WEBVTT 00:00:01.240 --> 00:00:04.915 This is Boris at least interviewing for the Creative Push project on 00:00:04.948 --> 00:00:11.945 December 17th, 2016 at 12:35 p.m. OK. Can you say your name and your age? 00:00:11.978 --> 00:00:17.396 Uh Nicole Gonzalez and I'm 36. Excellent. OK. So why don't we start with 00:00:17.429 --> 00:00:20.206 you? Just giving me a little like family background, you know, where 00:00:20.239 --> 00:00:24.467 you're from, you know, in your family. So I'm Dana and I grew up in 00:00:24.500 --> 00:00:29.195 Waterflow New Mexico with my mom and my stepdad and we have your typical 00:00:29.228 --> 00:00:34.777 blended family. Um I actually have eight siblings and um yeah, it's, it 00:00:34.810 --> 00:00:40.717 was a really nice childhood. We traveled to like um North Dakota, South 00:00:40.750 --> 00:00:48.750 Dakota selling uh jewelry, visiting people and going to powwows. Um And my 00:00:48.779 --> 00:00:53.826 dad actually lived, I would say like 10 minutes south on the Navajo 00:00:53.859 --> 00:01:00.667 reservation. Um He's a diesel mechanic and he lived in a trailer. Um I 00:01:00.700 --> 00:01:03.885 have a lot of fond memories of visiting him because I would play in the 00:01:03.918 --> 00:01:08.727 ditch and go jump in the river in the summertime and go climb what it's 00:01:08.760 --> 00:01:13.266 called little hug back. Um and just have my little tea parties up there by 00:01:13.299 --> 00:01:17.986 myself and I often think about my kids not having that kind of childhood 00:01:18.019 --> 00:01:20.897 today because we're too afraid to send them out to do stuff like that by 00:01:20.930 --> 00:01:27.555 themselves. But those were really good times. My mom, she, um, she worked 00:01:27.588 --> 00:01:30.986 for a coal mine. She used to drive the big coal trucks. My whole family 00:01:31.019 --> 00:01:37.686 actually worked for, um, bh, what is it, uh, for one of the coal mining 00:01:37.719 --> 00:01:40.885 companies up there, there's like three of them. But my grandfather, my 00:01:40.918 --> 00:01:45.876 uncles, my aunts, my mom, my dad, everybody worked for coal mines. Um and 00:01:45.909 --> 00:01:49.367 I feel like they provided us a really good income and I think that's why a 00:01:49.400 --> 00:01:54.676 lot of my relatives work there. Uh My mom did a lot of shift work. She'd 00:01:54.709 --> 00:01:59.855 work night shift and weekends holidays until she injured her back and then 00:01:59.888 --> 00:02:06.326 she um stopped working and my stepdad continued to work there until he 00:02:06.359 --> 00:02:13.017 retired recently from an injury. And she um after she married my dad, my 00:02:13.050 --> 00:02:17.916 stepdad, they had two more Children who are my little brother and sister. 00:02:17.949 --> 00:02:22.995 And so I pretty much raised them. They were with me everywhere. I went in 00:02:23.028 --> 00:02:26.126 high school. People thought they were my kids because they were always 00:02:26.159 --> 00:02:31.406 with me. And um my family really like to travel a lot. And so I really, 00:02:31.439 --> 00:02:35.436 I'm thankful for their adventurous side because I also like to travel 00:02:35.469 --> 00:02:41.416 still. Um my mom and dad today make teepee and that's their business. I I 00:02:41.449 --> 00:02:45.376 feel like my mom was just always kind of a natural entrepreneur. She sold 00:02:45.409 --> 00:02:51.805 Mary Kay. She, she made jewelry, she sews like nonstop these days and they 00:02:51.838 --> 00:02:57.376 make teepee, still sell jewelry here and there. So they're pretty, they're 00:02:57.409 --> 00:03:03.077 pretty busy even though they're retired. Um My dad, he, my stepdad, he 00:03:03.110 --> 00:03:07.156 grew up in the Native American church and so he introduced that to our 00:03:07.189 --> 00:03:12.957 family when I was pretty young. Um having people over for all night 00:03:12.990 --> 00:03:17.286 meetings and um having a teepee in the backyard like that was normal for 00:03:17.319 --> 00:03:24.047 me. Uh My parents would often go on weekends to other families homes to do 00:03:24.080 --> 00:03:28.517 ceremonies for them for healing. And that was a good, I just a normal kind 00:03:28.550 --> 00:03:35.995 of thing that we did. You know my mom, um she would pray over us. She 00:03:36.028 --> 00:03:39.737 would get her cedar out and her fan and she would pray over us if we had a 00:03:39.770 --> 00:03:45.636 big test or if we're having family issues, she would pray. Um A lot of my 00:03:45.669 --> 00:03:50.737 milestones growing up was like that my 16th birthday, we had a N AC 00:03:50.770 --> 00:03:56.346 meeting for graduation. I had an N AC meeting and if there were problems, 00:03:56.379 --> 00:04:00.036 we had sweat lodge and we sit and talk with our family and have a sweat 00:04:00.069 --> 00:04:06.297 lodge. Um To me that was really normal. I don't think I realized how lucky 00:04:06.330 --> 00:04:13.835 I was to have that growing up. Um My dad who is a diesel mechanic key has 00:04:13.868 --> 00:04:20.317 a new family as well. He's got another son with my step mom and has a very 00:04:20.350 --> 00:04:25.575 big family as well. Um He's got eight siblings and we would go to their 00:04:25.608 --> 00:04:31.317 sheep camp and play outside and for Thanksgiving or Christmas we go over 00:04:31.350 --> 00:04:36.507 and visit. He's a, a farmer. So he was always outside, irrigating the 00:04:36.540 --> 00:04:41.986 field or planting corn like he really liked to be outside and work. So I 00:04:42.019 --> 00:04:47.970 feel like I got a good balance of kind of being outdoors and being indoors. 00:04:48.189 --> 00:04:50.189 Do you remember your mother being pregnant? I do remember my mom being 00:04:52.079 --> 00:04:58.137 pregnant with her first child, which was my sister. Um, I don't, I think I 00:04:58.170 --> 00:05:03.796 was maybe nine or 10. Um, I remember having her, she's had this big belly 00:05:03.829 --> 00:05:08.805 , maybe she was eight or nine months. Um, 00:05:08.838 --> 00:05:12.866 and we would go for walks. We, so in water flow, we lived off right off 00:05:12.899 --> 00:05:18.866 right off the highway of 550. So we would walk up and down the road for 00:05:18.899 --> 00:05:24.226 like exercise and she'd be walking with her pregnant belly. People would 00:05:24.259 --> 00:05:27.486 stop and ask if we needed a ride because maybe we thought we had car 00:05:27.519 --> 00:05:32.786 broken down and my mom would tell them, no, I, I, um, I don't need a ride. 00:05:32.819 --> 00:05:37.317 We're just getting exercise, but she, she went to the hospital in 00:05:37.350 --> 00:05:41.616 Farmington and had her baby and during that time, you know, kids were not 00:05:41.649 --> 00:05:45.877 allowed in the hospital. And I remember really missing her when she was 00:05:45.910 --> 00:05:48.836 gone. At the hospital. It felt like forever. I don't really know how long 00:05:48.869 --> 00:05:53.765 she was gone. Um, and because I was the only child at home with my stepdad 00:05:53.798 --> 00:05:59.305 , it felt very quiet and lonely when she wasn't there. Um, but she went to 00:05:59.338 --> 00:06:02.606 the hospital and, you know, next thing, you know, she came home with a 00:06:02.639 --> 00:06:07.986 baby and it was my sister and, you know, I don't really remember my sister 00:06:08.019 --> 00:06:12.387 so much as a baby. Um, I was very much the big sister helping change 00:06:12.420 --> 00:06:17.116 diapers and, you know, taking care of them when she was away for pod 00:06:17.149 --> 00:06:23.526 meetings or, you know, helping my dad. Um, and then my, I guess she must 00:06:23.559 --> 00:06:27.776 have had a miscarriage at some point between my sister and my brother and 00:06:27.809 --> 00:06:33.406 they had some sort of ceremony done and then she had my brother, um, who I 00:06:33.439 --> 00:06:37.916 was really happy to have more kids in the house. It was less quiet and he 00:06:37.949 --> 00:06:45.949 , um, he was pretty healthy baby. You know, again, I was curious, I wanted 00:06:46.220 --> 00:06:51.166 to be there with her at her birth, but I couldn't, um, I think my mom 00:06:51.199 --> 00:06:54.437 likes to laugh because the first thing I said to her was like, they look 00:06:54.470 --> 00:06:58.166 like one of them, which my dad had three other stepchildren or three 00:06:58.199 --> 00:07:01.366 Children from another marriage. And so I was making a reference that they 00:07:01.399 --> 00:07:05.825 look like his side of the family. Um, they kind of laughed about that but 00:07:05.858 --> 00:07:09.745 , you know, I, I'm really close to my little brother and sister because I 00:07:09.778 --> 00:07:14.145 spent so much time taking care of them. Um, I know when I went to college 00:07:14.178 --> 00:07:18.377 they were pretty sad and upset to see me go. 00:07:18.410 --> 00:07:21.846 Did you, um, understand the birth process? Did she share any of that with 00:07:21.879 --> 00:07:28.575 you at a young age? I didn't understand the birth process. Um, no, she 00:07:28.608 --> 00:07:35.567 didn't tell me about babies or how they came to be. Um, it wasn't till I 00:07:35.600 --> 00:07:39.717 became older and had my own Children that I began to ask my mom about how 00:07:39.750 --> 00:07:47.205 my birth was and she said she doesn't quite remember. Um I, she says I 00:07:47.238 --> 00:07:52.825 want to say like five or six months. Um, she and my dad got divorced and I 00:07:52.858 --> 00:07:56.717 think that was really traumatic for her. And so she didn't remember my 00:07:56.750 --> 00:08:00.776 pregnancy or my birth. It kind of bothers me that she doesn't remember 00:08:00.809 --> 00:08:05.187 that sort of thing with me. But, you know, when I start asking her about 00:08:05.220 --> 00:08:08.366 my sister's birth and my brother's birth, like she doesn't quite remember 00:08:08.399 --> 00:08:13.697 either. Um, unless, you know, she's sitting across from my aunt who was 00:08:13.730 --> 00:08:17.036 with her for each of those births, then it's like her mind is Remi and 00:08:17.069 --> 00:08:22.116 jarred that, that my sister needed a vacuum assisted delivery before she 00:08:22.149 --> 00:08:29.055 could come out. Um She doesn't know if she had an epidural or not. Um So, 00:08:29.088 --> 00:08:34.246 yeah, she doesn't quite remember those things. So, can you tell us about 00:08:34.279 --> 00:08:37.346 your first pregnancy? Like all the way back to the conception? You know, 00:08:37.379 --> 00:08:42.125 what were the circumstances? Was it expected? Was it a surprise? It was 00:08:42.158 --> 00:08:47.495 definitely a surprise. My husband and I had been dating for two years and 00:08:47.528 --> 00:08:54.866 he asked me to marry him in January and it was really lovely and, um, 00:08:54.899 --> 00:08:58.866 engagement. And then a couple months later I found out I was pregnant and 00:08:58.899 --> 00:09:05.395 , um, I had a miscarriage that first time. Um, and then not too much 00:09:05.428 --> 00:09:09.547 longer, I found I was pregnant again and I was really happy and excited, 00:09:09.580 --> 00:09:14.037 even though it wasn't planned or expected, I definitely was concerned that 00:09:14.070 --> 00:09:20.677 people would think that I got pregnant and then we got married. Um, but 00:09:20.710 --> 00:09:25.557 that's not what happened and I know he was really happy and excited. Um, 00:09:25.590 --> 00:09:29.385 at the time I was working as a nursing assistant at a, like a rehab 00:09:29.418 --> 00:09:34.775 hospital in Albuquerque. Um, I was really interested in becoming a nurse 00:09:34.808 --> 00:09:39.486 when I met my husband. Um, actually, no, I was actually going to school to 00:09:39.519 --> 00:09:45.917 be a doctor, um, when we met. And so when we got engaged, you know, the 00:09:45.950 --> 00:09:50.116 plan changed a little bit and I thought, well, I kind of want a family. I 00:09:50.149 --> 00:09:53.755 don't really want that busy life that the doctor has. So maybe I'll be a 00:09:53.788 --> 00:09:58.547 nurse. And so I did everything I could to learn about nursing to get 00:09:58.580 --> 00:10:03.586 education training in nursing before I applied to nursing school. Um, but 00:10:03.619 --> 00:10:07.645 I was probably in my second year of college when I got pregnant with my 00:10:07.678 --> 00:10:13.236 daughter and I was really sick. I was so sick. I had to stop my working 00:10:13.269 --> 00:10:19.275 and I threw up so many times a day and I, um, had to keep trash bags in my 00:10:19.308 --> 00:10:24.907 car because the motion made me sick. Um, it was really difficult and I 00:10:24.940 --> 00:10:30.125 really had a hard time finding a doctor. I liked, um, I had no knowledge 00:10:30.158 --> 00:10:35.657 about midwifery or what kind of options I had available to me. I asked my 00:10:35.690 --> 00:10:39.576 sister-in-law who she saw for her pregnancies and she referred me to her 00:10:39.609 --> 00:10:45.807 doctor and he was ok. Um, I don't think I had any con preconceived ideas 00:10:45.840 --> 00:10:49.907 about what kind of care I would get. I just knew he was a doctor and he 00:10:49.940 --> 00:10:55.005 listened to my belly when I went in to see him. Um, and that was it like 00:10:55.038 --> 00:10:58.066 there wasn't really a relationship there. I didn't and I didn't expect one 00:10:58.099 --> 00:11:04.525 , um, about our third or fourth month that I was pregnant. Um, we got 00:11:04.558 --> 00:11:09.846 married and in the pueblo culture, it's like a big old weekend event with 00:11:09.879 --> 00:11:15.525 lots of hard work and baking bread and, you know, um, working with the 00:11:15.558 --> 00:11:20.275 community and me being a young 20 year old, I had no idea. That's what all 00:11:20.308 --> 00:11:24.946 entailed. I thought the white wedding and the dress and off with my 00:11:24.979 --> 00:11:28.797 girlfriends and having a, like bachelorette party. Like, I didn't have any 