January 24, 2025 • 20 mins
Have you ever wondered how your cultural background and personal beliefs shape your pregnancy and birth experience? Join us on The Ordinary Doula Podcast as we take you on a journey through the diverse landscapes of the perinatal period, exploring the unique perspectives of expectant parents. Drawing from 20 years of experience as a doula, we share insights into how personal and cultural factors paint each pregnancy with its own brushstrokes. Like observing familiar landmarks from the sky, our discussion delves into how these perspectives can transform the way pregnancy and birth are perceived, whether as monumental life events or routine passages.
We also venture into the world of maternal healthcare, comparing the panoramic views of healthcare providers with the intimate, immediate experiences of those who are pregnant. Through the story of a seasoned doctor who has delivered babies for multiple generations within a family, we highlight the evolution of perspectives over time. The conversation underscores the importance of open communication between healthcare providers and pregnant individuals, advocating for the crucial roles of doulas and midwives in bridging the gap with empathy and understanding. Tune in as we navigate the multifaceted journeys of pregnancy and birth, honoring the myriad of views within this transformative experience.
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Show Credits
Host: Angie Rosier
Music: Michael Hicks
Photographer: Toni Walker
Episode Artwork: Nick Greenwood
Producer: Gillian Rosier Frampton
Voiceover: Ryan Parker
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome to the Ordinary Doula Podcast with
Angie Rozier, hosted by BirthLearning, where we help prepare
folks for labor and birth withexpertise coming from 20 years
of experience in a busy doulapractice, helping thousands of
people prepare for labor,providing essential knowledge
and tools for positive andempowering birth experiences.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Hello, my name is Angie Rozier and this is the
Ordinary Doula Podcast.
Thank you for being here withus today and spending a little
bit of your time.
So if you are listening to this, you are probably in some way
in what we call the perinatalperiod, whether that's you're
pregnant, you are preparing tohave a baby, you had a baby,
(01:11):
you're in postpartum or you'rewhat we call a birth junkie
Birth junkies I've known many ofthem in my life.
I am one.
Birth junkies just loveeverything about birth, whether
it's them or someone else.
They're just kind of into itand it's important to them.
So we see the world from acertain perspective birth
junkies do when you are in it,if you're the pregnant person,
when you're in it, it kind oftakes up a lot of your head
(01:32):
space, right, a lot of your bodyspace, but it it, the
perspective you have while youare pregnant is it's like, front
and center is all aboutpregnancy, baby delivery.
Everyone's different on wheretheir perspective is.
Some people do not like beingpregnant.
Some people absolutely love it.
(01:53):
Some people don't think it's abig deal.
Other people think it's thebiggest deal of their life and
there's no wrong way to view it.
People have differentperspectives based on their
family culture, their communityculture, their healthcare
systems, what's available tothem.
Some people, some cultures,play different place, different
(02:14):
values and different kind ofdifferent priorities on the
birth process.
Some it's highly valuable, someit's very transactional, some
it's.
You know, it's a physical toll,for sure, but not for everyone.
You talk to different peopleand some people are terribly
sick during their pregnancy.
Other people have easy, breezypregnancies.
(02:34):
Same thing with labor, delivery, birth, breastfeeding, raising
a baby.
Everyone's going to experiencea little bit differently.
So that's what I want to talkabout a little bit in this
episode is perspective.
This can, in my circles of life, there can be some hot topics
about this because people feelstrongly about it.
In some of our birth junkieworlds, like you, don't talk
(02:57):
about religion, politics orbirth around the table.
Well, you could.
You could talk about birth, andbirth junkies will talk to you
about birth long into the night.
Many, many hours can be spenton that for those who are
focused on it.
So perhaps you have um peoplein your family who are not very
focused on it or they um don'tgive a lot of weight in their
(03:17):
life.
They don't consider a lot ofthings about it and around it.
Um, I recently flew in a planeout of my hometown city and it
was daytime when I flew so I,the plane took off.
I was sitting by a window so Igot to look out the window
during takeoff.
And I love taking off duringthe day because you can kind of,
you know, you can seeeverything becomes smaller and
(03:39):
smaller as you get higher in theair and I don't live too far
from the airport so I'm veryfamiliar with the whole area.
You know, I've spent a lot of alot of years here, so it's kind
of fun to watch for differentlandmarks from the that are
normally I see on the ground tosee them as the plane was
getting higher and higher in theair.
So some things like I could seesome of our larger buildings
(04:02):
and structures.
