January 23, 2024 • 53 mins
When Diana's own birthing experience left her grappling with the unexpected, her quest for healing turned her into a guiding light for countless women. Join me as I sit down with this extraordinary birth expert and host of the Healing Birth podcast, to traverse the intimate terrain of birth, trauma, and the subsequent journey toward recovery. Our heartfelt conversation will reveal the transformative power of birth stories, empathy, and the solidarity found within a community that honors every woman's unique passage into motherhood.
This episode goes beyond the birth room to confront the societal pressures on postpartum body image and the radical acceptance that can bloom from a free birth. We share the narrative of a courageous young woman whose choice to embrace childbirth on her terms led to a profound celebration of her body, challenging the pervasive 'snap-back' culture. And as this shift toward body autonomy and respect for the birthing process grows, we invite you to join us in recognizing the incredible strength and adaptability of the postpartum body.
Lastly, we delve into the broader implications of maternity care and the over-medicalization of childbirth. Expect a critical analysis of the practices that shape the maternal and infant experience, and the profound need for a paradigm shift that views birth not as a medical emergency but as an innately powerful event. Our discussion includes personal reflections on the importance of informed choice, self-advocacy during childbirth, and the spiritual dimensions of prayer and forgiveness within the birth journey. Tune in to an episode that doesn't just share insights but strives to redefine the very essence of how we perceive and experience birth.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Hello and welcome to the Radiant Mission podcast.
My name is Rebecca Toomey andwe are on a mission to encourage
and inspire you as you'renavigating through your life and
with your relationship withChrist.
We are currently in a seriescalled God's Design for Birth,
and today we have a very, very,very, very special guest.
She is an expert on birth.
(00:54):
Her name is Diana, a four-celltie-in, and she is a writer,
speaker and she is the host ofthe Healing Birth podcast, which
is now in its fifth season.
So amazing.
Her podcast is popular in 36countries, which is amazing,
including the US, canada,australia, the UK.
(01:15):
She's the co-founder of HealingBirth, which is a perinatal
support organization that'sdedicated to supporting women in
various ways who've experiencedbirth trauma.
Diana is trained with birthingfrom within as a birth story
listener and offers one-on-onenon-clinical support to mothers
(01:35):
who seek her help in processingtheir birth experiences.
Diana's passion and commitmentfor this work comes from her own
personal experience with thetraumatic birth, its aftermath
and, ultimately, her healing.
She's a mother of two sons andlives with her family on.
(01:55):
I'm going to let you say whereyou live, so I don't
mispronounce it Kauai, hawaii.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
we're the northernmost island in the
Hawaiian chains.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Beautiful, and you can find more of Diana's work at
healingbirthnet.
You can listen to her podcastHealing Birth on all streaming
platforms.
Diana, thank you so much forbeing here today.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Thank you so much for having me.
I mean, you were a guest on mypodcast and that was one of my
actually most favorite episodes,so it's really fun to see your
face and get to talk again.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
This is awesome, yeah .
Something that I really want toshare with listeners is the
amazing impact that you've madeon my life, and I don't even
know if you realize it.
I tell you, but I don't know ifyou really understand it.
Without you, this podcastwouldn't even exist.
It was in July of 2022, afterI'd had my own traumatic birth,
(02:50):
that I shared the story of Ben'sbirth with you on your show and
after we stopped recording, youwere just so encouraging to me
and you just said somethingabout you enjoyed my
storytelling.
I should do something with that, and I just couldn't stop
thinking about it.
After that, I went to bed.
I was thinking about what yousaid and I really started
praying for some guidance aboutsharing that story.
(03:11):
Was there more to share?
And from that came this podcast.
The rest is history, but it allstarted with you and your words
of encouragement, so thank youfor encouraging me.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
I'm so proud of you.
I'm so glad you're doing this.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
It's amazing, it's seriously.
It was like we had such a greatconversation and it's been cool
to see it spawn into morethings.
So you're changing women'slives literally with your
podcast when it comes to birthand healing from birth trauma,
but then you also changed mine.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Thank you, rebecca.
That's so kind, but I mean youdid it and you listened to the
call, so you know yeah, you're a.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah, I guess there's a little part there.
I'm just so excited and honoredreally to have you here.
After knowing the history andhow important it's been for me,
it's just such an honor and apleasure to have you and to
learn from you, because that'sreally what this is all about.
We love to share learningmoments here on the show and
(04:16):
takeaways and we want to justhelp women to get to the answers
faster.
I think you could probablyagree with a lot of that.
We a lot of times go into birthwithout knowing mantra, even
going into the next birthcontinuous birth and maybe we
haven't learned in between.
Whatever it might be, it's suchan amazing thing to get to
(04:37):
learn from women who've walkedthrough fire and not only have
you walked through fire, but youhave listened to the fires of
many other women and that's whatI want us to learn from you
today is all of the stuff thatyou have heard over all of these
years five seasons of listeningto birth stories, traumatic
(04:59):
birth stories and stories ofhealing.
So we're going to be peelingthat onion back today to learn
from you and then next weekwe'll focus on the birth trauma
side.
So if you are listening in andyou have experienced birth
trauma of your own.
Be sure to stay tuned for nextweek, because we're going to
really dive into thatspecifically.
But today we want to talk aboutlearning moments and I just
(05:19):
want to hear from you first.
How did it all start?
How did it all progress?
Tell us more about the HealingBirth podcast.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah, I love to tell how this started, because it's
so magical.
So I, when I was pregnant withmy first baby, like a lot of
people do, I think that it wasaround 10 years ago, and I think
around 10 years ago is whenpodcasts kind of were becoming a
thing like right around then,like a lot of moms, I was
listening to birth podcasts andI was listening to birth stories
and I was constantly filling myhead with stories of home birth
(05:53):
and happy birth stories,because that's the kind of birth
that I was planning for.
And so when that birth did notgo that way and I ended up
having a very traumaticexperience at the hospital, I
had this podcast feed that wasfull of like home birth and
positive birth stories, and Iwanted to find stories like my
(06:15):
own, not only to try and makesense of the experience that I
had just had, because I was kindof really like how did this
happen to me?
But also I wanted some hope.
I wanted to hear people thathad had a birth like I had just
had and then found healing orfound some sort of redemption or
even went on to have a positivebirth.
(06:36):
And I also found that in thoseearly days postpartum, I was
very I felt a lot of guilt and Ididn't have really a lot of
empathy for myself.
But when I heard other women'sstories of having a home birth
transfer and a cesarean,anything that was kind of
similar to mine I could findempathy for them.
I wasn't judging them, I wasn'tthinking, oh, you were so
(06:57):
stupid, how did this happen toyou?
In the same way I was saying tomyself, and so, in a way,
hearing other women's storiesreally helped me find compassion
and empathy for myself, and soit was a really important part
of my healing from thatexperience was just other
women's stories.
But it was hard to find acollection of stories like that.
(07:17):
Most birth podcasts, probably bydesign, have a whole range of
different types of stories thatthey share, and so I remember
thinking in those early days wow, I wish that there was just one
podcast that was just abouthealing birth trauma or healing
from a bad birth experience, andthat kind of just stuck in my
head and I thought about it fora while.
(07:37):
And I had a new baby and I hada new baby, so I wasn't really
in a place to start a podcast.
But a few years later, afterthe birth of my second child,
which was a life changing, oh,just a healing, incredible birth
experience.
I know that you know whatthat's like I was invited to
share.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
It lights you on fire .
It lights you on fire.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
It lights you on fire and it will change your whole
entire life and you'll quit yourcorporate job and you'll become
a podcast, which is what I did.
But yeah, I was invited toshare my story on a pretty
popular birth podcast and I justdiscovered that I loved it, I
loved the recording, I lovedspeaking about birth.
Like something about it lit meup and I just felt like I've got
(08:22):
to do this, I've got to start,I've got to start a podcast and
talk about the niche like thespecific niche in the birth
world that I'm really interestedin and that I know a lot about
because I went through it, andso that was five years ago and I
can't believe it's been fiveyears.
It's been such an amazingblessing in my life and I've met
(08:43):
and talked to women all overthe world and you know, like you
said, I've just learned so muchand I'm really proud of it and
thank you for the opportunity totalk about it.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Oh, it's amazing.
I really, I'm really just soimpressed by everything that
you've done and how to watch itunfold over the years, too, is
just so beautiful.
That's amazing.
What's that?
Thank you for being part of ittoo.
Of course, of course, and I'mso glad that you have that space
(09:15):
for women because, like yousaid, there are all kinds of
different spaces, but whatyou're focusing on is actually
the healing from the trauma,versus focusing on just the
trauma piece.
Right, like it's not a place tojust go and like tell your
deepest, darkest, worst momentsand be like bye, I'm in a
(09:35):
horrible place now.
You know, I love that there isa very fun.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
That would be very fun to listen to.
No, it would.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
It would be pretty depressing for sure.
So I think that that's afantastic thing that you have
that for women that are workingon their own healing, because
there are women that aren'tthere yet and these are the
stories that they need in thattime.
I'll never forget when I had myC-section with my daughter and
(10:05):
my sister said something lateron like her heart broke for what
she knew I was about to gothrough and because she'd had
two C-sections.
It was like actually makes meemotional thinking about this,
because of how far we've come,both of us myself and her, who
I've had now two V-backs and shejust successfully had a V-back
(10:27):
after two C-sections and nodoctor's believing in her.
So, anyway, I remember hersaying that to me and just
thinking like gosh.
Now I know what it's like rightwhen I hear a mom who has had to
transfer or whatever theirstory might be, that things just
did not progress.
(10:48):
They're the way that they hadin their mind and how you know
the next thing that they'regonna go through after birth is
that trauma and it'sheartbreaking and I don't want
anybody to go through it, whichis why we want to be as
educational as we can be toother women around us, to other
moms that are about to walkthrough this path.
So, with that said, I have abillion questions I wanna ask
(11:12):
you because I can honestly onlyjust even imagine what you must
have learned over all of theseyears, and I wanna soak up that
knowledge as much as I can.
I know our guests you too.
So, our series being calledentitled God's Design for Birth,
I would love to start there andlearn more about what you have
(11:34):
seen about God and the storiesthat you've heard from other
women.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
I love this question.
This is such a beautifulquestion that I almost need to
stop and think about a littlebit.
I'll say that I see God inevery single story that I share
on the podcast, even the storieswhere the birth is a
challenging one.
I don't know about you, butevery single birth video I've
(11:59):
ever seen, even if it's achallenging birth, like I said,
the moment that there is a babyborn it just feels holy, like
it's almost like I can just feelGod's presence when a baby is
born.
And so generally, I mean I justI always see God reflected in
the birth stories that I share.
