's yours. That's not ours.

(09:28):
That's not our story. And Ithink that is like, that's
necessary in the way that wechose to birth. If you're
choosing to birth unassisted andsovereignly, you cannot be open
to the opinions of others,because people are going to have
fucking opinions. Our culture isfucking scared of birthing in
that way. Our culture is scaredof birth full stop. But yeah,

(09:50):
you have to create a chamberaround your family so that that
noise can't get in. Uh huh. I.
Yeah, my answer to this questionaround, did I have fear?
Honestly, no,yeah. Like I did not. And I the
and I spoken to this in parttwo, my fear was,

(10:14):
Is anything going to happen inthe space that is going to
penetrate the energetic bubblearound my birth. So I shared
again in part two, go andlisten, if you haven't already,
Jacob was running the gatheringof men T gon his big men's
retreat, and I ended up givingbirth that same same weekend, so
he didn't go. But because theywere running simultaneously,

(10:36):
there was this feeling of, oh mygosh. Are you going to be fully
present here? Are you going tobe needed somewhere else? Am I
going to start giving birth andyou're not going to like just
all of that? That was my biggestfear, and also Django, our dog,
my fear was again, somethingpenetrating the birth space,
like me going into labor, andthen someone having to come and

(10:56):
pick up our dog and me feelingenergetically, someone
penetrating the birth space andthe birth ceremony.
So they were my fears in termsof like, fears around actually
birthing and bringing my babyinto the world, I genuinely did

(11:18):
not have any fears arise duringmy pregnancy or during the
birth.
And I know that's not justbecause I'm lucky. That's
becauseI have spent the last like my
work was not in my pregnancywhen I said before, we need to
scan the body and see if there'sfear there, and then be

(11:39):
ruthlessly devoted to meetingand alchemizing that if we want
a liberated birth experience.
I didn't do that in pregnancy,because I've spent the last 10
years before that doing that,like unfucking myself from from
the system, stepping out andtaking my power back and for me,
realizing that the medicalsystem doesn't have much for me,

(12:03):
except for in emergencysituations, and really
Reclaiming my own power, andreally for years and years,
doing the work of descendingfrom my head. Used to be a woman
that lived in my head, doing thework of descending from my head
into my body.
Andfor me, that is the work that
prepared me to birth, becauseI've been devoted to living in

(12:25):
my body. I've been devoted totrusting the ancient wisdom of
my body, the ancient wisdom ofmy womb and pussy.
I just trusted her. I trusted,I trust. I had a relationship
with that part of me and trustedthat I trust nature, I trust our
physiology.

(12:48):
And that's actually surprisedme. During pregnancy, I thought
things would come up. I was kindof waiting for things to be
like, Oh, am I going to beafraid of this when it when's
the part of me going to comethat, oh my gosh, I'm really
afraid of pain, or when's thepart of me that's gonna come
that's like, oh my gosh, I'mafraid that something bad is
gonna happen. Andgenuinely, that didn't arise for
me again, not because I feellike I'm lucky and that just

(13:10):
didn't come up then, it'sbecause I've done the work of
meeting all of that before thistime.
Yeah, so I think the work needsto be done at some stage.
Sometimes it's during pregnancy,sometimes it's in the mother
fucking moment of birth. Othertimes it's it's before the rite
of passage altogether, yeah, atsome point you're gonna have to

(13:33):
do the work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ijust want to speak because a few
questions also asked, Did I havefear, or was I scared of dying
in birth, or did I have fearduring the birth?
And no, I again, during mypregnancy, I was really meeting
for me, for me. I was enteringinto birth, seeing it as a

(13:54):
ceremony. And we've done a lotof plant medicine work. And I
know you go into a plantmedicine journey.
You take the medicine, and thenit's just full fucking
surrender. There has to be arelationship with the medicine
and a trust in the medicine. Andyou can't go into that
experience with fear, or thatwill be amplified back to you,
but you enter into it beingwilling to go wherever the

(14:17):
medicine wants to take you.
And so for me, I did the workof, you know, clearing out any
fear that I had, and thenentering into the ceremony of
birth, just letting it take mewherever it wanted to take me.
And so there weren't any momentsof like, oh my gosh,
why is this happening? Or why isthis painful, or why is this it

(14:39):
was just like I just in thereally challenging moments,
because there were, there wereintense fucking moments, I just
kept coming back to my only jobis to surrender. How can I give
myself over to this even moreand even in part of the labor, I
think this was in my transition,I started saying yes, yes, yes,
yes, as the control.

(15:00):
Actions were moving through me,and it was a way of kind of
being like, Yes, I give myselfover to this, this intensity.
Yes, I give myself over to whatis happening. I'm not trying to
resist it. I'm not trying topush it down. I'm not scared of
it. I'm just giving myself sofucking completely to this
experience.
Yeah, so it's a big no.

(15:24):
And I want to honor the women.
I'm not saying you know that youshould feel wrong if you are
having fear arise, or even if aman, when I said, don't bring
fear into a birth space if youare the partner of a woman, I
stand by that personally, yeah,but I'm saying don't like you're
allowed to feel it, just don'tproject it into the space. And
if you would have felt fear, Iguarantee that you would have

(15:46):
taken yourself out of the space,or you would have, you know, you
you wouldn't have gone, oh mygod. You wouldn't have tried to
change something in myexperience to make you feel
better. And that's what whensomeone projects when someone
feels fear. That's like, if afamily member felt fear about
the way that we were choosing tobirth,

(16:08):
and they were then trying to,like, not feel that fear, they
would have told us you shouldn'tbirth in that way. You need a
midwife so they could feelbetter about it. And so, yeah,
you're allowed to have yourexperience of fear,
but don't. Don't project it ontoyour woman. Don't make it her
experience. Don't bring thatstory. Don't try and change or
save her or change thecircumstances so that you feel

(16:29):
better and safer.
Uh huh, yeah.
Any more about fear? No, I thinkyou've definitely well and truly
covered it. Okay? I think that'ssuch an important piece that
question came through like,seven or eight times, yeah, I
know. And I think it's like,like, there's this themes to
these questions you said beforethe podcast, like, that's an
important one to address, notfrom a righteous place, but from