There's some geographicallandmarks, there's lots of
architectural landmarks.
There's like roadways, yourfreeways, your big, you know
road systems.
You could easily identify those.
But kind of the higher I got,the more difficult it was to
(04:22):
identify things, things thatfrom the ground are very obvious
, very present, very prominentand I'm very familiar with.
It's like gosh.
I know exactly what that bighospital looks like or that
office building looks like onthe ground I see it all the time
, but from up here it doesn'tlook so big.
It was difficult to recognize.
Same thing freeway systems,right, they run through the
(04:45):
whole valley where I live, veryprominent, and it's cool to see
the whole thing.
Usually we just see a snippetof it, the snippet that we're
driving on.
You know if we're not drivingthe whole length of a freeway,
but it was interesting to seethis whole vein traveling
through the valley and thenmountains, like mountains which
are I happen to live aroundbeautiful mountains which are
(05:05):
huge and prominent in youreveryday life, and then you get
above them and they become flat.
Right, they're not as prominentas just because your
perspective is different.
So the speed of the plane too,like the speed of the plane as
we got higher and higher, madeit more difficult for me to
recognize.
Like I saw high schools, and Isaw high schools are always fun
Whenever I fly.
It's fun to find high schoolsbecause that track you can just
(05:27):
nail it by the track right.
Or pools, backyard pools arealways fun to see, especially
during daylight.
They're kind of glimmering inthe sun and they're blue, right,
it's really pretty blue.
So if you go into, like Arizona, california, somewhere with a
lot of pools, florida.
You're going to see a lot ofbeautiful blue sparkling things
in people's backyards and thoseare all fun to identify, but the
(05:50):
speed of the plane made it moredifficult to identify as well
as like, oh gosh, I gotta, Igotta, get my bearings here and
grab where I am, see if I canidentify.
I was trying to find, you know,like my house or my
neighborhood, and that was moredifficult because they were,
they were so small.
So so the the reason I want totalk about the aerial view
versus ground view is has to dowith perspective.
Um, depending on where you areand where you've been, you're
(06:12):
going to see things a little bitdifferently about birth.
So I want you to consider, um,your provider.
Like you may have a midwife ora doctor.
Maybe they're early on in theircareer, maybe they're very late
, they're very seasoned, maybethey've got a few decades behind
them.
They are going to have varyingperspectives.
It's going to be a differentperspective than your
(06:32):
perspective.
Your partner may have adifferent perspective than you
do.
Some things when you're on theground they're very obvious,
present, present and prominentmight not be as obvious or even
noticeable from those upperatmosphere levels, right.
So I'm going to kind of takeyour provider view A doctor, a
midwife.
They have a longer view, kindof a bigger view than you do.
(06:57):
So maybe they are up in the air12,000 feet, 15, maybe 20,000
feet, depending on their, thelength of their career and their
experience, so they can see thewhole freeway at the same time.
They're seeing all the cars onthe freeway, not just the one
you are driving in.
They, um, you know they, those,those big buildings that might
(07:19):
be very obvious on the groundaren't as important to them.
Like, they see the biggerpicture.
So, as they're looking atmaternal health, they're looking
at a broader view, while you,you might be the pregnant person
on the ground, you are that onecar on that one lane of one
freeway, one part of one freeway.
You are that building on theground.
(07:39):
Maybe you're a tiny house,right.
Maybe you're a larger buildingas far as like how prominent
birth and pregnancy is in yourlife, but you're, you got like a
front row seat, you are groundlevel.
It's happening to you, right.
So kind of realize that as youwork with providers that you
have a little varyingperspectives on the exact same
event, that of pregnancy.
(08:01):
The speed at which you gothrough things determines what
you miss and what you catchright.
As far as like, if you're superbusy during a pregnancy, if
you're soaking up every awesomeminute, or if you can't wait to
get it over with, there's noright or wrong way to do it or
think about it or feel about it.
It's just how things are.
(08:21):
I a hospital I work at justyesterday I was helping a
patient just had a baby, helpingwith lactation, and she's a
little bit of an older mom.
This is kind of a surprise baby.
She had some older teenage kidsand then she had another baby.
So her mom was in the room withher and so this you know.
The grandma of the baby was inthe room and it happened to be
(08:43):
that the same doctor thatdelivered this baby also
delivered some of thegrandmother's children, right.
So she pulled out some.
I don't know where she got them, they were on her phone somehow
but she got some pictures thatwere 30 years old of this doctor
early in his career deliveringher baby, who is now 30.
