Description:
In this episode, Taylor talks about the importance of having a coach guide you through your pregnancy and birth. She touches on how even if things do not go as anticipated, you can still have a positive birth experience due to taking control over the things that matter most.
Disclaimer: This podcast is intended for educational purposes only with no intention of giving or replacing any medical advice. I, Kiona Nessenbaum, am not a licensed medical professional. All advice that is given on the podcast is from the personal experience of the storytellers. All medical or health-related questions should be directed to your licensed provider.
Resources:
- Taylor Nokashere-With You Wellness: https://withyouwellnesskc.com/
- Driver’s Seat Moms Podcast-Taylor Nosakhere
- Spinning Babies: https://www.spinningbabies.com/
- Penny Simkin Classes (out-of-hospital birth and in hospital birth focused classes): https://www.pennysimkin.com/childbirth-classes/
- Jennie Joseph:
- Common Sense Childbirth:https://commonsensechildbirth.org/
- National Perinatal Task Force: https://perinataltaskforce.com/
- Commonsense Childbirth Institue: https://www.cci.training/
- The Perinatal Pause Podcast
Definitions:
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Transcription of Episode 41:
[00:00:00] Kiona: Hello, and welcome to Birth As We Know It. I am your podcast host, Kiona Nessenbaum. I have experienced birth as a doula, a student midwife, and as a mother of three amazing children with my husband and high school sweetheart by my side. After attending over 130 births, including my own, I’ve realized that each birth experience is truly unique.
So make sure you subscribe and join me every week as we are guided through many different birth experiences through the lens of the storyteller. Please be aware that some of the stories can be triggering to hear, so feel free to pause, take a breath, and come back and listen whenever you’re ready. With that said, let’s prep ourselves to dive deep and get detailed about what really happens in the birth space.
As a reminder, this podcast is intended for educational purposes only, and has no intention of giving or replacing any medical advice. All advice that is given on the podcast is from the personal experiences of the storytellers. All medical or health related questions should be directed to your licensed provider.
Before we dive into this episode today. I wanted to share another podcast review with you all. This review was written by Athena Estelle. And it was titled “Wonderful! So informative!” with a rating of five stars. It says “I had the pleasure of meeting Kiona virtually, and I was blown away with her compassion and dedication to sharing other birth stories. I think this podcast is perfect for all ears and has some amazing truths that all women can appreciate. I can’t wait to see what else she releases because she’s got my attention. You go girl.”
Athena. Thank you so much. I really appreciate this review and I truly appreciated interviewing with you for this podcast as well. So everybody tune into her episode for this podcast. Which is episode 38. If you want to hear her birth story. All right onto the episode.
Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Birth As We Know It podcast. Today, I’m excited to be talking to Taylor Nosekara about her perspective from a birth doula on a few births. And I’m super excited because we don’t get this perspective as often as we should. Taylor is the owner of With You Wellness, as well as the podcast host for Driver Seat Moms podcast.
With her business, she is currently offering pregnancy coaching online she is also the mother of a five and a half year old, a two and a half year old set of twins, and is currently 30 weeks pregnant with her second set of twins.
So Taylor, welcome to the podcast.
[00:02:50] Taylor: Thank you. Hearing you say that in reality of like, 30 weeks pregnant with our second set of twins,
I’m like, oh my God thats real.
[00:02:59] Kiona: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Babies are coming.
[00:03:02] Taylor: that’s real. Oh my gosh, I’m
[00:03:05] Kiona: , so let’s go ahead and start off this interview with you. Just telling us a little bit about yourself, where you’re from, what you do and where you practice.
[00:03:14] Taylor: Yeah. So I live in Kansas city, Missouri, and I started my business actually at the very beginning of 2020. So took my first three clients at the end of 2020, that was a weird year to start an in person doula business. But I had actually been pushing it away for quite a while, just thinking to myself like, no, that’s not what I went to school for and I can’t be on call with a young family.
And then I took a spinning babies training in the fall of 2019 and was like, this is what I’m meant to be doing. These are the people I’m meant to be around. and so I dove right in. When I got pregnant with my first son, prior to the spinning baby training, so I had him in May of 2018, I just like, wanted to know everything that there was to know, and realized the huge gap in information of like, Wait, but my friends don’t know this but the mom I talked to yesterday doesn’t know that like why does nobody know this stuff?
And I just felt so called to like help bridge that gap of knowledge of everything birth related So yeah, I’m taking my business Online, it was actually a process that I started prior to getting pregnant. But now that I’m pregnant, I’m accelerating the process so I have a pregnancy coaching program for moms that is Full 12 months.
So really, really personalized informational and emotional support through your entire pregnancy and into your postpartum. a lot of my clients were saying they loved being supported, but they wished they had a little bit more support postpartum. So. I made the program the length that it is so that they could have that continuity of care with that same person that was coaching them prenatally to help them through all the postpartum transitions as well. So, yeah.
[00:05:19] Kiona: I think that’s super awesome. It’s such a phenomenal idea and creating that continuity of care and then also having that care be online makes it so much more accessible to people. And so I think that that is extremely awesome and needed and necessary. and it kind of adds that layer of specific support from someone that’s not necessarily a provider, but that’s there to like, Emotionally get to know you as an individual throughout your process without being like, here’s all of this medical advice, but also here are some suggestions.
Here’s what you can ask your provider. Here’s things you can do. I like that. I like that balance. It’s, it sounds very balanced and needed.
[00:06:02] Taylor: Yeah, I mean. Just like doulas. In person, or virtual whatever way you support moms like we work for the moms like I don’t work for a specific provider a specific institution like I am there to support you and what I notice too is there’s just this huge gap of the emotional support that goes along with the information Because yes Our clients are spiraling down these Google and TikTok rabbit holes and they’re overwhelmed, they’re anxious, and all of that, they don’t know what information is good or bad, and we help them sort through that, but then, there’s also these emotional components that go along with having to make these decisions, and being up against people that might not agree with your decisions or having to switch providers if you are feeling not good about it or you know, just being emotional about your body’s changing and your hormones and your there’s so many things that go into it.
So, I just found that piece to be really what my clients were needing, almost more than the information.
[00:07:16] Kiona: I 100 percent agree that emotional consistency. That emotional connection that you get with being a doula is what a lot of people look for when they hire a doula.
And a lot of people also get a little sad when that relationship ends, you know, because most doulas that I know of, they offer a couple of postpartum visits, but they’re not primarily a postpartum doula. So, they do the prenatal support, the birth support, and then offer a couple things postpartum, but that leaves the birthing person a little empty emotionally, especially if they don’t have any family around that’s supporting them.
It really depends on what their individual support team looks like. and that brings me to remember the conversation that I had in episode 33 with Jennie Joseph about the candy wrapper analogy of where people like our system, our health systems. Focus so much on the birth and giving birth to a baby, and the birthing parent ends up being the wrapper for the candy, and everybody throws the candy wrapper away and focuses so much on the candy, a. k. a. the baby, and We really need to have more support in that postpartum time for the birthing person. We need to help smooth out that candy wrapper and make it possible to be healthy and put away nicely or whatever, you know, we can’t just throw it away, because that candy wrapper is who is continuing to care for and protect this candy, this baby.