But I've come to primarily nowthink of birth, or think of
(12:24):
pregnancy and birth, as aspiritual journey for us, for
the women that are bringing thebabies onto the planet.
And in that I think that thereare a few themes that God really
invites us to explore duringthis time, and it comes up a lot
.
Especially, women of faith willoften say this to me that
they're connecting this to theirrelationship with God, and
(12:45):
that's themes of surrender,themes of trust, themes of
trusting in their own body andtrusting in God's design of
their body, which is actuallykind of a radical thing to do
nowadays Like.
I know it sounds simple, butit's like we live in a world
where we like immediately injectsomething into a baby because,
like you know, that baby wasn'tborn.
(13:05):
What's that?
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Cause someone told her.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Yeah, exactly, but I mean really fundamentally what's
behind that is we're nottrusting God's design, and so
it's radical to do that, and Ithink that that's something that
we're often invited to exploreduring our pregnancies.
Healing is also something thatI hear a lot, not just in the
sense of healing from adifficult birth story, but there
(13:30):
can be radical healing thathappens in a woman's life, that
happens through the unfolding ofa physiological birth.
One woman just the other daytold me that her birth
experience healed a lifetime ofbody image issues for her, which
I thought was so beautiful, andI just feel like any time that
radical healing like thathappens, god is always involved.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
That's beautiful, yeah yeah, I would love to dig
in to that side of it a littlebit more, and you know that
story that you just mentioned ofher saying that her body image
issues were healed.
Could you share a little bitmore about that story?
Yeah, and come to the contextto it.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Yes, I can.
I think that the context isrelevant.
So she was a very interestingperson.
She's very young, she was 21.
And she had always, you know,like so many of us, maybe all of
us dealt with, like you know,wanting to be thinner, being on
sort of the diet cycle, notreally nourishing herself
properly, and she seemed to besomeone way ahead of her time,
(14:35):
way ahead of her years.
She decided that with her firstpregnant she, she was going to
free birth that baby and inmaking that decision she decided
to take radicalself-responsibility for her
health and the health of herbaby, but really like for all
aspects of her life.
And she didn't like talk aboutGod very much, but she had like
(14:57):
a big poster of like I forgetwhat it was, but it was like
trust God, like a poster behindher head as we were recording.
So I'm extrapolating that thiswas part of a spiritual journey
for her.
But it just really struck methat someone that young could
take that much responsibilityand make that decision.
And the birth was just a reallyyou know it was birth.
(15:20):
It was everything that birthwas.
It was challenging, it waspowerful, it was beautiful.
She did it and she emerged fromthat experience feeling like,
oh my gosh, there's absolutelynothing wrong with my body the
way it is now, even if I'mslightly heavier than before.
I just did this.
I mean, this was a miracle.
She emerged feeling so strong.
She had no medical authoritythere managing the process, it
(15:41):
was just her and her partner and, I think, her in her mother.
Yeah, her mother-in-law wasthere too, which I thought
that's an interesting dynamic,but it was healing for everyone.
I guess, like the mother-in-lawalso had had a really strong
medical background.
She was a nurse and had a lotof fear and a lot of just like
issues a lot of fear aroundbirth, like most people in the
(16:02):
medical field too and witnessingher daughter-in-law free birth
her baby healed a lot of thatwithin her as well, and so, yeah
, that was the major points ofthat story.
I haven't really seen that it'sgonna be in this next new season
.
Oh, good, good exciting.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
We'll have a nice fresh episode to listen to.
I love it, looking forward toit.
Well, there is a couple ofthings that I wanna pull out
from that.
First is the body side ofthings.
That is a great conversation tohave.
I know that so many women, oncethey are in that fourth
trimester, are then pressured byespecially.
We have social media, whichdrives me crazy with this whole
(16:41):
bounce back culture and, oh, Igotta get my old body back, and
I'm sure that this is a themeand something that you've seen
over the years.
Do you find that the tidesmight be shifting at all with
when it comes to that?
Because I kind of starting tosee it with some women who are
like, no, I'm not playing thisgame of trying to get my body
(17:04):
back.
I, this is my body, and my bodydid an amazing thing and I'm
gonna soak up the skin-to-skinand I don't care about any of
the rest of that stuff.
I kind of see there's acommunity of those women that
seem to be getting larger, but Ican't tell if it's just the
communities that I'm in or ifit's, if it's actually happening
.
Any thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Oh, I definitely think it's actually happening.
I think it's part of a largermovement of women are starting
to how do I want to say this?
Take more agency in the realmof birth.
I think that we've.
I mean, I'm gonna.
By the way, I'm sorry I shouldhave prefaced this by saying I
have some really radical thingsto say or opinions about birth,
(17:48):
like, I don't know how radicalyou want me to be, I'll be as
radical as you want to be.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Okay, cool, as radical as you want.
This is a radical show.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
I'm gonna say some stuff that might sound kind of
out there, but I, getting backto your question, I I think that
we've actually been in amassive dark age as it relates
to how birth is done, and I'mnot even talking about just in
the United States, I meaneverywhere, as far as I can tell
, across the globe.
We have been damaging women anddamaging their babies during,
(18:22):
during the management of theirbirth process, and it happened
to our mother, our grandmothers,our great grandmothers and then
beyond there I can't really say.
But it's been a real dark ageand I think that we have been
emerging from our birthexperiences, many of us, perhaps
most of us, damaged by it andhurt by it, and there's
(18:42):
something that we there is aprize that we get when we have a
normal physiological birth.
There is a price that we getand that is the knowledge that
we can do it.
There's there's like asomatically felt knowing of how
strong and powerful you are whenyou, when you go through that
(19:02):
process and you're on the otherside of it, and so, while this
my answer might not seem likeit's directed to body image, I
think it is, because I think Iam seeing more and more women,
saying no to abusive systemsthat harm them during the birth
process and birthing more athome, taking more agency for
their own births, and when we dothat, we always emerge on the
(19:23):
other side stronger and with,you know, intact self-esteem,
and I think that that has adirect impact on our body image.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
I totally agree with you.
You know, I think I've seensomething to.
I don't know if this is true,maybe you can tell me, or if
you've seen this something aboutevery hundred years.
It's like there's a cycle, andmaybe it's more than a hundred
years, but it's something to theeffect of women become unhappy
with how they are being caredfor during the birth experience,
(19:56):
and so there are women thatwill then kind of go outside the
system midwives, as we want tocall them, or what we would know
as maybe more of a birthkeepertype of person, you know,
because they're not certified oranything like that.
But then what ends up happeningis people need some sort of
credentials and they go throughthis process of okay, now they
(20:20):
are tied to a system, thatthey're getting checked, and
then now midwives aremedicalized and are part of the
system.
They're just an extension ofthe system and really you're
being managed the same way athome as you would be in the
hospital and that.
I don't know whoever wrote this, I forget, I forget where it
came from, but it basicallytalks about how then it becomes
super medicalized and then thesystem breaks again and the
(20:43):
whole routine starts over.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Do you know what I'm talking about at all?
I do know what you're talkingabout, and I think that I can't
remember who wrote it either.
But yeah, I think the conceptis solid and I think that we're
at that point now again andmaybe we have been at this point
, you know, at other times inhistory but I do feel like we
are at that point where we'regoing wait a minute, this is not
working.
(21:05):
We got to find a differentsolution.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
We aren't, because, you're right, our grandmother,
my grandmother, her had herchildren by Twilight sleep Mine
too.
So they don't even know.
And and we're not even gettinginto necessarily the impact of
this on babies, which issomething that a lot of mothers
may not think about, but you'llthink about it maybe years from
(21:29):
now.
That's kind of what happened tome.
Right is like you get this ideaplanted and then over time, you
start to think about it more.
But what does the babyexperience and go through during
birth?
Because the baby is in thebirth too.
They're being born.
We actually just talked aboutthis with my sister's birth,
where she thought about when hecame out and he had a lot of
(21:50):
bruising because his head wasasynclinic, so it took him a bit
to come, you know, to come down, and she just had that thought
like man, what has this babygone through in birth?
And now we factor in all theseother stories of moms who have
been coerced into C-sections or,you know, had other experiences
that didn't go right.
(22:10):
If baby's feeling what, mom isfeeling what, what are these
babies experiencing through theway that we give birth?
And I think that that's notsomething that we often think of
.
I don't know your thoughts onthat.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yeah, well, the babies are experiencing the
trauma that the moms areexperiencing and I think that
you know moms, I think, have anintuitive sense about this, but
in the general culture I don'tthink there's any awareness
around what babies go through.
I mean, it wasn't even thatlong ago.
That what is it, people?
It was accepted medicalknowledge that babies didn't
(22:45):
feel pain.
How long ago?
Speaker 1 (22:47):
was that like 50 years ago and people will still
try to argue that one.
They'll say oh, babies, don'tfeel pain in the womb.
And you know people will stilltry to argue against us like are
you kidding me?
Speaker 2 (22:59):
I know it's so crazy.
So, yeah, I mean that I thinkthat that needs to be part of
the conversation too.
You know, I also feel likethere's this women are not
selfish for not wanting to havean intervened with traumatic
birth, like we don't want tohave that happen yes, for us,
(23:20):
but also because the baby ispart of it too, and the baby
does get left out of theconversation sometimes.
But you know, when we'rearguing and fighting for a
natural birth, we're not justdoing it for us, we're doing it
for our babies as well.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Alright, let me go back to the all of the mommas,
okay, because you have heardfrom moms all across the world.
What are some of the mostcommon themes that you've heard
across these stories and whatcan we really learn from these
moments, especially the momsthat are entering into their
(23:57):
birthing time?
What advice might you give?
Speaker 2 (23:59):
them.
Okay, this is where I getradical again to sew it, and I
don't mean to be negative, butif I'm being honest, if I'm
answering your question honestly, what I see across the globe
everywhere is that we have avery broken maternity care
system.
It's just broken.
It's not working well, it's notserving families, it's not
(24:21):
serving mothers and babies, andmothers often have to fight very
, very hard just to have anatural birth, and in some
places it doesn't happen at alland so that's a bummer.
But I think anyone going intomotherhood needs to know that.
It's just you have to know it,because if you don't know it,
(24:42):
it's quite likely that you willlearn the hard way.
And I do include midwives inthis.
Like you said, midwives thatare licensed, they often can,
can bring the hospital to yourhome.
They have many of the samerestrictions, like not going
past 42 weeks, stuff like thatthat a doctor would impose upon
(25:04):
you.
They also have their own fearsand biases too.
You know, some midwives haveseen things that scared them and
they can bring that into thebirth space.
And so the whole, the wholepoint that I'm trying to I'm not
trying to make anyone scared orscary any new pregnant mamas.