And he also just delivered hergrandson, who was like an hour
(09:06):
old.
She pulled that picture out,showed it to the nurses.
Some of these nurses might nothave even been born when that
picture was taken.
She showed it to the doctorhimself and what was so
interesting is he wasn't sure itwas him.
He's like I don't know, is that, is that really me?
He didn't recognize himself andit was very like he had a
mustache and dark brown, thickhead of hair.
(09:28):
He was in like it was like anaction shot delivering this baby
30 years ago and then he was.
Just think of how his life andhis career, his perspective, had
changed 30 years later.
He was about two or three yearsinto his career when that
grandma had a baby, and now he's32 or three years later into
(09:49):
his career when this grandbabywas born.
So he is a very different person, a very different provider.
He's seen a lot of freeway.
He's seen a lot of little tinyhouses.
He's getting higher in theatmosphere, if you will.
He's at 35,000 feet now.
He has a longer view of things.
That's good and that'schallenging, right For you as a
(10:10):
patient.
Sometimes like he may not be asin touch with what your ground
level experience is like andit's different for everyone.
He's probably seen some toughstuff now, after 32, 33 years.
He's seen some amazing things.
He's seen a lot of things andthose experiences change you as
(10:31):
a person.
They may inform how hepractices or what he advises his
patients to do because of whathe's seen.
And I think what I hear so muchfrom my birth clients is there's
sometimes a struggle to get theprovider to understand their
perspective, like providers.
Sometimes some providers canjust kind of brush off how the
(10:53):
pregnant person's feeling orwhat they want or what their
desires are what's important tothem, because they are on the
ground, they're in front of thisbig building.
That's very obvious to them,right, like they've got a birth
is looming in front of them,maybe their first one, and maybe
they're so excited or they'reso scared or both.
This like, eh, yeah, it's fine,it'll happen.
And so take that intoconsideration as you share your
(11:15):
desires or consider your desireswith a partner, with your
provider, with your doula,doulas, midwives.
You know we have a little bitof a different angle, I hope.
I hope I can speak for doulaswhen we say we try to stay on
the ground, like, yeah, we cansee, especially those of us
who've been doing this a while.
We have seen the long view,we've seen the length of the
freeway.
We've seen the buildings fromfar away, but we try to stay
(11:38):
down on the ground and rememberwhat that's like for people who
are facing a challenging laboror an induction that they didn't
want, or a C-section or a VBACor twins, maybe they're having
multiples, or maybe they'redoing a home birth or a birth
center birth, like they are onthe ground, very present.
So anyway, that was kind ofsome some thoughts I had, as we
(12:02):
understand why the strugglehappens.
Sometimes you might have amidwife who's seen the long view
right.
We hope so.
We hope she's.
She's got that good experiencewhere she's seen and heard and
felt and learned a lot of thingsthroughout her career, but also
can keep her feet firmlyplanted on the ground.
Some providers are amazing atthis.
One of my very favoritemidwives and humans she's been a
(12:24):
midwife for I don't know 30,probably coming on 30 years.
She's totally incredible.
Her experience is deep, yet shestill maintains this incredible
way to connect with everysingle patient.
One of my clients, the midwife,didn't help deliver the baby
but she was there for discharge.
So she said my client said I amso glad I got a touch point
(12:46):
with her before dischargebecause she's just so amazing,
so deeply experienced, yet stilldeeply connected.
And that is my hope and goaland desire for all clients that
they have a very deeplyconnected and well experienced
provider who's going to takethat broad view, that 35,000
(13:07):
elevation for elevation view,and dial it into that one little
house on one little corner thatis so important to the person
who's in that house and they canmake their birth help that be a
very important and personalexperience to them.
So that's just a little bit offood for thought.
As you work with your providerand or your doula and or your
(13:29):
partner, your partner, you know,with your provider and or your
doula and or your partner, yourpartner, you know they might be
in a taxi, on the ground, theydon't want to see the long view
or maybe their view is a littlebit different based on their
history or background.
They might be kind of nervousabout things.
I recently also spoke to afriend, a doula friend, who had
a really rough experience, superrough with she was just treated
(13:50):
not very well at all, kind ofdisrespected, disregarded, um
frustrated with her how herbirth experience went.
And I learned her provider wasand I just wasn't surprised I
had not heard of this provider'sname for like 20 years.
But I do remember some brushins with this provider 20 years
ago, um, and you know what?
(14:11):
She hasn't changed.
Like she's still rough, likeshe's kind of seeing things from
a really super high view.
