Conscious Childbirth: Mom of Eight's Guide to Reclaiming Your Power w/Queen

and having someone like yourself. And if you could, tell us what you do. This is why I'm asking this question, because you do something different. But I'm sure you've had kids in the hospital. So explain the difference and why you do what you do. Queen (03:31.242) Yeah, that's an amazing question. In the hospital, you pretty much step into their domain, like the systematic way of doing things. So it's like an automatic loss of rights in many ways. And we really do trust the system and their experience and their knowledge as doctors and midwives. And we truly believe that they have our best interests at heart. JRosemarie Francis (Jenn) (03:42.312) Mm -hmm. Queen (03:59.786) And so we go through following them, listening to everything they tell us to do, and we just do it. And we seldom question that. And then, you know, things can happen, complications can happen. Like, for example, with my first son, I lost a ton of blood. It was classed as a postpartum hemorrhage. Following that, I suffered postpartum depression. Then I didn't really want to have children. But as I said, you know, I'm very infertile and all my attempts to not have kids, basically, I got kids. JRosemarie Francis (Jenn) (04:05.448) Yeah. Queen (04:28.265) So then I wasn't so happy being pregnant again after that first time. And then each time just being managed because once you've had a postpartum hemorrhage your clastor's high risk, wanted a water birth, got denied. And then it got to the point where with my third son I was told, you know, the baby would die, you know, he's under risk, he's got meconium in the waters, that's basically the baby opens the bowels inside of you, that we needed to get him out really fast and all of this stuff. And when he was born and they do the APGAR scores, he was basically 10, 10, 10. And in that moment, I felt like, all this fuss and all the things you said and look at that, the scores speak for themselves. And I had this almost like, anger inside of me at the same time as being happy, you know, and giving birth, like going through a pregnancy, becoming a mother, realistically, like when you feel into it in your body naturally, you'd say that that's like the most happiest time of your life. So why is it like overshadowed by anger or hurt or disappointment? And it's coming externally. It's not coming from within your being. It's coming from out. JRosemarie Francis (Jenn) (05:47.72) Queen (05:49.223) side of yourself, you know, with the establishment and the pressures that come with it. And I just felt like it's got to be different. If I ever have another child, it's got to be different. And then with the fourth child, I set out to make sure it would be. So I studied the system to understand it. And then I had meetings, I created a birth plan, I got the head of midriffy to sign off on it, the anaesthetist. And I really felt that this Birth plan that I'd created was somehow like bulletproof. Now finally I would have my wishes granted because they've been signed off. And when I was met with the opposite, when I got to hospital, I was shocked and yeah, deeply disturbed. I was in labor and imagine I left the hospital. I was fear mongered to believe in that I was gonna bleed to death and die and that my baby would die. So imagine. The hospital no longer felt a safe place for me and I'm walking the street in labor believing I'm going to die. But I just knew I could not go back to that place. It was so horrible the way they treat me. So I finally found someone that I could trust. It was the first time I ever found out about doulas as well, by the way, and home births. Imagine you're in a system yet no one ever talked to you about the possibility that you could even have a midwife at home. This came from a doula. JRosemarie Francis (Jenn) (06:49.352) Thank you. JRosemarie Francis (Jenn) (07:10.536) Okay. Queen (07:15.592) So anyway, I found out about the community midwives and she promised to meet me at the hospital. And for that reason, I went back. I trusted her. She really looked after me. And it meant that in the end, long story short, I finally felt like I got the birth that I wasn't exactly what I wanted, but what I could have, but more within my own power, if that makes sense, because I managed to have someone support me rather than have people against me. And when I saw that, JRosemarie Francis (Jenn) (07:38.088) Mm -hmm. JRosemarie Francis (Jenn) (07:43.368) Yes. Queen (07:45.64) manifest and I knew that this was my doing but I also knew that I had to fight to get this. I felt like I don't want to fight anymore and with my fifth baby I wanted a home birth and I finally got a home birth but the midwife came and I finally got a water birth as well it's what I always wanted. So the midwife came and all the things that went beautifully well went well because of what I did. JRosemarie Francis (Jenn) (08:08.296) Mm -hmm. Queen (08:15.464) and the things that went wrong went wrong because of her. And so I realized I need to eliminate the midwife. So I actually left the country with my six baby. I went to live in Ecuador and I did that because I wanted to be under the radar. I didn't have checkups. I didn't visit the system. In fact, it was a complete test because I'm like the laboratory. I'm the experimental ground where my experiments take place. And so this birth was really helping me to find out. JRosemarie Francis (Jenn) (08:18.76) Mm -hmm. Queen (08:44.904) does nature suffice? Do the things in my mind about what I believe about natural birth truly exist or do we actually need the technology? Do we need the intervention? Do we need all that? So I ran the test and I didn't use that system at all. I just trusted in myself and nature. And of course, when you're testing nature, nature's also testing you. So my daughter was 18 days overdue. JRosemarie Francis (Jenn) (09:10.888) Mm -hmm. Queen (09:13.959) But I gave birth to her at home. She was born in the pool, just me and her father. And it was the best pregnancy I've ever had. And I realized it was just because I didn't have interference. I didn't have somebody telling me to go for this scan and frightening me, it's not growing fast enough. You need to go and do this and prodding and poking at me. And every time you go there, I realized it was just a stress. Literally, they put so much stress on women.

And rather than see the pain as like an enemy, something that's hurting you that you need to get away from and escape, it's more like, how do I invite this feeling and basically like breathe through it and use it to bring forth my baby? Because the point is the cervix has got to expand, it's got to open up. So therefore the more intense the contraction, the... better job it's doing essentially. And each contraction, each wave brings your baby closer to you. No contraction, no baby. So we have to welcome it. And then we can breathe into it, which keeps us conscious because we're using the breath and we're using the breath to be aware of how we're feeling in the moment. But we also use the breath as a natural pain reliever, literally, to be able to use that breath and JRosemarie Francis (Jenn) (20:50.12) Yeah. JRosemarie Francis (Jenn) (20:55.336) Yeah. JRosemarie Francis (Jenn) (21:08.936) Okay. JRosemarie Francis (Jenn) (21:13.544) Yeah. Queen (21:16.314) Literally, it's like you go into the pain, but the more you're able to relax and surrender into it, you come out on the other side. And it's what people call orgasmic birth, for example, that it can become orgasmic because the pain actually becomes pleasurable in many ways. So this is essentially...JRosemarie Francis (Jenn) (21:24.776) Yeah. JRosemarie Francis (Jenn) (21:36.776) Mm -hmm. Queen (21:42.874) what it is to be conscious, it's connected to your body, connected to the experience. And personally, when I was conscious and feeling my body, feeling the experience, I was also conscious of the baby. Because essentially the baby knows how to birth itself. We as the mamas, we're opening up and letting that happen, or we're tightening up and closing and stopping it. So if we're like also listening to the baby and aware and conscious of the baby.