00:11:28.830 --> 00:11:34.576 of that. I was, I was sick and I was pregnant and I was trying to do my 00:11:34.609 --> 00:11:40.015 best to please everybody to have this wedding. Um, and so the day of my 00:11:40.048 --> 00:11:44.696 wedding I was still sick. My father in law had gotten me a breakfast 00:11:44.729 --> 00:11:49.316 burrito with chili and, oh, I just couldn't keep it down. And it's funny 00:11:49.349 --> 00:11:55.326 because um that first, after we got married in the church in Sinal De 00:11:55.359 --> 00:12:00.846 Fonso Pueblo, um they take you to your home or your family's home and they 00:12:00.879 --> 00:12:05.427 talk to you about being about being married and how to treat each other 00:12:05.460 --> 00:12:10.686 and you choose speakers to talk to you about marriage. Um This can, can go 00:12:10.719 --> 00:12:16.476 on all day and all night. It just kind of depends. So while your cooks are 00:12:16.509 --> 00:12:19.956 feeding everybody at a different location, the community is talking to you 00:12:19.989 --> 00:12:23.996 about getting married or being married. Once the conversation ends and 00:12:24.029 --> 00:12:29.106 they can release you, then you can go eat. So it is probably maybe four or 00:12:29.139 --> 00:12:33.686 five, maybe in the, in the day that I got to eat for the first time. And I 00:12:33.719 --> 00:12:40.586 was really sick and I was, we went to our, our um reception and we're 00:12:40.619 --> 00:12:44.385 sitting at the table and I'm trying not to throw up. And I'm telling my 00:12:44.418 --> 00:12:49.505 husband, you know, can you please go grab me some bread and some water I 00:12:49.538 --> 00:12:53.265 said, I don't feel very good and he's looking at me like, ok, but he's not 00:12:53.298 --> 00:12:56.976 going anywhere. And I'm getting really mad because I'm like, ok, is this 00:12:57.009 --> 00:13:00.907 what it's gonna be like, you know, your wife is sick. You're embarrassed 00:13:00.940 --> 00:13:03.976 to go grab some food because you don't want to offend anybody and I'm 00:13:04.009 --> 00:13:08.326 gonna throw up on my dress. So I was really upset and finally somebody 00:13:08.359 --> 00:13:13.346 came and brought us some food and he saw that I was really upset with him. 00:13:13.379 --> 00:13:15.996 Like I was trying not to cry, sitting there and it's hard not to do that 00:13:16.029 --> 00:13:21.096 when people are looking at you. Um, and I was in my mind thinking God, is 00:13:21.129 --> 00:13:24.336 this what I married? Is this guy not going to take care of me, my needs 00:13:24.369 --> 00:13:27.326 going to come last when I'm pregnant and sick and he's not going to grab 00:13:27.359 --> 00:13:34.366 me food like you have that realization. Um But he, he did something kind 00:13:34.399 --> 00:13:41.246 of, um, very sweet, but he, he knew I couldn't say no. We had a, uh, a guy 00:13:41.279 --> 00:13:45.907 who came and played music while people were eating and he, um played a 00:13:45.940 --> 00:13:49.706 song for me and he said, can my wife come and dance with me? And I 00:13:49.739 --> 00:13:55.616 couldn't say no. And so he asked me to go dance and I, I forgave him by 00:13:55.649 --> 00:14:01.917 that point. So we got through that first part. It was probably out of all 00:14:01.950 --> 00:14:06.476 three of my pregnancies. The, the hardest part of it was being sick and 00:14:06.509 --> 00:14:13.775 throwing up and the remaining of my pregnancy. I, 00:14:13.808 --> 00:14:18.106 I, I don't think I was really aware of what kind of mom I wanted to be. I 00:14:18.139 --> 00:14:23.826 hadn't read any literature. Um, I know a lot of moms today are very self 00:14:23.859 --> 00:14:28.657 aware about what kind of mothers they wanna be. And I just wasn't, I was 00:14:28.690 --> 00:14:36.625 20 you know, I, I didn't have a plan. Um, I also had just been married 00:14:36.658 --> 00:14:40.936 into this family who I really adored and loved my husband's family and I 00:14:40.969 --> 00:14:45.275 feel like I was just really trying to please everybody. Um, and I hadn't 00:14:45.308 --> 00:14:50.717 made any plans about the birth or, you know, I was reading what to expect 00:14:50.750 --> 00:14:54.996 when you're expecting and kind of excited to see the changes to my body 00:14:55.029 --> 00:14:59.106 every week, I think through that whole pregnancy, we only got one picture 00:14:59.139 --> 00:15:04.807 of my belly. Um, and 00:15:04.840 --> 00:15:09.476 it was pretty uneventful. I, I guess, I don't know if I gained a lot of 00:15:09.509 --> 00:15:14.145 weight or not. I don't quite remember. Um, I was also still in school full 00:15:14.178 --> 00:15:19.927 time being pregnant and so I was pretty focused on my education. Um, my 00:15:19.960 --> 00:15:25.645 husband at the time he was working in, um, like the eastern part of New 00:15:25.678 --> 00:15:28.496 Mexico. So it was an hour and a half drive, one direction, an hour and a 00:15:28.529 --> 00:15:33.667 half back. So when he would get home from work, he was pretty tired. 00:15:33.700 --> 00:15:39.557 So, did you fall into some traditional roles of husband and wife. Yes and 00:15:39.590 --> 00:15:45.557 no. Um, when I met my husband, my mom was very stern with him and had to 00:15:45.590 --> 00:15:50.797 talk that I was gonna finish school before we did anything. Um, we don't 00:15:50.830 --> 00:15:54.456 follow that obviously, but I was determined to finish school for my own 00:15:54.489 --> 00:16:01.106 reasons. Um, so we weren't traditional in that sense. Um 00:16:01.139 --> 00:16:06.717 I think as far as being a mom and staying home and taking care of myself 00:16:06.750 --> 00:16:09.917 during my pregnancy, 00:16:09.950 --> 00:16:16.606 I think I was immature in my twenties and just thinking that was my role. 00:16:16.639 --> 00:16:21.395 Um Did you uh So you had so many other things on your plate besides just 00:16:21.428 --> 00:16:27.076 focusing on your birth and the pregnancy. So, but did you have a moment to 00:16:27.109 --> 00:16:30.395 think about like um did you just think, well, I'm gonna go to the hospital 00:16:30.428 --> 00:16:34.547 and whatever happens, happens or did you? Right. So we, we did go to 00:16:34.580 --> 00:16:39.826 childbirth preparation classes. Um And that was really exciting um to be 00:16:39.859 --> 00:16:44.196 in a room full of moms and dads and we were really attentive listening. I 00:16:44.229 --> 00:16:48.157 think it was like a four week class. I remember doing the breathing and 00:16:48.190 --> 00:16:50.917 then they're showing us the forceps and the vacuum and my husband's 00:16:50.950 --> 00:16:54.145 looking at me, he's like those things are not gonna get used on our child. 00:16:54.178 --> 00:16:58.856 Um But I was just kind of naive like, oh, ok, those are tools to help 00:16:58.889 --> 00:17:02.667 with delivery. Um And I believe we did that towards the end of our 00:17:02.700 --> 00:17:07.186 pregnancy. I remember the morning my labor contractions started. It was 00:17:07.219 --> 00:17:11.926 like two in the morning and I was like, oh, the contractions are starting 00:17:11.959 --> 00:17:15.956 and I kind of, you know, woke him up and shoved his arm a little bit was 00:17:15.989 --> 00:17:19.266 like, hey, you know, contractions have started. He's like, really do we 00:17:19.299 --> 00:17:22.516 need to go to the hospital and I'm like, no, they're coming, but I don't 00:17:22.549 --> 00:17:26.597 think it was gonna be a while yet. But by that point I couldn't go back to 00:17:26.630 --> 00:17:31.075 sleep. So I get up and we're cleaning our house because our baby room 00:17:31.108 --> 00:17:36.016 isn't quite ready. And, um, you know, making sure my bag is ready to go 00:17:36.049 --> 00:17:40.506 and, you know, and the, the contractions are still like cramping every 00:17:40.539 --> 00:17:45.295 couple of minutes and, you know, just so some of those changes I noticed 00:17:45.328 --> 00:17:50.967 and in my body and I had actually a doctor's appointment that day and my 00:17:51.000 --> 00:17:54.016 husband was going to work and he was like, do I need to go to work or do I 00:17:54.049 --> 00:17:58.397 stay? And I said, no, go to work. Um, I have a doctor's appointment. I 00:17:58.430 --> 00:18:03.857 said this is probably just early labor and then, um, I'll, um, I'll call 00:18:03.890 --> 00:18:09.946 you if I need you. So he goes to work and then I go to the doctor's office 00:18:09.979 --> 00:18:13.706 and the doctor looks at me and he says, well, we're going to induce you 00:18:13.739 --> 00:18:17.785 today. And I was like, oh, I said, well, I thought it was still pretty 00:18:17.818 --> 00:18:21.266 early in labor. He says, no, your, your blood pressure is really high and 00:18:21.299 --> 00:18:24.795 we need you to go to labor and delivery right now. And I'm like, ok, would 00:18:24.828 --> 00:18:30.045 I feel fine? Um It's not until years later that I was like, thinking about 00:18:30.078 --> 00:18:34.526 my last trimester of my pregnancy and looking at pictures like I was 00:18:34.559 --> 00:18:39.045 really swollen, my feet were really swollen, my face was swollen. I 00:18:39.078 --> 00:18:42.696 remember getting headaches. I remember flashes of light when I moved to my 00:18:42.729 --> 00:18:50.357 vision, um which to my knowledge today is telltale signs of preeclampsia. 00:18:50.390 --> 00:18:55.065 Um But I didn't know that then I felt fine as far as I know. So I remember 00:18:55.098 --> 00:18:57.887 going to labor and delivery. I just walked over because he was in the same 00:18:57.920 --> 00:19:02.266 building and they put up Ivy in and I called my husband. I was like, OK, 00:19:02.299 --> 00:19:04.867 it's, you know, they're going to induce me today. You need to come over 00:19:04.900 --> 00:19:10.946 and see me and get my stuff. And so he was excited and I believe they use 00:19:10.979 --> 00:19:16.555 Pitocin to get my labor going a little more. And, and um my, my mother in 00:19:16.588 --> 00:19:21.176 law and my sister in law were there and I called my mom and she came and I 00:19:21.209 --> 00:19:27.335 was kind of unsettled about who I wanted to be at my birth. Um Again, I 00:19:27.368 --> 00:19:31.805 was in my young twenties trying to please everybody not wanting people to 00:19:31.838 --> 00:19:36.967 feel left out because, um, but really, you know, if it was years later it 00:19:37.000 --> 00:19:39.706 would have just been me and my husband. I wouldn't have had so many people 00:19:39.739 --> 00:19:43.367 there. Um, 00:19:43.400 --> 00:19:47.726 my relationship with my sister in law when we were married early on was 00:19:47.759 --> 00:19:54.065 really difficult. Um, she really was judgmental about me and my role why 00:19:54.098 --> 00:19:58.686 he married me at all. Um, a lot of our disagreements during our pregnancy 00:19:58.719 --> 00:20:03.335 was because of her. So to have her at the birth, um, was kind of my peace 00:20:03.368 --> 00:20:06.926 offering because his mom was insistent that she should, they be there, 00:20:06.959 --> 00:20:12.706 wanted to be there to support. So I allowed it. Um, but while she was 00:20:12.739 --> 00:20:16.436 there, she was on her phone the whole time and, you know, there's pictures 00:20:16.469 --> 00:20:22.456 of her talking on the phone over my bed and, um, a little distracting. Um 00:20:22.489 --> 00:20:24.597 , 00:20:24.630 --> 00:20:29.906 but I did get an epidural for pain because the Pitocin got pretty intense 00:20:29.939 --> 00:20:35.085 and strong. Um, and I didn't feel anything once the Pitocin was in or not. 00:20:35.118 --> 00:20:39.266 I'm sorry, the epidural was placed. I was pretty comfortable. Um, I still 00:20:39.299 --> 00:20:43.176 to this day, I don't know what my blood pressure look like. Um I do 00:20:43.209 --> 00:20:47.397 remember when it came time to push. You know, the doctor is sitting there 00:20:47.430 --> 00:20:50.627 at the edge of the bed and my legs are spread open and I can't even 00:20:50.660 --> 00:20:55.906 remember if I was in stirrups or not. I might have been. Um, but I'm 00:20:55.939 --> 00:21:00.476 pushing, but I'm not feeling anything. And I'm looking down at him asking 00:21:00.509 --> 00:21:04.717 him, am I pushing appropriately? And he's not giving me any feedback. So 00:21:04.750 --> 00:21:08.756 I'm looking to my right talking to the nurse like this is how I push and 00:21:08.789 --> 00:21:13.055 she says, oh, yeah, you're doing fine. You need to push this way. I 00:21:13.088 --> 00:21:19.035 probably was pushing for almost three hours when they finally decided to, 00:21:19.068 --> 00:21:25.377 um, use some forceps. So they use the forceps to help her out. Um, and she 00:21:25.410 --> 00:21:30.156 came out and the first thing I saw was her big belly, like big belly cry, 00:21:30.189 --> 00:21:34.666 crying baby. They bring her over to me and I'm like, you know, like great 00:21:34.699 --> 00:21:38.877 , you know, she's out. Um, and they take her right away over to the, to 00:21:38.910 --> 00:21:43.315 the warming station and you just see her belly. It's all I can see. She's 00:21:43.348 --> 00:21:48.795 just a big baby in her belly and she's got rolls on her arms. And, um, 00:21:48.828 --> 00:21:52.137 anyway, my mother in law, my sister-in-law over there were checking on her 00:21:52.170 --> 00:21:55.696 and my mom's looking at her and then my husband didn't leave my side. He's 00:21:55.729 --> 00:22:03.729 , he looked at her, but he was more concerned about me. And, um, I think I 00:22:04.209 --> 00:22:07.617 asked him if everything looked ok and he says, well, it looks pretty bad 00:22:07.650 --> 00:22:13.065 down there. I was like, ok. Um, and then I start to feel very lightheaded 00:22:13.098 --> 00:22:17.176 , like I want to black out like I'm getting really warm and fuzzy and I 00:22:17.209 --> 00:22:22.006 want to close my eyes and go to sleep and, and then there's another nurse 