(16:52):
a hey, like, we didn't have fearbecause of this is how we've our
life has been designed, and whatwe've done to meet these moments
fully. And if you do have fear,then that's okay. But like,
there's an opportunity to workwith that, whether you whether
you've already given birth,whether you want to get you want
to get pregnant, you'repregnant. Regardless where
you're at. You can constantly bein

(17:13):
in relationship with, like, oh,where is the fear of my body?
Can I scan and find this part ofme? Yeah, and be with this and
learn and ask what it's here toshow me,
and I also just want to speakinto what we said before around
like the nor tuning out from anynoise. That's so if you're
listening to this and you're yetto give birth, or you want to
give birth again in the future,and you want to trust birth, go

(17:35):
and fucking turn up the volumeon women's voices that trust
birth. Like for me, Ibrainwashed myself with the
story that birth was safe. We'renot even safe birth. I could
trust birth, and birth was goingto happen in my body, whether I
liked it or not, and my only jobwas to let go and allow birth to

(17:57):
happen. So if you if you want tohave if you want to trust birth,
turn down the noise of peoplethat do not trust birth and put
yourself in circles or listen topodcasts that really deeply
trust birth and trust a woman'sbody and physiology. Uh huh.
Okay, next kind of theme ofquestions was, how did we

(18:20):
connect during the birth and howdid Jacob find reading Meg's
cues during the different phasesof birth?
Yeah, do you want to keep thisone off?
I would say.

(18:42):
How do we connectfor me, and this is why I loved
your the way you showed up forme in birth, it didn't feel like
a shared experience. It feltlike I was having an experience
and you were witnessing me, yes.
So it wasn't necessarily abouthow can we create deep intimacy

(19:03):
in this moment as we're sharingthis experience? I was just so
fucking in in it. I was so in mybody. I was so in the experience
thatI wasn't like looking to connect
with you. You weren't connectinglike you weren't there were it
wasn't an outward energy. No,you were connecting in with
yourself. This was your journey.

(19:26):
Like, that's what I like peoplelike, yeah, the man, you know,
if he's yes and I wasconnecting. I wasn't necessarily
connecting. I wasn't trying tobe deeply connected to you. I
was really just being thecontainer and giving you full
permission to be whatever youneeded to be, yes and not. And
literally, my practice was tostay, stay, stay hollow, to stay

(19:48):
clean of any story, judgment orfear that could have potentially
been projected into or onto you.
Yeah, and that, then for me,like the dynamic that we created
was like.
You are going through a rite ofpassage, and I'm here to witness
and hold the field ofhighest timeline, highest

(20:08):
potential, and try and deeptrust and almost like,
how do I say this? Mostly justlike, hold that hold that
vibration. I don't want to makeit too spiritual, but yeah, like
vibrationally, ensuring thatthis space was appropriate for
you to havethe birth experience.

(20:31):
Yeah, and not let, not letmyself, not let anyone else, and
just tend to the edges. So theway that I would connect with
you is like, Kate, your waterbottle is full. Okay, yep. You
want to hold my hand. Okay, yep,all right. Food, okay, yep, Jen,
go out of the room. Okay, yep.
Feel the feel the birth. Okay,yep. Towel, okay, yeah. Like, I
was just aware of what wasmoved, what the space needed,

(20:52):
and then I would just actappropriately, or act
accordingly. When you say, like,oh yeah, your water bottles
filled up. You weren't evensaying that. No, you weren't
going, Meg, I filled up yourwater bottle. Meg, I'm filling
up the birth pill. Meg, I'mdoing this. You
and I said before, I was justfocused on going down and
inward, like descending into mybody. You were just doing

(21:15):
whatever you knew to do tosupport me in that process. So
it wasn't as if we were, like,gazing into each other's eyes
and trying to connect over thisexperience. It was, how can Meg
just be so deeply in this andhow can you support that, to
like, support me, to make thathappen. And in the moments where
I did like, there was a lot whenI was in the birth pool, I was

(21:37):
like, I was super solo in theshower for hours and hours and
hours a little boy snoring,but when I came out into the
birth pool, I was I was touchingyou for majority of the time I
was in the birth pool, but itwas more. I needed your hands. I
needed to grip I needed to rubmy head against your hands. I
needed the times I made out withyou. It wasn't, oh, let's share

(21:58):
this intimate moment as our suncomes out the world, it was, let
me eat your face, because I needto meet this intensity with more
intensity. If there was a timewhere I experienced fear, it was
when you said, I want to makeout with you, and you just
literally, just like, starteddevouring my face. That was

(22:20):
like, I think she's gonna bitemy lip off. I'm scared to put my
tongue anywhere near her mouth.
Thatwas the only time I probably
really, you asked me what feelslike, Oh, my that was the only
time I got slightly overwhelmed.
Yeah. Was when I felt like I wasgonna be dragged down into the
pool and drowned and eatenwhole, yeah, by the dark
feminine. The dark feminine. Um,yeah. And then even just talking

(22:42):
about, Oh, do you want to justspeak to, like, picking up on my
cues? Or maybe, how did you knowwhat was needed in each moment?
Or how, how did you, how did youdecide how to how to be in the
space, or what to do in thespace? I literally think about
everything as a hero's journey.

(23:03):
Like this might seem likeslightly left of center, but
like there's 17 stages to thehero's journey, and I just track
that whenever I'm watching amovie, whenever I'm in an
experience, like, not to saythat this was like watching
a movie, but like she's at stagefour,
transition to stage five of theareas I'm not narrating that I'm
just like, attuning to. Oh, thisis the point where she's going

(23:25):
to need this. So this is thepoint. This is the point in the
journey where I need to actuallypull back. Yeah, all right. And
like you going in the showerwas, was the perfect point where
you went, like you went inward,and you had to have a moment to
really be with yourself. Andalmost like in that shower, you
weren't saying these things, butwhat I took from you being in
that shower was like, You arenow arriving at the point of no

(23:46):
return. This is happening, andI'm going to reconcile that, and
I'm going to ground in, and whenI come out, I'm on the other
side of the threshold. I knowthat I'm coming out, and I'm
about to hop in this pool andI'm going to have a baby, yeah.
And there was almost like a notan acceptance, but a readiness
that came online when you cameout of that shower. And I think
if I had been in there askingyou questions and infiltrating

(24:08):
the space and really tarnishingthe experience for you, I would
have not you would not have goneas deep as you needed to go. I
would have kept you tethered tokind of the surface and needed
you to come up and say, I'mlike, oh, what's down? Then you
come up, just, there's this,this and this, and then you go
back down. And, yeah, but, butwhat are you doing now and then
you'd have to come back up andbe this constant, like, re

(24:30):
three stabilizing and having to,like,
just like when you freedom,you've got to equalize. You have
to keep equalizing and comingback up. And I would have really
just caused, caused a wobble inthe in the process. So for that,
it was like, Cool Meg's in theshower. She's got this. And that
was a moment where I had to go,do I trust this woman?