Maybe she's even in astratosphere.
She's gotten kind of up there,disconnected from the people on
the ground who, unfortunately,sometimes are her patients.
Also, we want to dial back evenfurther.
Like we look at largeorganizations like ACOG,
american College of Obstetricsand Gynecology, they look at a
(14:34):
huge view, right.
They're looking at not just thefreeway but the interstate
system.
They're looking at thetopography of the entire
landscape.
They're looking at where thelakes are, where the valleys are
, the peaks, the mountains Likethey have a super broad view.
Same thing with the CDC orWorld Health Organization.
(14:55):
These all take, or maybe theNational Institute of Health or
your local health department'sgoing to have a certain view of
things.
This is where a lot of our dataand statistics I can I'm a data
junkie and I love getting intothat stuff but when they look at
the broad view of birth, theycan see much bigger than just
what an airplane over one valleyis going to see.
(15:15):
So when they set policies orwhen they roll out
recommendations or when theylook at statistics, they're
looking at the broad view.
They can also dial it in right,which is super cool.
They can look at certain groupsin geographical areas or
certain racial or ethnic groupsand to see how their experience
might be different.
So they do spend some timegetting on the ground.
(15:37):
And then we look at globalhealth, right.
We look at birth all over theworld, like in the United States
.
We think we're all that in abag of chips when it comes to
birth, but you know we're not.
We can do a whole other episodeactually on the state of
maternal care in the UnitedStates.
It's not nearly as state of theart as you would hope.
And there's a lot of countriesthroughout the world, a lot of
(15:58):
industrialized countries, whoare doing far better than we are
with their policies and theiroutcomes too.
Yeah, it's uh, you know it'skind of interesting how they,
how they set policy.
And you got to realize whatdrives things right.
Policy is driven, um a lot bythe dollar.
Like the dollar is going todrive a whole lot of things in
our country as it's tied into,um economic growth and
(16:19):
development.
It's kind of interesting.
So, okay, I'm not going to godown that rabbit hole because,
um, I could chase that rabbitfor a while.
But, uh, consider yourperspective, realize where you
are and those around you,realize their perspective and
try really key to a goodexperience for you is try to
find, try to match yourself witha provider whose perspective
(16:39):
could easily match yours so thatyou can be well cared for,
somebody who can get on theground with you even though they
have that that sky view Bestyou in birthing and preparing
for labor and for birth.
Keep that, keep thatperspective.
It's important.
You know, like, look at the bigview, look at the small view
(17:00):
and realize that, yeah, birth isimpactful, but life too has a
whole lot of experiences.
Birth is is one very impactfuland important experience of life
.
But look at your life.
Your life too has a whole lotof experiences.
Birth is is one very impactfuland important experience of life
.
But look at your life, your,your life spent.
You'll dial back on your lifeas well.
Sometimes we get pigeonholed inwanting birth to be a certain
way.
Okay, I'm going down anotherrabbit hole, sorry.
(17:22):
I met with a client this weekwho had she had some amazing
goals, goals that she shealigned with with some great
midwifery model care thing.
She was in a place with peoplethat were supporting that.
She had awesome doula helpingher um and was awesomely
prepared for this unmedicated,natural childbirth, no
(17:42):
interventions, um, and thingswere tough, like they went long
and they were difficult and shedidn't progress I think past an
eight Um, I don't know she did.
She got to complete, she got to10 and pushed for a long time
and I was just hearing thisstory secondhand and after a
long time they uh, they weren'tpushed into a cesarean at this
(18:03):
time but they um elected for aC-section um.
At a certain time the mom andthe dad, the client, did.
And as I met with her I wasmeeting with her for lactation
she was mourning that, crying.
She cried several times duringher visit, hugged her, talked to
her about it, but again whenthat?
And then we can do a wholeother podcast about birth trauma
(18:23):
and how to to deal with that,what, how to manage moving
forward.
But we did talk about for herto honor this baby's journey and
to honor the choices that thiscouple made, although it was
very different than what theythought.
So sometimes it's important tocome off the ground level like,
look at broad view and honorwhat this baby needed in order
to be born and the journey thebaby was making as well, which
(18:46):
was the journey it needed.
It was it was.
It happened this way for areason for that baby in their
particular circumstance.
So keep that in mind as well.
Perspective's important, helpskeep us grounded, and sharing
perspective and shiftingperspective is also important.
All right, that's it.
I'm wrapping it up.