00:22:22.039 --> 00:22:27.266 coming in and the voices are fading and, um, the doctor says, give it to 00:22:27.299 --> 00:22:31.026 her in her leg and they give a shot to me in my right leg. And I didn't 00:22:31.059 --> 00:22:34.315 really feel it because I had the epidural, but my husband's like, you know 00:22:34.348 --> 00:22:40.026 , don't go to sleep, talk to me. Um, and they inverted the bed so my head 00:22:40.059 --> 00:22:44.835 was lower. Um, But they, everybody was getting pretty scared because 00:22:44.868 --> 00:22:48.426 apparently he was having a really bad postpartum hemorrhage that he was 00:22:48.459 --> 00:22:52.906 trying to stop. And he just said the blood was flowing out of me like a 00:22:52.939 --> 00:22:59.946 river. You could hear it. And I was just like, oh, ok. Um And, and then he 00:22:59.979 --> 00:23:04.117 stitched me up and I didn't feel that either. Um And then right away after 00:23:04.150 --> 00:23:07.535 I was all done and stitched up, I was fine. But my husband was like, are 00:23:07.568 --> 00:23:13.847 you ok? You know, you, you look really pale, you know, you're, are you all 00:23:13.880 --> 00:23:18.535 right? He was really concerned and my mom was concerned it wasn't too much 00:23:18.568 --> 00:23:22.075 longer after maybe an hour or two, they came back in and they hung this 00:23:22.108 --> 00:23:26.246 stuff coming the cum sulfate, which I didn't really know what it was for. 00:23:26.279 --> 00:23:30.815 I think it was for, I mean, I know it's for now, but at the time it was, I 00:23:30.848 --> 00:23:34.776 think it was for my blood pressure because it was so high and they had to 00:23:34.809 --> 00:23:39.436 keep that infusing through me for 24 hours and it made me really groggy 00:23:39.469 --> 00:23:44.026 and sleepy and foggy and I didn't really feel like I got to connect with 00:23:44.059 --> 00:23:48.986 my daughter because I was kind of out of it and people came and visited me 00:23:49.019 --> 00:23:52.347 and I was still kind of trying to visit with them. And finally my 00:23:52.380 --> 00:23:56.476 husband's like, you don't have to talk, you can just rest, you don't have 00:23:56.509 --> 00:24:02.516 to talk to anybody. Um, but that was for the preeclampsia that I had. And 00:24:02.549 --> 00:24:06.186 , you know, finally I think I stayed at the hospital like three or four 00:24:06.219 --> 00:24:11.996 days, which is a long time. Um, my daughter weighed £8.15 ounces. She's a 00:24:12.029 --> 00:24:20.029 big girl. And, um, when it came time to go home, you know, he carried her 00:24:20.420 --> 00:24:23.887 in the car seat and the nurse was walking in front of him as a male nurse. 00:24:23.920 --> 00:24:26.706 And I was really surprised that considering what I went through and how 00:24:26.739 --> 00:24:29.416 weak I felt because I want, when they had me get in the shower, I must 00:24:29.449 --> 00:24:35.026 pass out that they wanted me to walk to the car and I was kind of like 00:24:35.059 --> 00:24:39.315 slow down. Like I'm holding on to the wall to get through the hallway. And 00:24:39.348 --> 00:24:43.166 these two men in front of me walking really fast to get to the car and I 00:24:43.199 --> 00:24:46.867 had to tell him to slow down because I, you know, it's, I'm having a hard 00:24:46.900 --> 00:24:53.335 time. Um, but I, it, from what I remember talking to the doctor after I 00:24:53.368 --> 00:24:57.097 had a postpartum hemorrhage, I had preeclampsia. I had a forceps delivery. 00:24:57.130 --> 00:25:01.746 My daughter who was really big. Um I did not have diabetes because she's 00:25:01.779 --> 00:25:06.045 a big baby. Um I had a really bad third degree tear so my bottom was 00:25:06.078 --> 00:25:12.406 pretty sore for a couple of weeks after like achy when I moved. Um, and it 00:25:12.439 --> 00:25:19.585 was, you know, I was exhausted and trying to breastfeed her after um I 00:25:19.618 --> 00:25:23.045 wanna say I feel like I had a little postpartum depression after I had her 00:25:23.078 --> 00:25:26.936 because I think it was during that time when they were really talking 00:25:26.969 --> 00:25:30.496 about, you know, that postpartum psychosis and women wanting to hurt 00:25:30.529 --> 00:25:33.607 themselves and their babies. And I was thinking in my mind, is that what 00:25:33.640 --> 00:25:36.666 I'm going through? Is that what I'm feeling? Do I want to hurt her? No, I 00:25:36.699 --> 00:25:40.156 don't want to hurt her like these kind of mental thoughts going through my 00:25:40.189 --> 00:25:45.956 mind and I feel like I was really going through the motions for a long 00:25:45.989 --> 00:25:50.666 time with her because I did, I don't know how to be a mom. You know, I 00:25:50.699 --> 00:25:55.795 know I need to change her diaper and feed her and breastfeed her and um 00:25:55.828 --> 00:25:59.776 put her to bed. But like that really connecting mothering that you hear 00:25:59.809 --> 00:26:04.506 women talk about like I don't feel like I had that. Um I don't think it, 00:26:04.539 --> 00:26:08.325 it took me a while before I even got the hang of that. I felt like that 00:26:08.358 --> 00:26:14.535 too. I felt like it was my new job. Right. Right. And, and that's another 00:26:14.568 --> 00:26:20.315 thing is, it did feel like it was my new job. Um, and my husband's family 00:26:20.348 --> 00:26:25.575 is very traditional in the sense that the real, the real, the mo um how do 00:26:25.608 --> 00:26:32.406 I say the male, female roles are very specific? Um So I felt guilty if I 00:26:32.439 --> 00:26:37.436 wasn't putting her to bed or holding her or, you know, giving her the 00:26:37.469 --> 00:26:40.867 right kind of bath? And I, I have to say I had family around who made me 00:26:40.900 --> 00:26:45.656 feel not very good to be a new mom judging me. And even after I gave her a 00:26:45.689 --> 00:26:48.825 bath, the first time, my sister in law gave her a bath again and clean her 00:26:48.858 --> 00:26:54.785 ears and like, is she not clean enough? Am I not doing a good enough job? 00:26:54.818 --> 00:27:00.776 Like it just felt very much like that and I feel like today that really um 00:27:00.809 --> 00:27:05.045 helps me work with women better because, you know, I remember all of those 00:27:05.078 --> 00:27:10.656 feelings with my first child and just learning to be a mom knowing that 00:27:10.689 --> 00:27:17.006 there's judgment everywhere. Um So I'm I'm pretty thoughtful and 00:27:17.039 --> 00:27:21.545 encouraging to new moms because I, I know what that felt like. Yeah, I 00:27:21.578 --> 00:27:25.217 often say you're, you're being judged the moment you conceive, right? What 00:27:25.250 --> 00:27:29.377 you eat, what you don't eat, what you you do or walk or not walk or 00:27:29.410 --> 00:27:34.535 whatever it is. There's no right way. You're always doing it wrong a 00:27:34.568 --> 00:27:38.686 little bit according to one person, at least. You know. So you just have 00:27:38.719 --> 00:27:43.406 to do what is right for you. Um, I, I do wanna say though with her 00:27:43.439 --> 00:27:47.926 pregnancy, um, because I grew up with these traditions, I did do like a 00:27:47.959 --> 00:27:52.986 blessing way ceremony with her and with, I've had it with each of my kids 00:27:53.019 --> 00:27:58.016 before I went into labor or a month or so before just because that's one 00:27:58.049 --> 00:28:03.805 of our DNA traditions. Um So even though like, intellectually, those 00:28:03.838 --> 00:28:10.367 ceremonies don't quite, how do I say they, they've always been a part of 00:28:10.400 --> 00:28:15.026 my life, but the meaning and attention of them on some level, I didn't 00:28:15.059 --> 00:28:19.815 quite get until later. 00:28:19.848 --> 00:28:22.565 I mean, I definitely 00:28:22.598 --> 00:28:26.117 understand it more now and can reflect and be like, man, I'm really glad I 00:28:26.150 --> 00:28:29.736 had those things done for me and I asked for them, even though I wasn't 00:28:29.769 --> 00:28:33.006 quite clear about why 00:28:33.039 --> 00:28:37.867 did you, um, did you have a name picked out or did well, how did you come 00:28:37.900 --> 00:28:41.776 up with the name? Do you know the sex? So we knew the sex of the, of her. 00:28:41.809 --> 00:28:46.436 We knew she was a girl. Um My mother-in-law's twin sister is named 00:28:46.469 --> 00:28:51.926 Charlotte and her twin sister died when she was five, I believe from an 00:28:51.959 --> 00:28:55.906 illness. And so when she said her name was Charlotte was like, oh, we love 00:28:55.939 --> 00:29:00.637 that name. Nobody's name is Charlotte. So we, we saved letting people know 00:29:00.670 --> 00:29:04.766 what her name was until after she was born. So it was a nice blessing for 00:29:04.799 --> 00:29:10.335 her mom to hear that. We named her after her sister. 00:29:10.368 --> 00:29:16.147 Um Was there anything special, you know, um blankets or cribs or anything 00:29:16.180 --> 00:29:20.575 that people made for you or that, you know, you still have or, you know, I 00:29:20.608 --> 00:29:25.496 know I still have an August baby blanket. So in the Pueblo culture, they 00:29:25.529 --> 00:29:30.436 have a naming ceremony which is um 00:29:30.469 --> 00:29:33.565 you're supposed to have it within a month. I think after the baby is born 00:29:33.598 --> 00:29:38.506 , I think with her, we had it three months after. Um we chose one of the 00:29:38.539 --> 00:29:45.347 elders in the pueblo to name her and um they named her Nana Katay, um 00:29:45.380 --> 00:29:51.446 which I believe is yellow autumn leaf. And at the same time, I also got my 00:29:51.479 --> 00:29:58.555 Indian name when she got her Indian name. And um so it was really nice to 00:29:58.588 --> 00:30:02.825 have a naming ceremony. So this person who does the naming ceremony is 00:30:02.858 --> 00:30:07.035 supposed to kind of guide them in the traditional way of living and teach 00:30:07.068 --> 00:30:12.575 them things. You know, they have dances in the pueblo that the girls, the 00:30:12.608 --> 00:30:15.936 women have to dress up for and participate in. So to talk about those 00:30:15.969 --> 00:30:20.266 things and to share that knowledge, I mean, we don't all we're not born 00:30:20.299 --> 00:30:25.006 knowing how to lace up our or put on our moccasins or put on our wraps or 00:30:25.039 --> 00:30:28.736 know what side our dresses need to be on or how to put on our sash belts. 00:30:28.769 --> 00:30:34.295 Like those things are taught. So those are like things that you're your, 00:30:34.328 --> 00:30:41.416 um, the woman who names, you would basically teach you those things. So we 00:30:41.449 --> 00:30:47.196 usually, you can, they get their name at the first light. So when the sun 00:30:47.229 --> 00:30:51.956 comes up, then the light touches her and then you can name them, um, or 00:30:51.989 --> 00:30:56.746 you go to the Pueblo Kiva and they gave them a name then um during like 00:30:56.779 --> 00:31:02.496 different dances and stuff. So, but she got her name that way 00:31:02.529 --> 00:31:07.426 with at the Kiva. No, she, she did it um in the Pueblo but not during a 00:31:07.459 --> 00:31:11.926 ceremony or dance. It was a separate occasion and they gave her blanket 00:31:11.959 --> 00:31:16.335 and they dressed her up in her moccasins and her, her clothing, which I 00:31:16.368 --> 00:31:21.766 still have. Um And so they just have this connection with this person 00:31:21.799 --> 00:31:24.656 throughout their life. 00:31:24.689 --> 00:31:30.555 That's a really, um you know, a lovely concept. And one of the things, you 00:31:30.588 --> 00:31:33.545 know, talking to other women is this kind of strength of community and 00:31:33.578 --> 00:31:38.726 family and that um you know, they're just really inter interconnected in a 00:31:38.759 --> 00:31:45.617 very strong way. I think when it comes to that connection to family, that 00:31:45.650 --> 00:31:50.446 was something that was really attractive to me and different coming from 00:31:50.479 --> 00:31:55.686 my DNA culture, from the Pueblo culture um before I met my husband or 00:31:55.719 --> 00:31:59.045 actually, while we were dating, there were times I came to the Pueblo for 00:31:59.078 --> 00:32:05.617 dances and stuff and I helped bake bread and some of these like fe female 00:32:05.650 --> 00:32:11.555 engagement activities was really around cooking and baking bread and 00:32:11.588 --> 00:32:17.946 helping community through their act and their skills. Um And that's 00:32:17.979 --> 00:32:23.325 something that because of culturally and spatially, the DNA culture is 00:32:23.358 --> 00:32:27.266 very different. Like, you know, my aunties and uncles live kind of a 00:32:27.299 --> 00:32:34.986 distance away. Um Some are Catholic, some are Christian, some are N ac, 00:32:35.019 --> 00:32:41.706 some are, you know, traditional Navajo um or they're all three or four. 00:32:41.739 --> 00:32:48.967 And so here, you know, you live close by you, you see these women often 00:32:49.000 --> 00:32:53.656 whether it's a funeral or a ceremony or some, something is happening in 00:32:53.689 --> 00:32:57.785 the community where you will see them or work with them. So usually like 00:32:57.818 --> 00:33:01.147 stories about how we take care of ourselves or just being with women is 00:33:01.180 --> 00:33:06.706 usually around the oven or cooking or something like that. But that was 00:33:06.739 --> 00:33:10.496 very attractive to me because I didn't grow up that way. Um Because my 00:33:10.529 --> 00:33:15.867 parents are divorced. Um My mom has a small family. I didn't have, I 00:33:15.900 --> 00:33:19.867 wasn't around a lot of women all the time. I was usually by myself or with 00:33:19.900 --> 00:33:24.776 my brother and sister. Um And there's challenges of having a blended 00:33:24.809 --> 00:33:28.597 family anyway, you know, my, my step siblings were in and out of our lives 00:33:28.630 --> 00:33:32.597 because they were either mad or, you know, something like we just weren't 00:33:32.630 --> 00:33:36.916 always all together all the time. But here like, you know, there are 00:33:36.949 --> 00:33:40.666 specific times of the year where we're always together like Feast Day or 00:33:40.699 --> 00:33:44.795 corn dance or, you know, there's a different specific activity that you 00:33:44.828 --> 00:33:50.496 know, you're gonna be together to cook. So was your um Navajo language 00:33:50.529 --> 00:33:54.436 different than your husband's language? It's very different. Oh Yeah. Yeah. 00:33:54.469 --> 00:33:59.085 So the, the dialect is different. The how you pronounce things are 00:33:59.118 --> 00:34:05.686 different, the culture of women is different. So in the DNA culture, when 00:34:05.719 --> 00:34:09.876 we introduce ourselves, we're saying I was born for. So you're going 00:34:09.909 --> 00:34:14.896 through your matrilineal heritage, explaining your clan system to 00:34:14.929 --> 00:34:19.816 introduce who you are, who you're born for, who your grandmother is and 00:34:19.849 --> 00:34:24.615 where they live. So you have this kind of matriarchal history that you 00:34:24.648 --> 00:34:29.566 give when you introduce yourself. Um in the Pueblo culture, it's mostly 00:34:29.599 --> 00:34:35.615 patriarchal men. So um 00:34:35.648 --> 00:34:38.925 I would say the feminists would probably not like it so much because 00:34:38.958 --> 00:34:43.726 women's roles are very colon stick in the sense that you're in the kitchen 00:34:43.759 --> 00:34:51.684 , you helpers. But I would disagree with that. I feel like um the Pueblo 00:34:51.717 --> 00:34:58.236 women are really strong um in their beliefs and they work really hard. But 00:34:58.269 --> 00:35:01.635 when something happens in the community, you see everyone come together 00:35:01.668 --> 00:35:04.675 and they assume different roles and they work really well together. It's 00:35:04.708 --> 00:35:09.316 more of a balance than one person doing everything or one group of people 00:35:09.349 --> 00:35:15.497 doing everything. Um It's always nice for me to see that whereas in the D 00:35:15.530 --> 00:35:20.186 A culture. Um There's a lot of differences with death and birth where, 00:35:20.219 --> 00:35:25.365 whereas a public it's different, right? Um Because death for them is 00:35:25.398 --> 00:35:28.695 something they celebrate and they have their way of taking care of their 00:35:28.728 --> 00:35:33.146 community members who've passed on. Whereas the a like we don't want 00:35:33.179 --> 00:35:35.787 anything to do with death. Like we can't be in a room with someone who 00:35:35.820 --> 00:35:39.706 passed away, we have to leave, somebody else needs to take care of it. 00:35:39.739 --> 00:35:44.626 It's like a taboo. It can make you sick. So how would you introduce 00:35:44.659 --> 00:35:49.526 yourself in the Pueblo culture? Uh I would just be, I mean, if I don't 00:35:49.559 --> 00:35:54.537 speak Tewa, I speak a little bit. But um you know, there isn't an 00:35:54.570 --> 00:36:00.717 introduction um versus like, you know, if I were to go back home to or if 00:36:00.750 --> 00:36:04.287 I were to meet another d A person out in the world, they'd want to know 00:36:04.320 --> 00:36:08.115 what my clan was. Whereas in the Pueblo culture, there's, I don't think 00:36:08.148 --> 00:36:12.566 there's, I've never met anybody who wants to be introduced by their clan. 00:36:12.599 --> 00:36:18.736 Um I, I'm somewhat respectful of kind of how they do things and they're 00:36:18.769 --> 00:36:23.787 kind of private about things. So 00:36:23.820 --> 00:36:30.135 I know some tawa um and some is used for inside the house and some are 00:36:30.168 --> 00:36:35.807 used for outside. Um But there isn't like a specific way to introduce 00:36:35.840 --> 00:36:43.787 yourself. So um did your inclinations towards, you know, participating in 00:36:43.820 --> 00:36:49.385 um helping women through birth and mid midwifery, like begin after that 00:36:49.418 --> 00:36:55.345 first birth or did it emerge later on? It emerged over time? So, obviously 00:36:55.378 --> 00:37:03.378 , I've always been interested in birth. Um, really, it was spurred by 00:37:03.958 --> 00:37:08.827 going when I finished my nursing degree, I was pregnant with my, the 00:37:08.860 --> 00:37:16.026 second child. And um I started working as a nurse on labor and delivery 00:37:16.059 --> 00:37:22.776 and I was probably six or seven months pregnant and I was busy on my feet 00:37:22.809 --> 00:37:28.925 all day long and he was probably my biggest baby. Um, but I was, I mean, I 00:37:28.958 --> 00:37:32.077 mean, the nurses were in awe of me because it's like Nicole, you were 00:37:32.110 --> 00:37:35.767 pregnant and you kept up with all of us and you weren't complaining or 00:37:35.800 --> 00:37:41.256 tired like I was just busy working. Um, um, but that's how much I loved 00:37:41.289 --> 00:37:44.486 what I was doing as I really loved working with women and making them feel 00:37:44.519 --> 00:37:49.646 good and comfortable and listened to even as a nurse, what actually pushed 00:37:49.679 --> 00:37:55.655 me to become a midwife was, um, I worked at IHS Hospital in Al, oh, I 00:37:55.688 --> 00:38:00.997 can't say that I worked at an is hospital basically, uh, a medical 00:38:01.030 --> 00:38:05.606 surgical and I really didn't want to work there. Um I was really happy 00:38:05.639 --> 00:38:09.836 working at my labor and delivery work job. But because I just had paid for 00:38:09.869 --> 00:38:14.916 my education, I had to fulfill my obligation for them, paying for my 00:38:14.949 --> 00:38:19.836 education by providing them two years of my nursing experience as, as a 00:38:19.869 --> 00:38:26.956 job. Um, and I have to tell you going from this really nice labor and 00:38:26.989 --> 00:38:31.675 delivery unit where people work together and you are expected to be nice 00:38:31.708 --> 00:38:34.557 to women. And 00:38:34.590 --> 00:38:38.916 it just was very cohesive, warm group. I went to this other space that was 00:38:38.949 --> 00:38:43.376 dark and people weren't nice to each other and they complained and, you 00:38:43.409 --> 00:38:47.327 know, I felt like some of the women didn't take pride in their work. I 00:38:47.360 --> 00:38:53.057 felt like they were just there to retire. Um And maybe I'm wrong but, you 00:38:53.090 --> 00:38:57.526 know, I just didn't see that pride that I saw in the other nurses I worked 00:38:57.559 --> 00:39:03.095 with there, with some of the nurses who worked there. And it was really a 00:39:03.128 --> 00:39:11.017 disappointment for me to see then behave. The nurses behave this way 00:39:11.050 --> 00:39:17.767 and then to work with a community, my community of people, um 00:39:17.800 --> 00:39:22.195 that wasn't the best care. I feel like they could have gotten, um an 00:39:22.228 --> 00:39:25.655 example would be because they knew, they knew I had labor and delivery 00:39:25.688 --> 00:39:29.126 experience. And it, it's really only been a year I had, I had been in a 00:39:29.159 --> 00:39:35.467 labor and delivery nurse. They had me do some um shifts over labor and 00:39:35.500 --> 00:39:39.997 delivery in the IHS hospital. And at the time, there was a lot of turmoil 00:39:40.030 --> 00:39:43.747 happening because IHS Hospital was going to close our labor and delivery 00:39:43.780 --> 00:39:48.695 because they didn't have the high number of women birthing there. Um And 00:39:48.728 --> 00:39:53.566 their ob doctor was going to retire and they weren't going to replace him. 00:39:53.599 --> 00:39:56.635 There was a couple of nurse midwives who work there and they were white 00:39:56.668 --> 00:40:02.586 women um that were caring for women or at least native women coming for 00:40:02.619 --> 00:40:09.336 care. There was one navajo nurse I worked with and she was very nice. And 00:40:09.369 --> 00:40:14.316 uh my first encounter with a midwife there was I was admitting a patient 00:40:14.349 --> 00:40:19.445 who was in labor to one of the really small rooms and they were monitoring 00:40:19.478 --> 00:40:22.506 her on the fetal monitor and I was gonna check her blood pressure. So I 00:40:22.539 --> 00:40:27.477 put the blood pressure cuff on her arm. And this nurse midwife who's an 00:40:27.510 --> 00:40:31.307 anglo woman was like staring me down the whole time, like so intimidating 00:40:31.340 --> 00:40:34.905 , staring me down as I'm putting this blood pressure cuff on this patient. 00:40:34.938 --> 00:40:40.836 And I'm like, why are you intimidating me? Like this is not appropriate? 00:40:40.869 --> 00:40:44.666 Um And as I was getting to leave, you know, she goes over there and takes 00:40:44.699 --> 00:40:49.646 the blood pressure cuff off before I could like just very like aggressive 00:40:49.679 --> 00:40:53.635 intimidation. And at that point, I was like, I really don't want to work 00:40:53.668 --> 00:40:58.546 over here if this is how these ladies are. Um And I talked to this Navajo 00:40:58.579 --> 00:41:01.327 nurse who was there and I said, well, why do you work here? This place is 00:41:01.360 --> 00:41:05.566 so disappointing and dreary and people are not nice to each other. So the 00:41:05.599 --> 00:41:10.425 morale is not good. And she said, you know, I feel like there's definitely 00:41:10.458 --> 00:41:15.405 some racism that goes on here between non native nurses and providers and 00:41:15.438 --> 00:41:19.925 patients. But I feel like these women need to see a native woman, a native 00:41:19.958 --> 00:41:27.037 nurse taking care of them. And so I stay so I was like, ok, um there was 00:41:27.070 --> 00:41:31.626 another shift I work there with a, a woman from my community who was 00:41:31.659 --> 00:41:37.905 having a baby, her second baby and having ac section. Um and the story 00:41:37.938 --> 00:41:45.938 with her is she had lost a baby at a, at this hospital in labor. And I'm 00:41:46.168 --> 00:41:50.945 not sure of all the details, but she, the baby had died. And so she was 00:41:50.978 --> 00:41:54.706 coming back to have another baby and I was asking her, why are you here to 00:41:54.739 --> 00:41:58.396 have this baby? Like why can't you go someplace else? And she says, well, 00:41:58.429 --> 00:42:02.615 I don't feel I could go, I could go anywhere else. Um And I was just like 00:42:02.648 --> 00:42:06.936 , how awful to go to a place where your baby died to not feel like you 00:42:06.969 --> 00:42:11.876 have options. Um And maybe it was at the fault of the provider. I don't 00:42:11.909 --> 00:42:17.195 know like this to me feels wrong. There was a labor and delivery nurse who 00:42:17.228 --> 00:42:21.477 sounds like she was a nurse practitioner who had just the nastiest 00:42:21.510 --> 00:42:27.217 attitude. She would put like 18 gauge ivs in everybody, which is one of 00:42:27.250 --> 00:42:34.115 the biggest um um ivs to put in women. I mean, you, you really don't need 00:42:34.148 --> 00:42:37.615 a big one to, to transfuse blood, but she would go above and beyond for 00:42:37.648 --> 00:42:40.686 that. And she said, I'm afraid they're gonna have a postpartum hemorrhage. 00:42:40.719 --> 00:42:46.405 I'm just being safe. But I'm like, that's not right. But a at one point 00:42:46.438 --> 00:42:51.686 during working there, she definitely gave me a piece of her mind and I was 00:42:51.719 --> 00:42:54.925 crying and I was like, I'm done working here. I don't need to do with 00:42:54.958 --> 00:42:58.606 people like you. Like it was just one incident after another where people 00:42:58.639 --> 00:43:02.945 were just very rude, intimidating, even my nursing supervisor was 00:43:02.978 --> 00:43:05.376 intimidating. 00:43:05.409 --> 00:43:09.646 And so I was more than happy to give up, give up my two years and then get 00:43:09.679 --> 00:43:14.405 out of there. Um But it was during that time I approached one of the Anglo 00:43:14.438 --> 00:43:17.606 midwives there about midwifery because I was applying, I had my 00:43:17.639 --> 00:43:22.046 application and so I just asked her casually. Well, do you consider is 00:43:22.079 --> 00:43:25.537 midwifery a mid-level? Like, how would you define that? And I was just 00:43:25.570 --> 00:43:29.706 curious, she didn't know I was applying. I just had this question for her 00:43:29.739 --> 00:43:33.577 and she like totally went off on me. We're not mid-level providers or 00:43:33.610 --> 00:43:37.135 health care providers. We're nurse midwives, we're not dot Physician 00:43:37.168 --> 00:43:41.236 Extenders. So it was just right away lashing out at me about just the 00:43:41.269 --> 00:43:45.037 question I was asking her and I'm just like, jeez, here's another 00:43:45.070 --> 00:43:48.767 opportunity where she could have maybe helped me with my application, but 00:43:48.800 --> 00:43:56.800 she totally like, I'm like, I don't wanna talk to you then. Um So I seeing 00:43:57.119 --> 00:44:00.425 my community being careful like that, not having feeling like they have 00:44:00.458 --> 00:44:04.327 options like that really did something inside of me because I was like, I 00:44:04.360 --> 00:44:08.646 can't, I, I can't sit back and do nothing. We can't just allow this to 00:44:08.679 --> 00:44:14.287 happen. You know, this is not ok. Um And I had to really struggle with my 00:44:14.320 --> 00:44:18.307 husband and his family about going back to school because again, we have 00:44:18.340 --> 00:44:22.356 these very traditional roles. I had just finished nursing school. Why do I 00:44:22.389 --> 00:44:27.115 wanna go back to school? My kids are little. What I need to go to school 00:44:27.148 --> 00:44:33.477 now? Can I do it later? What about the kids? So I had a lot of um doubt 00:44:33.510 --> 00:44:37.506 pushed in my direction about my path and I felt really guilty because I 00:44:37.539 --> 00:44:41.865 wanted