I just wish that everyone knewthat you have to be very, very
careful about who you inviteinto your birth space, whether
(25:26):
that be a doctor, a birthkeeper,a midwife, a sister, a friend,
even your partner in some cases.
You have to really, really knowyou have well, actually, you
have to do this.
You have to learn about whatbirth actually is, because the
mamas don't really know muchabout birth.
Yep, and you have to.
You have to decide what do youwant like, what makes you happy,
(25:46):
what gives you peace, what kindof a birth would make you happy
?
For some people it's not what Iwould choose, and that's
totally fine and then get very,very, very clear with whoever it
is that you're inviting intoyour birth space, exactly what
you want and what you need tofeel safe.
And I think that if every newmom did that, I think that that
would prevent tons of trauma.
(26:07):
And I do have a podcast episodecalled 10 questions.
You must ask your midwife Ithink it was the first or second
season and I think that thatwould that podcast episode would
be a great place to start,because there are deep questions
.
How do you feel about death?
How do you feel about freebirth?
You know what's your?
I think it was actually what'syour relationship to death?
I don't know.
(26:28):
It's a.
It's a great starting point, Ithink, for everyone, anyone who
doesn't really know where tobegin with finding the right
practitioner for them.
Yeah, that's, I think that's.
I think that's it.
That's what I would want peopleto know that's, that's the
biggest thing that I just heareverywhere like I just hear it
everywhere that it's crazy thatwe have to fight so hard to have
(26:52):
our babies come out of ourbodies and not have someone do
something to us like it's.
It's everywhere.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Yeah, that's great advice and I'm glad that you're
pointing that out because Ithink that that's part of our
stories too.
Right, like we went to thehospital for our first birth,
people were touching us.
We didn't want to be touched.
You know, my doctor keptsticking her hand in there and
I'm just like get out of herewith this.
Yeah, and you don't realize howtraumatic it is in the moment,
(27:21):
because you're in the moment andyou're trying to just have a
baby and all these things arehappening to you.
It's not until later.
After that you're like man,that made me feel horrible, that
that person kept sticking theirhands inside of my body and
those little things they blow upinto big things when you're
(27:42):
postpartum.
And that is why we want to talkabout this, so that women can be
aware of what they're gettingthemselves into when they go
into the quote system, meaninggo to a hospital to have a baby.
And I always want to be clear.
I'm not trying to push my ownpersonal biases.
Obviously, the listeners ofthis show know that I'm up here
(28:03):
having my babies in the bathroom.
So, no, it's not.
It's not like people don't knowthat, but a lot of folks are
growing the chews to stillcontinue to go to a hospital and
that's their choice.
That's totally fine.
But just be aware of whatyou're up against when you go
into that setting, because youcan tell them things all you
(28:25):
want and they will still dothings, even if you've said not
to.
That's what you're gettingyourself into, and so having a
doula might be a good idea ifyou're in that situation,
someone that you're going totell don't allow them to do any
of these things.
That can kind of be yourdefense person.
I hate to say this, but it'slike you have to have someone
(28:46):
there to fight for you so youcan focus and just do what you
need to do.
And that's why I'm a fan ofhome birth, because I don't want
to fight with people duringbirth.
I don't want to be stressed, Idon't want to deal with anybody,
I just want to be left aloneand go up there to my closet and
just do my thing.
Don't bother me, and I thinkthat that's another thing that a
(29:07):
lot of first time moms maybedon't realize is that the more
people you have around you, theharder it is for your body to do
what it needs to do, becauseit's distracted.
Your body's trying to squeezethat uterus, squeeze, squeeze,
squeeze that baby down andyou're over here dealing with
all this other stuff thatdoesn't allow you to stay in the
moment and stay focused.
(29:27):
I think that can be anotherproblem that women run into when
they're in that type of setting.
I have said this before on theshow and I'll say it again you
also don't need to agree tothings in the hospital and it's
not necessarily my place to tellanybody what to do when it
comes to that point.
But you can decline things.
(29:48):
You can say no.
You can ask to sign formssaying that I'm going to sign
against medical advice called anAMA and I'll sign a form for
you.
You need me to sign somethingfor you.
I will sign it, but again, thisis what you're up against in
that setting.
So the other alternative is tojust not be a part of that.
(30:10):
But it's going to take radicaltrust in the Lord to walk the
home birth path.
But then, once you do it, thenyou realize wait a second, god
created my body perfectly to dothis, without any intervention
at all.
I didn't need a doctor that'sdown over there to run over here
(30:34):
, to quote, deliver my baby,which I'm sure it drives you.
I don't know if it drives youas crazy as it drives me.
It's like I get people ask thatoh, who delivered your baby?
I'm like me I did, yeah, youdid, and the baby wasn't
delivered, they were born, hewas born and she was born.
It's like so crazy this worldthat we live in.
(30:57):
But I think that that's goodadvice to give these moms is
learn about birth, learn aboutthe physiological side of it.
Do you have any good resourcesfor first time moms?
Because that's the other partof it is.
A lot of times we'll go toYouTube and we might learn a
little bit, but maybe we don'tlearn fully about the
(31:17):
physiological side of birth.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
I'm not just saying this because I'm a podcaster,
but I truly believe you willlearn so much.
I think the most importantinformation about birth you will
learn from listening to womentell their birth stories.
You don't need to know all ofthe details about the hormonal
cocktail or all of the detailedphysiology of the uterus.
I mean, all that stuff isreally interesting and cool and
(31:43):
maybe we should all know that.
But I'm telling you, if youlisten to women's birth stories,
you will notice themes.
Something will happen that inyour labor you'll remember.
Oh, a woman said this aboutthat and that happened.
It is such an invaluableresource that there are birth
podcasts out there and you don'thave to listen to mine.
(32:04):
Just listen to birth storypodcasts and you will learn more
than any book that I couldrecommend honestly.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
That's a great point.
I think you're right.
It is in learning.
That's how I learned from otherwomen.
Now I did read a couple of books, like Home Birth on your Own
Terms, which you know it's likea big one in our home birth
world, but I really for thatbook specifically.
I was interested in learningfrom her about herbs and just
some kind of other little things.
(32:32):
Not necessarily all of it right, not necessarily I didn't need
to know everything about homebirth, but there was a couple of
things that I wanted to justread about and learn about.
So that was helpful.
But you're right, like Ina May,gaskin's Guide to Childbirth
starts with birth stories.
And she starts with birthstories for a reason Because the
(32:52):
stories of these women are whatare going to help champion us
forward.
It's learning about birth fromother moms who've done it.
I mean, I hate to be mean, butif we think about a lot of these
OBs out there that are quotedelivering babies.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Where's their knowledge?
From A book?
They know nothing.
Many of them have never seen aphysiological birth, never seen
it, never seen it in theirtraining, don't see it in their
practice.
Don't allow it to happen.
Sorry, I'm being mean now.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
But yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
I don't think that they actually know it.
I mean I also don't reallythink that doctors know as much
in generally about the humanbody as they think they know.
So I mean that's also my biasshowing.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
But yeah, yeah Well, we know that it's true because
there's so much fear.
If they truly understood howbirth works, they wouldn't be so
afraid, they wouldn't feel thatthey needed to manage it.
But birth in the industrializedmedical complex it's a
financial system, it's goods andservices that it's crazy to
(34:00):
think about it like that, but itis.
We are just a product that'scoming in.
They have certain protocols togetting out the product that
they need to get out and thenmove on.
You're just another bucket,another number in the queue, and
I don't know about you.
I don't like to be numbers in aqueue Doesn't make me feel good
(34:22):
, and even if you think aboutthe model and how broken it is.
You go for appointments, but thepeople that are going to be
there on the day that you givebirth are going to be all
different people.
You're birthing with strangersand one of the things that you
noted earlier was people beingpresent in your birth and being
(34:46):
cautious or thinking throughwho's going to be in your birth
space, because that really is asacred place and there's a lot
of talk in our world.
Birth worlds is what I meanabout the intimacy in making a
baby is the same intimacy thatthe baby comes into the world
(35:07):
under and we're going to havethat intimate moment under
fluorescent lights and strangersand beeping around us.
And that's one of the beautiesof embracing the physiological
part of this is you're able toreally unlock the true way of
birth.
(35:27):
I don't even know what I'mtalking about, just that.
I don't even know how todescribe it.
It's so primal and so normaland so natural and it doesn't
have to be this big show, thisbig spectacle that it is.
I guess that's what I'm tryingto say that you leave your house
(35:51):
, you get in the car and you godo things at the hospital.
It's simpler than that.
It doesn't have to be thatcomplicated.
Our body, I mean, think aboutit.
There are women that have beenin a coma and their babies are
born.
Why is that?
Because the body knows what todo.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
Yeah, and also I totally agree with everything
you said.
But just to add on to a lot ofthe things that are pathologized
as wrong or a problem or badwithin the medical system, there
actually is an intelligencebehind some of the things that
we've just decided are incorrector wrong, like breach babies,
(36:28):
you know.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Yeah, totally.
You know one of those I heardrecently from someone who just
had her baby and was in thetraditional system and just was
sharing how things went and said, yeah, it was almost an
emergency, the cord was wrappedaround the baby's neck and so
(36:51):
they almost did a C-section, butthen the baby came out.
It's so hard for me to keep mymouth shut at this point in my
life with all of the stuff thatI've heard.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Yeah, me too.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Especially because I don't want her to sit and
ruminate over my baby almostdied.
That is horrible, right?
I'm like hey, um, I just wantto share with you that the
doctors you know were.
They don't understand thatcompletely and I kind of like
went into this little tangentand then afterwards I was like
(37:25):
why did I say anything?
I should have just get my mouthshut, because it's hard to tell
people that are not yet awakenecessarily to what's going on
in the system.
It's hard to tell themsomething that's going against
what a doctor told them, becausethey have credentials in there
a doctor and they said that itwas almost an emergency.
(37:49):
So that's sometimes what I feellike we're combating, which can
be challenging, but at the sametime, it's not also not my job
to convince someone of anythingLike.
That's the Lord's work and hewill help guide other women and
families to the right answers.
That's his job.
And I guess I feel you knowwhat we can do is we can share
(38:14):
in the right context.
And that context I kind ofregretted sharing, just because
I felt like her response made it, made me feel like she wasn't
prepared to peer something likethat.
Now that must.
You're such a great listener.
I mean, you're trained andyou're so good at listening, so
(38:34):
it must be challenging sometimes.
I don't know, is it hardsometimes to hear things?
And then you know like youprobably have feedback too that
you want to be like actually letme help you with this, and you
know you give your answers.
How do you manage that when yourun into it?
Speaker 2 (38:50):
It's super challenging for me.