(24:53):
And that's the thing that Ibelieve a lot of men really
struggle with. And what I thinkis actually at the core issue of
the greater i.
Collective suffering is that wedon't trust the feminine. And
this is my journey with thebirth experience, and what I'm
starting to write about my I'mcurrently writing, and it's got,
you know, I'm tracking it backthrough my lineage. You know,
all of the times that thefeminine wasn't trusted, and all

(25:14):
the times the feminine wasn'tlistened to, and all the times
that the feminine did miraculousthings that were never really,
deeply, truly honored for whatthey did. So in that moment when
you're in the shower, yeah, it'sjust you hopping into the
shower, and I'm out here feelingthe birth pool, but what
internally was shifting for meon like not just an energetic
level, but like a generationallevel, was I deeply trust the

(25:37):
feminine, and I trust itsability to guide and create
life.
And I do not need to interfereor intervene, and I do not need
to place my hands on thatexperience. I can witness it,
and I can facilitate acontainer. I can facilitate this
without needing to facilitatethis, if that makes sense.

(25:59):
And that was the humility, like,Oh, she doesn't get me in there,
like, rubbing her back, or, youknow, breathing with her, or
somatically clear, anything sheneeds to feel the birth pool.
And I trust her. And like, Ididn't, I didn't, like, remove
myself from this person, like,I'm not gonna go and sit down on
the couch and, you know, checkedout. And I think this is just a
really important piece. Youweren't. I don't. I don't even

(26:23):
remember you asking me how I wasthroughout the entire
experience. And I appreciatedthat, because, like you said, if
you would have constantly beenchecking in, how are you how are
you feeling? Are you okay? Areyou okay? That would have been
more about you, yeah. And if youfelt that I needed that, you
would have maybe brought that,but that would have been more
about you, like, are you? Tellme you okay? Are you okay? You

(26:45):
didn't ask me that at all, butat the same time, you weren't
lying on the couch fully checkedout at the experience, I could
feel. I knew like that wouldhave felt like shit, but I knew
you were out here, and I knewyou were in your own ceremony
with this, and I knew you wereholding and I knew you were
practicing the trust piece, youwould have definitely felt at
any point in time. If I hadhopped on my phone, you would

(27:06):
have your fuckingphone. And that's the piece
like, just because I wasn'thands on and deeply intertwined
with you in those moments, thatdoesn't mean that I had the it
wasn't,it wasn't, it wasn't free time
for me to go and sit on thecouch and watch a movie. It
wasn't free time for me to comeand, like, scroll my phone or to
go go outside and do somethingand all just get something, just

(27:28):
get some chores done. No, theceremony is the ceremony. And
energetically, I was connectedto you, but I wasn't
enforcing any of my will ontoyou, yeah, and that's a really
and this is why men really needto do their work leading into
any kind of rite of passagethat you will be holding, that

(27:50):
you are a part of, or you willbe holding, like whether it's
marriage, whether it's birth,whether it's any of these kinds
of things, you need totrain your nervous system to be
aware of the intensity thatoccurs in these moments and not
get not try todown regulate someone else when

(28:11):
they need to actually be in thatactivated state. And you get to,
like, just expand aroundthat because you're when you
need a window of tolerance thatis greater than probably what
you've got right now, if youhaven't done the birth, yeah,
and that's the thing. There yougo. You go. I was just gonna say
a woman, what a woman needs, andI'll just speak from what I felt

(28:33):
in the experience. But I feellike I can speak for the women.
I feel like I can expand thisout. Do what a woman needs in
birth is to be reflected back toher, her power. Yeah, she
doesn't need someone being like,are you okay? Oh my god, oh my

(28:55):
god, oh my god. She needs, sheneeds to move through that
initiation. It's only her, onlyshe can walk through the fire.
No one can do that for her, noone can walk through the
intensity of birth for her. Andour culture tries. Our culture
tries to our culture does ittakes that initiation, it tries
to take the fire away from thewoman so she doesn't have to

(29:16):
walk through it. But I trulybelieve, biologically and
physiologically, we aredesigned, even spiritually, we
are designed your job as havethe band walking through that
fire isn't trying to dull thefire or prepared for mother get
rid of the fire. It's just tolet your woman know I believe in
you. You can walk through thatmotherfucking fire. I am here. I
am witnessing you. I mean, allof you right now, walking

(29:39):
through that fire, you've gotthis Yes, and that might sound
like words, that might just belike your presence in this
space, but that's like theenergetic piece, knowing that
you can't save her from, fromfrom it. Yeah, just like in the
intensity of motherhood, youcan't save her from.

(30:00):
You know the journey that she'sgonna move through there too?
Yeah, I'm just thinking like, ifyou're someone who's listened to
some polarity teachings, andyou've probably gotten a little
rigid in your ways, like thebirth space is really a dance of
the masculine feminine withinyourself and within your

(30:21):
partner, and knowing how to movemore fluidly in ceremony. Be
everything time. Time wobbles.
Space wobbles. Things becomelike,
quite lucid, and you have to bewilling to play in that world.
And if you are coming in, you'retrying to lead your woman,
because you're masculine and youneed to, like, direct her, you

(30:43):
have completely and utterlyfucking lost the plot. Yeah,
bow down to the feminine thatyou you will be invited to
literally, yeah, being topractice reverence. And
reverence is really I, I am herein service to you, but I also

(31:04):
deeply trust you and where youare going.
Yeah, and the way that I look atthis, if you want to apply it to
nature, is that what is actuallyguiding the war the river. Is it
the water, or is it the banks?
And for me, the water isactually creating the it
actually, if you have a look atany time that the water will
spill over and continue the pathfirst, then it'll find its way,