to be a good mom. And if was I being a bad mom, if I decided to go 00:44:41.898 --> 00:44:47.595 back to school? So I held off not applying to nurse midwifery school. And 00:44:47.628 --> 00:44:50.896 the following year, there were some more things happening in our pueblo. I 00:44:50.929 --> 00:44:55.747 saw just some really heartache, hardship people not being taken care of 00:44:55.780 --> 00:44:58.756 again. And I was just like, I don't care what you guys say. I'm gonna go 00:44:58.789 --> 00:45:04.195 to school. This is just, this feels right to me. Um It probably took a 00:45:04.228 --> 00:45:09.456 good six months before my family, my husband and his family finally kind 00:45:09.489 --> 00:45:14.816 of recognize what I was doing and why and he definitely became more 00:45:14.849 --> 00:45:19.405 supportive of going back to school and what I was doing. And how much I 00:45:19.438 --> 00:45:25.776 really loved it. And he saw me change completely to being kind of this 00:45:25.809 --> 00:45:31.106 lost mom trying to figure out what I'm doing. And if I'm gonna do, if I'm 00:45:31.139 --> 00:45:35.517 doing it to everyone's expectations to being more in charge of who I am 00:45:35.550 --> 00:45:39.557 and what I'm doing. And I don't care what anybody says this is what I am 00:45:39.590 --> 00:45:45.956 gonna do because this makes me happy. And so he was very supportive after 00:45:45.989 --> 00:45:48.796 that. 00:45:48.829 --> 00:45:54.807 Um So how was your, did you have a preeclampsia with your second birth? I 00:45:54.840 --> 00:46:00.517 didn't, my second birth I had so I was working as a nurse in labor and 00:46:00.550 --> 00:46:06.577 delivery and um actually correction. No, I was in nursing school about to 00:46:06.610 --> 00:46:12.445 finish my last semester in nursing school at UN M and the nurses were more 00:46:12.478 --> 00:46:14.997 than happy that I was pregnant because they get to fill my belly and all 00:46:15.030 --> 00:46:21.477 of that. Um, and we had this woman 00:46:21.510 --> 00:46:26.396 come into our nursing class and show us or teach us about hypnobirthing. 00:46:26.429 --> 00:46:31.247 And I was like, hey, this is really interesting hypnobirthing. Uh prior to 00:46:31.280 --> 00:46:35.695 my pregnancy with him, I was not happy with the first doctor I had seen so 00:46:35.728 --> 00:46:39.675 I went to see different doctors before I found the one I really liked. Um 00:46:39.708 --> 00:46:45.526 , at that point I'd had two miscarriages um, before I got pregnant with my 00:46:45.559 --> 00:46:52.845 son Daniel and after my second miscarriage, um, well, during my second 00:46:52.878 --> 00:46:57.666 miscarriage, I went to the er, because I was bleeding so much that my 00:46:57.699 --> 00:47:03.026 husband had to take me to the emergency room. And they, um, there was this 00:47:03.059 --> 00:47:06.945 man there who was the doctor on call and he was so sweet. He was holding 00:47:06.978 --> 00:47:11.336 my hand. Everything's gonna be fine. We're gonna go take you back to do AD 00:47:11.369 --> 00:47:16.836 and c um, and my husband was kind of waiting in a chair right before they 00:47:16.869 --> 00:47:21.017 took me back and he said, hold on, stop, you know, had me, had them stop 00:47:21.050 --> 00:47:24.356 the gurney before I went back to the or, and made sure my husband gave me 00:47:24.389 --> 00:47:28.166 a hug and a kiss and reassured us both that things were going to be fine. 00:47:28.199 --> 00:47:31.077 And after that, I was like, what's this doctor's name? This guy is 00:47:31.110 --> 00:47:35.856 exactly who I want to take care of me. And so I probably went through two 00:47:35.889 --> 00:47:39.276 ob doctors before I found him. And so he took care of me through my whole 00:47:39.309 --> 00:47:43.316 pregnancy. It was very lovely. He, he gave me a handshake and kissed me on 00:47:43.349 --> 00:47:47.227 the cheek. It was like visiting my grandpa every day, you know, very, just 00:47:47.260 --> 00:47:51.807 very kind guy. Um So it was a very different pregnancy to begin with 00:47:51.840 --> 00:47:54.836 because there was communication, there was a relationship I felt good 00:47:54.869 --> 00:48:00.077 about who I was seeing for my care. I was healthy. I wasn't like, I don't 00:48:00.110 --> 00:48:03.905 feel like I gained too much weight. Um I wasn't horribly sick with him in 00:48:03.938 --> 00:48:08.526 the beginning. Um, I was kind of toying with the idea of having a home 00:48:08.559 --> 00:48:12.566 birth because with one of my miscarriage we had, we did see a ma midwife 00:48:12.599 --> 00:48:17.327 in Albuquerque who actually I heard on the radio before I got pregnant. 00:48:17.360 --> 00:48:23.356 She was doing, um, she was, how would I say she was talking about 00:48:23.389 --> 00:48:28.936 midwifery on the news, on the radio news and she was so intelligent, like 00:48:28.969 --> 00:48:33.467 she was belting out research and evidence based care about for what she 00:48:33.500 --> 00:48:37.356 did and how she did it. And she had doctors coming in challenging her, but 00:48:37.389 --> 00:48:41.905 she just knew her stuff like she was very knowledgeable and I was like, 00:48:41.938 --> 00:48:46.816 midwifery is pretty awesome. Um But I sought her out at a homebirth 00:48:46.849 --> 00:48:50.706 practice in Albuquerque, but that pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. But 00:48:50.739 --> 00:48:54.796 after the first pregnancy, my family was like, you know, don't deliver at 00:48:54.829 --> 00:48:59.307 home, you're not healthy enough. You need to think about the safety of 00:48:59.340 --> 00:49:07.236 this baby and deliver in a hospital. So I was like, ok. Um but fast 00:49:07.269 --> 00:49:11.977 forwarding to my nursing education. Um I learned about this hypno birthing 00:49:12.010 --> 00:49:16.827 and I was like, yeah, I wanna do that. And so I met with this woman later 00:49:16.860 --> 00:49:19.057 and she was like, well, you're a little late in your pregnancy, but we 00:49:19.090 --> 00:49:22.706 could probably still do it. So we paid for it. It was kind of pricey. It 00:49:22.739 --> 00:49:26.566 was like 800 bucks, but I was like, really committed. I'm like, I really 00:49:26.599 --> 00:49:30.986 don't want pain medicine. Um, I really want to do this natural and I think 00:49:31.019 --> 00:49:34.566 this hypno birthing is gonna work. And my husband's kind of like, ok, you 00:49:34.599 --> 00:49:37.717 know, kind of giving me the look like you're crazy. But, uh, it's your 00:49:37.750 --> 00:49:42.037 baby. It's our, let's just do it. And so he did some exercises with me at 00:49:42.070 --> 00:49:47.807 home. We listened to music and she came and talked to us and so I went 00:49:47.840 --> 00:49:51.236 through this kind of fast forward hypno birthing process. I remember even 00:49:51.269 --> 00:49:54.396 giving a folder of information to my doctor because that was part of the 00:49:54.429 --> 00:49:57.776 process. He probably was rolling his eyes at me because most doctors don't 00:49:57.809 --> 00:50:01.635 like to do that sort of thing. But I was like, this is what I'm gonna do. 00:50:01.668 --> 00:50:06.276 Um, and my fam, my husband's family was kind of like, are hypno birthing. 00:50:06.309 --> 00:50:09.606 What is that about? And they were kind of heckling me too because I 00:50:09.639 --> 00:50:12.836 thought it was a little bit out there. But I didn't care. I was like, you 00:50:12.869 --> 00:50:17.736 know, it's gonna work and, and sure enough it did. When I went into the 00:50:17.769 --> 00:50:23.017 hospital, I played my music. I had my headphones on you. I think there's 00:50:23.050 --> 00:50:26.896 even a picture of me with, um, on the birthing ball kind of swaying back 00:50:26.929 --> 00:50:32.046 and forth and the room is dam, like I had a little more control this time 00:50:32.079 --> 00:50:36.405 and I liked it. Um, my sister-in-law, my mom was, my mother-in-law was 00:50:36.438 --> 00:50:40.376 there. My mom didn't come, but it was very different space than it was the 00:50:40.409 --> 00:50:44.747 first time. And I realized I had to say about what I wanted and didn't 00:50:44.780 --> 00:50:49.896 want and they still put a Ivy in me. But it was just very nice. I remember 00:50:49.929 --> 00:50:55.396 that like soft voice in my, my um, headphones was like, breathe, you know 00:50:55.429 --> 00:51:00.425 , very calm. Your baby is opening and coming down like it was just very 00:51:00.458 --> 00:51:05.747 like calming. Um And everyone thought I looked very comfortable and 00:51:05.780 --> 00:51:09.807 collected and at some point I was like, ok, it's time to push and they 00:51:09.840 --> 00:51:13.876 were like, what? So they put me in bed and, you know, I think one or two 00:51:13.909 --> 00:51:18.695 pushes and my son was out and they were just amazed that I was so calm and 00:51:18.728 --> 00:51:22.717 collected and, you know, the contractions, I definitely felt them and they 00:51:22.750 --> 00:51:26.296 really hurt, but I feel like I could handle them. Like I, they were 00:51:26.329 --> 00:51:31.956 manageable. I wasn't out of control. And after that, my sister in law even 00:51:31.989 --> 00:51:36.166 wanted to borrow my tapes and like she saw me and wanted to do that for 00:51:36.199 --> 00:51:40.307 herself. And I'm just like, yeah, it is possible to have a nice natural 00:51:40.340 --> 00:51:45.267 birth. The way I want were the contractions different when you went 00:51:45.300 --> 00:51:48.126 through it naturally to the Pitocin. Can you think about that? Yeah. Yeah 00:51:48.159 --> 00:51:51.986 , they were different. They had a pattern of their own, they were more 00:51:52.019 --> 00:51:58.986 manageable, gradual. Like, definitely during the end, like, I don't know. 00:51:59.019 --> 00:52:03.227 It kind of reminds me of the oven going bing. Like that last contraction 00:52:03.260 --> 00:52:06.586 was really, really uncomfortable like it hurt II I had tears in my eyes 00:52:06.619 --> 00:52:09.936 because it was so bad but it was time to push. Like I just remember like I 00:52:09.969 --> 00:52:16.526 gotta push now and that feeling of like needing to push like it's just 00:52:16.559 --> 00:52:19.836 undescribable. There's all this pressure in my bottom like it just, I just 00:52:19.869 --> 00:52:25.827 have to push. And so everyone was pretty happy to have my son out and he 00:52:25.860 --> 00:52:31.885 was a big boy who was £9.04 ounce baby. Um, big guy and I'm just like, 00:52:31.918 --> 00:52:37.807 where did you fit? Did you tear? Um, I had a little tear like, but not 00:52:37.840 --> 00:52:42.467 like the first time. Yeah. So it was, it was an all around better 00:52:42.500 --> 00:52:50.500 experience and I really ii I wasn't sad about it. I felt really good about 00:52:50.918 --> 00:52:54.287 it and I was like, great, you know, everything went well and I had him in 00:52:54.320 --> 00:52:58.706 the summer, like in May. So I had just finished my nursing program, 00:52:58.739 --> 00:53:03.126 graduated and then I, you know, I had him in the summer time. That was 00:53:03.159 --> 00:53:06.905 nice. Had you been using mineral oil or anything to kind of soften the 00:53:06.938 --> 00:53:11.106 perineum? No, I wasn't, I didn't use anything. I wasn't that aware of my 00:53:11.139 --> 00:53:14.546 body. Yeah. Nobody even talked to me about that at that time, I don't 00:53:14.579 --> 00:53:19.345 think, but it wasn't even the doctor who delivered. I mean, it wasn't the 00:53:19.378 --> 00:53:23.345 doctor I've been seeing from my prenatal care who I, who delivered him or 00:53:23.378 --> 00:53:28.227 assisted with the delivery with somebody else. But yeah, it was a really 00:53:28.260 --> 00:53:33.776 nice delivery. And was it different in the fact that like after the baby 00:53:33.809 --> 00:53:39.186 was born, you were, you know, not fainting, you were not on medication? 00:53:39.219 --> 00:53:45.006 Like was your bonding experience different? 00:53:45.039 --> 00:53:53.039 I think I, I feel like I recovered faster. Um, my husband after I had him 00:53:53.128 --> 00:53:56.066 because there's a picture of me after I had him, my hair is to the side of 00:53:56.099 --> 00:54:01.796 my makeup so smeared. And um so some of the some of the child preparation 00:54:01.829 --> 00:54:06.727 courses talk about when women go through transition like that phase of 8 00:54:06.760 --> 00:54:12.307 to 10 centimeters. Like your sensory is heightened, smells, sounds or 00:54:12.340 --> 00:54:17.675 you're really focused. And I remember while I was in labor, my husband, I 00:54:17.708 --> 00:54:22.115 think he ate something and I was like trying to tell him to get some gum 00:54:22.148 --> 00:54:26.986 and he says, oh, you want gum? I said no for you, you your breast melts 00:54:27.019 --> 00:54:31.186 and he's like, OK. Um But he also I told him I said I want barbecue for my 00:54:31.219 --> 00:54:36.456 dinner after I eat after I had the baby. So he had got me barbecue after I 00:54:36.489 --> 00:54:41.456 had my son um because I was starving because I starve you when you're 00:54:41.489 --> 00:54:45.405 having your baby. But I felt great. Like the next day I was, I was able to 00:54:45.438 --> 00:54:49.467 move around. I didn't feel tired. Um, he latched on to the breast 00:54:49.500 --> 00:54:53.046 immediately after he was born and just kind of camped out there for a 00:54:53.079 --> 00:54:57.356 couple of days. I never had issues with breastfeeding in the sense that 00:54:57.389 --> 00:55:01.175 they didn't latch or I didn't wanna breastfeed. Like to me, breastfeeding 00:55:01.208 --> 00:55:04.686 was always normal because my mom breastfed my brother and sister and you 00:55:04.719 --> 00:55:07.557 know, she just lift up her shirt and put him on the boob and that was 00:55:07.590 --> 00:55:14.586 normal to me. And so as my kids, I breastfed all of them, I always, I 00:55:14.619 --> 00:55:17.796 didn't have enough milk for them. I don't know if it's because they were 00:55:17.829 --> 00:55:23.385 really big babies or because I was always busy working. But I just, you 00:55:23.418 --> 00:55:27.885 know, I always had to supplement with formula. But yeah, I felt great 00:55:27.918 --> 00:55:35.276 after I had him. So it was a really different experience from my first. 