Every time and almost everysingle birth story I hear
there's something where I canpick up like a mistruth that
this person believed about herexperience or a place where a
provider intervened and causedthe very problem that caused the
problem.
And I never offer my opinion.
(39:10):
I never insert myself into anystory that a woman is sharing
with me because I have learnedthe hard way that it's just
entirely not my place.
And these, when you ask peopleto like think critically about
the interventions that happenaround birth and our medical
(39:32):
system, the way it's set up,you're actually what you're
really inviting them into issomething so much bigger and
deeper You're inviting them intokind of shattering the
worldview that we all live in.
You know it's a realhead-exploder if you had to like
accept that, like maybe yourdoctor didn't do the right thing
(39:52):
or doesn't know everything andso like realizing that, like
people are, not everyone isready for that.
I just don't ever.
I don't ever offer my opinionsabout anything.
I always offer empathy andunderstanding and gratitude that
a woman is sharing her birthstory with me, because it is
also just a sacred thing to bebrought into and I often feel
(40:14):
like the most disrespectfulthing that I could do would be
to say, oh well, that isn't whatactually happened.
That happened, you know.
But I mean just today Iinterviewed someone and she had
to transfer out of her homebirth because of something the
midwives picked up on in theirlistening to the heartbeat and
telling her story and I knewexactly what had caused the
(40:37):
complication that caused her totransfer.
In her story I heard itimmediately, I could tell
exactly what it was.
The details don't really matterand she ended up having this
extremely traumatic experiencethat she has been in therapy for
for two years and it was justone thing I heard in her story
and I was like that is whatcaused this to happen.
(40:59):
But I'm never gonna say that toher because, also, her story is
so much more than that.
So it's challenging though.
I mean I feel for you and Icompletely understand your
struggle.
It's really hard not to tellpeople especially something
about the narrative of the cordaround the neck.
It's like really triggering forpeople because it sounds scary,
but when you don't understandthe actual physiology of the
(41:22):
cord and the wortensia that's onthe cord and how protective it
actually is to be wrapped aroundthe baby's body, because then
that prevents a prolapse fromhappening, like it just sounds
triggering.
But it seems to be one of thosecommon maybe it's a common
reason that doctors say youneeded a C-section and we just
accept it because it soundsscary.
But it's a complete falsehood,like completely yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
I'm so glad that you addressed that there at the end,
because it is part of God'sdesign for babies and for birth.
Is that that cord is nice andlong and baby can wrap around in
it.
They roll around in there.
It's only natural.
If God, he is the designer ofthis, right, I don't think that
he would design something sopoorly that one third of these
(42:13):
babies oh, those third are at arisk for death because of this.
I don't think so.
I don't think so.
It's by design, like you said.
And do you wanna tell us alittle bit, because it sounds
like you have a really good?
You shared a little piece of it, so tell us more about the cord
and it's design.
What have you?
Speaker 2 (42:34):
learned.
Sure.
Well, I should have maybe saidlike 40 minutes ago that I'm not
a medical professional and Ihave no medical training at all.
Anyone listening, this is juststuff that I've picked up, so
okay.
So there's a coding.
There's a coding on the cordcalled Wharton's Jelly.
It makes it really slippery,really slimy and sticky and
(42:54):
really elastic, and so what Iwas referring to was when the
baby has the cord wrapped aroundtheir neck or just around their
body like a seatbelt.
You'll sometimes hear about that.
That is actually very useful,because when the baby is coming
out of your body, it preventsthe cord from going first, which
actually would be a trueemergency if the cord was
prolapsed and was coming outbefore the baby.
(43:15):
And I again coming back to thiscommon theme that we've touched
on so many times.
I mean often the prolapse canbe caused by interventions of
other people.
I don't know that I've everheard of one happening in a
undisturbed birth, but that's anaside.
So the way that it's designedis designed to be tightly with
your baby as your baby comes out, because it prevents what could
(43:38):
actually be a true emergency.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Perfect, beautiful.
That was a great explanation,thank you All right.
So we have talked a little bitabout some of these common
themes, and this is kind of onthat same note, but a slightly
different question Is there orare there any perceptions that
you've noticed that women haveabout either birth itself or an
(44:04):
aspect of birth?
That is just blatantly wrong,all of it.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
No well, I was gonna say that it's so the
misperceptions around birth thatI've encountered or that I
wanna dispel, that it'sdangerous that you can't do it,
that there's something uniquelybroken about your body because
your OB told you something 10years ago about your pelvis even
that it's a medical event Idon't even see birth as a
(44:33):
medical event anymore with theknowledge that I have.
I see it as a physiologicalevent that will unfold most
likely, ideally, without anyinterruptions or strangers being
there.
And so, yeah, all of it, likeall of it, is a huge
misconception and we have tounlearn it.
And also, birth is not it's notthe way that it's depicted in
(44:56):
television and movies on yourback, screaming Like.
That's not.
I get that's how it unfoldssometimes in the modern world,
but that's not what it actuallyis.
It's a physiological process.
It's the culmination of aspiritual journey.
It's an initiation into a newversion of yourself.
Even if you've had five babies,every single time you do it
(45:19):
you're gonna be changed, andthat's what I think birth
actually is.
And all of that other stuff isjust like capitalism and noise
and like the pharmaceuticalindustry.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
Yeah, absolutely, it absolutely is.
It's so funny.
Something that you justmentioned so just sparked a
thought for me on the side ofthe physiological, you might
remember from my story that Iused hypnobabies to retrain and
reframe my thoughts because ofhow our culture shows us birth,
(45:51):
or how birth shows up for us inour lives on TV and movies.
Like you said, that we aretaught and we're trained, it's
this emergency, you know howdoes in the movies, like all my
water broke and now I go to thehospital and then I'm screaming
and people are holding the legsback and all the babies like
this big, huge drama.
And one of the things that Iloved about that have no babies
(46:13):
program was that it trained meto reframe my own thoughts on
how I thought about birth, andthat's something that I think
that we go into birth not doingenough of is saying what are my
perceptions?
what do I actually think thatbirth is?
Because I thought I thought Ithought I thought I knew what
birth was before I went into it.
(46:34):
Then I went into my firstexperience and as soon as I was
experiencing Contractions,that's when it all went south
for me, because I hadn't Ihadn't learned yet that
contractions are unnecessary,needed and beautiful part of a
baby being born.
And once I understood that, itwas normal and natural to feel
(46:58):
that in that, if I just honed inon that instead of trying to
fight it, you use the wordsurrender earlier.
Once we surrender to that, thatfear of pain, I think that
that's where the beauty reallycan unfold for us and where
things can shift and where wecan experience a change and not
(47:22):
have that hospital, drama, tvbirth that they depict for us.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
Yeah, I'm so glad that you mentioned a mindset
shift because, you know,television really is programming
and all of us, whether we'reaware of it or not, we've been
put, we have, we've beenprogrammed by someone else's
ideas of the world, and you'reyou're so spot on.
I mean, going into my firstbirth, I did not do enough to do
programming at all, even thoughI thought of myself as someone
(47:50):
who trusted the process and, youknow, wanted to birth at home.
I didn't do the really deepinner work of Of really
examining my beliefs about birthand reprogramming them.
I love that you, the tool thatyou use.
I mean, I think there's so manydifferent ways to do it, but
absolutely lots of ways.
(48:10):
Yeah, absolutely key.
Speaker 1 (48:12):
Yeah, yeah and I'm definitely not necessarily
promoting one over another justwas what helps me at that time.
You know it was what kind ofcame up, and I think that you're
right.
Though, and as a woman getscloser to her birth, I think
that's when it gets even moreimportant to Just really focus
on positive birth stories and,you know, positive situations
(48:33):
and not get sucked into all thatstuff.
I remember I think it was mysister, when I was getting close
with Ben, saying, oh, you gottawatch this show, the one with
the midwives, call the midwives.
And I was like I am notwatching a show about childbirth
right now.
You're crazy.
And it was funny because Istarted watching it after.
I was like, okay, let me seewhat this is about.
(48:54):
It was so traumatic.
I was like why did you tell meto watch this, you know?
And it was funny because shewas still in the hospital birth
mindset, she hadn't yet gonethrough her own experience, and
now she gets it.
And I think that sometimes wehave to just experience things
to understand them, and I knowthat we want to save all these
(49:16):
moms from all the pain that wewent through.
But there are going to be somethat here and you know, it takes
kind of going through it ontheir own to really set them on
fire for birth too, and I thinkthat's the beautiful thing about
this community that we're in isit's a bunch of women who are
really on fire for birth becausewe know how awesome it can be.
(49:37):
Yes, absolutely Well good well,anything else you want to leave
us with on this episode aboutlearning moments?
Speaker 2 (49:47):
I want to say to any pregnant mom out there that's
listening to this I hope Ididn't freak you out Listen to
birth podcast.
Listen to people's stories.
You'll learn so much.
You're capable of so much morethan you realize.
Don't let anyone's fear getinto your sphere.
Just have strong boundaries andbe very, very, very decisive
(50:11):
about who you invite into yourbirth and always listen to your
intuition sometimes ourintuition is way more spot on
than our brain and use yourintuition when you're making any
choice around your careprovider and you've 100% got
this.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
Awesome.
That's great advice, and Godgave us our intuition, so
definitely tune into that,because he gave it to us for a
reason, and thank you so much,diana, for being here today.
This has been fantastic.
I'm looking forward to talkingwith you more as well, and I
know everyone is in for a treatnext week as well, so thank you
for being here today.
Speaker 2 (50:46):
Thank you, rebecca.
Speaker 1 (50:48):
Awesome and thank you for tuning in and for being on
this journey with us.
If you would like to followDiana, you can follow her on
Instagram at healingbirth.
You can also find her on herwebsite, healingbirthnet, and,
of course, you can find herpodcast Streamin Everywhere it's
called Healing Birth.
Definitely check her out,listen to those birth stories
(51:12):
and let us know what you think.
I love, love, love the storiesthat you share and I'm so
excited for this audience tohear more from you there too.
If you would like to followalong outside the podcast, you
can join the mission onInstagram at the Radiant Mission
on Instagram or on Facebook atthe Radiant Mission podcast.
(51:33):
And, of course, you can alwayswatch this podcast in video
format if you're not doing itright now on YouTube at the
Radiant Mission, or just lookfor Rebecca Tumi.
Today we are going to closewith a Bible verse that Diana
actually really loves and findsher center in when it comes to
birth.
So I'm going to read fromMatthew 6, verses 5 through 14.
(52:01):
And when you pray, do not belike the hypocrites, for they
love to pray, standing in thesynagogues and on the street
corners to be seen by others.
Truly, I tell you, they havereceived their reward in full,
but when you pray, go into yourroom, close the door and pray to
your father, who is unseen.