(31:24):
and then the banks will appear.
So if we want to talk aboutfeminine leadership, Oh, I love
that, yeah. So yeah, if youpour, if you pour water, banks
don't just appear. It'll findits course. And that's why you
need to actually have a adynamic nervous system as a man
that isn't just like, this isthis, and this is this and this

(31:44):
is this. That's how we've gottento the position we are with
birth, with all of this medicalapproach, which I don't really
agree with. And for me, if youdo the work to understand the
feminine within yourself as aman, and you what your masculine
qualities are, and thenactually, like exist in a more
of a place of wholeness. Youdon't ever need any you don't

(32:05):
need anything from your womanwhen she's going through these
moments,because if you need something
from her, you're going to betaking her out of what of her
experience. I need you to beokay. I need you to tell me
what's going on. I need to knowif you're dilated. I need to
know if you're you need a drink.
If you need to know something,you've immediately,

(32:28):
for me, you've immediately lostthe frame, if they handed over.
I need you to make it. I needyou to tell me what's going on,
rather me witness and trust yourguidance. And to then feel my
feel, feel myself in the space,and then it tend to the edges.
Water, bottle, towel, trustingyourself, I think, is a big
thing for a man, trusting, yeah,which is the same, like, there

(32:51):
were probably moments where,especially at the beginning of
my labor, where you were doingthe like, applying pressure to
my low back, and sometimes itwas like, not enough pressure at
all. And I'd be like, I didn'thave when I was moving through a
contraction, I didn't have thecapacity to talk a lot, so I'd
just be like, harder, or like,ah, like, ah, too hard. And that
probably would have sounded if Iused that tone or said any that

(33:15):
in any other context, it wouldhave been harsh. But there also
has to be a thing of trustyourself, but also don't take
things personally. Like, massiveif you're touching a woman and
thinking, Oh, this will make herfeel so good right now, and then
she's like, fuck off. Like,well, fuck off, and don't take
it personally.
That didn't happen so much inthe birth but when I've been
sometimes, I was gonna say thatthat's also practicing that

(33:37):
within the relating space oflike, you're phenomenal at this,
and have been for many yearswithin our partnership at like,
trying something and beingwilling to fail, yes, but, but
knowing that it's moremeaningful for you to trust
yourself instead of sit back andwait for wait to be like, oh,
what does she need? Or what islike? Oh, I'd rather make the

(33:58):
wrong decision than no decisionat all. Yes, and that's the and
that's the willingness piece,yeah, but um,
if you, if you are not what Iwould say, if you don't feel
deeply connected to your partnerbefore birth, then your level of
attunement will really, reallybe tested if you haven't making
the time to connect with eachother leading into the birth so

(34:18):
for the nine months, like wespent a lot of time together, We
connected a lot, and we wentthrough some really, we cleared
our nervous systems. There's alot of things that we had to
work through, not major things,but just sticking points that
were like, Yeah, we were beingcalled to the gates of
initiation. SoI would say, if I was to, like,
just finalize my statement. Islike, make sure that you are

(34:41):
prioritizing your connectionleading into the birth and then
in the birth space when youarrive. Your responsibility as a
man is to attune to the fieldand trust
the your woman who is having herexperience.
Andalso not withhold but let your,

(35:04):
any of your reservations, move,be felt and move through you,
and do not let them contaminatethe space.
And that's, yeah, that's thework. I
just want to speak into one morething around connection, just

(35:26):
something that I know you werereally intentional about, is
that when oshi was birthed, whenI birthed him, you didn't jump
into the pool, and you wereactually and if you watch the
footage, you're you're you wereso intentional about just
letting me have that moment andletting me and I was looking at
you, and we were making eyecontact, and it was so you were

(35:49):
like, you know, managing Django,as you started to jump around
and get excited, but it wasn'tas if you were disconnected. But
you weren't trying to go like,Oh, give me. Let me touch him.
Let me touch you. I didn't touchhim
for like, an hour, probably, I,like, literally, let I might
have just stroked his head ortouched him slightly, I think
sometime in the first little fewminutes. But I didn't try to

(36:12):
take him or get in between youand him. Yeah, I didn't, like, I
was like, this is and because Ilistened to the podcast of,
like, the free birth. But it'slike, oh, like, this is I'm just
thinking about. I was like,Yeah, imagine if someone tried
to, like, come up, like, when Ido vision quest. Imagine if you
came up and sat with me for thelast morning after I've just
been through three days of,like, going through, like, the
throes of fasting and being withthem, you know, the challenge of

(36:35):
the initiation, and you come upand you try to sit with me and
talk to me while I'm trying to,like, embrace the last, like the
almost like the final moments ofgold before I step through the
the the completion, and stepback into the the known world.
And I'm like, imagine that.
Imagine how much, howfrustrating that would feel.
Yeah. I'm like, Ah, this islike,

(36:57):
this is her moment, and this isher and no Sheen's moment, and
it's theirs. And if I can letthem have that, what does that
mean moving forward? Like, howdoes this then influence our
relationship? And we actuallyhave this healthy and I feel
like we've had a reallybeautiful postpartum experience
because of,I really am proud of how I've
held myself and not tried to getin between. I've never felt like

(37:20):
I'm trying to get in between youtwo, or I'm not getting enough.
And another podcast that I justrecorded with a guy, Dan Thomas,
we were talking about like selfbecoming self resourcing, or
something along those lines. Andit's like, where am I trying to
get something from you, or fromocean that I could actually find

(37:40):
within myself and actually likenow is the time that I need to
be even morecapable of that, because we're
moving through like the thisseason, which is, you know,
things are changing. We'refinding a new way of being.
I love that.
Sorry. I definitely overtook youthen. No, that's fine. I really

(38:01):
loved that. I just knew that wassomething you intentional about.
And so yeah, in watching thefootage back, it was like, oh
yeah. Like, I, it's, I'm, I'mmaking eye contact with you, but
I'm still just having my momentwith him. Yeah, and I stayed in
the pool for an hour holdinghim. Like, it felt like 10
minutes, but it was an hour,just like spending that first
hour, him on my breasts, likeholding him and still connecting

(38:24):
with you, connecting with Lesliein the space. But it was very
much. It wasn't all this, likean intimacy of us three. It was
just still the two of us. And Ithink that was you're cracked
wide open, yeah. Like you werepeaking. I was peaking. Like
whatever the is it dopamine orthe oxytocin? Oxytocin? Yeah.
Like, you were high AF. I reallywas. And imagine if I came in