00:55:35.309 --> 00:55:39.796 Well, that's so nice that you had that follow up experience. That was, you 00:55:39.829 --> 00:55:44.086 know, a healthier one for you and that, you know, it was more of what you 00:55:44.119 --> 00:55:46.967 , what you intended. 00:55:47.000 --> 00:55:52.095 Um So in your position as a midwife, what role do you see that you're 00:55:52.128 --> 00:55:56.477 playing in the, the birth experience? You know, um obviously you're 00:55:56.510 --> 00:56:00.095 keeping the women healthy, you're monitoring things. Can you elaborate a 00:56:00.128 --> 00:56:05.876 little bit on that process? I would say as a midwife with working, how I 00:56:05.909 --> 00:56:09.967 work with women during their pregnancies is really just being really 00:56:10.000 --> 00:56:14.497 supportive. Like, like you said, like, like I've talked to other women 00:56:14.530 --> 00:56:22.530 about, there's so many negative, um, how do I say people watching you as 00:56:23.228 --> 00:56:27.086 you become a mother and it's not always positive you gain too much weight 00:56:27.119 --> 00:56:31.595 , you're eating the wrong foods, but women already know what they need to 00:56:31.628 --> 00:56:36.467 do to be healthy. Um, it's just a matter of them making that decision for 00:56:36.500 --> 00:56:41.756 themselves. So I try and be more positive, you know, I have a lot of women 00:56:41.789 --> 00:56:45.767 who worry about how much weight they're gaining with their pregnancy or, 00:56:45.800 --> 00:56:48.666 oh, my gosh, I didn't take my prenatal vitamin yesterday because I felt 00:56:48.699 --> 00:56:54.856 bad. Um, like they're really afraid. Um, and it's really difficult to 00:56:54.889 --> 00:56:59.666 navigate today as a new mom because there's so much information out there. 00:56:59.699 --> 00:57:02.967 Like if you were to Google something, everyone's got cancer and everybody 00:57:03.000 --> 00:57:07.925 is dying or, oh my gosh, this is the C section situation. Like they're 00:57:07.958 --> 00:57:12.327 just really not fed good information sometimes. And so part of my work 00:57:12.360 --> 00:57:16.106 with them is to navigate that with them. Like, well, this is a reliable 00:57:16.139 --> 00:57:21.876 source. This is not a reliable source. Um, I also remember how traumatic 00:57:21.909 --> 00:57:25.695 my first birth was and I don't ever want anyone to come away from working 00:57:25.728 --> 00:57:31.526 with me feeling like their birth was a traumatic. Um, I know that has a 00:57:31.559 --> 00:57:37.287 long term effect on them. And so we do a lot of work at the very end 00:57:37.320 --> 00:57:41.807 talking about their birth. Who is there? What does it look like? What does 00:57:41.840 --> 00:57:46.135 it smell like? What's the worst case scenario? Um, and just really 00:57:46.168 --> 00:57:50.256 reassuring that that's their space. They have control. If they don't want 00:57:50.289 --> 00:57:55.017 an IV, they can say no, like they have the power to do these things. I 00:57:55.050 --> 00:57:59.106 don't think a lot of women know that they have that power when they go to 00:57:59.139 --> 00:58:03.146 the hospital because it's just assumed that these are the policies, this 00:58:03.179 --> 00:58:06.756 is what we do. This is how we do every time and I tell them, well, you 00:58:06.789 --> 00:58:10.816 know, it's not really a policy. Um, the nurses are used to doing it one 00:58:10.849 --> 00:58:14.517 way, but it doesn't mean you can't do it another way. And really if we 00:58:14.550 --> 00:58:17.827 choose to deviate from what they're used to, you're actually teaching them 00:58:17.860 --> 00:58:21.385 another way and they're gonna get really comfortable with normal natural 00:58:21.418 --> 00:58:26.175 birth because they don't see that very often and they're like, oh, ok. Um 00:58:26.208 --> 00:58:30.787 , but I also know women go into pregnancy and birth, well, specifically 00:58:30.820 --> 00:58:36.276 birth with some assumptions that either I'm gonna be there the whole time 00:58:36.309 --> 00:58:42.287 or it's gonna be fast like on TV. Um, so I try my best to talk through 00:58:42.320 --> 00:58:45.767 those things so that they don't have those assumptions and they're more 00:58:45.800 --> 00:58:51.566 prepared for what it could be like or what it is like. Um, because I'm 00:58:51.599 --> 00:58:57.836 also a sexual abuse. Uh Survivor, I know those feelings of being not in 00:58:57.869 --> 00:59:02.997 control of my body when those things happen to me as a child, like those 00:59:03.030 --> 00:59:07.155 things can also contribute to women's experience when they're pregnant. Um 00:59:07.188 --> 00:59:12.077 , and so I'm really thoughtful about working with those women who had been 00:59:12.110 --> 00:59:16.537 sexually abused or raped at some point because those feelings of being not 00:59:16.570 --> 00:59:22.376 in control come back when you're pregnant. And so, um, 00:59:22.409 --> 00:59:25.336 you know, again, we talk through what's the worst case scenario that could 00:59:25.369 --> 00:59:30.706 happen and navigating all of the tests and the ultrasounds and the 00:59:30.739 --> 00:59:37.066 necessity for all of it or not. Um So it's, you know, it's really just, I 00:59:37.099 --> 00:59:42.017 feel like a guide and then just someone who helps them feel good about 00:59:42.050 --> 00:59:48.256 themselves. Um I definitely feel it's challenging for me because of the, 00:59:48.289 --> 00:59:56.289 the word midwife has a lot of things attached to it depending on who is 00:59:57.349 --> 01:00:02.186 pushing the midwifery movement forward. So, even though historically, 01:00:02.219 --> 01:00:07.497 midwifery has always been our native on our native American communities, 01:00:07.530 --> 01:00:12.666 some of the understanding about that person and their role in our native 01:00:12.699 --> 01:00:19.287 communities has kind of not been talked about like it used to be. Um And 01:00:19.320 --> 01:00:22.956 then you have this very western influence of midwifery, which is the aye 01:00:22.989 --> 01:00:28.106 gaskin. You know, a lot of women talk to me about spiritual midwifery that 01:00:28.139 --> 01:00:31.876 she wrote. And I'm like, I've never read her stuff. I didn't even know who 01:00:31.909 --> 01:00:37.936 she was when I became a midwife. Um And so there's assumption that because 01:00:37.969 --> 01:00:42.856 I'm a midwife and I'm working with women in the hospital that I'm very 01:00:42.889 --> 01:00:47.077 like, natural, like I have this natural knowledge of herbs and that, you 01:00:47.110 --> 01:00:53.336 know, I'm really against epidurals or I'm against fetal testing or 01:00:53.369 --> 01:00:59.186 ultrasounds blood test, which is not true. Um, and then you have this 01:00:59.219 --> 01:01:05.227 other part of midwifery where it's very professional and licensed polished. 01:01:05.260 --> 01:01:11.026 We are, we are a profession of polished educated women who work with 01:01:11.059 --> 01:01:15.557 women during not just their pregnancy but through the many changes in 01:01:15.590 --> 01:01:20.066 their lifespan and that we are skilled and educated to take care of these 01:01:20.099 --> 01:01:24.896 issues as they come up. So there's that part of it too. Um, so it's really 01:01:24.929 --> 01:01:28.537 hard sometimes when I have a woman who wants this very natural number 01:01:28.570 --> 01:01:32.615 birth and maybe she has some medical issues that wouldn't allow certain 01:01:32.648 --> 01:01:36.885 things. And I have to tell her, you know, because of this, you, you 01:01:36.918 --> 01:01:39.876 probably should get extra testing or you probably should get genetic 01:01:39.909 --> 01:01:43.956 testing done because you are at risk because of these things and some 01:01:43.989 --> 01:01:47.247 women get mad. They're like, you know, well, I think, you know, they 01:01:47.280 --> 01:01:51.336 assumed I was a midwife and I was gonna agree with them. But, you know, 01:01:51.369 --> 01:01:55.796 it's a, it's a fine balance. I can't, you don't come to me because I agree 01:01:55.829 --> 01:01:59.336 with you. You come to me because I'm knowledgeable on these things. And 01:01:59.369 --> 01:02:04.727 I'm, it's my, it's my job to be truthful with you and give unbiased 01:02:04.760 --> 01:02:11.017 information and sometimes they wanna hear it and sometimes they don't, do 01:02:11.050 --> 01:02:15.896 you think the um practice of having a midwife involved in the birth 01:02:15.929 --> 01:02:21.865 process is um becoming more common or is it still uh uh like a very small 01:02:21.898 --> 01:02:27.727 percentage of women that, are you thinking uh like in your ar like in the 01:02:27.760 --> 01:02:31.807 hospital that you work in the area that you're in? So the, the hospital I 01:02:31.840 --> 01:02:35.365 work, there's always been midwives, always, when I worked as a nurse, 01:02:35.398 --> 01:02:38.506 there was a midwife there before I was a nurse, there was a group of 01:02:38.539 --> 01:02:43.126 midwives. So there's just been a, a flux of midwives for a short time 01:02:43.159 --> 01:02:49.827 while I was finishing school. I, there was not a midwife there. Um And so 01:02:49.860 --> 01:02:55.095 when I went back to work in Los Alamos, there was a history of midwifery 01:02:55.128 --> 01:02:59.267 in the community. There's also a lot of women who birth at home with um 01:02:59.300 --> 01:03:04.836 homebirth midwives. And so I really support homebirth. So it was really 01:03:04.869 --> 01:03:09.787 nice to have this kind of community of women already who support midwifery. 01:03:09.820 --> 01:03:15.456 Um or they've been someplace where they've gotten care by a midwife like 01:03:15.489 --> 01:03:19.695 the um in another state or whatever. But New Mexico in general is a very 01:03:19.728 --> 01:03:24.717 midwifery, friend, friendly state. Um There's not as many midwives out of 01:03:24.750 --> 01:03:28.436 Albuquerque 01:03:28.469 --> 01:03:36.227 as um in some places. So like I'm the only nurse midwife in Los Alamos and 01:03:36.260 --> 01:03:41.095 Presbyterian in La Espanola or Espanola Hospital. There's no, there's no 01:03:41.128 --> 01:03:45.146 midwives there. Um In Taos, there's some midwives who birth in the 01:03:45.179 --> 01:03:52.135 hospital and I believe birth with women in a birth center. Um Las Vegas, 01:03:52.168 --> 01:03:56.186 there are a group of midwives but the hospital closed, I mean, their labor 01:03:56.219 --> 01:03:59.396 and delivery closed. And so those women have to go to Santa Fe to have 01:03:59.429 --> 01:04:04.376 their baby. Um Santa Fe has quite a few midwives who are homebirth in 01:04:04.409 --> 01:04:09.546 hospital certified nurse midwives. But I, I feel like I do work in 01:04:09.579 --> 01:04:13.706 somewhat of a provider shortage area for women because I get women from 01:04:13.739 --> 01:04:18.635 Cuba and from, you know, always sometimes up to, to the Colorado border to 01:04:18.668 --> 01:04:22.425 come see me for care because there's no midwife that up that way or even a 01:04:22.458 --> 01:04:28.526 hospital close enough to get to. 01:04:28.559 --> 01:04:32.086 So you have three Children. So do you want to talk about the third birth? 01:04:32.119 --> 01:04:37.856 My third pregnancy, this is the one I was working as a nurse. Um He was 01:04:37.889 --> 01:04:42.135 really a surprise. I didn't think we had just moved into our house in San 01:04:42.168 --> 01:04:48.405 Alonso Pueblo. And I, I have to honestly say that moment I was pregnant 01:04:48.438 --> 01:04:52.606 with each of them. I knew it like my body temperature went up. I felt like 01:04:52.639 --> 01:04:55.736 I had the flu like it just didn't feel good. And I was just thinking, I 01:04:55.769 --> 01:05:01.046 bet you I'm pregnant. Um and I took the pregnancy test and it was positive 01:05:01.079 --> 01:05:05.057 but it was really early. Um And so I didn't really want to be excited 01:05:05.090 --> 01:05:09.307 about it because I'd had three miscarriages already and I wasn't ready to 01:05:09.340 --> 01:05:14.256 tell anybody. And I think this is a normal thing that women do when you 01:05:14.289 --> 01:05:18.345 had so many miscarriages. You're cautious, you're excited, you're somewhat 01:05:18.378 --> 01:05:21.376 optimistic, but you're like, well, I'm not gonna get attached until it's 01:05:21.409 --> 01:05:25.416 past a certain point and I know this is really gonna stay. And so I was 01:05:25.449 --> 01:05:31.626 like that with him and, you know, I was nauseous with him and exhausted 01:05:31.659 --> 01:05:37.057 and working as a nurse. But I didn't, it wasn't like bedridden sick type 01:05:37.090 --> 01:05:41.727 thing. Um, and I remember telling my husband, you know, we're pregnant and 01:05:41.760 --> 01:05:45.296 he's like, great. And I said, well, let's see what happens. You know, I've 01:05:45.329 --> 01:05:48.057 had three miscarriages. I don't know what this one's going to be like. So 01:05:48.090 --> 01:05:53.256 we'll just, we'll just see what happens. And I got past the 12 weeks and 01:05:53.289 --> 01:05:58.356 the 13 weeks and the 14 weeks and I was like, ok, he's going to stay, but 01:05:58.389 --> 01:06:02.026 it was definitely a lot sooner than I would have liked because my son 01:06:02.059 --> 01:06:08.247 Daniel had just been born, um, like a year before or almost a year before. 