No more rabbit holes today, Ihope, but best to you in
birthing and preparing for thatand maybe broaden your horizons
(19:09):
a little bit.
Maybe, you know, consider someother perspectives, whatever
that means for you.
Hope you have a great rest ofthe day.
Wherever you are.
Whatever you're doing, Pleasereach out and make contact with
someone in your life, someonenew, someone old, old to you,
new to you.
Make contact with another human.
You won't regret it.
Talk to you later.
We'll see you next time.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Thank you for listening to the Ordinary Doula
podcast with Angie Rozier,hosted by Birth Learning.
Episode credits will be in theshow notes Tune in next time as
we continue to explore the manyaspects of giving birth.
Thank you.
Welcome to the Ordinary Doula Podcast with
Angie Rozier, hosted by BirthLearning, where we help prepare
folks for labor and birth withexpertise coming from 20 years
of experience in a busy doulapractice, helping thousands of
people prepare for labor,providing essential knowledge
and tools for positive andempowering birth experiences.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Hello, my name is Angie Rozier and this is the
Ordinary Doula Podcast.
Thank you for being here withus today and spending a little
bit of your time.
So if you are listening to this, you are probably in some way
in what we call the perinatalperiod, whether that's you're
pregnant, you are preparing tohave a baby, you had a baby,
(01:11):
you're in postpartum or you'rewhat we call a birth junkie
Birth junkies I've known many ofthem in my life.
I am one.
Birth junkies just loveeverything about birth, whether
it's them or someone else.
They're just kind of into itand it's important to them.
So we see the world from acertain perspective birth
junkies do when you are in it,if you're the pregnant person,
when you're in it, it kind oftakes up a lot of your head
(01:32):
space, right, a lot of your bodyspace, but it it, the
perspective you have while youare pregnant is it's like, front
and center is all aboutpregnancy, baby delivery.
Everyone's different on wheretheir perspective is.
Some people do not like beingpregnant.
Some people absolutely love it.
(01:53):
Some people don't think it's abig deal.
Other people think it's thebiggest deal of their life and
there's no wrong way to view it.
People have differentperspectives based on their
family culture, their communityculture, their healthcare
systems, what's available tothem.
Some people, some cultures,play different place, different
(02:14):
values and different kind ofdifferent priorities on the
birth process.
Some it's highly valuable, someit's very transactional, some
it's.
You know, it's a physical toll,for sure, but not for everyone.
You talk to different peopleand some people are terribly
sick during their pregnancy.
Other people have easy, breezypregnancies.
(02:34):
Same thing with labor, delivery, birth, breastfeeding, raising
a baby.
Everyone's going to experiencea little bit differently.
So that's what I want to talkabout a little bit in this
episode is perspective.
This can, in my circles of life, there can be some hot topics
about this because people feelstrongly about it.
In some of our birth junkieworlds, like you, don't talk
(02:57):
about religion, politics orbirth around the table.
Well, you could.
You could talk about birth, andbirth junkies will talk to you
about birth long into the night.
Many, many hours can be spenton that for those who are
focused on it.
So perhaps you have um peoplein your family who are not very
focused on it or they um don'tgive a lot of weight in their
(03:17):
life.
They don't consider a lot ofthings about it and around it.
Um, I recently flew in a planeout of my hometown city and it
was daytime when I flew so I,the plane took off.
I was sitting by a window so Igot to look out the window
during takeoff.
And I love taking off duringthe day because you can kind of,
you know, you can seeeverything becomes smaller and
(03:39):
smaller as you get higher in theair and I don't live too far
from the airport so I'm veryfamiliar with the whole area.
You know, I've spent a lot of alot of years here, so it's kind
of fun to watch for differentlandmarks from the that are
normally I see on the ground tosee them as the plane was
getting higher and higher in theair.
So some things like I could seesome of our larger buildings
(04:02):
and structures.
There's some geographicallandmarks, there's lots of
architectural landmarks.
There's like roadways, yourfreeways, your big, you know
road systems.
You could easily identify those.
But kind of the higher I got,the more difficult it was to
(04:22):
identify things, things thatfrom the ground are very obvious
, very present, very prominentand I'm very familiar with.
It's like gosh.
I know exactly what that bighospital looks like or that
office building looks like onthe ground I see it all the time
, but from up here it doesn'tlook so big.
It was difficult to recognize.
Same thing freeway systems,right, they run through the
(04:45):
whole valley where I live, veryprominent, and it's cool to see
the whole thing.
Usually we just see a snippetof it, the snippet that we're
driving on.