Then your father, who sees whatis done in secret, will reward
(52:22):
you.
And when you pray, do not keepon babbling like the pagans, for
they think they will be heardbecause of their many words.
Do not be like them, for yourfather knows what you need
before you even ask him.
This, then, is how you shouldpray Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done on earth asit is in heaven.
(52:43):
Give us today our daily breadand forgive us our debts, as we
also have forgiven our debtors,and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evilone, for if you forgive other
people when they sit against you, your heavenly Father will also
forgive you, but if you do notforgive others their sins, your
(53:04):
Father will not forgive you.
And we are wishing you aradiant week and we'll see you
next time.
Bye, everybody.
Hello and welcome to the Radiant Mission podcast.
My name is Rebecca Toomey andwe are on a mission to encourage
and inspire you as you'renavigating through your life and
with your relationship withChrist.
We are currently in a seriescalled God's Design for Birth,
and today we have a very, very,very, very special guest.
She is an expert on birth.
(00:54):
Her name is Diana, a four-celltie-in, and she is a writer,
speaker and she is the host ofthe Healing Birth podcast, which
is now in its fifth season.
So amazing.
Her podcast is popular in 36countries, which is amazing,
including the US, canada,australia, the UK.
(01:15):
She's the co-founder of HealingBirth, which is a perinatal
support organization that'sdedicated to supporting women in
various ways who've experiencedbirth trauma.
Diana is trained with birthingfrom within as a birth story
listener and offers one-on-onenon-clinical support to mothers
(01:35):
who seek her help in processingtheir birth experiences.
Diana's passion and commitmentfor this work comes from her own
personal experience with thetraumatic birth, its aftermath
and, ultimately, her healing.
She's a mother of two sons andlives with her family on.
(01:55):
I'm going to let you say whereyou live, so I don't
mispronounce it Kauai, hawaii.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
we're the northernmost island in the
Hawaiian chains.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Beautiful, and you can find more of Diana's work at
healingbirthnet.
You can listen to her podcastHealing Birth on all streaming
platforms.
Diana, thank you so much forbeing here today.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Thank you so much for having me.
I mean, you were a guest on mypodcast and that was one of my
actually most favorite episodes,so it's really fun to see your
face and get to talk again.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
This is awesome, yeah .
Something that I really want toshare with listeners is the
amazing impact that you've madeon my life, and I don't even
know if you realize it.
I tell you, but I don't know ifyou really understand it.
Without you, this podcastwouldn't even exist.
It was in July of 2022, afterI'd had my own traumatic birth,
(02:50):
that I shared the story of Ben'sbirth with you on your show and
after we stopped recording, youwere just so encouraging to me
and you just said somethingabout you enjoyed my
storytelling.
I should do something with that, and I just couldn't stop
thinking about it.
After that, I went to bed.
I was thinking about what yousaid and I really started
praying for some guidance aboutsharing that story.
(03:11):
Was there more to share?
And from that came this podcast.
The rest is history, but it allstarted with you and your words
of encouragement, so thank youfor encouraging me.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
I'm so proud of you.
I'm so glad you're doing this.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
It's amazing, it's seriously.
It was like we had such a greatconversation and it's been cool
to see it spawn into morethings.
So you're changing women'slives literally with your
podcast when it comes to birthand healing from birth trauma,
but then you also changed mine.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Thank you, rebecca.
That's so kind, but I mean youdid it and you listened to the
call, so you know yeah, you're a.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah, I guess there's a little part there.
I'm just so excited and honoredreally to have you here.
After knowing the history andhow important it's been for me,
it's just such an honor and apleasure to have you and to
learn from you, because that'sreally what this is all about.
We love to share learningmoments here on the show and
(04:16):
takeaways and we want to justhelp women to get to the answers
faster.
I think you could probablyagree with a lot of that.
We a lot of times go into birthwithout knowing mantra, even
going into the next birthcontinuous birth and maybe we
haven't learned in between.
Whatever it might be, it's suchan amazing thing to get to
(04:37):
learn from women who've walkedthrough fire and not only have
you walked through fire, but youhave listened to the fires of
many other women and that's whatI want us to learn from you
today is all of the stuff thatyou have heard over all of these
years five seasons of listeningto birth stories, traumatic
(04:59):
birth stories and stories ofhealing.
So we're going to be peelingthat onion back today to learn
from you and then next weekwe'll focus on the birth trauma
side.
So if you are listening in andyou have experienced birth
trauma of your own.
Be sure to stay tuned for nextweek, because we're going to
really dive into thatspecifically.
But today we want to talk aboutlearning moments and I just
(05:19):
want to hear from you first.
How did it all start?
How did it all progress?
Tell us more about the HealingBirth podcast.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah, I love to tell how this started, because it's
so magical.
So I, when I was pregnant withmy first baby, like a lot of
people do, I think that it wasaround 10 years ago, and I think
around 10 years ago is whenpodcasts kind of were becoming a
thing like right around then,like a lot of moms, I was
listening to birth podcasts andI was listening to birth stories
and I was constantly filling myhead with stories of home birth
(05:53):
and happy birth stories,because that's the kind of birth
that I was planning for.
And so when that birth did notgo that way and I ended up
having a very traumaticexperience at the hospital, I
had this podcast feed that wasfull of like home birth and
positive birth stories, and Iwanted to find stories like my
(06:15):
own, not only to try and makesense of the experience that I
had just had, because I was kindof really like how did this
happen to me?
But also I wanted some hope.
I wanted to hear people thathad had a birth like I had just
had and then found healing orfound some sort of redemption or
even went on to have a positivebirth.
(06:36):
And I also found that in thoseearly days postpartum, I was
very I felt a lot of guilt and Ididn't have really a lot of
empathy for myself.
But when I heard other women'sstories of having a home birth
transfer and a cesarean,anything that was kind of
similar to mine I could findempathy for them.
I wasn't judging them, I wasn'tthinking, oh, you were so
(06:57):
stupid, how did this happen toyou?
In the same way I was saying tomyself, and so, in a way,
hearing other women's storiesreally helped me find compassion
and empathy for myself, and soit was a really important part
of my healing from thatexperience was just other
women's stories.
But it was hard to find acollection of stories like that.
(07:17):
Most birth podcasts, probably bydesign, have a whole range of
different types of stories thatthey share, and so I remember
thinking in those early days wow, I wish that there was just one
podcast that was just abouthealing birth trauma or healing
from a bad birth experience, andthat kind of just stuck in my
head and I thought about it fora while.
(07:37):
And I had a new baby and I hada new baby, so I wasn't really
in a place to start a podcast.
But a few years later, afterthe birth of my second child,
which was a life changing, oh,just a healing, incredible birth
experience.
I know that you know whatthat's like I was invited to
share.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
It lights you on fire .
It lights you on fire.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
It lights you on fire and it will change your whole
entire life and you'll quit yourcorporate job and you'll become
a podcast, which is what I did.
But yeah, I was invited toshare my story on a pretty
popular birth podcast and I justdiscovered that I loved it, I
loved the recording, I lovedspeaking about birth.
Like something about it lit meup and I just felt like I've got
(08:22):
to do this, I've got to start,I've got to start a podcast and
talk about the niche like thespecific niche in the birth
world that I'm really interestedin and that I know a lot about
because I went through it, andso that was five years ago and I
can't believe it's been fiveyears.
It's been such an amazingblessing in my life and I've met
(08:43):
and talked to women all overthe world and you know, like you
said, I've just learned so muchand I'm really proud of it and
thank you for the opportunity totalk about it.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Oh, it's amazing.
I really, I'm really just soimpressed by everything that
you've done and how to watch itunfold over the years, too, is
just so beautiful.
That's amazing.
What's that?
Thank you for being part of ittoo.
Of course, of course, and I'mso glad that you have that space
(09:15):
for women because, like yousaid, there are all kinds of
different spaces, but whatyou're focusing on is actually
the healing from the trauma,versus focusing on just the
trauma piece.
Right, like it's not a place tojust go and like tell your
deepest, darkest, worst momentsand be like bye, I'm in a
(09:35):
horrible place now.
You know, I love that there isa very fun.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
That would be very fun to listen to.
No, it would.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
It would be pretty depressing for sure.
So I think that that's afantastic thing that you have
that for women that are workingon their own healing, because
there are women that aren'tthere yet and these are the
stories that they need in thattime.
I'll never forget when I had myC-section with my daughter and
(10:05):
my sister said something lateron like her heart broke for what
she knew I was about to gothrough and because she'd had
two C-sections.
It was like actually makes meemotional thinking about this,
because of how far we've come,both of us myself and her, who
I've had now two V-backs and shejust successfully had a V-back
(10:27):
after two C-sections and nodoctor's believing in her.
So, anyway, I remember hersaying that to me and just
thinking like gosh.
Now I know what it's like rightwhen I hear a mom who has had to
transfer or whatever theirstory might be, that things just
did not progress.
(10:48):
They're the way that they hadin their mind and how you know
the next thing that they'regonna go through after birth is
that trauma and it'sheartbreaking and I don't want
anybody to go through it, whichis why we want to be as
educational as we can be toother women around us, to other
moms that are about to walkthrough this path.
So, with that said, I have abillion questions I wanna ask
(11:12):
you because I can honestly onlyjust even imagine what you must
have learned over all of theseyears, and I wanna soak up that
knowledge as much as I can.
I know our guests you too.
So, our series being calledentitled God's Design for Birth,
I would love to start there andlearn more about what you have
(11:34):
seen about God and the storiesthat you've heard from other
women.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
I love this question.
This is such a beautifulquestion that I almost need to
stop and think about a littlebit.
I'll say that I see God inevery single story that I share
on the podcast, even the storieswhere the birth is a
challenging one.
I don't know about you, butevery single birth video I've
(11:59):
ever seen, even if it's achallenging birth, like I said,
the moment that there is a babyborn it just feels holy, like
it's almost like I can just feelGod's presence when a baby is
born.
And so generally, I mean I justI always see God reflected in
the birth stories that I share.
But I've come to primarily nowthink of birth, or think of
(12:24):
pregnancy and birth, as aspiritual journey for us, for
the women that are bringing thebabies onto the planet.
And in that I think that thereare a few themes that God really
invites us to explore duringthis time, and it comes up a lot
.
Especially, women of faith willoften say this to me that
they're connecting this to theirrelationship with God, and
(12:45):
that's themes of surrender,themes of trust, themes of
trusting in their own body andtrusting in God's design of
their body, which is actuallykind of a radical thing to do
nowadays Like.
I know it sounds simple, butit's like we live in a world
where we like immediately injectsomething into a baby because,
like you know, that baby wasn'tborn.
(13:05):
What's that?