01:06:08.280 --> 01:06:15.856 So it was really closely spaced pregnancies. Um, and I went through a 01:06:15.889 --> 01:06:19.376 pregnancy healthy, didn't have a lot of weight gain, but I also worked a 01:06:19.409 --> 01:06:24.845 lot in Los Alamos as a labor and delivery nurse. And I hardly ate and I, I 01:06:24.878 --> 01:06:30.327 just was just really busy and before I moved here I had already connected 01:06:30.360 --> 01:06:35.566 with a doctor in Santa Fe and had planned to have my baby in Santa Fe. But 01:06:35.599 --> 01:06:43.497 he kept like having this false labor pattern at the very end. And he, I 01:06:43.530 --> 01:06:48.206 would be because we would go walking in the pueblo. Um All of us would go 01:06:48.239 --> 01:06:52.017 out with our strollers and we'd walk my husband and I, but he would do 01:06:52.050 --> 01:06:56.206 this like I'd have this contractions and I'm like, ok, it's time with my 01:06:56.239 --> 01:06:59.595 other two pregnancies. I never had this false labor. Like once labor 01:06:59.628 --> 01:07:04.537 started, I, I had a baby but not for David, like it was a day of 01:07:04.570 --> 01:07:07.537 contractions and then they would stop and a day of contractions and they 01:07:07.570 --> 01:07:11.675 would stop. And it's like all these false alarms because we had to figure 01:07:11.708 --> 01:07:15.135 out who was going to watch our other two if we went to the hospital and my 01:07:15.168 --> 01:07:21.456 mother-in-law wanted to be there. Um And so we had to always like, put the 01:07:21.489 --> 01:07:26.477 people on red alert that maybe it's today and ended up not happening until 01:07:26.510 --> 01:07:30.186 finally, you know, at the, in the middle of the night, probably around 01:07:30.219 --> 01:07:33.506 three in the morning, I was sleeping and I could feel these contractions 01:07:33.539 --> 01:07:37.767 starting to get strong. And I was like, oh, maybe it's now. And I remember 01:07:37.800 --> 01:07:41.376 walking into our living room and just kind of walking to see how these 01:07:41.409 --> 01:07:44.537 contractions, if they were real, if they were getting stronger and they 01:07:44.570 --> 01:07:48.345 were getting pretty strong. Like I had to kind of lean over something and 01:07:48.378 --> 01:07:53.046 breathe through it before it ended. And that's when I finally was telling 01:07:53.079 --> 01:07:56.206 I went to get my husband. I was like, ok, it's time these contractions are 01:07:56.239 --> 01:08:00.486 getting pretty strong between contractions. I was fine. I was talking 01:08:00.519 --> 01:08:06.706 smiling but with a contraction, oh, I was not happy. So, um, a neighbor 01:08:06.739 --> 01:08:10.986 actually came and got our kids and my husband and I went to the hospital 01:08:11.019 --> 01:08:16.305 and, and it was funny because they have a triage and um, they took me up 01:08:16.338 --> 01:08:21.724 from the emergency room in a chair and, you know, I was talking, smiling 01:08:21.757 --> 01:08:25.505 and then I get a contraction and then I wouldn't talk. And then I got to 01:08:25.538 --> 01:08:27.974 triage and she's looking at me and I already know what she's thinking. 01:08:28.007 --> 01:08:30.514 She's like, oh, she's not in labor because that's what I would say. As a 01:08:30.547 --> 01:08:34.856 labor and delivery nurse, you're too happy. You're smiling. This isn't 01:08:34.889 --> 01:08:39.646 quite labor yet. And I was like, no, this is labor like this is the real 01:08:39.679 --> 01:08:44.205 thing. So she was kind of being lax aas with me. She put me in a triage 01:08:44.238 --> 01:08:47.397 room was kind of taking her time and then she checked to me and she looks 01:08:47.430 --> 01:08:52.656 at me, she says you're 6.5 centimeters and I was like, I knew it. So they 01:08:52.689 --> 01:09:00.356 , they put me back in a room right away and they put an IVN. Um, and the 01:09:00.389 --> 01:09:06.155 doctor from the night shift was there and I hadn't quite made a plan. I 01:09:06.188 --> 01:09:10.795 wasn't as well thought out as my second. I just wanted to have a baby and 01:09:10.828 --> 01:09:15.165 she was, she came in with the nurses and was like, ok, we're going to 01:09:15.198 --> 01:09:20.317 break her bag of water and I'm like, why she's, she's, and I said, I don't 01:09:20.350 --> 01:09:23.555 want my bag of water broken because I knew it would make my contraction 01:09:23.588 --> 01:09:27.474 stronger. But she was like, what do you mean? You don't want your bag of 01:09:27.507 --> 01:09:32.566 water broken? I'm like, I don't want anything done. I just want to labor. 01:09:32.599 --> 01:09:35.844 So she was kind of talking to her nurse looking at them like is this woman 01:09:35.877 --> 01:09:40.006 crazy? She doesn't want her bag of water broken like she doesn't, she 01:09:40.039 --> 01:09:45.425 really wasn't gonna ask me. She was just gonna do it. 01:09:45.458 --> 01:09:49.897 We, we can pause. Ok. Yeah, absolutely. They're already off. But, but so 01:09:49.930 --> 01:09:54.385 she, so she was kind of really surprised that I was declining her Amnio I 01:09:54.418 --> 01:09:59.196 mean her Amnio toy to, to not let me her break my bag of water. But I felt 01:09:59.229 --> 01:10:02.666 good to say no, I was like, oh she can't come just break my bag of water 01:10:02.699 --> 01:10:08.095 because she feels like it. Um was trying to speed it up. I think, I think 01:10:08.128 --> 01:10:11.616 this doctor was trying to speed it up but I didn't know that it just, I 01:10:11.649 --> 01:10:13.876 just don't understand why she just came in and assumed she was going to 01:10:13.909 --> 01:10:20.206 break my bag of water. Um, but after she left, um, I labored some more and 01:10:20.239 --> 01:10:24.956 it was probably, maybe seven or eight and they were getting pretty intense 01:10:24.989 --> 01:10:28.805 and then I just was like, you know what? I don't want to feel this. I just 01:10:28.838 --> 01:10:32.567 want to have a baby. I want my epidural. So I asked for epidural. My 01:10:32.600 --> 01:10:36.006 husband's like, are you sure? I think you can do this. And I'm like, no, I 01:10:36.039 --> 01:10:39.906 just, I just wanna have my baby. I don't, it doesn't really matter to me. 01:10:39.939 --> 01:10:44.527 So the anesthesiologist came and he put an IV in my, my hand and it didn't 01:10:44.560 --> 01:10:48.696 work. So they put another one in and I remember them like feeling pressure 01:10:48.729 --> 01:10:53.726 on my back as they put the needle in and I got somewhat comfortable, but 01:10:53.759 --> 01:10:57.376 the epidural wasn't that it didn't work that well. I could still feel lots 01:10:57.409 --> 01:11:03.286 of cramping down low. And then, um, and then my mother in law finally came 01:11:03.319 --> 01:11:06.987 because she wanted to be there at the birth. It was probably, probably 01:11:07.020 --> 01:11:12.796 around maybe 10 o'clock. And finally I was, I felt this really bad 01:11:12.829 --> 01:11:15.967 contraction again and my husband's on one, on my right side and my mother 01:11:16.000 --> 01:11:19.116 in law is on my left side and they're holding my hand and like, I got 01:11:19.149 --> 01:11:22.687 tears in my eyes because it was so painful. And then I was like, I gotta 01:11:22.720 --> 01:11:28.496 push now and, and so they call the nurse in and I'm pushing without them 01:11:28.529 --> 01:11:33.897 asking me to push and I push and the nurse was like, ok, stop pushing 01:11:33.930 --> 01:11:37.546 because the head was just coming. So the doctor came in really quick and 01:11:37.579 --> 01:11:40.956 it was a different doctor and she put her gloves on and I probably two 01:11:40.989 --> 01:11:44.996 pushes. My son was out and he was, yeah, he was small. He was like a seven 01:11:45.029 --> 01:11:48.616 pounder just, it's like I could have sneezed and he would have came out 01:11:48.649 --> 01:11:53.385 because he was a lot smaller than my other two. But it was really easy. Um 01:11:53.418 --> 01:11:57.586 He got on the breast and you know, it was just a really quick and easy 01:11:57.619 --> 01:12:02.956 delivery. It was not like at all like my other two. Um I think back and 01:12:02.989 --> 01:12:05.326 I'm like, man, I could have probably done it without an epidural. It 01:12:05.359 --> 01:12:07.576 probably would have been faster because it probably stopped my 01:12:07.609 --> 01:12:14.217 contractions or kept them, made them slower. Um So it was, it was a really 01:12:14.250 --> 01:12:19.635 nice delivery though. It was fast and within two days we went home and my 01:12:19.668 --> 01:12:24.456 kids, my boys are like 16 months apart and it was like having twins. So 01:12:24.489 --> 01:12:28.826 everywhere I went is like somebody's, you know, strapped into the car seat 01:12:28.859 --> 01:12:34.135 , one wants to run away like that for me was like, ok, I'm done having 01:12:34.168 --> 01:12:39.055 kids, but I also want really was interested in becoming a midwife at that 01:12:39.088 --> 01:12:43.885 point and I knew if I had more kids, I wouldn't be able to do that. So I, 01:12:43.918 --> 01:12:50.916 I chose to have my A TB. Um, and I, I didn't quite consult my husband. I 01:12:50.949 --> 01:12:54.607 just said this is what I want to do and he's like, are you sure? Isn't 01:12:54.640 --> 01:12:58.006 there something else? I'm like, nope, I don't want to have any more kids 01:12:58.039 --> 01:13:01.546 and he was kind of bothered that I didn't make him part of the decision, 01:13:01.579 --> 01:13:07.135 but I was like, it's my body. I get to make that decision. But we, you 01:13:07.168 --> 01:13:12.456 know, my kids have, I, I was that mom for many years going to the grocery 01:13:12.489 --> 01:13:16.866 store where I had like a car seat and two toddlers in the, in the stroller 01:13:16.899 --> 01:13:20.737 trying to, I mean, in the car in the shopping cart trying to go grocery 01:13:20.770 --> 01:13:24.726 shopping like that was, that was me. I mean, I would take them places to 01:13:24.759 --> 01:13:30.036 eat or by myself. And it was tough 01:13:30.069 --> 01:13:34.746 is when you reflect back on those 33 birth and your experience birthing, 01:13:34.779 --> 01:13:41.265 um Do you have any word or phrasing of words that kind of um reflects that 01:13:41.298 --> 01:13:44.967 experience to you. I know they were very nuanced and different experiences. 01:13:45.000 --> 01:13:48.976 But um you know, there's obviously things that are similar to giving 01:13:49.009 --> 01:13:53.527 birth but um is there anything that, like I said a word or a phrasing of 01:13:53.560 --> 01:13:58.116 words that, you know, kind of summarizes that for you, summarizes the 01:13:58.149 --> 01:14:03.265 experience of, of giving birth to your Children. It's a hard question, but 01:14:03.298 --> 01:14:08.817 we're, we um organized the stories and themes. And so it's a way of kind 01:14:08.850 --> 01:14:15.857 of like seeing if you already kind of have a theme in mind, you know, 01:14:15.890 --> 01:14:19.805 I don't know. I think I would say transformation 01:14:19.838 --> 01:14:25.976 for all of my kids. I definitely 01:14:26.009 --> 01:14:30.467 hold on. Hey, Kansas, we're, we're recording so any little noise in the 01:14:30.500 --> 01:14:34.317 background, they're going to hear it. Yeah. Can you? We're almost done now 01:14:34.350 --> 01:14:41.956 and then, and then you can come back in. 01:14:41.989 --> 01:14:46.937 I think she's gonna close the door. 01:14:46.970 --> 01:14:50.467 Maybe not. Um 01:14:50.500 --> 01:14:55.317 There he is. I, yeah, I would say transformation would be a big theme for 01:14:55.350 --> 01:15:00.366 my kids. Like I said, I came into motherhood, not first, not wanting to 01:15:00.399 --> 01:15:05.817 get married, right. I was going to be this career woman and I'm married 01:15:05.850 --> 01:15:11.095 and something I'm having kids unplanned but happy about it and really 01:15:11.128 --> 01:15:16.416 coming into myself as a woman, as a mom with my, with becoming a mom with 01:15:16.449 --> 01:15:21.635 each of their pregnancies, definitely being really challenged by family 01:15:21.668 --> 01:15:28.126 and perceptions about my role of being a woman and a mom um and challenged 01:15:28.159 --> 01:15:31.836 in a, in a, in a way that, 01:15:31.869 --> 01:15:36.666 that I've, I was, I've been forced to kind of hold my ground, you know, 01:15:36.699 --> 01:15:43.555 who am I? What am I about? Um And being ok with being myself if even if 01:15:43.588 --> 01:15:49.246 nobody agrees with me, um I feel like the kids have really brought out 01:15:49.279 --> 01:15:55.656 that mama bear in me, you know, like I'm very protective of them. Um but 01:15:55.689 --> 01:15:59.256 over the years, like I've just, there've been little things that they've 01:15:59.289 --> 01:16:07.289 done that have just been sorry. 01:16:13.489 --> 01:16:18.946 I guess the word is a blessing. 01:16:18.979 --> 01:16:23.746 I mean, it's really easy to get caught up when they're babies and feel 01:16:23.779 --> 01:16:28.397 some resentment that you're tired and you can't take a shower or you're 01:16:28.430 --> 01:16:31.237 always responsible for them or you can't go to the restaurant because 01:16:31.270 --> 01:16:34.857 they're, they're crying or making too much noise or they wanna get down 01:16:34.890 --> 01:16:40.206 and play with stuff. But it's interesting as they get older, like, you 01:16:40.239 --> 01:16:45.076 really get a sense of who they are and they really enjoy spending time 01:16:45.109 --> 01:16:49.777 with you and wanna do things together. It's such a, it's almost like a 01:16:49.810 --> 01:16:57.810 role, a role reversal. Um, and they definitely keep me young, like they 01:16:57.930 --> 01:17:02.126 all have their own little personality and pull me into things that maybe 01:17:02.159 --> 01:17:09.925 wouldn't do. Um, but more or less make me more relaxed and don't, not to 01:17:09.958 --> 01:17:15.937 take life so serious. Like my son will say, let's watch this show together 01:17:15.970 --> 01:17:20.296 and he likes to really cuddle with me and my other one. You know, he's 01:17:20.329 --> 01:17:24.576 still very daniel, still very childlike and likes to go watch, you know, 01:17:24.609 --> 01:17:29.476 he's 12 so he'll go watch like kids cartoons still and he's still into 01:17:29.509 --> 01:17:35.656 that. And my daughter, you know, she's 15, she likes to go to the spa and 01:17:35.689 --> 01:17:40.515 we listen to the same music and we share clothes and I don't think anybody 01:17:40.548 --> 01:17:46.006 ever tells you that, that could be the future when you have these kids and 01:17:46.039 --> 01:17:51.826 you're giving up so much of yourself in the beginning. Like, it just, I 01:17:51.859 --> 01:17:55.147 think that's really unexpected. 