78. Cultivating Birth Wisdom with Audrey Ross

Audrey Ross is a wife, mother, and birth keeper who is passionate about teaching women to trust physiological birth. In this episode of The Radiant Mission podcast, we discuss learning moments and giving birth outside of the medical paradigm.

As a daughter, sister, and mother deeply rooted in the dance of childbirth, Audrey's voice is a call for honoring the divine orchestration of bringing life into the world. Come listen as she delves into a conversation that bridges the gap between the sacred and the science of birth, sharing the intimate journey of her own vaginal breech delivery and the importance of standing firm in one's birthing choices, against the grain of conventional medical protocols.

The tapestry of our discussion weaves through the dimly lit rooms of home births, the hurdles faced by midwives within the tangles of legalities, and the culture that shapes how we come into this world. A poignant narrative emerges as Audrey describes the emotional battlefields where women assert their autonomy within the birthing space, and the term "birth keeper" is differentiated from  "midwife," symbolizing a guardian of the natural process. We uncover the starkly different outcomes that environment can have on birth, comparing the serenity of birthing at home with the clinical urgency of a hospital delivery, and invite listeners to reflect on the profound effects these surroundings have on the spiritual and emotional essence of motherhood.

Our conversation rounds off with a forward-looking gaze into the legacy we leave our children through the education of birth. Audrey Ross, known to her online community as @ajoyfulbirth, shares the transformative power of inviting birth back into the home and the impact this exposure has on our children's perception of life's beginnings. Our parting words, like a lullaby, whisper of the innate strength of motherhood and the beauty of life's transitions, leaving you to ponder the marvels of birth long after the echoes of our dialogue fade away.

Transcript

Rebecca Twomey: 0:32

Hello and welcome to the Radiant Mission Podcast. My name is Rebecca Twomey and we are on a mission to encourage and inspire you as you're navigating through this life and with your relationship with Christ. We are currently in a series called God's Design for Birth, and today we have a very special guest who's an expert on birth. Audrey Ross is a wife, a mother and a birthkeeper who is passionate about teaching women to trust physiological birth and all about giving birth outside of the medical paradigm. You can find her on Instagram at a joyful birth or on her website, wwwajoyfulbirthorg. Audrey, thank you so much for being with me today.

Audrey Ross: 1:17

I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for asking me to be on.

Rebecca Twomey: 1:20

I am obsessed with your Instagram page. Every single post, every single moment that you post, I'm like, yes, yes, more, more, more, more. So that is how we came together is because I just love your perspective, where we have the same train of thought and, in some ways, similar-ish kind of experiences. You and I were chatting before we started recording about kind of your background with birth. We didn't grow up the same way necessarily, so I'd love for you to just kind of start by taking us through your history and how you grew up with birth and then how that transpired into your first experience and subsequent. So tell us a little bit more about your passion here.

Audrey Ross: 2:03

I would love to and I love that. You love my Instagram. That makes me so happy. I have so much fun with it.

Rebecca Twomey: 2:08

honestly, it's the best. It really is. You come up with amazing videos, too, where you pick the little things. There was one earlier that was like random videos, but compared to birth experiences like the Breach Baby and the Scoop of the Placenta, I was dying. You have a skill. You definitely have a skill.

Audrey Ross: 2:29

It's been this beautiful channel for my dry, sarcastic humor that typically only stays with close friends or my husband, and it's been like this outlet for it, which has just been fantastic. And I've combined it with birth, so it's been so fun for me. Yeah, I love it, awesome. So I grew up in a big family and my mom was a doula.

Audrey Ross: 2:48

As I was growing up so probably in my, I would say like maybe eight, nine years old she started going through her schooling for it, and so we were very much a part of that right, like that was a normal conversation and she's going through her classes and then, as she starts attending births, and about a few years after that, my sister became midwife. So she's going through all of her midwifery training and she was training to be a licensed midwife, so a more medical practice than what I do. But birth just became this common conversation around the table. I had sisters who are much older than me 12, 10 and six years older than me so they then were birthing their own children while I was still in my teen years, and so it was just normal to talk about birth. In fact, even before my mom became a doula, she was very interested in birth. She'd given birth vaginally to all of her children Now, not most of them had been in the hospital, but less medical than birth today, but still there had been medical aspects to it.

Rebecca Twomey: 3:52

How many kids did your mom have?

Audrey Ross: 3:54

Seven kids.

Rebecca Twomey: 3:55

Seven births Okay.

Audrey Ross: 3:57

Yeah, I'm a twins. Well, six births, so I'm a twin and I have a brother.

Rebecca Twomey: 4:01

Okay, okay, well, I mean, both of you were born.

Audrey Ross: 4:05

Right, exactly, you're right. You're right. You did have six pregnancy, seven births, that's awesome.

Audrey Ross: 4:13

And even before she started treating me to do that, her library was full of birth books. So as a child I remember sitting in her bedroom and like looking through these books of women giving birth. They're like black and white photos, they're like, and still, even then, you know, women sometimes are like legs were up kind of in stirrups, but still I was so fascinated with birth even at that young age I liked, I liked to go in her room and like, look through these books, and I probably was. I wasn't reading them, I just was kind of looking through at the pictures.