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Cause someone told her.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Yeah, exactly, but I mean really fundamentally what's
behind that is we're nottrusting God's design, and so
it's radical to do that, and Ithink that that's something that
we're often invited to exploreduring our pregnancies.
Healing is also something thatI hear a lot, not just in the
sense of healing from adifficult birth story, but there
(13:30):
can be radical healing thathappens in a woman's life, that
happens through the unfolding ofa physiological birth.
One woman just the other daytold me that her birth
experience healed a lifetime ofbody image issues for her, which
I thought was so beautiful, andI just feel like any time that
radical healing like thathappens, god is always involved.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
That's beautiful, yeah yeah, I would love to dig
in to that side of it a littlebit more, and you know that
story that you just mentioned ofher saying that her body image
issues were healed.
Could you share a little bitmore about that story?
Yeah, and come to the contextto it.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Yes, I can.
I think that the context isrelevant.
So she was a very interestingperson.
She's very young, she was 21.
And she had always, you know,like so many of us, maybe all of
us dealt with, like you know,wanting to be thinner, being on
sort of the diet cycle, notreally nourishing herself
properly, and she seemed to besomeone way ahead of her time,
(14:35):
way ahead of her years.
She decided that with her firstpregnant she, she was going to
free birth that baby and inmaking that decision she decided
to take radicalself-responsibility for her
health and the health of herbaby, but really like for all
aspects of her life.
And she didn't like talk aboutGod very much, but she had like
(14:57):
a big poster of like I forgetwhat it was, but it was like
trust God, like a poster behindher head as we were recording.
So I'm extrapolating that thiswas part of a spiritual journey
for her.
But it just really struck methat someone that young could
take that much responsibilityand make that decision.
And the birth was just a reallyyou know it was birth.
(15:20):
It was everything that birthwas.
It was challenging, it waspowerful, it was beautiful.
She did it and she emerged fromthat experience feeling like,
oh my gosh, there's absolutelynothing wrong with my body the
way it is now, even if I'mslightly heavier than before.
I just did this.
I mean, this was a miracle.
She emerged feeling so strong.
She had no medical authoritythere managing the process, it
(15:41):
was just her and her partner and, I think, her in her mother.
Yeah, her mother-in-law wasthere too, which I thought
that's an interesting dynamic,but it was healing for everyone.
I guess, like the mother-in-lawalso had had a really strong
medical background.
She was a nurse and had a lotof fear and a lot of just like
issues a lot of fear aroundbirth, like most people in the
(16:02):
medical field too and witnessingher daughter-in-law free birth
her baby healed a lot of thatwithin her as well, and so, yeah
, that was the major points ofthat story.
I haven't really seen that it'sgonna be in this next new season
.
Oh, good, good exciting.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
We'll have a nice fresh episode to listen to.
I love it, looking forward toit.
Well, there is a couple ofthings that I wanna pull out
from that.
First is the body side ofthings.
That is a great conversation tohave.
I know that so many women, oncethey are in that fourth
trimester, are then pressured byespecially.
We have social media, whichdrives me crazy with this whole
(16:41):
bounce back culture and, oh, Igotta get my old body back, and
I'm sure that this is a themeand something that you've seen
over the years.
Do you find that the tidesmight be shifting at all with
when it comes to that?
Because I kind of starting tosee it with some women who are
like, no, I'm not playing thisgame of trying to get my body
(17:04):
back.
I, this is my body, and my bodydid an amazing thing and I'm
gonna soak up the skin-to-skinand I don't care about any of
the rest of that stuff.
I kind of see there's acommunity of those women that
seem to be getting larger, but Ican't tell if it's just the
communities that I'm in or ifit's, if it's actually happening
.
Any thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Oh, I definitely think it's actually happening.
I think it's part of a largermovement of women are starting
to how do I want to say this?
Take more agency in the realmof birth.
I think that we've.
I mean, I'm gonna.
By the way, I'm sorry I shouldhave prefaced this by saying I
have some really radical thingsto say or opinions about birth,
(17:48):
like, I don't know how radicalyou want me to be, I'll be as
radical as you want to be.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Okay, cool, as radical as you want.
This is a radical show.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
I'm gonna say some stuff that might sound kind of
out there, but I, getting backto your question, I I think that
we've actually been in amassive dark age as it relates
to how birth is done, and I'mnot even talking about just in
the United States, I meaneverywhere, as far as I can tell
, across the globe.
We have been damaging women anddamaging their babies during,
(18:22):
during the management of theirbirth process, and it happened
to our mother, our grandmothers,our great grandmothers and then
beyond there I can't really say.
But it's been a real dark ageand I think that we have been
emerging from our birthexperiences, many of us, perhaps
most of us, damaged by it andhurt by it, and there's
(18:42):
something that we there is aprize that we get when we have a
normal physiological birth.
There is a price that we getand that is the knowledge that
we can do it.
There's there's like asomatically felt knowing of how
strong and powerful you are whenyou, when you go through that
(19:02):
process and you're on the otherside of it, and so, while this
my answer might not seem likeit's directed to body image, I
think it is, because I think Iam seeing more and more women,
saying no to abusive systemsthat harm them during the birth
process and birthing more athome, taking more agency for
their own births, and when we dothat, we always emerge on the
(19:23):
other side stronger and with,you know, intact self-esteem,
and I think that that has adirect impact on our body image.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
I totally agree with you.
You know, I think I've seensomething to.
I don't know if this is true,maybe you can tell me, or if
you've seen this something aboutevery hundred years.
It's like there's a cycle, andmaybe it's more than a hundred
years, but it's something to theeffect of women become unhappy
with how they are being caredfor during the birth experience,
(19:56):
and so there are women thatwill then kind of go outside the
system midwives, as we want tocall them, or what we would know
as maybe more of a birthkeepertype of person, you know,
because they're not certified oranything like that.
But then what ends up happeningis people need some sort of
credentials and they go throughthis process of okay, now they
(20:20):
are tied to a system, thatthey're getting checked, and
then now midwives aremedicalized and are part of the
system.
They're just an extension ofthe system and really you're
being managed the same way athome as you would be in the
hospital and that.
I don't know whoever wrote this, I forget, I forget where it
came from, but it basicallytalks about how then it becomes
super medicalized and then thesystem breaks again and the
(20:43):
whole routine starts over.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Do you know what I'm talking about at all?
I do know what you're talkingabout, and I think that I can't
remember who wrote it either.
But yeah, I think the conceptis solid and I think that we're
at that point now again andmaybe we have been at this point
, you know, at other times inhistory but I do feel like we
are at that point where we'regoing wait a minute, this is not
working.
(21:05):
We got to find a differentsolution.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
We aren't, because, you're right, our grandmother,
my grandmother, her had herchildren by Twilight sleep Mine
too.
So they don't even know.
And and we're not even gettinginto necessarily the impact of
this on babies, which issomething that a lot of mothers
may not think about, but you'llthink about it maybe years from
(21:29):
now.
That's kind of what happened tome.
Right is like you get this ideaplanted and then over time, you
start to think about it more.
But what does the babyexperience and go through during
birth?
Because the baby is in thebirth too.
They're being born.
We actually just talked aboutthis with my sister's birth,
where she thought about when hecame out and he had a lot of
(21:50):
bruising because his head wasasynclinic, so it took him a bit
to come, you know, to come down, and she just had that thought
like man, what has this babygone through in birth?
And now we factor in all theseother stories of moms who have
been coerced into C-sections or,you know, had other experiences
that didn't go right.
(22:10):
If baby's feeling what, mom isfeeling what, what are these
babies experiencing through theway that we give birth?
And I think that that's notsomething that we often think of
.
I don't know your thoughts onthat.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yeah, well, the babies are experiencing the
trauma that the moms areexperiencing and I think that
you know moms, I think, have anintuitive sense about this, but
in the general culture I don'tthink there's any awareness
around what babies go through.
I mean, it wasn't even thatlong ago.
That what is it, people?
It was accepted medicalknowledge that babies didn't
(22:45):
feel pain.
How long ago?
Speaker 1 (22:47):
was that like 50 years ago and people will still
try to argue that one.
They'll say oh, babies, don'tfeel pain in the womb.
And you know people will stilltry to argue against us like are
you kidding me?
Speaker 2 (22:59):
I know it's so crazy.
So, yeah, I mean that I thinkthat that needs to be part of
the conversation too.
You know, I also feel likethere's this women are not
selfish for not wanting to havean intervened with traumatic
birth, like we don't want tohave that happen yes, for us,
(23:20):
but also because the baby ispart of it too, and the baby
does get left out of theconversation sometimes.
But you know, when we'rearguing and fighting for a
natural birth, we're not justdoing it for us, we're doing it
for our babies as well.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Alright, let me go back to the all of the mommas,
okay, because you have heardfrom moms all across the world.
What are some of the mostcommon themes that you've heard
across these stories and whatcan we really learn from these
moments, especially the momsthat are entering into their
(23:57):
birthing time?
What advice might you give?
Speaker 2 (23:59):
them.
Okay, this is where I getradical again to sew it, and I
don't mean to be negative, butif I'm being honest, if I'm
answering your question honestly, what I see across the globe
everywhere is that we have avery broken maternity care
system.
It's just broken.
It's not working well, it's notserving families, it's not
(24:21):
serving mothers and babies, andmothers often have to fight very
, very hard just to have anatural birth, and in some
places it doesn't happen at alland so that's a bummer.
But I think anyone going intomotherhood needs to know that.
It's just you have to know it,because if you don't know it,
(24:42):
it's quite likely that you willlearn the hard way.
And I do include midwives inthis.
Like you said, midwives thatare licensed, they often can,
can bring the hospital to yourhome.
They have many of the samerestrictions, like not going
past 42 weeks, stuff like thatthat a doctor would impose upon
(25:04):
you.
They also have their own fearsand biases too.
You know, some midwives haveseen things that scared them and
they can bring that into thebirth space.
And so the whole, the wholepoint that I'm trying to I'm not
trying to make anyone scared orscary any new pregnant mamas.
I just wish that everyone knewthat you have to be very, very
careful about who you inviteinto your birth space, whether
(25:26):
that be a doctor, a birthkeeper,a midwife, a sister, a friend,
even your partner in some cases.
You have to really, really knowyou have well, actually, you
have to do this.
You have to learn about whatbirth actually is, because the
mamas don't really know muchabout birth.
Yep, and you have to.
You have to decide what do youwant like, what makes you happy,
(25:46):
what gives you peace, what kindof a birth would make you happy
?
For some people it's not what Iwould choose, and that's
totally fine and then get very,very, very clear with whoever it
is that you're inviting intoyour birth space, exactly what
you want and what you need tofeel safe.