01:17:55.180 --> 01:17:58.916 And, you know, in my twenties I probably wouldn't be baking bread and 01:17:58.949 --> 01:18:03.456 making jam. And maybe I resented that because that was a female role I 01:18:03.489 --> 01:18:07.836 didn't quite identify with. And I don't know. Now I really enjoy it and it 01:18:07.869 --> 01:18:13.987 feels good to be home. And, you know, there's so many more awful and 01:18:14.020 --> 01:18:19.706 challenging things in this world that to build this little cocoon of like 01:18:19.739 --> 01:18:25.317 home. Like that's something that I'm responsible for. And some of the 01:18:25.350 --> 01:18:31.265 things same things my mom did for me growing up like ceding off my kids 01:18:31.298 --> 01:18:36.515 with our feather and our her sage to bless her home and to bless them. 01:18:36.548 --> 01:18:39.817 Like those are the things I do with them now. So they're gonna associate 01:18:39.850 --> 01:18:44.067 those smells and acts with their childhood and hopefully carry it on with 01:18:44.100 --> 01:18:50.147 their kids. And so even though their childhood is going to be different 01:18:50.180 --> 01:18:54.055 and not playing in the river and doing all the things that I did, like, 01:18:54.088 --> 01:18:59.336 you know, I have the responsibility to show them things and experience 01:18:59.369 --> 01:19:07.107 things that I didn't, which is really nice. And, you know, I uh my big 01:19:07.140 --> 01:19:11.527 goal with them is just to be loving caring Children and be respectful of 01:19:11.560 --> 01:19:13.546 people. 01:19:13.579 --> 01:19:19.067 Um My only hope is that they find a career or something that really 01:19:19.100 --> 01:19:24.687 inspires them and their passion. It didn't matter what it is. So, it feels 01:19:24.720 --> 01:19:28.156 good to me whenever I go visit with their teachers. That that's the, you 01:19:28.189 --> 01:19:30.626 know what they say about my kids is they're really well behaved and 01:19:30.659 --> 01:19:35.116 they're kind and they're helpful and that's the best I could ask. It's not 01:19:35.149 --> 01:19:39.385 so much about the grades or, you know, that sort of thing. It's like, what 01:19:39.418 --> 01:19:44.006 kind of people are they gonna be? 01:19:44.039 --> 01:19:48.706 Perfect line. Perfect ending line, don't you think? Yeah. Do you have any 01:19:48.739 --> 01:19:56.739 questions? Cover the light ground? Yes. Um So good. First of all, I think 01:19:57.609 --> 01:20:01.696 you're such a good, there's so many interesting facet facets of your story 01:20:01.729 --> 01:20:06.286 that I think it's gonna make it slightly challenging. But I'm so this 01:20:06.319 --> 01:20:08.976 might be kind of delicate and it's ok if you don't want to talk about it. 01:20:09.009 --> 01:20:11.496 But one thing that you're talking about that I think is really 01:20:11.529 --> 01:20:14.397 fascinating, could be really helpful for other people. And something that 01:20:14.430 --> 01:20:20.286 we haven't heard at all is, um, this idea that you've been a victim of 01:20:20.319 --> 01:20:24.647 sexual assault and how that kind of trauma was revisited. Um, with 01:20:24.680 --> 01:20:27.737 pregnancy. I don't know if that's something that you're willing to talk 01:20:27.770 --> 01:20:32.357 about. Your own experience having to revisit that just last night. 01:20:32.390 --> 01:20:37.425 Actually one of our speakers, um she, she works with women of sexual 01:20:37.458 --> 01:20:43.357 assault and trafficking and everything. She works as a counselor. Yeah, we 01:20:43.390 --> 01:20:48.897 actually need to connect you too about you. You definitely want to do for 01:20:48.930 --> 01:20:54.746 sure. Yeah, you could definitely connect us, um, you know, working through 01:20:54.779 --> 01:20:59.626 my sexual abuse and, and I want to be clear, it's not just, I think sexual 01:20:59.659 --> 01:21:04.135 abuse is a very nice term. I mean, it was rape. I was raped as a five year 01:21:04.168 --> 01:21:09.326 old as a, as a teenager, I mean, early teen and then as a teenager at a 01:21:09.359 --> 01:21:16.126 party. Um, and definitely that has impacted me as a woman in my life, not 01:21:16.159 --> 01:21:23.656 just as a mother, but just my own self worth. And, uh definitely between 01:21:23.689 --> 01:21:29.015 the age of 2030 as I was becoming a new mom, I was very much working 01:21:29.048 --> 01:21:36.175 through those issues of anger, frustration with my family and with myself 01:21:36.208 --> 01:21:42.135 and with my husband's family, um, and feeling worthy to be married to this 01:21:42.168 --> 01:21:48.656 wonderful man who, you know, really has stayed by my side through my, my 01:21:48.689 --> 01:21:55.765 own journey of finding who I am. Um I have to say I haven't always been so 01:21:55.798 --> 01:22:00.647 kind to him because I've had my own issues that I've had to deal with. Um 01:22:00.680 --> 01:22:02.737 , 01:22:02.770 --> 01:22:08.196 and even as my role is of being a mother, like I, I have to say, I really 01:22:08.229 --> 01:22:10.546 , 01:22:10.579 --> 01:22:15.086 I really resented it in the beginning. I, I feel like I was meant to do 01:22:15.119 --> 01:22:21.836 something else. You know, I'm a mom. Um There's also some cultural 01:22:21.869 --> 01:22:25.786 connotations to being a mother 01:22:25.819 --> 01:22:31.456 when I was growing up with my brother and sister. Um, people thought they 01:22:31.489 --> 01:22:38.156 were my Children and because I grew up in a border town people, we're like 01:22:38.189 --> 01:22:43.166 , oh, she's a teen, she's native American. Poor thing. She's having babies. 01:22:43.199 --> 01:22:46.696 She's not ever going to do anything with her life. So that was kind of, 01:22:46.729 --> 01:22:52.595 that kind of pride that I was falling into this role of being your typical 01:22:52.628 --> 01:22:55.967 d A woman who's not gonna do anything and is gonna have babies after 01:22:56.000 --> 01:23:01.385 babies after babies. And I definitely feel like women who didn't know me, 01:23:01.418 --> 01:23:05.746 saw me with my kids and assumed either I wasn't married or my kids are not 01:23:05.779 --> 01:23:11.147 well behaved. Um But there's this per perceptions about who they are and 01:23:11.180 --> 01:23:18.656 who I was. Um And so part of going through that motherhood being, knowing 01:23:18.689 --> 01:23:24.976 my history was um kind of grieving that, that childhood that I didn't have. 01:23:25.009 --> 01:23:30.946 And then I had to grow up really fast. You know, I didn't have a 21 party. 01:23:30.979 --> 01:23:34.876 I was, had just had my baby, had gotten married, didn't have a 01:23:34.909 --> 01:23:37.937 bachelorette party when I got married. Like there, there's some milestones 01:23:37.970 --> 01:23:44.256 that I missed out on because I had kids early and I resented that um there 01:23:44.289 --> 01:23:50.496 is also some family um disputes happening between myself and my husband's 01:23:50.529 --> 01:23:56.845 sister that was really not positive for me. I was around a woman who was 01:23:56.878 --> 01:24:01.586 very negative and unkind to me and feeling like I had to deal with that by 01:24:01.619 --> 01:24:07.135 myself. Well, everyone kind of allowed it kind of fit into this whole like 01:24:07.168 --> 01:24:11.675 I'm not worthy to be married to this really nice man. And that because I'm 01:24:11.708 --> 01:24:16.967 a mom, I'm supposed to not want things anymore. And that the career that I 01:24:17.000 --> 01:24:21.446 maybe had thought I was gonna move forward with is not attainable anymore 01:24:21.479 --> 01:24:24.647 because now I'm a mom like this is all I should care about. This is all 01:24:24.680 --> 01:24:28.876 I'm ever gonna be. And to me that was really disappointing. Like for me, I 01:24:28.909 --> 01:24:33.595 felt disappointed in myself. Um 01:24:33.628 --> 01:24:39.656 There's still pictures I look at um from when my kids were babies that I 01:24:39.689 --> 01:24:43.067 look really checked out like I'm not really focused and I'm not really 01:24:43.100 --> 01:24:48.616 talking and I remember those times where I feel almost out of body like, 01:24:48.649 --> 01:24:52.076 oh I'm supposed to smile. So I'm gonna smile now or oh I'm supposed to 01:24:52.109 --> 01:24:54.937 really enjoy this with my kids. So I'm gonna act like I'm having a good 01:24:54.970 --> 01:24:58.916 time where my husband could see that's what was happening and he would be 01:24:58.949 --> 01:25:03.765 like, you know, why are you not enjoying this? And I felt resentful just 01:25:03.798 --> 01:25:07.845 like, why am I supposed, am I supposed to enjoy this? This is work, this 01:25:07.878 --> 01:25:11.506 is really hard, you know, why am I supposed to smile through? This feels 01:25:11.539 --> 01:25:19.539 like work. Um And so my kids really helped me want better for myself and 01:25:22.430 --> 01:25:28.717 to really fight for who I am and what I am and to fight for what I want. 01:25:28.750 --> 01:25:30.916 Um 01:25:30.949 --> 01:25:35.006 And midwifery school for me was part of that transformation because I had 01:25:35.039 --> 01:25:41.586 to fight for it. And once I saw the many options, women had 01:25:41.619 --> 01:25:46.656 it kind of made me reflect on what I had with my kids and what had 01:25:46.689 --> 01:25:54.326 happened to me. And so it was like I was able to feel like I had an 01:25:54.359 --> 01:25:59.946 identity outside of being a mom or this poor woman who had kids too early 01:25:59.979 --> 01:26:06.836 , right? So I don't know if that makes sense in regards to the to the 01:26:06.869 --> 01:26:13.416 abuse I experienced. Um It's interesting that I chose this hypno birthing 01:26:13.449 --> 01:26:17.786 as one of my child preparation options because I've heard midwives say 01:26:17.819 --> 01:26:23.546 this all the time, like, well, the hypnobirthing allows moms to check out 01:26:23.579 --> 01:26:29.107 during their birth during their labor. And I'm like, well, did it allow me 01:26:29.140 --> 01:26:33.826 to check out which you do when you've been raped? You check out, you go to 01:26:33.859 --> 01:26:37.576 another place while somebody's doing something awful to your body. Like 01:26:37.609 --> 01:26:40.586 it's like you can do this to my body, but you can't do this to my mind. 01:26:40.619 --> 01:26:46.015 I'm still who I am. Um Did I choose hypnobirthing because that's what it 01:26:46.048 --> 01:26:50.857 did for me. And I would say no, I felt every one of those contractions I 01:26:50.890 --> 01:26:54.656 was fully committed and part of the decision making about my body and my 01:26:54.689 --> 01:27:01.376 birth. And you know, it's, it's not true. I still felt everything I just 01:27:01.409 --> 01:27:06.305 felt like I had more control and I remember that because when I work with 01:27:06.338 --> 01:27:12.555 women who've been raped in their pregnancy, I know those feelings that 01:27:12.588 --> 01:27:16.555 they want control, they didn't have control when this thing happened to 01:27:16.588 --> 01:27:20.607 them and that they want trust and building trust with them is really 01:27:20.640 --> 01:27:26.885 important. And an example of that is I had a woman I worked with who had a 01:27:26.918 --> 01:27:32.226 really bad rape history. She came into my office just shaking and she had 01:27:32.259 --> 01:27:36.476 sweat on her lip. And she first thing she said to me was what are you 01:27:36.509 --> 01:27:43.116 gonna do to me? And I was like, oh uh let's talk. So what I did is she sat 01:27:43.149 --> 01:27:46.656 in one chair and I sat one below her. So we weren't at eye level, it was 01:27:46.689 --> 01:27:52.116 below and we start talking about what she was afraid of what this was 01:27:52.149 --> 01:27:57.067 gonna look like, how I was going to work with her that we would do this 01:27:57.100 --> 01:28:02.076 together and that I wasn't going to do anything she didn't want to do. Um 01:28:02.109 --> 01:28:07.357 she calmed down afterward and we worked through her whole pregnancy. And 01:28:07.390 --> 01:28:10.456 the woman I saw at the beginning of the woman I saw at the end was 01:28:10.489 --> 01:28:16.027 completely different. Like just very proud of herself. She felt very good 01:28:16.060 --> 01:28:21.116 about her experience. And you know, I think about my experience and my 01:28:21.149 --> 01:28:26.696 birth and my experience with my abuse. Like I know how good it feels to 01:28:26.729 --> 01:28:31.626 have that courage and that strength to make those decisions and to feel 01:28:31.659 --> 01:28:36.027 like those are supported decisions. And that's what I try and work with 01:28:36.060 --> 01:28:42.726 women now as a midwife because I know how important it is and if without 01:28:42.759 --> 01:28:46.196 it, it's like, you know, I'm, I'm re traumatizing them and I don't ever 01:28:46.229 --> 01:28:52.226 want to do that. It's like I, I don't wanna be the rapist. 01:28:52.259 --> 01:28:57.156 Yeah. I think that was a really good, a wonderful answer. Yeah. Is there 01:28:57.189 --> 01:29:00.805 anything else you wanted to add before we? 01:29:00.838 --> 01:29:05.750 Yeah, you're incredible. You did a great job. I'm gonna hit stop.