So, yeah, I think that what you’re doing is super important, I’m excited to Eventually hear how this program goes for you, and to stay connected and hear about the feedback that you’re getting, and I’m sure it’s just gonna, thrive because it’s so necessary. It’s so necessary. You’re, like, doing this program that’s filling in the gap of birth and parenthood, so
[00:09:11] Taylor: well first of all I have to say that I’m fangirling that you got to interview Jennie Josephs.
[00:09:19] Kiona: It was amazing. It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun.
[00:09:21] Taylor: I got to hear her speak here in Kansas City in person one time, and yeah, she just like, blows my mind. but, I would be lying if I said that there wasn’t a little bit of imposter syndrome or fear of like, can I really help moms?
If I’m not in the birth space with them, and that has come up a lot for me in this past year as I’ve developed this program, but I, I just know that, and, and after talking to client after client after client, I realized there’s so much to be said about the work that we do ahead of time, diving into self trust, your intuition, asking great questions, preparing yourself, preparing your partner.
Then all of that stuff that you just mentioned about the postpartum and that need. It’s still in its little baby infancy kind of toddlerhood right now. But it is, something that I just, I’m so beyond excited about and passionate about growing. So,
[00:10:25] Kiona: Yeah. And I can hear it in your voice when you’re telling me about the program, about how passionate you are, because there’s so much that you’re putting into this, you’re putting in. so much to this. And that passion and commitment to this program is what’s going to make it thrive. Like you’re not doing this with the intention of like, Oh, I’m about to make all this money or I’m about to do all of this, you know, because you didn’t say that to me at least.
And I feel like that’s not the case. Like, yeah, okay, cool. Finances are nice, but tell me if I’m wrong from what I’m hearing. This is something that’s truly coming from within that you really think would be helpful because you’re seeing something that needs to be filled and nobody else is doing the work and you want to fill it.
You want to do that.
[00:11:10] Taylor: I mean there’s a duality to it as far as being a business owner. And, you know, I don’t know if you want to go down this rabbit hole, but, like, business is important, and I feel like moms want to hear about this stuff, too. Like, we have to build businesses in a way that are sustainable to us, so that we don’t burn out.
So that we can continue to do this work. Because people quit doula work one, two, three years in because We’re having our own kids, we’re you know, moms with young kids and growing families and this is hard work to sustain, especially, not just like the on call life, but some of the shit that we see, some of the stories we hear, I mean, some of the secondhand trauma and, you know, the emotional weight that we hold, You know, we do have to create these businesses in a way that’s sustainable for us and for me right now, that does look more of an online situation, but also, yeah, 100 %. My clients prior to doing this online, we did a lot of prenatal coaching and I was realizing like I’m doing so much prenatal coaching with these clients and I’m saying the same things over and over and over again to each client. I’m like, why am I not like packaging this in some kind of way where it’s a little bit more efficient and I can actually serve more women and more moms and more families like it’s just, it ultimately serves everyone better.
[00:12:50] Kiona: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with that. And when I was mentioning that you weren’t doing this necessarily for the finances, I wasn’t trying to say that money doesn’t matter because it 100 percent does. And for us to be doing this work, this is one of the reasons why. I created this podcast is because this is the only way that I can be in birth at all right now, you know, hearing people’s stories, connecting with the birth community and like being able to educate myself along the way as educating others through storytelling is huge, and I also feel like it’s a gap that needs to be filled because nobody talks about birth like this anymore, or, At least in my community. Or in the birth community that I’m a part of.
The birth community itself, we talk about birth all the time. But people that are outside the community, they don’t hear these stories. They don’t hear the struggles that each individual goes through. They don’t hear the true definition of what the spectrum of normal is, as well as what the spectrum of what is not normal and what really shouldn’t be happening.
There’s so much work that needs to be done and I feel like you creating this online business to make it sustainable for you in order to also continue to serve people is amazing. And so, I am right there with you. I am not making money with this podcast right now, but personally, I don’t mind because I am getting so much joy out of it just as an individual.
[00:14:18] Kiona And I feel like it’s helping people that are listening. Now, would I like to make money one day if possible? Hell yeah, that’d be cool. You know, like this is a lot of work but I’m also very fortunate to not be needing to work a job. My husband, is able to hold our family financially, and that is an absolute privilege that I do not take for granted.
[00:14:41] Taylor: And I feel like many people don’t have that, so I’m not trying to bash on anybody who is actually creating a business to make a sustainable income because it’s important. Well, and when people are doing good work in the world, and they make an F ton of money, they do a lot of really good things with that money. That’s the way I look at it.
[00:15:02] Kiona: Absolutely. Yeah. One hundred percent. so let’s dive a little bit more into what got you interested in becoming a birth worker and getting into the birth field.
[00:15:10] Taylor: Yeah, so growing up my mom was actually a doula for a little while, but she also struggled because she had young kids. My sisters are quite a bit younger than me. and She taught childbirth education and then went on to become a nurse and then An Internationally Board Certified Lactation Consultant.
So, I have very much kind of been in this world or heard things. enough to know that when I did get pregnant, that I needed to know things.
So, I Immediately Googled because I literally did not know how to listen to a podcast and you guys this was 2017 like I am Technologically clearly behind the times.
I was like, how do I listen to a podcast? And I just started listening to everything that there was to listen to about birth and I Again, like I said, I noticed all of these gaps. I had a doula at my birth . I ended up having my prenatal care at a birth center because I knew through what I was learning that a hospital birth wasn’t really right for me. And I ended up transferring to a hospital because I went past my due date by two weeks. And it’s the law in our state that you can’t deliver at the birth center past 42 weeks and the advocacy that I had to have in the hospital setting coming from this facility that I knew I wasn’t going to have to advocate for all these things into this facility where now I’m having to advocate for certain things that were just simple things.
And My birth being extremely long and hard and firing my doctor, declining things, crawling to the bathroom with an epidural, it was fucking wild, after that, I’m again, noticing this huge gap and notice like, all I want to talk about is birth all I want to do. But at the time I kept saying no, no, no, I can’t do that.
Like, I’ll just create content for Instagram, but like, I’m not going to make it my business.
I put on my website Like pregnancy coaching, no one bought it because I didn’t know anything about marketing. I had never been in a birth besides my own. And so, like I said, when that spinning babies training came around in 2019, my mom was like, Well, you should go. She had a connection with the facility that put it on.
It was actually the same facility that hosted Jennie Joseph, and she was like, you should go. I was like, okay, I’ll go. And like I said, it just lit this fire in me where I was just in awe of how, like, my intuition was just like, yes. So I instantly signed up for A doula training that was the very next February and since then it’s just become, I mean, it’s had a lot of iterations because I have had children and it’s been part time. It’s been, I went full time last December and then transitioned online. So there’s been a lot of iterations. But throughout, I’ve had clients that have made a variety of different birth choices. I’ve seen such a variation of normal, variations of normal. And, had really, really proud moments with clients that their birth actually didn’t go according to plan Which is something that I think doesn’t get talked about enough of how it’s really not the circumstances that happen in your birth and the curveballs that are thrown your way as far as diagnoses or You know Hiccups in your labor things like that that truly make a birth good, bad, traumatic, what have you. It’s truly how you feel in those moments, how you’re able to either trust yourself or put that trust in other people, how you’re able to follow your intuition, how you’re able, like, all of those things matter so much more. And that’s what I’ve just gotten to witness time and time again. And it just fuels my fire.
Like, it’s just like adding gasoline every single time.