(38:47):
tried to take that, like, takethe the experience, oh yeah,
infiltrate that experience formy own game. Like, no. Like,
that was the beauty was in me.
The beauty for me was in thewitnessing of that connection
between you and OSH. And thatwas the piece. It's like, the
beauty isn't in me getting tohold him or touch him. It's
witnessing the connection. Andit's like, cool, like, this is
the, yeah, this is the the nextgeneration. Like, this is the

(39:13):
thing that's here to carry onmy, you know, my blood and what
I stand for. And it's like, howcan I be that from network from
the very beginning? So that wascool. And
what else I want to say? Onemore thing, sorry I wanted to
say, I just, I just think, like,it's so easy for us, it's so

(39:37):
easy for men to want to help.
And that's what I want to reallysay.
Like, don't feel like for men,like, if you are feeling like, I
need to help. I need to dosomething like that, that can be
your own discomfort with. Like,being in the seat of the witness
and stillness is a greatpractice for that. But like, for
me, it's like, oh, like, this isall I have to do right now is

(39:58):
see the beauty in this moment.
Don't need to quickly run andgrab the house. I don't need to
all of a sudden get up and startcleaning up straight away. Like,
let this moment be enough. Yeah,don't stop. Don't get up and
start cleaning up and like,okay, yep, onto the next thing.
Like, there's no rush, and therewas no urgency, and that for
that hour, it felt timeless.
That was like one of thosespecial hours of my life, and I
and I was getting to witness,you know, the miracle of birth?

(40:19):
Yeah, there was a photo that isLeslie's favorite that she took
where you were leaning back onthe on the bookshelf, yeah, and
I'm still in the pool with OSH,and you were just like, staring
at us both. And I think thatencapsulates that, that hour
after birth really beautifully.
And again, it wasn't as if youweren't, you weren't like,

(40:43):
you know, trying to be like, toget something from that moment.
But you also weren't checkedout. You weren't like, Oh, I'm
not part you were, you weremaking yourself known in the
space. It as the witness. Andit's the whole thing which made
there was deep intimacy in that.
There was deep intimacy in inyou witnessing me in that. Yeah,
okay. Next questions, yes.

(41:05):
Let me see. What have we got?
We've used that one. There wassome questions around, How did I
manage the pain? What tools didyou feel were most useful during
the different phases of birth? Ium,
yeah, so around like, managingthe pain.

(41:28):
My answer to that around, like,How did I manage the pain? I
didn't like, I don't believewe're meant to manage
pain in the birth experience,I met the birth experience with
I'm not here to manage it ormake the pains go away or make
the pains less. I'm here to meetthe pain, or I saw it as
intensity, because for me, itwasn't that pain of, like, ah,

(41:51):
even though right at the end,when he was like, just about
before then I thought myclearance were going to split
into exploding, there was thatmoment of I went, Ah, but it was
more like a descent, like adescent into deep intensity
and and the deepest intensityI've ever felt in my entire

(42:14):
life, in my body.
But I wasn't trying. And I thinkthis is why I had such a
profound birth experience is Iwasn't trying to escape or
manage the pain. I was goinginto it.
I was meeting it. I was sayingyes, yes, yes to it.
I was welcoming it.

(42:37):
And this is a huge part of whatI teach in all of my work,
especially in full spectrumwoman and my sexuality work.
It's how can we like butradically accepting? What is how
can we and I teach women to say,Hi, you're welcome here. You're
welcome here, whether that'sintensity or grief or rage or
whatever it is. A lot of thetime the things we're most
uncomfortable with, we're goingto try and push away or get rid

(42:58):
of or manage. We try and manageour emotions, manage our grief,
manage No, we go the fuck intoit, and we let it annihilate us.
We let it obliterate us, and wesee who the fuck we are on the
other side. And that's that tome is walking through the fire.
That to me is initiation. Thatto me is rites of passage.
You're not meant to holdyourself back or manage your way

(43:23):
through it. You're meant to letit obliterate you and crack you
the fuck open.
You're powerful.
What did Leslie remember whenyou were talking about the 10s
machine? What did Leslie say?
Like, this is a good someone wassuggesting that I get a 10s
machine, which is, I don'tactually even know. I think it's
like, I think it vibrate, itdoes something to kind of manage

(43:43):
the pain, yeah, and you put iton you, and a few people have
suggested it. And my my physicalresponse was a no. My intuition
was saying, like, I was justlike, No. That doesn't feel true
for me. But I messaged Leslie tobe and Leslie was our birth
keeper, I messaged Leslie to belike, Hey, what's your feelings
around this?

(44:05):
I just keep coming into myfield. I think I told her I was
a no, but I'd love to hear yourthoughts on this. And she came
back to me, voice recorded andsaid, Hi, darling.
Hello, darling. Hello, darling.
We love you, Leslie. We knowyou're listening.
She said my question to youwould be, why are you trying to

(44:27):
manage the pain, or why are youtrying to escape the pain? Yeah,
and then she knows, and then shewent into more but, and it was
so I knew. I already knew shewas so fucking incredible, but
that moment, I was like, Yes,this woman is so fucking on the
same page as me and the samepage as us that the experience
of birth and the things that I'mgonna feel aren't things to

(44:49):
manage. And it's not, oh my God,let me grab all the tools that
are not gonna have me feel thething. It's like, No, you're
here to feel the thing. How canyou just feel the thing and
surrender to feeling the thing?
Like,so we didn't use a tensor Jean.
There was a point. And I'm thisis like, I'm not taking away
from birth, but like, when I didmy 100 case, there was a point
where my feet felt like peoplewere stabbing knives in the

(45:10):
bottom of them. And I kepttelling you, do you want me to
go home and get you actualshoes? Yeah, but there was
something about meeting thatpain and like, and actually,
every time I'd step I'd justimagine, like, a knife going all
the way up my foot and justlike, but like, like, allowing
the pain to, like, not just stayI wasn't, like, resist the pain
would come all the way up andthrough my body. And I could, I
remember that feeling of beinglike, holy shit, like, this is