And I think that if every newmom did that, I think that that
would prevent tons of trauma.
(26:07):
And I do have a podcast episodecalled 10 questions.
You must ask your midwife Ithink it was the first or second
season and I think that thatwould that podcast episode would
be a great place to start,because there are deep questions
.
How do you feel about death?
How do you feel about freebirth?
You know what's your?
I think it was actually what'syour relationship to death?
I don't know.
(26:28):
It's a.
It's a great starting point, Ithink, for everyone, anyone who
doesn't really know where tobegin with finding the right
practitioner for them.
Yeah, that's, I think that's.
I think that's it.
That's what I would want peopleto know that's, that's the
biggest thing that I just heareverywhere like I just hear it
everywhere that it's crazy thatwe have to fight so hard to have
(26:52):
our babies come out of ourbodies and not have someone do
something to us like it's.
It's everywhere.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Yeah, that's great advice and I'm glad that you're
pointing that out because Ithink that that's part of our
stories too.
Right, like we went to thehospital for our first birth,
people were touching us.
We didn't want to be touched.
You know, my doctor keptsticking her hand in there and
I'm just like get out of herewith this.
Yeah, and you don't realize howtraumatic it is in the moment,
(27:21):
because you're in the moment andyou're trying to just have a
baby and all these things arehappening to you.
It's not until later.
After that you're like man,that made me feel horrible, that
that person kept sticking theirhands inside of my body and
those little things they blow upinto big things when you're
(27:42):
postpartum.
And that is why we want to talkabout this, so that women can be
aware of what they're gettingthemselves into when they go
into the quote system, meaninggo to a hospital to have a baby.
And I always want to be clear.
I'm not trying to push my ownpersonal biases.
Obviously, the listeners ofthis show know that I'm up here
(28:03):
having my babies in the bathroom.
So, no, it's not.
It's not like people don't knowthat, but a lot of folks are
growing the chews to stillcontinue to go to a hospital and
that's their choice.
That's totally fine.
But just be aware of whatyou're up against when you go
into that setting, because youcan tell them things all you
(28:25):
want and they will still dothings, even if you've said not
to.
That's what you're gettingyourself into, and so having a
doula might be a good idea ifyou're in that situation,
someone that you're going totell don't allow them to do any
of these things.
That can kind of be yourdefense person.
I hate to say this, but it'slike you have to have someone
(28:46):
there to fight for you so youcan focus and just do what you
need to do.
And that's why I'm a fan ofhome birth, because I don't want
to fight with people duringbirth.
I don't want to be stressed, Idon't want to deal with anybody,
I just want to be left aloneand go up there to my closet and
just do my thing.
Don't bother me, and I thinkthat that's another thing that a
(29:07):
lot of first time moms maybedon't realize is that the more
people you have around you, theharder it is for your body to do
what it needs to do, becauseit's distracted.
Your body's trying to squeezethat uterus, squeeze, squeeze,
squeeze that baby down andyou're over here dealing with
all this other stuff thatdoesn't allow you to stay in the
moment and stay focused.
(29:27):
I think that can be anotherproblem that women run into when
they're in that type of setting.
I have said this before on theshow and I'll say it again you
also don't need to agree tothings in the hospital and it's
not necessarily my place to tellanybody what to do when it
comes to that point.
But you can decline things.
(29:48):
You can say no.
You can ask to sign formssaying that I'm going to sign
against medical advice called anAMA and I'll sign a form for
you.
You need me to sign somethingfor you.
I will sign it, but again, thisis what you're up against in
that setting.
So the other alternative is tojust not be a part of that.
(30:10):
But it's going to take radicaltrust in the Lord to walk the
home birth path.
But then, once you do it, thenyou realize wait a second, god
created my body perfectly to dothis, without any intervention
at all.
I didn't need a doctor that'sdown over there to run over here
(30:34):
, to quote, deliver my baby,which I'm sure it drives you.
I don't know if it drives youas crazy as it drives me.
It's like I get people ask thatoh, who delivered your baby?
I'm like me I did, yeah, youdid, and the baby wasn't
delivered, they were born, hewas born and she was born.
It's like so crazy this worldthat we live in.
(30:57):
But I think that that's goodadvice to give these moms is
learn about birth, learn aboutthe physiological side of it.
Do you have any good resourcesfor first time moms?
Because that's the other partof it is.
A lot of times we'll go toYouTube and we might learn a
little bit, but maybe we don'tlearn fully about the
(31:17):
physiological side of birth.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
I'm not just saying this because I'm a podcaster,
but I truly believe you willlearn so much.
I think the most importantinformation about birth you will
learn from listening to womentell their birth stories.
You don't need to know all ofthe details about the hormonal
cocktail or all of the detailedphysiology of the uterus.
I mean, all that stuff isreally interesting and cool and
(31:43):
maybe we should all know that.
But I'm telling you, if youlisten to women's birth stories,
you will notice themes.
Something will happen that inyour labor you'll remember.
Oh, a woman said this aboutthat and that happened.
It is such an invaluableresource that there are birth
podcasts out there and you don'thave to listen to mine.
(32:04):
Just listen to birth storypodcasts and you will learn more
than any book that I couldrecommend honestly.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
That's a great point.
I think you're right.
It is in learning.
That's how I learned from otherwomen.
Now I did read a couple of books, like Home Birth on your Own
Terms, which you know it's likea big one in our home birth
world, but I really for thatbook specifically.
I was interested in learningfrom her about herbs and just
some kind of other little things.
(32:32):
Not necessarily all of it right, not necessarily I didn't need
to know everything about homebirth, but there was a couple of
things that I wanted to justread about and learn about.
So that was helpful.
But you're right, like Ina May,gaskin's Guide to Childbirth
starts with birth stories.
And she starts with birthstories for a reason Because the
(32:52):
stories of these women are whatare going to help champion us
forward.
It's learning about birth fromother moms who've done it.
I mean, I hate to be mean, butif we think about a lot of these
OBs out there that are quotedelivering babies.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Where's their knowledge?
From A book?
They know nothing.
Many of them have never seen aphysiological birth, never seen
it, never seen it in theirtraining, don't see it in their
practice.
Don't allow it to happen.
Sorry, I'm being mean now.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
But yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
I don't think that they actually know it.
I mean I also don't reallythink that doctors know as much
in generally about the humanbody as they think they know.
So I mean that's also my biasshowing.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
But yeah, yeah Well, we know that it's true because
there's so much fear.
If they truly understood howbirth works, they wouldn't be so
afraid, they wouldn't feel thatthey needed to manage it.
But birth in the industrializedmedical complex it's a
financial system, it's goods andservices that it's crazy to
(34:00):
think about it like that, but itis.
We are just a product that'scoming in.
They have certain protocols togetting out the product that
they need to get out and thenmove on.
You're just another bucket,another number in the queue, and
I don't know about you.
I don't like to be numbers in aqueue Doesn't make me feel good
(34:22):
, and even if you think aboutthe model and how broken it is.
You go for appointments, but thepeople that are going to be
there on the day that you givebirth are going to be all
different people.
You're birthing with strangersand one of the things that you
noted earlier was people beingpresent in your birth and being
(34:46):
cautious or thinking throughwho's going to be in your birth
space, because that really is asacred place and there's a lot
of talk in our world.
Birth worlds is what I meanabout the intimacy in making a
baby is the same intimacy thatthe baby comes into the world
(35:07):
under and we're going to havethat intimate moment under
fluorescent lights and strangersand beeping around us.
And that's one of the beautiesof embracing the physiological
part of this is you're able toreally unlock the true way of
birth.
(35:27):
I don't even know what I'mtalking about, just that.
I don't even know how todescribe it.
It's so primal and so normaland so natural and it doesn't
have to be this big show, thisbig spectacle that it is.
I guess that's what I'm tryingto say that you leave your house
(35:51):
, you get in the car and you godo things at the hospital.
It's simpler than that.
It doesn't have to be thatcomplicated.
Our body, I mean, think aboutit.
There are women that have beenin a coma and their babies are
born.
Why is that?
Because the body knows what todo.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
Yeah, and also I totally agree with everything
you said.
But just to add on to a lot ofthe things that are pathologized
as wrong or a problem or badwithin the medical system, there
actually is an intelligencebehind some of the things that
we've just decided are incorrector wrong, like breach babies,
(36:28):
you know.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Yeah, totally.
You know one of those I heardrecently from someone who just
had her baby and was in thetraditional system and just was
sharing how things went and said, yeah, it was almost an
emergency, the cord was wrappedaround the baby's neck and so
(36:51):
they almost did a C-section, butthen the baby came out.
It's so hard for me to keep mymouth shut at this point in my
life with all of the stuff thatI've heard.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Yeah, me too.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Especially because I don't want her to sit and
ruminate over my baby almostdied.
That is horrible, right?
I'm like hey, um, I just wantto share with you that the
doctors you know were.
They don't understand thatcompletely and I kind of like
went into this little tangentand then afterwards I was like
(37:25):
why did I say anything?
I should have just get my mouthshut, because it's hard to tell
people that are not yet awakenecessarily to what's going on
in the system.
It's hard to tell themsomething that's going against
what a doctor told them, becausethey have credentials in there
a doctor and they said that itwas almost an emergency.
(37:49):
So that's sometimes what I feellike we're combating, which can
be challenging, but at the sametime, it's not also not my job
to convince someone of anythingLike.
That's the Lord's work and hewill help guide other women and
families to the right answers.
That's his job.
And I guess I feel you knowwhat we can do is we can share
(38:14):
in the right context.
And that context I kind ofregretted sharing, just because
I felt like her response made it, made me feel like she wasn't
prepared to peer something likethat.
Now that must.
You're such a great listener.
I mean, you're trained andyou're so good at listening, so
(38:34):
it must be challenging sometimes.
I don't know, is it hardsometimes to hear things?
And then you know like youprobably have feedback too that
you want to be like actually letme help you with this, and you
know you give your answers.
How do you manage that when yourun into it?
Speaker 2 (38:50):
It's super challenging for me.
Every time and almost everysingle birth story I hear
there's something where I canpick up like a mistruth that
this person believed about herexperience or a place where a
provider intervened and causedthe very problem that caused the
problem.
And I never offer my opinion.
(39:10):
I never insert myself into anystory that a woman is sharing
with me because I have learnedthe hard way that it's just
entirely not my place.
And these, when you ask peopleto like think critically about
the interventions that happenaround birth and our medical
(39:32):
system, the way it's set up,you're actually what you're
really inviting them into issomething so much bigger and
deeper You're inviting them intokind of shattering the
worldview that we all live in.
You know it's a realhead-exploder if you had to like
accept that, like maybe yourdoctor didn't do the right thing
(39:52):
or doesn't know everything andso like realizing that, like
people are, not everyone isready for that.