You know if we're not drivingthe whole length of a freeway,
but it was interesting to seethis whole vein traveling
through the valley and thenmountains, like mountains which
are I happen to live aroundbeautiful mountains which are
(05:05):
huge and prominent in youreveryday life, and then you get
above them and they become flat.
Right, they're not as prominentas just because your
perspective is different.
So the speed of the plane too,like the speed of the plane as
we got higher and higher, madeit more difficult for me to
recognize.
Like I saw high schools, and Isaw high schools are always fun
Whenever I fly.
It's fun to find high schoolsbecause that track you can just
(05:27):
nail it by the track right.
Or pools, backyard pools arealways fun to see, especially
during daylight.
They're kind of glimmering inthe sun and they're blue, right,
it's really pretty blue.
So if you go into, like Arizona, california, somewhere with a
lot of pools, florida.
You're going to see a lot ofbeautiful blue sparkling things
in people's backyards and thoseare all fun to identify, but the
(05:50):
speed of the plane made it moredifficult to identify as well
as like, oh gosh, I gotta, Igotta, get my bearings here and
grab where I am, see if I canidentify.
I was trying to find, you know,like my house or my
neighborhood, and that was moredifficult because they were,
they were so small.
So so the the reason I want totalk about the aerial view
versus ground view is has to dowith perspective.
Um, depending on where you areand where you've been, you're
(06:12):
going to see things a little bitdifferently about birth.
So I want you to consider, um,your provider.
Like you may have a midwife ora doctor.
Maybe they're early on in theircareer, maybe they're very late
, they're very seasoned, maybethey've got a few decades behind
them.
They are going to have varyingperspectives.
It's going to be a differentperspective than your
(06:32):
perspective.
Your partner may have adifferent perspective than you
do.
Some things when you're on theground they're very obvious,
present, present and prominentmight not be as obvious or even
noticeable from those upperatmosphere levels, right.
So I'm going to kind of takeyour provider view A doctor, a
midwife.
They have a longer view, kindof a bigger view than you do.
(06:57):
So maybe they are up in the air12,000 feet, 15, maybe 20,000
feet, depending on their, thelength of their career and their
experience, so they can see thewhole freeway at the same time.
They're seeing all the cars onthe freeway, not just the one
you are driving in.
They, um, you know they, those,those big buildings that might
(07:19):
be very obvious on the groundaren't as important to them.
Like, they see the biggerpicture.
So, as they're looking atmaternal health, they're looking
at a broader view, while you,you might be the pregnant person
on the ground, you are that onecar on that one lane of one
freeway, one part of one freeway.
You are that building on theground.
(07:39):
Maybe you're a tiny house,right.
Maybe you're a larger buildingas far as like how prominent
birth and pregnancy is in yourlife, but you're, you got like a
front row seat, you are groundlevel.
It's happening to you, right.
So kind of realize that as youwork with providers that you
have a little varyingperspectives on the exact same
event, that of pregnancy.
(08:01):
The speed at which you gothrough things determines what
you miss and what you catchright.
As far as like, if you're superbusy during a pregnancy, if
you're soaking up every awesomeminute, or if you can't wait to
get it over with, there's noright or wrong way to do it or
think about it or feel about it.
It's just how things are.
(08:21):
I a hospital I work at justyesterday I was helping a
patient just had a baby, helpingwith lactation, and she's a
little bit of an older mom.
This is kind of a surprise baby.
She had some older teenage kidsand then she had another baby.
So her mom was in the room withher and so this you know.
The grandma of the baby was inthe room and it happened to be
(08:43):
that the same doctor thatdelivered this baby also
delivered some of thegrandmother's children, right.
So she pulled out some.
I don't know where she got them, they were on her phone somehow
but she got some pictures thatwere 30 years old of this doctor
early in his career deliveringher baby, who is now 30.
And he also just delivered hergrandson, who was like an hour
(09:06):
old.
She pulled that picture out,showed it to the nurses.
Some of these nurses might nothave even been born when that
picture was taken.
She showed it to the doctorhimself and what was so
interesting is he wasn't sure itwas him.
He's like I don't know, is that, is that really me?
He didn't recognize himself andit was very like he had a
mustache and dark brown, thickhead of hair.
(09:28):
He was in like it was like anaction shot delivering this baby
30 years ago and then he was.
Just think of how his life andhis career, his perspective, had
changed 30 years later.
He was about two or three yearsinto his career when that
grandma had a baby, and now he's32 or three years later into
(09:49):
his career when this grandbabywas born.