Audrey Ross: 4:42

Um and so, when I went to give birth so I was married like nine years before my husband and I actually got pregnant and that was kind of like we didn't even think that would happen, but it did happen. And, um, my first birth, I decided to work with midwives and at 36 weeks they found out that my baby girl was breach. Now, that didn't phase me, because my mom had had four vaginal breach birds. In fact, myself and my twin brother were both breach and then the youngest, yeah, and my sisters had all had breach babies up to that point. And so it was like what? Like we just give birth, we have breach babies, like that's what we do.

Audrey Ross: 5:21

And so I was shocked. I, literally I was so shocked when they dropped me Like I hadn't, I hadn't even thought to like ask about that ahead of time, but I was like what? Like how is this not normal? This is normal in my family. And so what ended up happening is that I went to the hospital and I declined literally everything and I signed the AMA. I refused to put on their gown, I refused to let them put an IV. I mean they, you know, strapped things on my belly and I took them off and left the premises Like I anything Amazing, yeah. And I gave birth vaginally in the hospital and it was like a big to do. And I had people coming in afterwards and saying like I can't believe you did that, and they made me push in the OR. So there's 18 people in the room ready to like cut me open and it's very oh my gosh what they.

Rebecca Twomey: 6:10

How'd you go to the OR to push?

Audrey Ross: 6:13

Yep, yep, they. I labor in the labor room, but then they're like you can't push until we, until you go into the operating room and what talk about?

Rebecca Twomey: 6:23

Okay, so talk about people that don't trust birth.

Audrey Ross: 6:27

Oh my goodness, yes Right.

Rebecca Twomey: 6:30

Like the opposite.

Audrey Ross: 6:32

And literally 18, I mean, my mom counted 18 people. They're all dressed up in their blue. You know, garb, I'm literally on like this, the op metal, flat right, it's not made for like pushing out a baby. And I remember yelling at this young male nurse, like standing there, like oh, my leg, because like I didn't have anything to push against. So he like he's ready to like do surgery, but I'm like telling him to, you know, I'm like I'm not going to do this. Anyways, she came out, very, very she's like I'm over, like everybody, because what?

Rebecca Twomey: 7:08

You must have shaken their whole entire. I did with this.

Audrey Ross: 7:10

Yes, I heard stories like coming out of the hospital with you know chiropractors I knew and other people I knew from the from my birth. It really it was kind of a shaking thing. That's awesome, yeah, and it was so normal, it was so normal.

Rebecca Twomey: 7:28

You're like get away from me what. I don't know what's up with you people, but just back off yeah.

Audrey Ross: 7:33

Yeah, and it was. It happened just just fine. Yeah, there wasn't a problem in the world they shot me up with the blitz and without asking afterwards oh, that was, that was the one, that was the one thing that really was hard and that I had to come to grips with. Actually, years later, I didn't even understand the effects of chosen, until years later. Wow.

Rebecca Twomey: 7:54

How did it impact you? Do you feel?

Audrey Ross: 7:57

I didn't remember anything from when they shot me up with the toast and until like hours later that's like late that night, like she was born and it was probably like five hours. For five hours later I finally was in our room for the night and I finally, like then I remember what happened. I have pictures so I can look at the pictures and they're like oh yeah, that was me. But I don't, like I don't remember eating my meal. I don't remember like pictures of my mom and my midwife, who she came to support me, and my husband. I don't remember any of that. I know they like weighed her and measured her. I don't.

Audrey Ross: 8:31

I don't remember any of it, it just it's like blank. So they totally destroyed that first hour of oh my gosh. And the toast and does that. It cuts off your oxytocin and you're a blocks, it right, because it's a synthetic, it's not oxytocin, so you don't have oxytocin anymore, and so that that's ever is the bonding.

Rebecca Twomey: 8:51

And so this is actually a good learning moment for us to talk about. I feel you know. You just shared a little bit about the difference between the oxytocin that our bodies produce when we are in the natural birth process because God designed our bodies to release that oxytocin versus synthetic which don't. They make this synthetic oxytocin from pigs or something to that effect.

Audrey Ross: 9:17

Well, not oxytocin. That's like the servidil that they. That's right, servidil.

Rebecca Twomey: 9:22

I was confusing it. So then, this is this is what some man made chemical.

Audrey Ross: 9:28

Yep, yep, and it doesn't function like oxytocin at all. Right, oxytocin is the bonding hormone. It's coming from a you know, from our brain, through arbitrary, and it's what does all the work in labor like. So your entire uterus is Flooded with oxytocin, your placenta is flooded, the cord, the baby I mean a baby is just like saturated in oxytocin in an undisturbed birth, which is why it's so important for a mom to go skin to skin, because there's this transfer of smells and it even tastes like if you're kissing your baby, and that is like that is Activating the baby's oxytocin and your oxytocin and it's what's causing your uterus to clamp down.

Audrey Ross: 10:09

It's doing all of the magic of birth, but the moment you introduce the toson, oxytocin is completely blocked. So now we don't have a functioning birth right Now we don't have a uterus that's down the way that it should. Now we don't have bonding happens the way that it should. It completely suffers that, and so women will describe it as feeling cold, or you know, they don't remember things, yeah, and that's. And I had that feeling too like I even remember my leg feeling cold. They just shot it in my thigh, like with an injection, without, without ask, like, like we're gonna do this and did it right.