[00:19:43] Kiona: Yeah, I can relate to that. And one thing that I always tried to tell clients once I became more aware as a birth doula, attending more births and visualizing being physically present at all of these births that are beautiful, but also so different is that you could create a birth plan, but I’m going to tell you right now.
99 percent of the time that birth plan is not going to be exactly how it plays out. And does that mean that your experience is a shitshow and everything goes horribly wrong? No. It just means that you were able to smoothly navigate around what your preferences were and change it to where it was something that made sense in the moment. creating a birth plan is more of like creating birth preferences because those are what you would desire. But just because those don’t happen automatically doesn’t mean that your birth is traumatic or bad or anything like that. It can still be good. It could still be empowering. It could still be life changing.
Every birth is life changing, regardless if you think it’s good or bad. But,
There’s so much to it, and that’s one of the reasons why I created this podcast, is every single individual birth that happens is so unique to itself. Like, like, Taylor, I can sit here and talk to you about my first birth experience, and it’s going to be completely different from your first birth experience.
You know, even if we made the same decision here or there, completely different. Even if we made exactly all of the same decisions, and we were with the same providers, let’s say, right? Still, completely different because the way that you feel and act and respond during your labor and birth is going to be completely different to the way that I feel, react, and respond.
So,
[00:21:26] Taylor: It’s so funny because you said about preferences, like in my program, I, that’s actually what I call it. I call it birth preferences. I don’t even call it a birth plan. I’ve had, I’ve done a couple of workshops or I’ve had to create some presentations, where I do call it a birth plan just because that’s the term that people know.
And it like, hurts my soul just a little bit because I’m like is it a plan or are we just like is it preferences? but I also think it’s so important and something that I’ve been talking about a lot on my social media like these last couple weeks actually is taking control of what you can control because there’s actually quite a bit that you can control
and there’s a lot that you can control as far as getting the preferences that you want.
Of course there’s things that are out of our control in birth, but that’s also just like life. Like when you walk out your front door in the morning, you don’t know if it’s going to start raining on you. Like, like you just don’t know. And I think if we can think of it like that, we’ll realize that it’s not like birth is the exception to unknowns or birth is the exception to.
Well, why even make a plan? Because it’s not going to go to plan anyways. Like
you, make a plan for your life and things happen. And I start all of my clients
with, journaling prompts and it’s my, how do you want to feel journaling prompts?
Start with how you want to feel because it is how you want to feel. We could have the exact same choices and the exact same providers in the exact same place. And we’re still going to experience that experience different. And one of us might walk away feeling empowered, whereas the other one might walk away feeling traumatized.
Because of the decisions we were making and how we were potentially pushed to make them. and. I have had clients make decisions in the moment that were not the decisions that they originally thought that they would make, but they were the decisions that they needed to make in those moments to feel the way that they wanted to feel.
And because we had talked about that prior, we had talked about how do you want to feel, not just Do you want epidural or not? Do you want like to push in This position or that position like we’d really really go deep into how do you want this experience to feel? So that when you are at those kind of crossroad moments where you do have to make a decision You can gut check and be like, you know what I told myself that I wanted to feel euphoric and happy and joyful when my baby was born.
And this pain is turning to suffering. And if I continue like this, I can go without the epidural, but I’m not going to feel joy when my baby’s born. I don’t want that. And that. That eases them and helps them make that hard call. Cause it is hard. I’m not saying it’s not emotional to make a choice that you didn’t want to make.
I ultimately chose to transfer from a home birth setting to have a c section with my twins at 41 plus 5, cause my children don’t leave my body. but it felt so much in my control, it felt like it was my choice, I felt really really autonomous making that choice. Versus Having a c section at 38 weeks like my maternal fetal medicine doctor told me I should
would it have ultimately resulted in the same result like kind of yeah a c section and two babies that were probably going to be Born healthy regardless at 38 weeks or 41 weeks But I got to choose it and that is what matters and that’s what matters to my clients.
[00:25:25] Kiona: Right, right, and I think that’s so important because throughout. That entire time of you speaking, you very much focused on something that I say to my clients all the time. I love how you talk about focusing on how you want to feel and not necessarily checking the box of getting an epidural or not, or getting this invisible trophy that you don’t receive based off the decisions that you make.
Some people will say that a healthy baby is a trophy, but in my mind, It’s really how you feel, like how you feel. And when I was, volunteering with Penny Simpkin, when I was in the early years of my doula training or doula career, I was volunteering with Penny Simpkin and her. Childbirth education classes and she has classes that are geared towards home birthers and geared towards hospital birthers And I volunteered in both and in both of them a lot of her Curriculum transfers over like it coincides.
It’s very similar but one of the things that she had said that stuck with me all throughout these years is it’s not necessarily what you do during labor, but you remember how you are cared for during labor. You remember if you’re heard, you remember if you’re valued, you remember how you feel.
You know, like it’s ingrained in you how you feel . For example, if prenatally you decide you don’t want an epidural and then you’re in the throes of labor and it goes, it’s completely unexpected, you don’t have as good of a coping technique as you thought you did, then you have this predicament of being like, I told everybody I want to push myself to go unmedicated, but now I’m here and I am no longer coping.
Okay. I am suffering through this and I don’t want to suffer so I’m going to decide that I want an epidural. Is your support team going to judge you or is your support team going to support you? So that reaction that you get off of making a decision makes such a big impact. On how you feel when you make that decision and how you process it postpartum. Yes, you can be disappointed and be like, oh man, I really wanted to go on medicated, but then there’s going to be the other thing in the back of your mind. That’s like, but I was suffering and that shit was hard. So I am happy that I got the epidural because I got to sleep and I got to hold my baby and be happy about it rather than being like, Oh my God, finally, this is over.
[00:27:59] Taylor: You know what I mean? Remembering how you feel is so, so, so important. Well, and I want to add something here because I think that it’s important to note that This can go both ways and I know and I don’t know about the conversations all that you’ve had on this podcast But a lot of conversations in birth worker communities It’s about moms being pressured into decisions that they don’t want right like being pressured into the epidural or being pressured into the c section or into the induction, but you just said something that was valuable which is If she makes an epidural, is her birth team going to judge her, or if she chooses to make that decision, is her birth team going to judge her?
And that is just as valid, because I think that the pendulum can swing both ways, of like, yes, we can over medicalize this natural physiological process 100 percent and that is the mainstream narrative. That is what is being seen most common. what is it? 98 percent of women birth in hospitals with OBGYNs or with some sort of maybe medicalized midwife team.
It’s hard to say what the exact stats are, but, the opposite end of the spectrum is also true. You know, you could want this home birth without an epidural with twinkle lights and a bath and be made to feel like you failed by the people that you’ve chosen to have in your birth space just because you made decisions and Neither one is helpful
[00:29:42] Kiona: mm hmm,
[00:29:43] Taylor: Neither one is okay I know that’s something that we kind of talked about pre this episode recording When we were chit chatting about speaking was like supporting and meeting these birthing people where they are because It’s a both and Situation it really is.
And it is hard sometimes to walk that line as a birth worker because you’re like, but this is what you wanted But also you can’t want it more than she wants it
[00:30:13] Kiona: Right, right. Yeah, that’s a really good point. and that’s another reason why for this podcast, I like to get perspectives of all people in the birth space because every single person is impacted by the birth. Every single person plays a different role and how you feel as a support person also impacts what decisions are being made that you encourage.