(45:32):
this is intense. This isintense. But the the more I
welcomed it, the more I was ableto be with it, and that's what
I'm hearing. Like you wereyou're not saying that there
wasn't sensations that wereintense, but you wouldn't there
wasn't any real point where youresisted those, and rather than
come through me, move throughme, allow them to come through

(45:55):
your body. And like I think thatsays a lot about the the work
that you've done to create ahealthy like, energetic and
emotional flow through yourentire body, so you can use your
full somatic range, rather thanit just being located in your
genitals or located in yourbelly or located wherever that
that sensation is, you're ableto, like, ripple it out into

(46:16):
your body and allow it to, like,literally, alchemize. Yeah, I
love that you said that, becausefor me, and if you're a woman
that wants to give birth but isyet to give birth, fuck, I could
not recommend best birth prep,like sexuality work and feminine
embodiment. Work like get intoyour fucking body. Learn how to

(46:36):
breathe and sound and move withyour emotions. Welcome. Learn to
live a life where you're living,you're existing, you're deeply
rooted in your body, in yourpussy, in your womb, and you
know how to move through theworld from that space. That's
birth prep, right? Learning howto welcome the whole spectrum of
emotions like that is theultimate birth prep. To me, not

(46:59):
and sorry, but like, not like,Hypno birthing affirmations and
things like that. Again, I feellike they take you out of it's
like, oh, how can I, you know,get out of this experience,
hypnotize myself so I'm nothaving that. No, like, how can
you fucking welcome it? This isexactly what Dana and I were
talking about around like thethe shift from like mindset into

(47:20):
like embodiment, like into likedescent, work, yes, and that's
what sexuality, you know? WhatI've noticed is a lot of people
in the you know, developingthemselves, growth spirituality,
they'll develop their theirmind, or they'll go from the
head to the heart. But for thepeople that I see that are
deeply embodied and really like,live the work and live the the

(47:42):
teachings that they've absorbed.
They go from the heart down intothe body, like right down into
the lower part, whether it'stheir genitals, their legs, all
the way through their nervoussystem. And that, for me, is
like the piece that I thesexuality work has been so
powerful for for you, for me,for our relationship, and then
for the birth of this littledude. Yeah, and I second that, I
think if you can explore your,you know, the your sexuality,

(48:07):
and go into that, and how manytimes have we spoken on this
podcast around like us havingsex and then you like wailing or
crying and allowing it to movethrough you? Totally the same
tools I learned to bring into mysexual experiences, whether this
is self pleasure or partneredsex is the same tools I use to
move through my birth. Who isI'm going to breathe with this

(48:29):
sensation, I'm going to sound.
I'm just going to be with thissensation in such a deeply
embodied way. And then acontraction would finish, then
it was like, okay, my only workis when that next one comes to
breathe and sound and move withit, not to resist it, not to
wish it wasn't there, not tolike, like someone saved me from
this. It was no okay, here'sanother one. Let's fucking go.

(48:53):
Let's go.
Okay, you're amazing. Thank you.
I'm really fucking loving thisconversation so much. I feel
like there's pieces of eventhough we've spoken about it for
hours already on the podcast,there's pieces that like, yeah,
they're just being activated. Wehad a, I don't know if you've
seen that message from a lady.
She messaged us both a voicenote. I haven't listened to it.
Yeah, but the essence of she'slike, Thank you for telling your

(49:15):
story. Because I didn't knowI I didn't know what you guys
knew. And I wish I had of I wishI had it. Yeah, and she, she
said, you know, the experiencethat she had wasn't, you know,
the baby's healthy, and she'sall that. So she's like, I can
see now whereI gave my power away. I can see
now where the fear was morepowerful than my belief in trust
in myself, and that was becauseI didn't expose, I didn't keep

(49:38):
my environment clean. She waslike, speaking about she's like,
Thank you for telling thisstory, because I now know how
I'm going to approach birthmoving forward. So at any point
like this, these stories and theway that we're speaking, it's
not to sit on a pedestal orabove anyone. It's like, this is
this birth experience we had wasdeeply intentional.

(50:00):
Even before we realized we'reconscious of what we were doing,
why we were going and doingthese ceremonies, or this, this
work, it was all very mucharound finding deeper connection
to ourself, which then led toour, yeah, not our, I don't want
to say much about our attunementand our ability to move in a
space and meet what what isactually there and not run from

(50:21):
it, not avoid it, not manage it,not deal with it, not outsource
it. Because we know the value ofgoing through the experience and
coming out the other side. Weknow that that because we've
done it so many times and we'vesupported each other to like,
actually like, integrate it somany times after a ceremony
where maybe you feel wobbled, orI feel wobbled like, what the

(50:42):
what the what the what the andwe land it, we've built a
relationship with initiation andrite of passage that says I know
What I'm stepping into isunknown, and I, and I trust

(51:02):
myself to meet that, because onthe other side of that is is
beauty, on the other side ofthat is rapture, is ecstasy, is
bliss. On the other side of thatis like timelessness.
Spacelessness, their presence iswhat we're going to experience.
And that's that's because wehave trained ourselves in that
way of living, and it's notabout better or worse, it's just

(51:24):
about, can you bring moreawareness to this? So you are
choosing exactly what it is thatyou want, and not letting anyone
else tell you. And yeah,override your
knowing. You know, we shareeverything on the podcast
anyway, so we're always going toshare the birth story. But a
huge part of why I'm sopassionate about sharing this is

(51:46):
because I would not have birthedin the way that I birthed if it
wasn't for the many women thatcame before me and chose to
trust their bodies and chose totrust birth and then share their
stories. Yes, because again, Iflooded myself with free birth
society podcast before I gavebirth. And yeah, it I've had so
many messages from women, eitherwomen that are yet to give

(52:08):
birth, or women like the womanyou were talking about, who you
know didn't know.
And then now can see, wow, if Ido this again, I'm gonna fucking
trust myself. And this is aprovision slip to trust myself.
So, yeah, I fucking love that.
That's so moving to me.
Okay, I think we've just gotmaybe one more question. Let me

(52:29):
see what we've got.
Answer this in three words, howdid you feel immediately after
the little one came out?
Calm.
Content and calm content andready. I I didn't have the big I

(52:59):
didn't cry, I didn't, like,explode and like, have this
like, moment of magical. I waslike, of course, it was a real
it for me, it felt very normal.
Was it like, sorry to interruptyou, but it was like, was it
like, our wedding, you know,like both of us kind of cried
when we saw each other. Thenwhen we were during the

(53:21):
ceremony, I just could not stopsmiling. And we were just, we
were just locked eyes the entireceremony, like smiling the
biggest smiles at each other,just in complete, well, I felt
in complete joy, and thatsurprised me about the day, and
I cried a little when OSH cameout, but it was more just like,
Oh my God, he's here, he's here,he's here. And then I was just

(53:42):
like, like, you said, Hi. I wasso ecstatically joyful and high
and yeah, that's that surprisedme too. I thought I would be
like, yeah, a blubbering mess. Ithought I was gonna like, yeah,
like, bore like, like, ugly cry.
But I was like,calm, content. And I was like, I
was like, this isand now we begin this journey.