Rebecca Twomey: 10:43

Wow.

Audrey Ross: 10:45

Ask at all.

Audrey Ross: 10:47

And hold my plus and so oh, but that was that and I was. That was one part I was not prepared for. I was prepared, I knew about all the cascaded interventions. I was prepared to say no to everything else. I knew you never want to IV poor in your arm already. I knew all of that. But I didn't know about the third stage of labor and what they were going to do. So, yeah, so I just don't have a remembrance of her. And too late that night, and then, and then it's like I like met her again, like, oh, my goodness, like I have a baby. Oh, who is she like? I have no recollection. So that's that I have. Really I found that I really great it like I bet that's traumatic, that's extremely traumatic.

Audrey Ross: 11:30

Yeah, that part, and even On top of it having your placenta pulled out, that's traumatic, you know that I like, I feel like, because it already shot the chosen in, that was already kind of like a blank. Do you know anything like I know they did it?

Rebecca Twomey: 11:45

Yeah, yeah.

Audrey Ross: 11:46

I Don't think I felt the trauma of it as much because they're sure and I was already like, okay, well, I don't know what happened to me and you know I'm gone. So, yeah, I'm so soon is don't get your mental. I mean it literally can't cause hemorrhage to work. We're using it to like prevent hemorrhage.

Rebecca Twomey: 12:04

But like I hear, so many women say I have to get putto sin Because otherwise I hemorrhage and it's like how do you know if you always get it?

Audrey Ross: 12:14

You know, how do you know? And if you have a disturbed birth, I'm not even shocked that you hemorrhaged, because of course anything. You Can't hear birth, you've disturbed the oxytocin, and when you disturb the oxytocin then your uterus is not going to do what it's supposed to do. And the other thing to your birth or anything to introduce adrenaline into your body. So fight, flight. You know. Fear, all of that, that's adrenaline. So the hospital is just saturated with that. That's all there is right.

Audrey Ross: 12:40

Yeah there's no calm like at peace now. So of course your oxytocin was blocked, because it'll be blocked by adrenaline we bought, blocked by dosing.

Rebecca Twomey: 12:50

So it breaks my heart when I hear moms that are planning hospital births and they have this whole plan. You know I'm gonna go in, everything's gonna be natural. I'm hearing what you're saying. You knew these things and they still found ways to go against what you would have agreed to if they had simply stopped for a second to say, is it okay if we give this to you? And you would have said no, and they did it anyway. And that's, I think, why you and I are so passionate about home birth is because we don't want to fight when we're in labor. We don't want to fight, we just want to do our thing, do what our bodies know that they are capable of doing.

Audrey Ross: 13:33

Yeah, it's a hundred percent right. I mean, birth was not in sign for a fight. It was not. I mean, it was literally the grace of God that this labor happened the way it did, right, like so many other scenarios could have could have happened, that would have played out just very Desperately and I really feel like his hand was in it, like he did protect me and enabled this this Happened and I had really submitted this to him to like God, I know I can like I know I can give birth gradually and I fully trusted my body.

Audrey Ross: 13:59

Then, like without a Doubt, and they're like we don't have a proven pelvis, your first time mom, I was like I don't even know what that means.

Rebecca Twomey: 14:05

But you don't have a proven pelvis. You don't have a proven pelvis.

Audrey Ross: 14:09

Yeah, that's it. That's that's what they tell women who haven't had a baby Yet.

Rebecca Twomey: 14:16

Yeah, yeah, I did give the God, not create us with a proven pelvis.

Rebecca Twomey: 14:22

Look at these hips, you know, it's funny that you say that, because when I had my first, I had an OBGYN and the whole hospital snail thing, you know, and I remember her saying, oh, your uterus is tilted like this and that, and she was trying to path the, pathologize me. And then afterwards, when I went for my six-week checkup or whatever, and I was crying because of my horrible experience, she was like you know, I Could tell when I felt in there before you had the baby, that you were gonna have problems, what? And I'm like okay, lady, I literally knew she was full of it. You know, of course went on to naturally both my own babies, without any of this nonsense, but like, that's the kind of stuff that they make up, I mean.

Audrey Ross: 15:16

Anyway. I mean they tell women anything. You would not believe some of the things that women have told me in Birth coaching and like birth trauma debriefs.

Rebecca Twomey: 15:25

Yeah, tell me. So, tell me about your, your birth. What, what is your? You go by a birth keeper. Is that your title?

Audrey Ross: 15:32

Yeah, so you have to go turn birth keeper because the word Midwife is owned legally, so you can't say midwife unless you are licensed.

Rebecca Twomey: 15:43

So if you're licensed, you're tied to the laws of the hospital in your state you are.

Rebecca Twomey: 15:52

You have you have certain things in a certain way, carry pitose in All that. I think that that's what a lot of women don't understand about home birth midwives. Yes, you're getting the same hospital midwife experience. Oftentimes they're not everybody's the same. There are some good ones out there, yeah, but on, honestly, the majority the ones that are in my area, unfortunately I Mean they might as well be a hospital midwife with. They send you to the hospital to to get checked for things.