I just don't ever.
I don't ever offer my opinionsabout anything.
I always offer empathy andunderstanding and gratitude that
a woman is sharing her birthstory with me, because it is
also just a sacred thing to bebrought into and I often feel
(40:14):
like the most disrespectfulthing that I could do would be
to say, oh well, that isn't whatactually happened.
That happened, you know.
But I mean just today Iinterviewed someone and she had
to transfer out of her homebirth because of something the
midwives picked up on in theirlistening to the heartbeat and
telling her story and I knewexactly what had caused the
(40:37):
complication that caused her totransfer.
In her story I heard itimmediately, I could tell
exactly what it was.
The details don't really matterand she ended up having this
extremely traumatic experiencethat she has been in therapy for
for two years and it was justone thing I heard in her story
and I was like that is whatcaused this to happen.
(40:59):
But I'm never gonna say that toher because, also, her story is
so much more than that.
So it's challenging though.
I mean I feel for you and Icompletely understand your
struggle.
It's really hard not to tellpeople especially something
about the narrative of the cordaround the neck.
It's like really triggering forpeople because it sounds scary,
but when you don't understandthe actual physiology of the
(41:22):
cord and the wortensia that's onthe cord and how protective it
actually is to be wrapped aroundthe baby's body, because then
that prevents a prolapse fromhappening, like it just sounds
triggering.
But it seems to be one of thosecommon maybe it's a common
reason that doctors say youneeded a C-section and we just
accept it because it soundsscary.
But it's a complete falsehood,like completely yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
I'm so glad that you addressed that there at the end,
because it is part of God'sdesign for babies and for birth.
Is that that cord is nice andlong and baby can wrap around in
it.
They roll around in there.
It's only natural.
If God, he is the designer ofthis, right, I don't think that
he would design something sopoorly that one third of these
(42:13):
babies oh, those third are at arisk for death because of this.
I don't think so.
I don't think so.
It's by design, like you said.
And do you wanna tell us alittle bit, because it sounds
like you have a really good?
You shared a little piece of it, so tell us more about the cord
and it's design.
What have you?
Speaker 2 (42:34):
learned.
Sure.
Well, I should have maybe saidlike 40 minutes ago that I'm not
a medical professional and Ihave no medical training at all.
Anyone listening, this is juststuff that I've picked up, so
okay.
So there's a coding.
There's a coding on the cordcalled Wharton's Jelly.
It makes it really slippery,really slimy and sticky and
(42:54):
really elastic, and so what Iwas referring to was when the
baby has the cord wrapped aroundtheir neck or just around their
body like a seatbelt.
You'll sometimes hear about that.
That is actually very useful,because when the baby is coming
out of your body, it preventsthe cord from going first, which
actually would be a trueemergency if the cord was
prolapsed and was coming outbefore the baby.
(43:15):
And I again coming back to thiscommon theme that we've touched
on so many times.
I mean often the prolapse canbe caused by interventions of
other people.
I don't know that I've everheard of one happening in a
undisturbed birth, but that's anaside.
So the way that it's designedis designed to be tightly with
your baby as your baby comes out, because it prevents what could
(43:38):
actually be a true emergency.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Perfect, beautiful.
That was a great explanation,thank you All right.
So we have talked a little bitabout some of these common
themes, and this is kind of onthat same note, but a slightly
different question Is there orare there any perceptions that
you've noticed that women haveabout either birth itself or an
(44:04):
aspect of birth?
That is just blatantly wrong,all of it.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
No well, I was gonna say that it's so the
misperceptions around birth thatI've encountered or that I
wanna dispel, that it'sdangerous that you can't do it,
that there's something uniquelybroken about your body because
your OB told you something 10years ago about your pelvis even
that it's a medical event Idon't even see birth as a
(44:33):
medical event anymore with theknowledge that I have.
I see it as a physiologicalevent that will unfold most
likely, ideally, without anyinterruptions or strangers being
there.
And so, yeah, all of it, likeall of it, is a huge
misconception and we have tounlearn it.
And also, birth is not it's notthe way that it's depicted in
(44:56):
television and movies on yourback, screaming Like.
That's not.
I get that's how it unfoldssometimes in the modern world,
but that's not what it actuallyis.
It's a physiological process.
It's the culmination of aspiritual journey.
It's an initiation into a newversion of yourself.
Even if you've had five babies,every single time you do it
(45:19):
you're gonna be changed, andthat's what I think birth
actually is.
And all of that other stuff isjust like capitalism and noise
and like the pharmaceuticalindustry.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
Yeah, absolutely, it absolutely is.
It's so funny.
Something that you justmentioned so just sparked a
thought for me on the side ofthe physiological, you might
remember from my story that Iused hypnobabies to retrain and
reframe my thoughts because ofhow our culture shows us birth,
(45:51):
or how birth shows up for us inour lives on TV and movies.
Like you said, that we aretaught and we're trained, it's
this emergency, you know howdoes in the movies, like all my
water broke and now I go to thehospital and then I'm screaming
and people are holding the legsback and all the babies like
this big, huge drama.
And one of the things that Iloved about that have no babies
(46:13):
program was that it trained meto reframe my own thoughts on
how I thought about birth, andthat's something that I think
that we go into birth not doingenough of is saying what are my
perceptions?
what do I actually think thatbirth is?
Because I thought I thought Ithought I thought I knew what
birth was before I went into it.
(46:34):
Then I went into my firstexperience and as soon as I was
experiencing Contractions,that's when it all went south
for me, because I hadn't Ihadn't learned yet that
contractions are unnecessary,needed and beautiful part of a
baby being born.
And once I understood that, itwas normal and natural to feel
(46:58):
that in that, if I just honed inon that instead of trying to
fight it, you use the wordsurrender earlier.
Once we surrender to that, thatfear of pain, I think that
that's where the beauty reallycan unfold for us and where
things can shift and where wecan experience a change and not
(47:22):
have that hospital, drama, tvbirth that they depict for us.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
Yeah, I'm so glad that you mentioned a mindset
shift because, you know,television really is programming
and all of us, whether we'reaware of it or not, we've been
put, we have, we've beenprogrammed by someone else's
ideas of the world, and you'reyou're so spot on.
I mean, going into my firstbirth, I did not do enough to do
programming at all, even thoughI thought of myself as someone
(47:50):
who trusted the process and, youknow, wanted to birth at home.
I didn't do the really deepinner work of Of really
examining my beliefs about birthand reprogramming them.
I love that you, the tool thatyou use.
I mean, I think there's so manydifferent ways to do it, but
absolutely lots of ways.
(48:10):
Yeah, absolutely key.
Speaker 1 (48:12):
Yeah, yeah and I'm definitely not necessarily
promoting one over another justwas what helps me at that time.
You know it was what kind ofcame up, and I think that you're
right.
Though, and as a woman getscloser to her birth, I think
that's when it gets even moreimportant to Just really focus
on positive birth stories and,you know, positive situations
(48:33):
and not get sucked into all thatstuff.
I remember I think it was mysister, when I was getting close
with Ben, saying, oh, you gottawatch this show, the one with
the midwives, call the midwives.
And I was like I am notwatching a show about childbirth
right now.
You're crazy.
And it was funny because Istarted watching it after.
I was like, okay, let me seewhat this is about.
(48:54):
It was so traumatic.
I was like why did you tell meto watch this, you know?
And it was funny because shewas still in the hospital birth
mindset, she hadn't yet gonethrough her own experience, and
now she gets it.
And I think that sometimes wehave to just experience things
to understand them, and I knowthat we want to save all these
(49:16):
moms from all the pain that wewent through.
But there are going to be somethat here and you know, it takes
kind of going through it ontheir own to really set them on
fire for birth too, and I thinkthat's the beautiful thing about
this community that we're in isit's a bunch of women who are
really on fire for birth becausewe know how awesome it can be.
(49:37):
Yes, absolutely Well good well,anything else you want to leave
us with on this episode aboutlearning moments?
Speaker 2 (49:47):
I want to say to any pregnant mom out there that's
listening to this I hope Ididn't freak you out Listen to
birth podcast.
Listen to people's stories.
You'll learn so much.
You're capable of so much morethan you realize.
Don't let anyone's fear getinto your sphere.
Just have strong boundaries andbe very, very, very decisive
(50:11):
about who you invite into yourbirth and always listen to your
intuition sometimes ourintuition is way more spot on
than our brain and use yourintuition when you're making any
choice around your careprovider and you've 100% got
this.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
Awesome.
That's great advice, and Godgave us our intuition, so
definitely tune into that,because he gave it to us for a
reason, and thank you so much,diana, for being here today.
This has been fantastic.
I'm looking forward to talkingwith you more as well, and I
know everyone is in for a treatnext week as well, so thank you
for being here today.
Speaker 2 (50:46):
Thank you, rebecca.
Speaker 1 (50:48):
Awesome and thank you for tuning in and for being on
this journey with us.
If you would like to followDiana, you can follow her on
Instagram at healingbirth.
You can also find her on herwebsite, healingbirthnet, and,
of course, you can find herpodcast Streamin Everywhere it's
called Healing Birth.
Definitely check her out,listen to those birth stories
(51:12):
and let us know what you think.
I love, love, love the storiesthat you share and I'm so
excited for this audience tohear more from you there too.
If you would like to followalong outside the podcast, you
can join the mission onInstagram at the Radiant Mission
on Instagram or on Facebook atthe Radiant Mission podcast.
(51:33):
And, of course, you can alwayswatch this podcast in video
format if you're not doing itright now on YouTube at the
Radiant Mission, or just lookfor Rebecca Tumi.
Today we are going to closewith a Bible verse that Diana
actually really loves and findsher center in when it comes to
birth.
So I'm going to read fromMatthew 6, verses 5 through 14.
(52:01):
And when you pray, do not belike the hypocrites, for they
love to pray, standing in thesynagogues and on the street
corners to be seen by others.
Truly, I tell you, they havereceived their reward in full,
but when you pray, go into yourroom, close the door and pray to
your father, who is unseen.
Then your father, who sees whatis done in secret, will reward
(52:22):
you.
And when you pray, do not keepon babbling like the pagans, for
they think they will be heardbecause of their many words.
Do not be like them, for yourfather knows what you need
before you even ask him.
This, then, is how you shouldpray Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done on earth asit is in heaven.
(52:43):
Give us today our daily breadand forgive us our debts, as we
also have forgiven our debtors,and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evilone, for if you forgive other
people when they sit against you, your heavenly Father will also
forgive you, but if you do notforgive others their sins, your
(53:04):
Father will not forgive you.
And we are wishing you aradiant week and we'll see you
next time.
Bye, everybody.
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