Does that make sense? So, like I love that you said it’s a both and, because it’s just like extremists of anything. You know, there can be extreme home birthers or extreme free birthers or extreme supporters of hospital births or medicalized births, it is a full spectrum that everybody falls within.
And whatever feels right for us as individuals as birthing people is okay. if someone was to come to me and say, “Hey, I’m pregnant and I am scared shitless to give birth to my baby vaginally. Can you support me in having a planned cesarean?” My answer would be, hell yeah, sure. what can I do to help you feel more comfortable in that decision?
Let’s do all this research that we can on cesarean birth. What are ways that you can personalize your cesarean birth experience? Can you have music? Can you have A special colored drape. Can you have the clear drape? Can you, can your partner be with you? Can you have a doula? All these things.
Can you have a birth photographer in the OR, if you really want to still capture that birth experience? All of these things that come up are brought forward by the individual’s wants and needs. You know, so the things that you do as a support person should be based off of what your client truly wants and needs, not off of, oh well, I did free birth, anybody can do free birth, so you should do free birth.
[00:32:06] Taylor: It’s not for everyone.
[00:32:08] Kiona: yeah, it’s not for everyone. And, I’m the type of person, just like I told you pre recording, I’m the type of person that like, my motto is kind of like, you do you boo, you know, you do what fits your needs. You use what language works for you. Like I choose to be inclusive with the words that I use.
So like birthing person instead of mother or things like that, because I just, I feel like being inclusive doesn’t necessarily cut people out, and I also don’t think that if you feel like using different words, like mother, parent, mom, whatever, that’s you, you know? And whoever resonates with those things is who’s gonna flock your direction, you know?
I’m kinda going on a tangent now
[00:32:48] Taylor: I I know well , I I love this I always tell my clients and this tends to overflow more into after baby’s born and into parenthood, but one of my Phrases is like do what works for you until it doesn’t like I just had a mom that was like gosh There’s just so many things that I’m supposed to do as a new mom I don’t know which ones are real and which ones aren’t real like which ones I’m actually supposed to do and I was like Let all of it go.
You’re not supposed to do any of it like just do what works for you until it doesn’t like I’m going to co sleep with my baby until my back hurts and I’m not getting any sleep. And then I’m going to be like, this isn’t working. We need to make a shift or I’m going to have my baby sleep in the bassinet or the crib until I’m like, I’m getting up 10 times a night to breastfeed.
Like I might as well just pop a boob in his mouth while he’s laying next to me. Like I’m going to do what works for me until it doesn’t and that’s just what I wish. But I, I think that it all stems from self trust and it all stems from we have lost Our ability, not our ability. I shouldn’t say it that way.
We have lost touch with trusting ourselves. We have put so much trust. in people outside of ourselves. And this is not just in birth, but it really shows up in birth and parenthood where we’re like, but what does the doctor say? What does the book say? What does the internet say? What does Tik Tok say? Like, but what do you think?
And I know that it can be hard to decipher sometimes, like what is that inner voice versus what are these outer voices? What is fear talking? But when you get really, really quiet. You know what a yes feels like in your body, and what a no feels like in your body. And if you ask a provider a question, and they answer you, and you get that like, Ooh, that kind of made my stomach drop, that kind of made my heart pace, that kind of made my hands sweaty.
Like, you know what that means. You’re just ignoring it. And it’s, and I’m not faulting you here, I’m not shaming you here. It’s, it’s hard, it’s hard when you are in front of someone. Who has that authority, but I just cannot stress enough how much you are the authority over you more than anyone else. And I want you to trust yourself more than you trust anyone else in that room.
and that’s hard. that’s not an easy task. That’s why I coach moms, because I’m like Isn’t something that just overnight you’re like, I just trust myself to go into this birth and trust myself more than this provider. but I love this analogy. I created an analogy and then I heard an analogy that kind of fits it.
And I was like, Oh my gosh, these go together so perfectly. I describe it as. You’re walking along the edge of a pool, and you trust yourself to walk. You know how to walk, you know the ground underneath you is solid, you have been walking for years, you can put one foot in front of the other, you know how to walk, so you trust yourself to walk. You don’t know how to swim. You’ve never learned how to swim, you’ve never learned the skills, you’ve not spent a lot of time in the pool, so you don’t trust yourself to jump in the pool. Rightfully so, right? You don’t trust yourself in birth because you don’t know it yet. You don’t know enough about the skills You don’t know enough about the terminology and what’s gonna happen and how it could go and there’s a lot to learn But once you learn those things If you hire a coach, if you take swimming lessons, right, you’re going to learn how to swim and then you’re going to feel comfortable jumping in that pool.
And then I was reading a book. I think it might have been a hypnobirthing book where she said the provider should be like the lifeguard. And I was like, Oh my God, this fits my swimming pool analogy so well because they shouldn’t be there in the water with you. Like, rescuing you as you’re swimming.
You don’t need to be rescued. You know how to swim. You know how to birth your baby. But they’re just on the side, there, just in case. Just in case you get water up your nose and you start to go under, you know? Like, just in case. Your arms and legs get tired and you can’t keep afloat. Like they’re there. So it’s not your fault that you don’t yet trust yourself in this process.
It’s just because you don’t know how to swim yet. You just don’t know enough yet. But once you learn and once you, you gather the information, you ask the good questions, you learn how to gut check those things. You, you remember the things outside of birth that you’ve, that you can call upon where you’ve done these types of things.
What’s something in your life, whether it was a job or something like that, where you didn’t know something and then you got confident in it and you did it. You didn’t think you were going to get that job. You didn’t think you were going to get that degree, whatever it was, but you did it. This isn’t different.
You get to bring those character strengths into this process. You are the same person. So let’s give our brains evidence for times that we’ve already done hard things and we’ve already trusted ourselves. You’ve gotten this far. You’ve survived this long.
You can continue to survive and do it. And you can trust yourself that you can make these decisions.
and sometimes it just takes having someone by your side to do it. A doula, a coach, like people hire fitness coaches, people hire business coaches. You know, we’re not out in the world, like just doing everything on our own. We go to college. We don’t just graduate high school and get the job. We educate ourselves, we do the things, we hire the people that we need to hire, we partner with the people that are going to help us get there.
This isn’t different and it’s okay to need that support, and I feel like I just went on a giant tangent, but.
[00:39:37] Kiona: No, but it was a good one. It was a good one because everything that you just said is so true. I love the swimming pool analogy. I feel like I’ve also heard similar things of like swimming and drowning and like, you know, being pulled out of the water kind of thing.
This analogy is also 100 percent accurate for birth. You know, you are 100 percent capable, you’re pregnant for the first time, okay? You have no idea what to do, how to feel, do you get care? How do you get care? Where do you get care? What kinds of care are available to you? All of the information that you get from your questions, Whether it’s from Google or TikTok or whatever, all of those people have had an experience in some way, shape, or form that has given them the information that they’re giving you.
So, is it always correct information? Not necessarily . So you do have to be careful with where you’re getting your information, but people give information from their learned experiences. So, who better to have in your corner than someone that has the niche of supporting birth? You know, someone that has the experiences under their belt of being present at births or learning about births that has the passion of getting all of this information in order to guide others about birth.
So, just like you said, people hire fitness coaches, people hire dietitians when they want to learn how to have a different diet, or learn more about nutrition. There, there’s a coach, guide, or mentor for every aspect of your life. You just have to look for it. So I agree with everything that you said, providers should definitely be the lifeguards and you should be the primary person that makes the decisions and has the ability to follow the gut instinct that you have as an individual for your birth.