(54:06):
It felt like it felt more likethe beginning of something that
I've been ready and waiting forfor a later time. Yeah. And
didn't feel like I yeah, Ididn't feel, I think if I hadn't
felt more fear, I probably mighthave felt more relief, relief,
yeah, whereas, because I was Ifelt grateful, but I didn't feel
like that, that that, that Ididn't need to have a huge

(54:26):
release of relief, yeah, in theform of, like, crying. So it was
um, yeah, the three words arecool, cool, calm, content and
just like, yeah, and grateful.
Okay, next, justthese are just all the other
ones from before.

(54:52):
Were there any parts of us thatwere hesitant to go unassisted
with your birth? My answer is nothat. And the more I listened, I
just felt.
This as a calling. I just knewthis was the way we're meant to
birth. And then the more andmore I listened to stories of
women birthing unassisted orfree birthing, it became so
fucking clear to me that Iwanted nothing to do with being

(55:13):
in a hospital, or nothing to dowith having a medical midwife in
my space, because that felt lesssafe to me. I believe women
should birth where they feelsafest. I felt safest at home,
not with a medical provider,because I felt like I wanted a
physiological birth. I wanted noone else to touch my baby. The

(55:34):
only way that I truly believedthat was going to happen was if
no one that was licensed, or hadan agenda, was going to be in
that space. So for me, there wasnever any question about the way
that I wanted to do that. Yeah?
And I think that what I hear inthat is like you wanted to be
respected and empowered by thosethat were in the space, rather
than have someone else tell youwhat was going on with your

(55:57):
body, yeah? Or telling me that,oh my gosh, it's taking too long
we need to get transferred.
Like, honestly, in my opinion,that's bullshit. Your our body
births babies like birth like,what is true in ceremony? What
is too long in the ceremony?
Yeah. And I believecomplications unfold when a
woman is put into fear, and whena woman is told you're taking

(56:21):
too long, or your baby's toobig, or this needs to happen in
the next hour, or you're goingto get transferred, that fear,
the closure that that then putsa woman's body into or
contraction like what unfoldsfrom that creates complications.
I believe, I believe there'ssuch things as emergencies in
birth, but I don't believe theyare at the degree in which we're

(56:44):
told they exist, from whichwomen are told this is an
emergency, when really it's justthe care providers not fully
trusting the woman on birth.
Totally okay.
I have very strong opinionsabout this. Now.
Did any concerns arise aroundwild pregnancy and birth? No,

(57:06):
the felt. It felt more everytime. The more we looked into
it, the more aligned. It feltlike I was like, this is what,
this is what feels right.
Okay, let's finish with this.
Let's finishon our birth keeper. So how long
did we know that our birthkeeper for? And I would love to
know how the birth keeperhelped, any pros and cons. So,

(57:28):
you know, in Cinderella, whenthe fairy godmother turns up and
changes her entire life for thebetter, that's what Leslie did
for us. She was our fairygodmother. And yes, that's all I
have to say about that. Lesliewas amazing. No cons like again
Leslie, and evenI think some people still feel,

(57:52):
whenwe talk about having a birth
keeper, still believe that shewas there and she delivered the
baby in some way, or she, no,she was an energetic support.
Leslie walked in an hour beforewe gave birth. She told me, I
gave birth. She held my hands.

(58:13):
She whispered in my ear, go tothe place you know you can go
to. She took photos. She tookvideos. So her energetic holding
was, I'm not saying she didn'tdo anything. I'm saying her
energetic holding was amazing,but it was what she didn't do
that was the most fuckingimportant thing in the space.
She didn't come in being like,here I am. She didn't try and

(58:34):
say things that weren't needed.
She didn't try and check me. Shedidn't touch me when I didn't
want to touch me. No, she wasjust there, present in the
space, just like you unwavering.
And Leslie has done the work toclear herself of fears around
birth. She trusts birth. Shetrusts women. So she knew she
was going to be there forhowever long it fucking took.

(58:56):
She was never going to tell me,Hey, Meg, this is taking too
long, the babies like, let's ifcome to push, she would never
have said, Let's transfer. Thatwas always going to be an in an
unassisted birth. That's alwaysthe woman's choice. There's
never anyone else saying there'ssomething wrong here or there's
something here, you know. So allpros for Leslie. Fucking love

(59:20):
Leslie. How long did we know herbeforehand? A month? Yeah, a
month, because we had anotherbirth keeper, and that fell
through. So we met her at 36weeks. So five weeks probably,
and we had probably threesessions with her, where she
came to our house and asked ourown birth stories and got to
know us as a couple, andgot to speak through any fears,

(59:41):
which, again, we didn't reallyhave much of, but I got to share
around my fear, around T Gon,and is it going to overlap and
he's going to Jacob, going to beavailable? And and it didn't. It
didn't like I said it was nevergoing to from the beginning, but
we just got to really connect.
And there was such it. UsuallyLeslie would spend.
A majority of a woman'spregnancy, getting to know the

(01:00:02):
family, but there was such adeep intimacy there immediately
for us, and then she supportedus just until last week, like
seven weeks postpartum, andshe'll probably just keep
coming. It's gonna be our bestthing. Yeah, we love it. But the
pieces that I really loved aboutLeslie, that I there was this
really strong alignment ofvalues and a respect for Meg's

(01:00:24):
experience. You really respectedMeg as a mother, as the mother
that she was becoming, and shedidn't once ever make it about
her, which I think is a reallykey thing to look for if you're
wanting someone to hold spacefor you, if you are seeing this
as a ceremony in a rite ofpassage, not just something that
you're doing,the that that piece, that she
was very clear on, this is Meg'sexperience, and I'm here in