Audrey Ross: 16:23

They in good relations with the hospital, so they it's very important that they do things a certain way, because then if they transfer you like it's yeah, it's a relationship. So they are jailed Of the obstetric system truly. And there are some good ones and but what you'll find is that the good ones they have to lie on their documentation. So they may, they may like, really look out for the woman. They may say that her, her last cycle was, was a different date when it really really was. Or they may say that they did X amount of cervical checks when they did it. They may do that, but For me I could never do that. I couldn't live that. I have to live in integrity.

Audrey Ross: 17:05

I am a honest person and I cannot. I cannot, I cannot live, I would not sleep at night if I had like. I'm not gonna lie to a woman and I'm not gonna lie to somebody else either. Yeah so it puts them out of integrity because they have to always be manipulating One to the other, like do I manipulate the woman? Do I manipulate my documentation? Which do I Manipulate? And that was I mean, that was a very clear choice to me, that I will, I will, I'm not going to do either of those.

Rebecca Twomey: 17:35

So that's a good, that's a really good point. Yeah, that's a good point, especially on timing right, because midwives I know the mid licensed midwives here they have to carry you out. Carry you out meaning send you back to the hospital if you're 42 weeks, the average pregnancy is 40 will 41.5 weeks. So most women they come up to that cusp they start freaking out, which means you're tense, you're not gonna go into labor because you're freaking out. And then you go to that 42 weeks and potentially over, or you don't even make it to them because your midwife is freaking out, because she has to, you know, do her paperwork to the state or whatever, and I see that happen a lot.

Audrey Ross: 18:17

Well, and what midwives do is they start pushing all of the natural induction, which is not nothing natural about it. So they're going to induction.

Rebecca Twomey: 18:24

Is induction right? It doesn't matter what it is.

Audrey Ross: 18:28

If it's natural, they're going to start pushing that because they're going to get your labor started. And so women have these dramatic, horrible labors because they did these things that their midwife coerced them to do simply because their midwife couldn't be there past 42 weeks.

Rebecca Twomey: 18:47

Can you tell us a little bit about some of these? You mentioned membrane sweeps. I know midwives brew is another one. Can you tell us a little bit about a membrane sweep? Why it is potentially dangerous to your physiological birth, why is that a bad idea?

Audrey Ross: 19:02

Yeah, well, first of all, you're putting somebody else's finger up into your cervix, so you're literally going through the cervix and then like breaking the. So like this is your cervix, like going up, and like breaking the amniotic sac, the bag of water from around inside of the uterus, right, you're separating that. Well, women, they have their cervix torn with midwives, nails or fingers. They introduce foreign bacteria like our own microbiome and the environment, a microbiome of our family. That is safe. It's safe. You can have sex whenever you want in pregnancy. You can check your own cervix because you know what your body knows. It's you. But it doesn't matter how many blue gloves you want to put on. You can't ever be sterile and that's foreign. And the thing about our body, and I believe, our cervix especially, is that it reacts to safety or not being safe, because it will close if it is not safe.

Audrey Ross: 20:02

Our cervix will close right, it is not safe. Nothing's coming out, nothing's going in, and that's a preventative measure I believe the God has given us. But that right there starts a reaction. I think in women's bodies especially, that's like no, no, no, no, no, like what just went inside of me. This shouldn't be inside of me, but there's so many other things that can happen. So if you break the bag of waters early, for one thing, labor probably might not be ready to start at all.

Audrey Ross: 20:28

So now we have open waters and we've introduced foreign microbiome bacteria, whatever you want to call it, and that is a breeding ground for actually having a problem. That's why they're like well, you have to give birth in so many hours, because risk of infection. Well, if they hadn't stuck their fingers up inside of you, you would have been fine. Your waters could have been broken for a month, you would have been fine. But because we've gone and put our fingers inside of a woman, that's a problem. But also there's the risk of cord prolapse, because the baby hasn't engaged, it's not ready to come out yet, and so there's a swoosh of waters. They break the water and then that's when a cord can often fall out and that's a true emergency. Now we actually have to do a C-section, so that is one of the true emergencies in birth. There's not very many, but like that.

Rebecca Twomey: 21:13

No, there's not. Yeah, but that's one of them and that one can lead to the next yeah.

Audrey Ross: 21:20

Yeah, so that is one they want to do. Yeah, breaking your waters, a membrane, sweep castor oil. Or, yeah, midwives brew they're their little concussion. All the black co-hostion, blue co-hostion and all of those come with massive risks. An entire post on this. They're all fraught with risk. I mean, castor oil is by far my. I am vehemently. I hate it so much. I love castor oil on my skin but, like consume, it is so toxic and the births and the labors that it gives women are atrocious.

Rebecca Twomey: 21:58

And I can only imagine. So we had Dr Vaughn on the podcast last year and he is a natural path doctor and iridologist and he uses castor oil for stomach bugs because it literally empties your body. So I can't imagine using that when you're in labor. I mean you must, that must not feel good at all to have diarrhea and feel sick.

Audrey Ross: 22:24

They have those painful labors, painful contractions, because first of all they depleted their body of all their minerals and our minerals are what allow our smooth muscles to contract in a rhythmic, smooth, beautiful, fluid way Our heart, our uterus, right those are the two crucial ones actually in labor and it depletes them of their minerals, our muscles. So now women are totally fatigued, their mineral depleted, so their contractions are so strong because they don't have enough minerals in their body.