[00:41:41] Taylor: But I also understand how that could be super scary. How that can be super scary to take that step and make that decision. Yeah, because it requires you to take radical responsibility. For your decisions. And that is scary when we remove the opportunity to blame anyone else, and we are taking that on ourselves. That is, can be the scariest thing we’ve ever done, but it can also be the most empowering feeling you will ever feel when you’re like, I made that decision because it was right for me in that moment.
[00:42:24] Kiona: Yeah, I agree
[00:42:24] Taylor: So empowering, which then trickles into how you are able to parent.
[00:42:32] Kiona: Which is a whole other ballgame.
[00:42:35] Taylor: Right and birthday is one day like we’re here as birth workers And I will tell you like I think it starts on birthday or prior really it starts Earlier than that obviously to prepare for birthday, but birthday is only one day you guys like now you have to take all of those feelings into parenthood and The number of moms that I’ve talked to that are like, I work with a lot of second time moms, and so I have a lot of first experiences that were not great, and now they’re wanting a different experience this time around, and the stories that I have heard of like, the inadequacy that they felt, how they felt small, how they felt belittled, talked down to, unimportant, unseen, unheard, like you were saying, They take that into motherhood, and then they’re now questioning all of their parenting decisions, whether it be sleep or breastfeeding or, you know, every little decision, they’re now not trusting themselves as a parent, which makes postpartum really fucking hard.
If you can just trust your gut as a new parent, postpartum gets a lot easier.
[00:43:59] Kiona: And to add on to that, like with bringing in how the way that you parent can stem from how you’re feeling or the confidence that you have around birth at all is the provider that you turn to for support in your birth. The person that fills that role in postpartum is your parents or your grandparents or the people around you that are parents.
And they’re like, oh, no, that’s not how it’s done. Or, oh, yeah, you definitely have to do it this way. And that’s hard because there are going to be so many people. I’ve talked to plenty of people that struggle with mother in laws. You know what I mean? or grandmas that are like, oh, no, you’re doing this wrong.
You have to have a strong enough confidence in your ability to parent to break the generational traumas that you have and to be aware enough to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is my baby. I will parent them the way that I feel is the most correct or accurate or what feels right for me at this time. And I will take your advice, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to necessarily keep it all and follow everything that you did directly as you say.
[00:45:13] Taylor: Because, I mean, I saw this quote once, that said, My mother in law is trying to give me parenting advice and I am not going to take it because I am married to her son and that shit did not work, you know, like I am not taking parenting advice from you. so it’s challenging for sure. Because you will constantly get that information thrown at you, whether it’s unsolicited advice, whether it’s social media, whether it is the mother in law or the best friend or your provider, the information overload will not stop, you have to be able to run it through your own. filter. I always say information comes from two places. It comes from outside, like the evidence, all the things, and then it comes from inside. And you have to be able to run all that stuff through your own filter. Because like you said earlier, that might’ve worked great for them. But that’s not going to work for you.
Your situation is not their situation. so I think it’s just so important to be able to run those things through our own filter.
[00:46:10] Kiona: I agree. I agree.
With all of that said, I do wanna navigate a little bit toward,some of the births that you wanted to share with us today. and how us talking about this as birth workers looks with you actively. Doing it in the birth space. So,
[00:46:29] Taylor: well I wanted to share, I feel like I could share, I mean, every birth is so special. It’s hard to even choose. but. Some of the births that stand out to me, that I feel would be most beneficial for people to hear about, are the ones, like I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, where things actually didn’t go to plan.
The boxes did not get checked the way you would have thought they got checked, but those moms left those experiences. Feeling so empowered and so just like autonomous about their decisions. and obviously there’s some really, really great ones where everything did go the way that they had hoped. but I think highlighting some of the ones that didn’t is important because it just goes to show that
It isn’t all about the check boxes. and so, I had three, I’ve only attended three cesarean births, and all three of them were very deliberate choices that the mom and dad made together. and they were all for very different reasons, and none of them were moms that originally thought that’s what they wanted. But none of them were forced, none of them were coerced, none of them felt like their hands were tied or their backs were up against a wall. And had they not had the coaching that they had, I think the way they felt about those cesarean births ending that way, would have felt a lot different about them.
so I have one mom in particular who had a fairly traumatic first cesarean and her biggest goal, yes she wanted a VBAC, but her biggest goal was a non emergent
chaotic situation. She did feel like in her first birth that she kind of fell down the cascade of interventions, that Pitocin led to the epidural, which ultimately led to the cesarean, which led to a hemorrhage, which led to separation of her and her baby for a decent amount of time, a few hours, like maybe even up to like Eight or nine hours.
and so what she wanted more than anything was the lack of chaos. She wanted to feel seen and heard and like she was at peace. She was really looking for that peace. And she got diagnosed with choleostasis at around thirty five, thirty four, thirty five weeks, which is a liver condition that is very, very unknown about.
And you can have a really, really healthy baby one minute and a very bad outcome the next minute with that particular Diagnosis it’s not like even gestational diabetes or something that there’s ways to manage it it’s just kind of it is and there are some medications and things but It’s one of those that we know very little about and in pregnancy There’s quite a few of that of those because you know, we can’t just like double blind placebo test pregnant women
[00:50:10] Kiona: Right.
[00:50:11] Taylor: And at the time she actually had a breached baby and her provider wasn’t comfortable with vaginal breach birth.
so we discussed all the things. We discussed what it would look like to switch providers, what it would look like to, find a provider that was comfortable with it. We discussed the things she could do to try to flip baby. But she didn’t have as much time as some moms have to get baby to flip because we were up against this choleostasis clock and her levels weren’t, her levels were actually getting better as far as liver, but her symptoms were getting worse.
So we were like, okayum, basically your option is an ECV for your listeners that don’t know what that is. That’s where they manually turn the baby from the outside. And her doctor did offer her this. and she ultimately turned it down because she felt that was going to potentially cause more chaos, less peace.
There was more unknowns. There was like, well, if we flip baby and then if she doesn’t flip, then there’s could potentially be a rush. Then we could potentially have another like hectic situation. She didn’t want Pitocin and even flipping baby, we would have still had to induce due to the choleostasis. And she’s like, I would honestly rather choose a repeat cesarean, knowing I don’t want to have more kids, knowing the risks. in that moment, that felt so much more calm and peaceful to her, than flipping a baby, potentially when they weren’t ready, and even if baby flipped, having to go through the induction process that she went through the last time, that did not end well.
And, we talked about all of the options. And she was like, this is what feels so good to me. And I was like, I love it. And so then, you know, we talk about all of the things like you brought up before with the how do we make this cesarean birth, this abdominal birth, just as beautiful and special as this VBAC would have been.
We don’t just have to say, Oh, well, screw it. You’re in the OR now. We can’t do anything. Like, absolutely not. Do you want music? Do you want the scented lavender? Can they put on music over the loudspeaker? Some ORs will do that. Can your doctor walk you through what’s happening? Do you want a clear drape?
She was like, absolutely not.
[00:52:46] Kiona: Yeah, I got ya.