(01:00:46):
service to that, not I'm the I'mthe professional, I'm the
expert. She wasn't making, shedid not make it about her once,
and that is so important,because there's energetics in
the birth space. I that I'veeven felt where people try and
make it about them. They need tovalidate their own sense of,
like, grandiosity. But for sothat was really important. She

(01:01:07):
had, like, the qualities that Iwas looking for was incredibly
nurturing, because I washolding, you know, you, and I
wanted her to then be able tocome in and because I was, I was
holding and I knew I wasn'tgonna be able to be deeply
nurturing in ways that a womanwho's been through this could be
so for me, like she's She is amother. She's incredibly

(01:01:30):
nurturing. She never once madeit about herself, and she
understood the energetics aswell as the the the the physical
physicality of birth, and eventhe way that she came into the
room, even the way that she sheknocked and checked before she
stepped in,not once did she try and touch,

(01:01:50):
oh, sheen or pick up something.
She was so, so conscious of whather energy was doing in the
space. I remember when we wereafter we burnt the cord, and if
this was whenever we took theplacenta out and looked it was
like the next day or the dayafter, she's like, darling. Do
you mind if I can I touch theplacenta? I was like, of course.

(01:02:13):
And I was like, Oh, wow. Howmany times has have women just
had their placenta grabbed orpulled out of them, their baby,
someone's grabbing their babybefore even they get to Yeah,
and Leslie didn't touch hersheen for a month. No, she, I
think a week. I think she, itwas when I did the Yoni

(01:02:33):
steaming. Oh, yeah, maybe yeah,it was, it was at least a week.
And she'd come for multiplevisits before she touched him?
Yeah. And, like, yeah. And wedidn't say, Don't touch him.
That was just her choosing, thatshe was respecting. I don't need
to touch him. I'm gonna respecthis energy field, and I'm gonna
respect, you know, the What'sshe wasn't trying to go, Oh,
give me baby cuddles. I wannatouch him already. No, she was

(01:02:55):
like, I'm just here as a witnessto this family having given
birth. So there's what I what Ijust to wrap it up, I guess. And
we should put Leslie's Instagramhandle in the yes, yeah, oh my
gosh, anyone just DM me and Ican send you, but yeah, we'll
also put a bullet. Butessentially, the the piece was
like there was a strength, thatthere was a gentle strength. It

(01:03:16):
was this gentle strength. Andthat's something, you know, I
Leslie, you know, she's, she'sjust this little pocket rock.
She's this amazing woman, butlike, there was a strength that
was undeniable in her thatdidn't ever flood the space or
become about that strength wasnever about her. It was always
filtered through a deep humilityfor birth, not just you, but for

(01:03:39):
birth in general. And she hasreverence for birth. And that,
for me, is what you know. Idon't know much about birth
keeping but from what myexperience with Leslie, I can
understand the reverence thatthat is required for you to be
able to move in a space the waythat she did. And that's you
know that, and that's why youknow it's another one that the

(01:03:59):
reasons that the birth occurredthe way it did, because we had
we were very clear on trustingthat the right person would be
in this space with us.
Oh, okay, how good that's. Ithink all the questions done.
Okay, let me just quickly. Iwant to answer this one quickly.

(01:04:20):
Did I have any moments of painfree, ecstatic and orgasmic
birth? No,it wasn't that. It was like, and
I think I moved into the birththinking I I'm probably, if I
breathe the right way, it'sgoing to be pleasure filled. No,
it wasn't. It was fuckingintense as shit.

(01:04:43):
But again, there was something.
It was liberating. There itwasn't pleasure, it wasn't
pleasurable. But I also don'tthink I wouldn't call it
painful. It was It was intense,and I was with that intensity.
I.
There were moments, even in theshower, there were moments where
I was, like, stimulating myclitoris to like, you know, open

(01:05:05):
and like, be with that energy.
But it wasn't as if I was like,Ah yes, like, pleasure. It was
more just like, I'm going tostimulate this and open and see
what unfolds. And again, thekissing and the making out. That
was more like, this is intense.
I want to meet it with otherintensity.
And there were also between thecontractions or surges, there

(01:05:26):
was such ecstatic moments, likewhen I was singing and you were
patting my head and I was going,I'm bringing my baby here. I'm
bringing my baby here,and really close to him being
born in between the surges feltso glorious and so just like,
timeless and beautiful. But theactual surges were, yeah, I
wouldn't say I had an orgasmicbirth.

(01:05:53):
And, you know, again, I don't, Idon't think I'm the intensity
was the fire I needed to bewith, yeah, well, that's there,
like, you said, walking throughthe fire. That's yeah. And I
think also, and I said this on apodcast episode leading up to
the birth that I wasn't, Iwasn't attached to, I'm gonna
have this orgasmic birth. I knewit was an option. Or, like,

(01:06:15):
women do have orgasmic births,but I wasn't going, like, that's
the top of the hierarchy ofbirths, and I hope I get that
one the best, yeah, and I'mgonna try and make that happen.
No, I was just Yeah, soI'm glad that I surrendered to
what was alive, rather thantrying to make it feel orgasmic.
Yes, yeah,okay. How good all finished.

(01:06:36):
That was epic. That was a reallyfun one. Thanks for joining us.
We're gonna be,um, we'll be back next week with
a postpartum Q A episode. So allpostpartum things,
all the slow cooked foods, yeah,all the slow cooked food and
rice, that's what I've beenliving off for eight weeks. Big.

(01:06:59):
Love, family. Love you guys.
Peace,yo, yo, yo. Thank you so much
for tuning in to another episodeof sex, love and everything in
between. Now, if you'd like tostay connected with Meg and I,
you can head on over toInstagram and follow me at the
Jacob O'Neill, and where canpeople find you lover, at B dot,
Meg, dot. O amazing. And yeah,guys, check out the show notes

(01:07:25):
for all other information inregards to what we've got coming
up. And yeah, we're super, supergrateful that you guys for
taking the time to listen in tothis podcast. If you do have any
topics or any questions, like Isaid, hit us up on Instagram and
we'll see what we can do. Apartfrom that, have a beautiful,
beautiful rest of your day.
Thanks for being here. Big, big.
Love you.