Rebecca Twomey: 22:52

They're dehydrated.

Audrey Ross: 22:53

I mean, what a horrible state to enter labor in sick to their stomach. So they have these horrible long labors, I am they hemorrhage and things like that, because castor oil can cause that as well. There are baby poops as well. So now we've got meconium, which meconium is not actually an issue, but in that case, like it wasn't needed and now they're transferring because of meconium, it's just like. It's like what a great way to really like, honestly like poop all over your labor, you know, like totally, totally.

Rebecca Twomey: 23:23

That doesn't sound fun to me at all and I think the thing that's so interesting about it because we're talking about even quote, natural right. We're not even talking about the stuff, the crazy stuff they do in the hospital, like give you servidil and pump those little balloons up there and all those nuts, so things that I mean I think they're not. So we're just talking about the more naturally minded things, and even that it just, you know. It brings us back to this conversation about God's design for birth and how we as humans just want to control everything. Right, and we just want to be in control and like this baby needs to come out now, because I'm tired or I don't feel like doing this anymore, or it's Christmas tomorrow and I don't want to have this baby on Christmas, or whatever it might be. Whatever the reasons are that we come up in our own own heads and listen I'm talking about myself here too, so I hope no one listening thinks that I am being judgmental.

Rebecca Twomey: 24:20

When I was pregnant with my first and I got she was due on New Year's Day, on January 1st, and so I'm going into Christmas week Like all right, come out now. And I was trying some of this nonsense. Like you know, bouncing on my ball and doing the curb, stepping and all that, you know I was trying to do at home stuff eating eggplant, parmesan the same recipes you know that's silly stuff. But then I did use my breast pump and that did put me into labor and I kind of wish that I hadn't done that because my baby was. She was OP, she was asynclinic, like I, she wasn't ready.

Rebecca Twomey: 24:58

There was a reason why labor wasn't starting. She wasn't in. You know, not to say that babies need to be in any position, right, because you could be breached, you could be OP, you could be anything. The babies need to come out. Yeah, I guess I just feel like I was forcing something to happen, that I should have just waited patiently for her to arrive, and I regret that. And so I think it's it's why I'm speaking from this context to say we want to control things, we want to control the situation. And the truth is, if I had just let go and surrendered, you know would have been different, but lesson learned, right.

Audrey Ross: 25:37

And what if God was better? Like that's oh wait, actually he does. He actually knows better. We can man, maybe, maybe make their plans, but God has a last word and I'm telling you, like his plan for your birth is a million times better than whatever you've crafted and whatever you want to make happen. Because you are you are. Then you're missing out on his plan and I'm going to promise you, like it's the better plan.

Audrey Ross: 26:06

And I think, like the surrender and trust that is necessary in birth, if we're going to, we're going to leave it alone and let it happen the way it's supposed to happen. Like that I think that actually follows us. Follows us then into motherhood. I think the really good way to like, ooh, put all these things into, like the hard work of like oh, I have to trust, I have to surrender in pregnancy and waiting for labor, Like what a beautiful time to be practicing these things because you know what the motherhood is just a trust and surrender journey, Start to finish. Like you can think you're going to make your kids do this. You can think this is going to happen. You can think whatever you want, and you start to realize pretty soon, like these are God's children and I, like I can do everything I want and they're still God's children and I have to trust them to him. And so I just think we're actually like missing out on this beautiful lesson that is there for us when we try to take it into our own hands.

Rebecca Twomey: 27:01

That's so beautiful. I totally agree with you. That is the correlation there is perfect. I want to ask you too, because I know that you have many clients that you've worked with on their births Can you tell me a little bit more about how you've seen God in those experiences, either with your clients or in your own experiences with birth?

Audrey Ross: 27:24

It's really I mean. For me, with what I know from the medical system, it's really beautiful to see a birth play out and to be able to like reflect back on it's going to probably make me cry on all the things that would have gone wrong had they been in the hospital, Because it breaks my heart.

Audrey Ross: 27:41

It breaks my heart like even thinking about that possibility of these like precious mothers and their precious babies, Because I can see it all Like. I know that the baby was a breach. I know that there was meconium. I know the baby didn't actually take a breath or cry for four minutes.

Audrey Ross: 28:02

I know that things didn't happen the way they are supposed to in the medical world and still we have this like and everything was totally fine and mom is doing well and the babies are doing well. And so sometimes with my husband I will like go through, like, list out like these are all the things that wouldn't have been okay in a medical establishment. And they were perfectly okay, they were beautiful, there wasn't a problem in the world, and so and the mothers sometimes don't even see them because they don't care. They don't care, I mean, they're in it. That's me from the outside perspective watching it. Like women know if their babies are okay. So they're not and I'm not concerned either. But I can just see it from that perspective as well, like oh my goodness, like that would have been an issue.

Audrey Ross: 28:51

And I don't actually see it in the moment, but it's when I like replay it in my head afterwards and think, wow, it's a good thing we chose this route. You chose this route because it would have been so pathologized, because birth doesn't fit into a box and we think it does. Yeah, it's-.