So he is a very different person, a very different provider.
He's seen a lot of freeway.
He's seen a lot of little tinyhouses.
He's getting higher in theatmosphere, if you will.
He's at 35,000 feet now.
He has a longer view of things.
That's good and that'schallenging, right For you as a
(10:10):
patient.
Sometimes like he may not be asin touch with what your ground
level experience is like andit's different for everyone.
He's probably seen some toughstuff now, after 32, 33 years.
He's seen some amazing things.
He's seen a lot of things andthose experiences change you as
(10:31):
a person.
They may inform how hepractices or what he advises his
patients to do because of whathe's seen.
And I think what I hear so muchfrom my birth clients is there's
sometimes a struggle to get theprovider to understand their
perspective, like providers.
Sometimes some providers canjust kind of brush off how the
(10:53):
pregnant person's feeling orwhat they want or what their
desires are what's important tothem, because they are on the
ground, they're in front of thisbig building.
That's very obvious to them,right, like they've got a birth
is looming in front of them,maybe their first one, and maybe
they're so excited or they'reso scared or both.
This like, eh, yeah, it's fine,it'll happen.
And so take that intoconsideration as you share your
(11:15):
desires or consider your desireswith a partner, with your
provider, with your doula,doulas, midwives.
You know we have a little bitof a different angle, I hope.
I hope I can speak for doulaswhen we say we try to stay on
the ground, like, yeah, we cansee, especially those of us
who've been doing this a while.
We have seen the long view,we've seen the length of the
freeway.
We've seen the buildings fromfar away, but we try to stay
(11:38):
down on the ground and rememberwhat that's like for people who
are facing a challenging laboror an induction that they didn't
want, or a C-section or a VBACor twins, maybe they're having
multiples, or maybe they'redoing a home birth or a birth
center birth, like they are onthe ground, very present.
So anyway, that was kind ofsome some thoughts I had, as we
(12:02):
understand why the strugglehappens.
Sometimes you might have amidwife who's seen the long view
right.
We hope so.
We hope she's.
She's got that good experiencewhere she's seen and heard and
felt and learned a lot of thingsthroughout her career, but also
can keep her feet firmlyplanted on the ground.
Some providers are amazing atthis.
One of my very favoritemidwives and humans she's been a
(12:24):
midwife for I don't know 30,probably coming on 30 years.
She's totally incredible.
Her experience is deep, yet shestill maintains this incredible
way to connect with everysingle patient.
One of my clients, the midwife,didn't help deliver the baby
but she was there for discharge.
So she said my client said I amso glad I got a touch point
(12:46):
with her before dischargebecause she's just so amazing,
so deeply experienced, yet stilldeeply connected.
And that is my hope and goaland desire for all clients that
they have a very deeplyconnected and well experienced
provider who's going to takethat broad view, that 35,000
(13:07):
elevation for elevation view,and dial it into that one little
house on one little corner thatis so important to the person
who's in that house and they canmake their birth help that be a
very important and personalexperience to them.
So that's just a little bit offood for thought.
As you work with your providerand or your doula and or your
(13:29):
partner, your partner, you know,with your provider and or your
doula and or your partner, yourpartner, you know they might be
in a taxi, on the ground, theydon't want to see the long view
or maybe their view is a littlebit different based on their
history or background.
They might be kind of nervousabout things.
I recently also spoke to afriend, a doula friend, who had
a really rough experience, superrough with she was just treated
(13:50):
not very well at all, kind ofdisrespected, disregarded, um
frustrated with her how herbirth experience went.
And I learned her provider wasand I just wasn't surprised I
had not heard of this provider'sname for like 20 years.
But I do remember some brushins with this provider 20 years
ago, um, and you know what?
(14:11):
She hasn't changed.
Like she's still rough, likeshe's kind of seeing things from
a really super high view.
Maybe she's even in astratosphere.
She's gotten kind of up there,disconnected from the people on
the ground who, unfortunately,sometimes are her patients.
Also, we want to dial back evenfurther.
Like we look at largeorganizations like ACOG,
american College of Obstetricsand Gynecology, they look at a
(14:34):
huge view, right.
They're looking at not just thefreeway but the interstate
system.
They're looking at thetopography of the entire
landscape.
They're looking at where thelakes are, where the valleys are
, the peaks, the mountains Likethey have a super broad view.
Same thing with the CDC orWorld Health Organization.
(14:55):
These all take, or maybe theNational Institute of Health or
your local health department'sgoing to have a certain view of
things.