[00:52:49] Taylor: Her biggest, the thing she wanted more than anything was like immediate skin to skin and there was a little bit of excessive blood loss, So, baby was separated for just a little bit, but baby was with dad, and baby stayed in the OR, and then baby went straight to her, and she got wheeled in, like, maybe in, I mean, it was a little bit of a longer C section due to the blood loss, but it wasn’t dramatic, it was maybe an hour and a half, two hours, instead of like an hour. And when she got wheeled back into the room, because unfortunately I was not allowed back in the room, because COVID protocols, they still don’t let us. as doulas but the biggest smile on her face and baby was on her chest and like that was the moment she didn’t get with her son that moment of just like she’s like my baby’s on me like my baby’s with me like she didn’t get her VBAC she had a repeat cesarean like if you looked at her birth plan and you checked boxes you would think oh this woman is traumatized this woman didn’t get anything she wanted but the reality was She actually did,
and it was just so inspiring to me, and her story is actually on my podcast, it’s one of the earlier episodes.
and, so her story stands out to me, and then I had A first time mom, who had been in a really traumatic cascade of intervention birth that ended in cesarean with her sister. And so we did all of the pre work for her to have an unmedicated birth in a hospital.
and this woman was thrown all the curveballs that literally you just can’t predict. And the way that she maintained control in an uncontrollable situation, because I’ve been talking a lot about this word control, because I think my audience at least, they want it. And instead of telling them, oh, well you need to let go of control, birth you can’t control, I think that, that phrase kind of gets misused in this, situation and it gives sometimes providers a little bit of fuel to be like, oh, well you can’t control it anyway, so like, don’t have a plan, whereas I’m like, but there’s actually a lot you can control. And the way that she handled these curveballs, I mean, she had very long labor. She did go into spontaneous labor, but she was vomiting like every hour. You can’t predict that, you know, she couldn’t keep anything down. So very quickly, you know, her stamina, her fluid levels , she didn’t want to be hooked up to an IV, but eventually that’s what made sense because she was getting very dehydrated.
and had like. No fuel. And when we started, baby was not descending. She was dilated to about a five. But baby was just staying really high in the pelvis. And even with a lot of the positions that we were trying, either she physically didn’t have the stamina to maintain some of these positions, you know, squatting, lunging, some of the positions that are a little bit harder to maintain.
Or, baby’s heart rate was not tolerating these positions.
Again, you can’t predict that. if baby’s wedged in there in a weird way, and you’ve done the spinning babies, and you’ve done the things, like, if baby’s in there wonky and squishing their cord every single time you get into this position, baby doesn’t have oxygen, like, There’s not much you can do to a certain point, and she Maintained, this is why my podcast is driver’s seat moms, because she maintained in the driver’s seat the whole time.
Like she Asked every single question. She asked why? She asked for pauses. She said can we wait? Each intervention that was brought to her that was like Well, this is officially, another thing on my birth plan not happening. This is another thing on my birth plan not happening. She was able to make those choices as they came.
It wasn’t just like, Well, chuck the birth plan in the trash because it doesn’t matter anymore. It was like, no. All we have to do is make the next decision.
We’re not just going to call it right now. We’re going to say, Well, can we wait an hour? Can we try this other thing? What other options do we have?
What are the alternatives? What is my gut telling me in this moment? My gut is telling me that though this isn’t what I wanted, I’ve been vomiting every hour for the last 12 hours. I need some help. there’s no way that I could have planned for that, but I’m still in control because I’m still in control of my next best decision.
I’m still in control because I’m still in control of what questions I asked my provider and ultimately she did have a primary cesarean, which is not what she wanted Obviously, she does want to have more kids and you know We talked about VBAC and that was one of the things she was very adamant about asking the doctor is What can you do in this surgery that was non emergent, like her sister’s was?
She still didn’t get rushed back to an emergency cesarean. She got to, in a calm, peaceful environment, choose a cesarean because We had all of the pieces to the puzzle, and that was just the thing that made the most sense in that moment. She had time to ask the doctor, What can you do in this procedure to make it easier for me to have a VBAC? Because I want, I know that I’m going to be going for that when I have another baby. and the doctor being able to explain to her the type of incision and the type of stitching that can make it, a lot safer for a vaginal birth after a cesarean and all of these things that she was able to still do and maintain. in that birth going, quote unquote, not according to plan.
and then, I think the other births that stand out to me
are, they, most of the ones that seem to stand out the most in my mind right now without like having a list of my client roster in front of me are my second time moms because they’re the ones that kind of Steal my heart a little bit with this happened to me the first time this happened to me My experience was kind of stolen from me.
I didn’t know what I didn’t know now I know more. Now I want something different and I had One mom that chose a home birth for her second experience. She had a hospital birth with her first and the way she describes her first birth was just like, and her husband too, he describes, we felt like we were in the line at Starbucks.
Like, okay, get through, let’s just get him through. We felt like cattle. Like, just like, get him through and they made him feel like he was just The first time dad that didn’t know anything he was pushed to the corner brushed to the side one of their big desires was regardless of whether we transfer or where we end up having this baby like dad wants to be A big part of it.
So in that birth, my role became how can I, and this is always my role for the most part, but especially in their birth was how can I support dad in supporting her so well? and majority of my clients have really supportive partners who want to be an active participant. I love being able to support dad’s support. well, and partners, not just always dads support. They’re partners having a baby in this particular case, I remember him being by her side and me her getting to a point where she was like Taking a little break. She You know, she was having some downtime and I was like, go to the bathroom, go eat, like, here’s a granola bar.
Like, and I do that for all of my partners, but in this particular one, it was like, he was just so in it with her and it was so beautiful and she did have actually like a little bitty scare at the end where baby’s heart rate was kind of looking a little scary. Midwife had her get out of the bath. She ended up having baby on the couch.
and it got like a little bit scary for a second, but then baby was on her chest and she was just like in awe of herself and even prior to the birth happening, she was like you made me feel like I was a badass that could do this instead of making me feel like you’re a crazy person for thinking you can do this.
Then having another mom who also wanted an unmedicated birth, actually had two. They were, one was a VBAC mom and one was a mom that just had a pretty standard medicalized birth the first time and wanted an unmedicated birth the second time and they both ended up, their births were very similar in the sense that they had perdromal labor for weeks then Once they went into labor, by the time they got to the hospital, they were pretty far along, and they both were asking for epidurals, and I was able to kind of stall them a little bit.
I mean, and I’m not taking credit, because like, had things played out differently, they might have gotten the epidurals, but ultimately I was like, Hey, let’s try this. Let’s get in the bath. They were able to get in the tub. They were able to get pretty Pushy in the tub and then unfortunately that hospital you can’t have a water birth at the hospital so they got out of the tub and they they had their babies unmedicated and they were just like It it was almost less about the fact that they got the births that they quote unquote wanted and more about the fact that they got these like healing, empowering experiences after their first births that were so dramatically the opposite. And it wasn’t necessarily the unmedicated birth experience that gave them that, it was the, I was in charge of my decisions. I let this happen my way. I trusted myself, I made these decisions, like, I declined this or I asked for this. Like, that’s what ultimately, cause I’ve talked to one of the moms in particular and she’s like, Taylor, even if I would’ve ended in a c section, like, instead of the unmedicated birth that I wanted, like, I would’ve still felt like hiring you was invaluable because it was how I felt in those decisions.
And so I just want moms to hear that, that like, It truly is how you feel, and it truly is feeling heard, feeling supported, feeling informed. most of my clients who are second time moms say, I was unsupported, uninformed, and uneducated, and I want this experience to be different. So what are the opposites of those things?