Rebecca Twomey: 29:12

I totally agree with that. Yeah, and I saw that in my sister's birth. She recently about seven, eight months ago had a V-back after two C-sections at a birthing center and baby was asynclitic, took just took a little while to come down and it was her first obviously vaginal birth because she had two C-sections. And afterwards she said to me and I think she said it on her episode, she shared her birth story If I had been in a hospital I would have had another C-section. They never would have let me labor for that long. No, and it so. You're absolutely right. And it was crazy for us to see it play out. Yeah, that she was outside of the system and the baby was born and I was in the system for my first kind of same positioning situation, right, and they were like, no, we gotta give up, let's move you into the OR. I love how they call it an emergency C-section, Like there's actually an emergency.

Audrey Ross: 30:08

There's not, yeah, right, where's the emergency.

Rebecca Twomey: 30:12

I'm pushing and you came in here and told me I have to go do this. What is going? What do you mean? There's an emergency.

Audrey Ross: 30:17

I think the right thing to do. Yeah, so the word, the phrases that are used, that are just, they're just pure mongering terms and you just kind of have to like peel back the layers to what women are told. You know, even as a like tell their story. I'm like, well, okay, these words sound big and like scary, but like let's like feel it back.

Rebecca Twomey: 30:38

Yeah, yeah, what are some of the misconceptions that you see when it comes to birth, that are just so backwards in the medical paradigm and that you want women to really know and take out of this episode about birth and their bodies?

Audrey Ross: 30:55

I feel like one of the biggest things is just that when birth is disturbed it doesn't work. We wouldn't disturb any other animal on birth. We know that will mess up their birth. Let's do what that cat take you to the vet.

Audrey Ross: 31:08

Yes, I remember my sister telling me she had her cats. It was about the time I was giving, I was giving birth to my last baby, and her cat was pregnant and she kept trying to like make a home for her cat, like a little nest, like a nice place, and she was so excited there Her cat was having kittens. She's 10 years older than me, older than me, but she's, oh, she's just amazing. She's a sweet lady Anyways. And so she's like telling me like she's trying to like create this home for this cat to give birth in and she's like feeling very, like mothering towards her and like I just want to be there to support her, like she's being a little cat midwife.

Audrey Ross: 31:42

No, no, the cat like finds, like the like the whole, you know away from everything and trash Doesn't even matter. Like the cat escapes, it's work, Because that's what it's supposed to do. Yes, and like we do the same thing. If you will observe a woman in labor, you will watch her. You will watch her. She will be in her living room and now she's in her bedroom and now she's gone back to the bathroom and she's closed the door. Oh, wow, like if she actually knows that's what she's supposed to do. She didn't plan it that way, but you'll just watch her, kind of like pull out of the group that may be there, or just her family that's there, and become a little recluse and go back and maybe her husband goes with her. But that's what we want to do, it's ingrained in us.

Audrey Ross: 32:30

We need quiet it's instinct, yes, we need to be undisturbed and unobserved. And the moment you disturb birth which is actually possible to not disturb it in a hospital the moment you do that it starts to erode. And there's lots of ways it can erode, but it starts to erode. And so women who have long labors and they tell me about their long labor, but they also drove back and forth to the birth center several times or they did this or they did that, or parents came over and saw them and blah, blah, blah. I'm like well, of course you have long labor, are you kidding?

Audrey Ross: 33:06

me how many disturbances did you have? And so labor stops, stop, labor starts, labor stops, labor starts. It's not safe. And so I mean just for women to think about, like how am I least disturbed? And what disturbs me? Like is a midwife going to disturb you? And if you are a midwife, be very aware of her presence and how she carries herself and do you feel comfortable with her? Because we can like somebody. We're like, yeah, you're a cool person, you're crunchy, like I'm crunchy. It doesn't mean we like their presence feels safe to us and we feel like loved and held and like we can be vulnerable. That's a different feeling.

Audrey Ross: 33:48

And so really knowing how that energy, even between if somebody's going to be there at your birth, but then even thinking like, is that disturbing? I mean, I have women that I work with that like halfway through prenatal sessions they're like what if I just free birth, I'm like people do it yeah.

Rebecca Twomey: 34:06

Yeah, you can do it.

Audrey Ross: 34:07

This is a horrible business plan and you can do it.

Rebecca Twomey: 34:12

And that. But that's the beauty of you, and what you do is that it's not even about. It's not about that for you. For you, this is your passion, this is you. Want to see women.

Audrey Ross: 34:23

I just chuckle about it Because I'm like this is funny, like I'm like yeah.

Rebecca Twomey: 34:26

Totally, I get it, I get it, I get it.

Audrey Ross: 34:30

They have started to realize, like as we talk, like oh, we could do this ourselves, like we really like you, but like I think I'd feel safer without you there, like that's great, of course you do. I'm not in the room when you have sex, Of course you feel safe, I'm not there. So, and I feel like women just don't understand that. They don't understand that it needs to be that safe and that protected and like for your children. The thing is, we also on the opposite side. I think we can fear that we will act, though if you are aware of that, you're actually going to accidentally disturb it, and I have found that in a home where you're used to having your children around and they're yelling and screaming. That's so normal, that's normal interaction. Right, that's not disturbing us. I mean, we talk about babies are born in the same environment that they're made.

Audrey Ross: 35:22

And if you have a home with lots of little kids, you probably have your kids outside making a racket while you're trying to have sex, right, Like that's the way babies are made.