This is where a lot of our dataand statistics I can I'm a data
junkie and I love getting intothat stuff but when they look at
the broad view of birth, theycan see much bigger than just
what an airplane over one valleyis going to see.
(15:15):
So when they set policies orwhen they roll out
recommendations or when theylook at statistics, they're
looking at the broad view.
They can also dial it in right,which is super cool.
They can look at certain groupsin geographical areas or
certain racial or ethnic groupsand to see how their experience
might be different.
So they do spend some timegetting on the ground.
(15:37):
And then we look at globalhealth, right.
We look at birth all over theworld, like in the United States
.
We think we're all that in abag of chips when it comes to
birth, but you know we're not.
We can do a whole other episodeactually on the state of
maternal care in the UnitedStates.
It's not nearly as state of theart as you would hope.
And there's a lot of countriesthroughout the world, a lot of
(15:58):
industrialized countries, whoare doing far better than we are
with their policies and theiroutcomes too.
Yeah, it's uh, you know it'skind of interesting how they,
how they set policy.
And you got to realize whatdrives things right.
Policy is driven, um a lot bythe dollar.
Like the dollar is going todrive a whole lot of things in
our country as it's tied into,um economic growth and
(16:19):
development.
It's kind of interesting.
So, okay, I'm not going to godown that rabbit hole because,
um, I could chase that rabbitfor a while.
But, uh, consider yourperspective, realize where you
are and those around you,realize their perspective and
try really key to a goodexperience for you is try to
find, try to match yourself witha provider whose perspective
(16:39):
could easily match yours so thatyou can be well cared for,
somebody who can get on theground with you even though they
have that that sky view Bestyou in birthing and preparing
for labor and for birth.
Keep that, keep thatperspective.
It's important.
You know, like, look at the bigview, look at the small view
(17:00):
and realize that, yeah, birth isimpactful, but life too has a
whole lot of experiences.
Birth is is one very impactfuland important experience of life
.
But look at your life.
Your life too has a whole lotof experiences.
Birth is is one very impactfuland important experience of life
.
But look at your life, your,your life spent.
You'll dial back on your lifeas well.
Sometimes we get pigeonholed inwanting birth to be a certain
way.
Okay, I'm going down anotherrabbit hole, sorry.
(17:22):
I met with a client this weekwho had she had some amazing
goals, goals that she shealigned with with some great
midwifery model care thing.
She was in a place with peoplethat were supporting that.
She had awesome doula helpingher um and was awesomely
prepared for this unmedicated,natural childbirth, no
(17:42):
interventions, um, and thingswere tough, like they went long
and they were difficult and shedidn't progress I think past an
eight Um, I don't know she did.
She got to complete, she got to10 and pushed for a long time
and I was just hearing thisstory secondhand and after a
long time they uh, they weren'tpushed into a cesarean at this
(18:03):
time but they um elected for aC-section um.
At a certain time the mom andthe dad, the client, did.
And as I met with her I wasmeeting with her for lactation
she was mourning that, crying.
She cried several times duringher visit, hugged her, talked to
her about it, but again whenthat?
And then we can do a wholeother podcast about birth trauma
(18:23):
and how to to deal with that,what, how to manage moving
forward.
But we did talk about for herto honor this baby's journey and
to honor the choices that thiscouple made, although it was
very different than what theythought.
So sometimes it's important tocome off the ground level like,
look at broad view and honorwhat this baby needed in order
to be born and the journey thebaby was making as well, which
(18:46):
was the journey it needed.
It was it was.
It happened this way for areason for that baby in their
particular circumstance.
So keep that in mind as well.
Perspective's important, helpskeep us grounded, and sharing
perspective and shiftingperspective is also important.
All right, that's it.
I'm wrapping it up.
No more rabbit holes today, Ihope, but best to you in
birthing and preparing for thatand maybe broaden your horizons
(19:09):
a little bit.
Maybe, you know, consider someother perspectives, whatever
that means for you.
Hope you have a great rest ofthe day.
Wherever you are.
Whatever you're doing, Pleasereach out and make contact with
someone in your life, someonenew, someone old, old to you,
new to you.
Make contact with another human.
You won't regret it.
Talk to you later.
We'll see you next time.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Thank you for listening to the Ordinary Doula
podcast with Angie Rozier,hosted by Birth Learning.
Episode credits will be in theshow notes Tune in next time as
we continue to explore the manyaspects of giving birth.
Thank you.
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