Educated, informed, and supported. And most of it is like an emotional support. It’s this decision is hard to make. I don’t know if I trust myself or I disagree with my provider What do I do?
Those are the real feelings that come up and so Having someone who is truly in your corner. I don’t care what you decide I don’t care what you choose as long as the choice feels like yours and not someone else’s Because, yes, I’m not the doula for everyone, I’m not the coach for everyone, and those clients who are probably not the right fit for me are more so the clients that don’t want to know or just kind of think that the births a means to an end. and again, I’m not shaming you if that’s how you feel, but the clients that work with me want to be in control of their decisions. That’s what’s most important to them. And the work we do helps them get there. So
[01:06:01] Kiona: Yeah.
[01:06:02] Taylor: choose what births to talk about, but those are the ones that stand out to me right now as
what I feel like your audience needs to hear.
[01:06:10] Kiona: Yeah. Yeah. No, I love all of that. And I think that even though there’s a lot of similarities between those births, there’s also so many differences, but the common similarity that’s across all of those is they felt like they were the ones making the decisions, even though it didn’t go necessarily according to plan, quote unquote, according to plan.
They made those decisions and they felt confident, or even if they didn’t feel confident in the decisions they were making, they knew that they were the ones that made the decisions which made them feel comfortable with making it, or with the result of the decision that was made. It wasn’t birth happening to them, it wasn’t things happening to them, but it was them making the decisions to work with and along side those that are supporting them in navigating this experience So I love that I think it’s super great I also when you said that the mom came back to you. And was saying that she felt like a badass. I just wanted to say, you are a badass!
[01:07:10] Taylor: I’m sure I did say that.
oh god, yeah, I was like, yes, you are. And I don’t know if you’ve ever had moms say this to you where they’re like, Oh my gosh, I couldn’t have done this without you, blah, blah, blah. And I’m like, you did the work. You did not need me. Like you did it. I always say to, to my clients, like, it is not my job to even empower you.
It is my job to remind you that you can empower yourself because you are so powerful. It’s not my job to give you your voice back. You have it. It’s just my job to remind you that you can use it.
[01:07:50] Kiona: Right. Yeah. And I’ve had people say that to me as well. Like, Oh my gosh, I couldn’t do this without you. And my first thing is like, yeah, you could have. You just needed some reminders or, you know, you just needed someone in your corner rooting you on saying yeah, go, good job, good decision, you know, or not even necessarily good decision because how I feel about the decision that my client is making doesn’t actually matter.
it’s more of like, Yay, good job. It feels hard to even say like, Oh, good job. You’re doing amazing. Because like I just said, the way that I’m feeling doesn’t actually matter, but they just need a cheerleader. They need someone to put a mirror up to them to show them that they’re a badass and that they got it and that everything that they needed was inside them this whole time.
And they just needed someone by their side to be like, yep, mm hmm, cool, yeah, whoo hoo, you know? So, yeah, I love all of those experiences. I love everything about it all. and it feels so awesome to have someone just tell themselves, oh my god, I did it! This is so amazing! it’s Such an awesome feeling.
[01:09:05] Taylor: Yeah. it really is.
[01:09:08] Kiona: It really, really is. Um, so I think the best way to kind of round off this interview is for me to just ask you a couple of final questions. my first question is what advice would you give to those that are wanting to work as a birth worker? How would you suggest they navigate finding their path into this work?
[01:09:27] Taylor: it’s funny you’re asking me this now because I’m actually talking with a couple of women who I might be starting a little bit of a, a silent offer that’s like for doulas, because I think the first question you have to ask yourself is what do you want your life to look like and how can you create your business to fit your life? , is one big piece of advice that I would say. That honestly goes for any business, not just birth work. but then specifically to birth, I would say, asking yourself your true motive, your true why as to why you want to do this work And making sure that it is in service. of the families you are serving, not in service of yourself. I do think that sometimes people Oh, I had a very traumatic experience and I want to swoop in and I want to save people from that.
and I’m not saying that those women, those doulas can’t be effective and can’t make a drastic difference. But I think that we are all going to be more effective as birth workers. If we do approach this as We are working within a system and though it’s a fucked up system, we can’t support our clients if we just like are the wrecking ball totally coming in with like a baseball bat into birth rooms.
we also don’t want the pendulum to swing too much in the other direction because I think some doulas that get into it more in a self service. This is why you have to ask yourself because of course we don’t think we’re doing it We don’t think we’re in it for self service or to heal your own story or to You know, yeah, like I’m gonna help all of these other families so that I can heal myself. I think what can happen is the pendulum can swing so far in the opposite direction that you can steal her voice from her in the same way that you’re trying to protect her by Jumping in and speaking for her by doing what we talked about earlier and making her feel bad for getting that epidural or making her feel bad for choosing something that you might not have chosen or bringing your own trauma into the room and projecting that onto her So I think you do have to just make sure that you’re doing it for the service of the family, gut check at the door, you know, leave your own stuff at the door and that is Really hard.
There are a lot of times where I am in a birth and I am triggered and I have to figure out how to just put that shit to the side.
[01:12:29] Kiona: Mm hmm. It is a skill that truly is hard to develop because a lot of people get into birth work because of their own birth experiences and they have this strong urge to support others in birth. that’s why I got into it.
[01:12:46] Taylor: And that’s not a bad thing at all.
[01:12:48] Kiona: Yeah,
[01:12:49] Taylor: Yeah.
[01:12:49] Kiona: yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I got into it because of my own birth experiences and I knew prior to having my own kids that I wanted to be supporting parents and babies in some way.
but once you’re in it and then you see that somebody feels it, it For me, personally, being a birth worker of color, supporting people of color in the spaces that we have in our system where birthers have babies, that’s kind of a tricky way to think of it, but as a birth worker of color, being in a birth space, it’s hard to not get triggered every single time, because the way that providers speak to your client, the way that providers touch your client, the way that providers completely Disregard the way that your client is actually feeling and the pain that they are in or the things that they really want.
It’s really, really hard to not get triggered. But in that seat as a birth provider and birth supporter, your job is to encourage your client’s voice and for me, one of the things I do is I never, ever speak directly to the provider. If there’s a suggestion that’s being offered, Sometimes I’ll just speak to the room.
Like I won’t speak to the provider and be like, Oh, Hey, what do you think about blah, blah, blah. Or my client doesn’t want blah, blah, blah. It’s more of like, Hmm. I heard that a ROM at four centimeters is a little bit riskier than a ROM at nine centimeters, you know, something. So whatever happens in that situation, speaking to the room rather than directly to the person or me asking a question when the provider says something, I’ll ask a question to my client and say, Hey, remember when we spoke about AROM prenatally, how do you feel about it now, knowing that where you’re at, you know, and meeting people where they are.
so yeah, I, I think getting into birth work for the right reasons is 100 percent important because a lot of people try to do this savior thing. and I knew, I personally knew a birth doula who had a really traumatizing experience and had a stillbirth at five or six months in her own pregnancy.
And that is what gave her the passion to like actually really become a birth worker. But it was really hard for her. Because she was doing it for healing in a way that she would go to these births and she would support these clients and she was an amazing doula. But as soon as that baby was born, she couldn’t hide her emotions anymore and she would literally cry.