Rebecca Twomey: 35:30

If you have a bunch of kids. I love those questions, right when people are like, oh, you have a lot of little kids, or you coastly, like I don't understand how this even happens, and it's like really.

Audrey Ross: 35:40

Really Pretty easy you lock your door.

Rebecca Twomey: 35:46

Ok, it's creative.

Audrey Ross: 35:48

Yeah, exactly Exactly. You do know this happens other times a day, right?

Rebecca Twomey: 35:52

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Audrey Ross: 35:54

Yeah, but that's not disturbance, right, because we talk about can you poop around this person? Would you have sex in this environment? Because those are the things we need to feel safe doing Wait wait, wait, wait. Have you ever not pooped with your children present, right, I mean, they're always in the bathroom, hi, Please come in Because, honestly, yeah, I need you to come in so I can feel more comfortable with your eyes Exactly, I feel lonely right now.

Rebecca Twomey: 36:20

You're not here watching me Exactly right.

Audrey Ross: 36:24

So like you're not going to disturb it in your own home. But if you invite an outsider or your mother, that's friend who isn't always there, that can start to disturb it. It really can. So we don't need to be so worried that we're like oh, I want my kids come in. Well, you're used to them coming in, like that's the normalcy of our life and birth fits very well into that. But it doesn't fit well into outsiders. It doesn't fit well into going to strange environments. Yeah, that'd be a major one. People need to let that soak in.

Rebecca Twomey: 37:00

Absolutely. I was getting goosebumps when you said that, because I follow the exact same model birthing at home. I start in the living room and then I make my way upstairs and then I'm in the closet. I like our little birth closet, I call it, and then I end up in the bathroom and then the baby's born. It is. It's this process, but I like to be minimal, alone. That's just how it feels and I thought actually going into my third birth, that I might want my kids to be present for the birth part of it. But as I got closer I was like no, no, no, I still want to be by myself. I'm not ready, but they were little, you know, little little.

Audrey Ross: 37:40

So and there's nothing wrong with saying like I don't want my kids there. I'm just saying like, if they're there, no totally.

Rebecca Twomey: 37:47

They were in the house. They were in the house the whole time and then, as I got right, when it got to the end, my mom dropped them with our friend, our neighbor, so that she could be present. Because my mom was there for my first home birth and then the second one. I feel comfortable with my mom there, you know she's comfortable. She's comfortable for me. But I do sometimes think as my daughter gets older, I want her to be a part of that, because she's so. She loves birth, she loves pregnancy, she's into it. Kind of reminds you of you were reading your mom's books when you were a little kid. That's how my daughter is. You know she's like mommy. I want to put this ball in my tummy because I want to look like you and it's just the sweetest thing, it's so cute. So I know at some point now that she's a little older.

Audrey Ross: 38:34

Yeah, I have almost 10-year-old and, like I would easily, if the right birth came along. I would easily take her to a birth because she would be actually the best birth attendant. The best Because she has zero fear, she has zero indoctrination. She's only known for conversations of birth, and she's so trusting and like she'll watch birth videos with me and she can pick apart what went wrong just as well as I can, and I thought I love that.

Rebecca Twomey: 39:03

Oh my gosh.

Audrey Ross: 39:05

You could actually start doing this work as a very young woman because it's in you and I see that in her and she loves it. And so I mean, yeah, come home from a birth and like, did you bring pictures of the placenta? Because usually that you know like that's when I have pictures of it, because all the other birth photos somebody else took, but like I always take pictures of the placenta, it's exciting for my kids and especially for her. Like she just soaks it all up and that's what midwifery used to be. It used to be passed along and older women would teach younger women and it was just you just learned these things and then that was taken from us like three or generations ago.

Rebecca Twomey: 39:46

And here we are, yeah, when they started putting women under her to have babies, like, ok, you know, you brought up a good point, though with children. I think that there is a misconception around children in birth too, that they'll be scared, that they can't handle it. That you know there's, it's just not the place for children. But if we don't, if we meaning those of us that are having physiological births truly are not teaching our children about real birth, then what's the alternative? They're going to be taught. Babies are born in the hospital, get the medications, get induced, schedule the C-section. You know they're just, they're following that medical paradigm, and I really think that it's breaking the mold by teaching children outside of it.

Rebecca Twomey: 40:37

My daughter was watching some show I think it was like Peppa Pig and you know the mommy rabbit, or whatever it is, goes to the hospital to have the babies or whatever. And so one day my daughter said something like that you know, oh, I got to go to the hospital. And I go what are you going to the hospital for? She's like I'm having my baby. You know her pretend baby. Oh, why we don't go to the hospital to have a baby? And she goes oh, yeah, that's right, you know it was like I love it. The world is trying to pull one way and we have to be strong as mothers, in you know, in all in the knowledge of God's design, for us to say yeah, I know that that's what the world is going to tell you, but it's false.

Audrey Ross: 41:22

Yeah, I would. Ok, then this probably maybe sounds radical, but like I would go as far to say that it is. If birth had to stay in the home like it is a teacher for all sexuality, and when it has been removed, since it has been removed from the home, we have lost touch of sexuality, right, Women?

Rebecca Twomey: 41:40

are sexualized.