She would literally have, an outburst of emotions because her client gets to have and hold their baby and she did not. And this person is no longer a doula anymore because she kind of came to the realization that, like, Going to births was also kind of triggering and traumatizing even though she was trying to heal and the reason why she was in it wasn’t necessarily the best reason but it helped her healing process and she supported clients in the process and they weren’t really necessarily bothered by it but like the dynamic was different, you know, and that’s really hard and sometimes you don’t know your reasoning until you’re in it and you don’t realize why things are the way they are until you’re in it.
[01:16:02] Taylor: Or you don’t know what your triggers are going to be
[01:16:06] Kiona: Yeah,
[01:16:07] Taylor: You’re in it and it is I I guess I would add then too because of what you added Find birth workers that you can have these conversations with if for instance like you were that doula that had a traumatic experience But you know that you want to serve families Get therapy, first.
Work through your own shit, cause it’s valid. Obviously it’s valid. but you shouldn’t be using other people’s experiences to heal yourself. You, you know, get therapy. But, also, find other birth workers that you can vent to. That you can talk to. and I’m glad you brought up, and I know we weren’t planning on going down this rabbit hole, but like, I’m glad you brought up being a birth worker of color, and like, being in births with women of color, I’ve, I’ve served a couple women of color, but being a white doula in a space where I know women of color need the most support, because they are the ones.
Because I have had five hour conversations at coffee with doulas of color who tell me things that I’m like, What in the literal fuck? Like, people don’t say that shit to my white clients. Like, what are you even talking about?
the things that women of color are up against in the maternal healthcare system is so unfortunate.
I mean, all of us are set up kind of to fail in this current system, but it’s really, really important for all birth workers. But especially I think birth workers of color and serving women of color like if you like you have to have doulas you can talk to you have to have other birth workers that you can have these conversations with behind the scenes so that you are being able to process these births and not just take on all of that trauma yourself,
like
You have to process it.
You have to talk about it. You have to get it out. Like,
[01:18:17] Kiona: yeah 100%.
um, yeah, there is a community within a community, for sure. there is a community of Black birth workers intentionally supporting Black birth workers and creating a community of support around just them as providers to be able to withstand the secondary traumas that we experience as black birth workers.
so it’s a thing. It’s a thing. it’s a lot.
[01:18:41] Taylor: If you’re looking at being a birth worker, like tap into those resources for sure.
[01:18:47] Kiona: absolutely. Absolutely. So, I have a couple more questions, what is one word that you would use to describe your profession that, like, rings true to you?
[01:18:58] Taylor: My profession as a whole I thought about this question ahead of time and I was struggling.
[01:19:04] Kiona:
[01:19:06] Taylor: necessary, but
[01:19:08] Kiona: that’s a good one,
[01:19:10] Taylor: honestly I think there’s a lot of aspects of my job, of our jobs. that I wish weren’t necessary.
[01:19:21] Kiona: yeah,
[01:19:22] Taylor: advocacy skills should not be needed in birth, but they are 1000 percent necessary and required in the current system that we’re in. And I wish that they weren’t, but they are so necessary. It’s not necessarily a luxury.
Like I truly think having support in birth is going to set foundations for Parents to be set up for more success, families to be more successful. Like, the ripple effect of feeling really, really good about how you birth your babies. It is really necessary.
[01:20:03] Kiona: yes, I love it, it’s a great word. the next question I have for you is, what is one resource that we can share with our listeners on your behalf?
[01:20:12] Taylor: Yeah, so, if you go to my website, WithYouWellnessKC.com there’s a links page there. And I have two free resources available to you. Separate from my podcast, obviously, go binge that. but one of them is, I just call it like my birth prep bundle. And those journaling prompts that I was talking about, those are in there, so you can just snag those completely free.
there’s a birth options list in there. I have a belief that everything is an option. So, and I, we didn’t even talk about this, but I think that if you can shift your perspective to believing that everything is an option, it will change how you feel about your birth. Instead of, my doctor won’t let me, or I don’t have that option in my state, saying things like, I am choosing to birth in my state because that’s what makes the most sense for my family.
I am choosing to stick with this provider, and they’re not comfortable with this choice. And I’m choosing to still stick with them because that’s what makes sense for my family in my situation. It just gives your power. It just gives your power back to you. but I have an options list in there to give you just some language to start thinking about.
And it kind of goes through prenatal into early, Pregnancy and then into like postpartum choices that will come up that you might have to make decisions around just to spark your memory Or to spark especially for the moms that are like, I just don’t know what I don’t know. It will give you a list somewhere to start and then there’s also a birth plan template or a birth preferences template Which is what I call it in there as well that you can edit. So that’s the bundle And then there’s also a little mini audio series make birth less scary. And make birth less overwhelming, and it takes you through my seven step framework of how to basically be in the driver’s seat of your birth.
So, those are available completely free, and then my podcast, I think, is a great resource as well.
[01:22:25] Kiona: I think that’s awesome, and I love that you have those resources available and accessible to everybody. that’s super great, and I’m happy to share those. I will put the link to your website in the show notes and description, so Yeah, thank you so much, Taylor. I’m so happy to be able to connect with you.
I love conversation and I feel like our conversation flowed really well back and forth. And this is my jam.
So,
[01:22:47] Taylor: hmm. I know, I’m like, I could talk about this stuff all day, every day.
[01:22:51] Kiona: right, right, right. Yeah. So thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I will definitely share all of your resources out there. And I hope that you have a magical and amazing birth experience with your twins.
[01:23:04] Taylor: Thank you. I appreciate that.
[01:23:07] Kiona: Yeah. Be in the driver’s seat of your own birth girl.
[01:23:11] Taylor: Heck, yes.
Well, thank you so much for having me. This has been truly an honor, so
[01:23:17] Kiona: Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you.
[01:23:27] Kiona: Interviewing Taylor for this episode was so much fun and I really loved our conversation because it was a good back and forth, and we brought up some important topics to consider when thinking about becoming a birth worker.
So the on-call life, making sure you have sustainable income with the business that you create, making your business work for you. Making sure that you’re getting into the business of birth work for the right intentions. Yes, it’s okay to heal your birth experiences through birth work, but at the same time, go in with making sure that you have your traumas and your coping and your processing under control. So you don’t project that onto the clients that you’re supporting.
Taylor, I’m super excited to hear more about how your 12 month program goes once it kicks off and I’m excited to touch base after you give birth to your second set of twins. Once again, thank you so much for sharing your stories on the podcast. I truly appreciate it. And I’m looking forward to seeing where your business takes you.
If you liked this podcast, all I’m asking from you this time is to just share it with a friend, because there are so many important stories that are shared here. And I would really love for as many people as possible to hear these stories so that we can create connection through this virtual platform and have a community.
So. Let’s get more people in the BAWKI community realm and let’s talk and support each other through this journey of learning about birth and don’t forget to follow me on Instagram @birthasweknowitpodcast
For next week’s episode, I had the opportunity to interview Ashley Winning, who is located in Australia. It was tricky to get her scheduled. And I was really excited that we were able to make it happen because she’s 17 and a half hours ahead of me. So we made it work.
In Ashley’s episode, we talk about the differences between the health care system in Australia and here in the United States. As well as talking about her three birth experiences. She ended up having two C-sections for her first two babies and the decisions that she made and the way that she was treated throughout those pregnancies led her to deciding to have an unassisted birth at home.
So tune in next week. So you could get all of the juicy details on how her unassisted birth at home went. Alright, bye. For now.
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