Audrey Ross: 41:41

Yes, it's all been sexualized, and when you put birth in the home, we start to understand why a woman is designed the way she is and what the purpose is, and how special and treasured these parts of her body are and the deep sacredness of them. And so now we treat them sacredly, I mean my kids. They understand how sacred birth is and how sacred it is to grow a baby, I mean, and it's so sacred, and so I think if children have that growing up, then women are no longer sexualized and we don't have this confusion about whether we're a male or a female and all of these things. I mean everywhere the world is today that I think yeah, this is one part of this is that birth has been taken out of the home.

Audrey Ross: 42:41

And that's where it belongs. Yeah, I believe that very strongly. It teaches sexuality.

Rebecca Twomey: 42:46

That's a really good point. I hadn't thought about it from that perspective, but you're absolutely right and I think that that's actually part of the continued medical model is you go in it's a procedure type of situation and then, after what happens when you're in that culture, bounce back culture. You got to get your, get your body back, get back to who you were before, even though you'll never be the same and you're not the same and it's back right. You got to get back to being sexy again and it's so sad. It's like why can't we just be in the body God gave us our bodies to change and to evolve, not to force it to be what it once was, not to force it back into that maidenhood time. You know we were young and whatever we were when we were 19, 20 years old. You grow into a woman, you become a woman and you get. You know you go through this experience of coming into motherhood. We're not supposed to be that person anymore. We're different now. We're reborn along with our babies in a way. You know it's.

Audrey Ross: 43:55

Yeah, and why do we make those things so negative? Why are we soft? Because our baby needs to lay on our soft tummy. Yeah, and we're facing the lean against our soft body. Of course we're soft. There'll be a time to not maybe be that way and our kids will grow up and our body will go back a little bit more to what it was before. But this is the way God designed it to be, absolutely. You're supposed to be soft and mushy. After you're babies born, you're really soft and mushy and that's exactly the environment that a baby needs to lay on.

Audrey Ross: 44:25

Yeah, Come on, Just be a little bit aware of how perfect this design is. I mean, it's my thinking how ideal, how ideal that our hips actually get wider after birth and they're never going back to their maiden hips they're not Because we have children to carry on them. I mean, for me, all the things about God's design. They make me emotional because I'm just like how perfect, my God, this is so stinking amazing.

Rebecca Twomey: 44:48

It is.

Audrey Ross: 44:49

That's what it does, if we will just embrace it and just get rid of what the world says, just be willing to soak in the beauty of how God has designed it.

Rebecca Twomey: 45:00

Amen. Yeah, it's choosing not to believe what the world says about our bodies, but to really follow his design. Because, you're right, we become soft and squishy for that baby. Mine still is. I have a six-month-old and so I've got that squishy tummy and my son, who's 22 months. He loves to pull my shirt up and he squishes on my belly. He'll lay on it, he'll kiss it. And what if I had a different opinion about that? And myself, how sad would that be to pull it away and be like, oh, don't do that, it's not how I want it to be. Instead, I'm like yes, that's how my body is. And I have to teach my daughter the same thing, because she's old enough to ask the questions Like why do you still look pregnant? And I explained to her because this is how God designed my body that it's supposed to still be soft and my uterus is getting smaller and this is how you look. I like to say this to her this is how you look after you have a baby, and one day you'll look like this too.

Rebecca Twomey: 46:03

I love that answer, and in a positive way, not in a negative way You'll have this too. One day You'll get to be big like mommy, grown up. This is it. This is a goal. This isn't a negative.

Audrey Ross: 46:20

It should be celebrated. It should totally be celebrated. I agree 1,000%.

Rebecca Twomey: 46:24

Yes, well, we have so much more to explore and I'm so excited to continue to dive in with you on our episode next week. Is there anything that you wanted to close us with today?

Audrey Ross: 46:36

I would just say to any of the women out there, wherever you possibly are in your pregnancy journey, if anything that I have said or you have said resonates with you and you don't feel like you're in the right place to be giving birth, you can change at any time. Whether you are 40 weeks, whether you are 14 weeks, you can change and you can go a different route and you don't have to follow through with something. I have so often heard women's stories and they follow through with a birth that they knew was going to turn out poorly, based on the place or the person that they were working with, and I just want to tell you you can stop now, you can make a different choice and you may be forever grateful that you did. And so, yeah, I just want to leave them with that.

Rebecca Twomey: 47:28

Awesome. Thank you so much. This was awesome talking. I can't wait to continue this conversation.

Rebecca Twomey: 47:36

A reminder to those listening that you can find Audrey on Instagram at a joyful birth or on her website, ajoyfulbirthorg, and thank you so much for tuning in and for being on this journey with us. If you'd like to follow along outside the podcast, join the mission on Instagram at the Radiant Mission, or on Facebook at the Radiant Mission podcast. And if you're not already watching the podcast, be sure to check it out on YouTube visit the Radiant Mission, or you can search my name Rebecca Tummi. T-w-o-m-e-y is how my last name is spelled. And today we are going to close with verse Thessalonians 524. This is actually a verse that Audrey shared with me that she feels continues to play out over and over in her life that God is always faithful and when she's obedient to what he calls her to, it becomes a reality. And that verse is he who calls you is faithful and he will do it. Thank you so much for listening and we're wishing you a radiant week. We'll see you next time.