MyMaine Birth
MyMaine Birth is a space where we share the real life stories of families and their unique birth experiences in the beautiful state of Maine. From our state's biggest hospitals to Birth Center Births, and home births, every birth story deserves to be heard and celebrated. Whether you are a soon to be mom, a seasoned mother, or simply interested in the world of birth, these episodes are for you.
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MyMaine Birth
123. The Free Birth Society Scam: Keely's Five Birth Stories, Current Pregnancy Journey, and Her Experience with the MatriBirth Midwifery Institute
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Are you a soon to be mom, a seasoned mother, or simply interested in the world of birth? You’re in the right place!
In this episode, we discuss:
- Keely's first two home births
- The complications that lead to her birthing her third baby in a hospital
- Finding natural healing outside of the western medical system
- The home birth's of Keely's fourth and fifth babies
- Thoughts behind Keely's decision to leave the MatriBirth Midwifery Institute after having paid so much money for it
- All about Keely's sixth and current pregnancy journey - and her decision to choose an unassisted birth plan amidst all of the freebirth drama
- ….and a whole lot more!
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CLICK HERE for 10% off the MyAutonomous Birth self-paced, online course!
Not sure where to start? I’ve got you covered! Check out my FREE resource, 37 Questions to Ask Your Care Provider. Whether you’re interviewing new providers or have already established care, this FREE resource offers guidance on important topics to discuss with your provider.
Students Turning on Each Other
KeelyStudents were being kicked out of the program for having private conversations in spaces that were outside of the school social network and that really , really rubbed me the wrong way . I was not kicked out . I will say that I left voluntarily , but that , just like that , was a really big problem to me . That was a really big problem to me . And openly on the school network , the school social Mighty Networks page , we're encouraging women within the program to turn each other in and to me that was just a hard pass . That's not what I'm . Just I don't like that at all . Like I feel like a big reason that I went with MMI was to like build community with other women and I just felt like it was really wrong for them to be trying to get us to turn on each other for asking questions about like , hey , are we going to like learn about anything like kind of related to midwifery ?
AngelaLike we're not even looking for like the actual hands on skills , but like we'd like to have some information , some resources .
KeelyI don't think , and I don't think that any of it started out as like people wanting to leave the program or malicious , like I think it was like genuine concern and women wanting to . I think women even willing to wait , like you know , like we have lifetime access , like can you use this feedback to add to the program and we can have the information later , or whatever . But it was just not there , was . They did not accept the feedback .
AngelaI'm Angela and I'm a certified birth photographer
Introduction to Keely's Family
Angela, experienced doula , childbirth educator and your host here on the my Maine Birth podcast . This is a space where we share the real-life stories of families and their unique birth experiences in the beautiful state of Maine , from our state's biggest hospitals to birth center births and home births . Every birth story deserves to be heard and celebrated . Whether you're a soon-to-be mom , a seasoned mother or simply interested in the world of birth , these episodes are for you . Welcome to episode 123 of my Main Birth .
AngelaToday's birth story guest is Keely . She and I first met around this time last year , when we had both signed up for the Free Birth Society's brand new school , which was originally marketed and sold as the MatriBirth Midwifery Institute . Keely is here to share all about her beautiful birth stories and what led her to choose free birth herself , and all about her experience inside of the matribirth midwifery institute or mentor institute . I don't know whatever . I do want to say at the beginning of all of these episodes , though , that I very much support a woman's right to birth where , how and with whoever she chooses . These episodes are more to highlight the separation of the beautiful idea of free birth that can be a perfectly fine option for many women from the ideology that is promoted by the free birth society . All right , let's do it . Hi Keely , welcome to my Main Birth . Hello , did you take the RBK school , or was it just Emma ? I didn't .
KeelyI actually had had like zero involvement with Rebirth Society and then just was like , oh , I'm going to take the most expensive thing they offer .
AngelaYeah , that's kind of how I did it too . That's interesting . So , to get started , would you share a little bit about you and your family ? So to get started , would you ?
Keelyshare a little bit about you and your family . So my name is Keely and me and my family live in Tejeras , new Mexico , kind of up in the mountains . It's pretty peaceful . It's a good place to raise a family . Me and my husband have five children . They are 12 , 11 , 8 , 4 , 2 . And then we're actually I'm pregnant with our sixth baby right now and I'm about 23 weeks along . We homeschool Me and my husband are both nurses . I am lucky enough to be able to work remotely . For the most part , I stay home with our kids and work remotely when I can , which isn't all that much with five kids and homeschooling . But yeah , so that's kind of a little bit about us .
AngelaAwesome . Now would you share a little bit about what your views were
First Birth: Finding Home Birth
Angelaon birth , like growing up and like maybe some stories that you heard like about birth when you were younger .
KeelyI mean , growing up I didn't really know that there was any way to give birth besides like going to the hospital , like that's what you do , I mean . Okay , I kind of scratched that because I always knew my mom was born at home , but it was always kind of like she was born like at home , in a trailer , like in the backwoods of Alabama , and it was kind of like always like almost a joke , like ha ha , like you know you were , you know , you know , I don't know it was . It wasn't something that was like taken seriously or it was like a real option . It was . It wasn't something that was like taken seriously or was like a real option . It was just like , oh gosh , how you know how backwards were you guys that you were born at home in a trailer , right . So I guess , like I always kind of knew in the back of my mind that that had happened , but it wasn't like uh , like something that like that was to be repeated , right , like birth happened in a hospital . All of me and my brothers were born in the hospital .
KeelyProbably my first real encounter with birth was when I was 14 , my mom had a baby and I was super excited to get to go with her and I got to hold her leg whenever she was pushing . And I got to see my little brother come into the world and he was my mom's fifth baby and we got to the hospital and she was 10 centimeters dilated and had him like in an exam room and the whole time she was like telling them to just like leave him there . She wanted her epidural because she'd had an epidural her first four births . So like seeing my mom have him and really up until it was time to push , like be so calm and like it just didn't seem to phase her at all really until like the pushing and whenever she found out she wasn't actually getting methadone and she was like , oh , no , no . But I think that was really impactful for me as as a young teenager to see my mom have a natural birth .
KeelyAnd I think when I got pregnant with my own daughter I was pretty young , I was 21 . I was pretty adamant that I wanted to have a natural birth in the hospital but the OB I was seeing pretty much laughed in my face about that and was like , yeah , we'll see about that when the time actually comes . So what was your pregnancy like with her ? I saw a traditional OB until about maybe a little over the halfway point , maybe like 25 , 27 weeks , and that's whenever we had the conversation about how I did not want an epidural and she literally laughed in my face and was like , well , we'll see , you know , and I was like , yeah , we will see . And I literally never went back to her and I , that's like kind of when I found home birth really , and um , so I I was in my third trimester by the time I found a home birth midwife and like officially switched over but I did end up having I didn't have an epidural to have my baby at home and it was . It was .
KeelyI mean , I think for most women , first births are pretty intense . Like definitely , I feel like you definitely get pushed to the limits for I mean just of everything , like mentally , physically , emotionally . I mean it's just such a , it's such a journey and I think that that's really , at least for me , has been like a really important part of like my motherhood and my identity as a mom is like that first , that first birth , and just like the challenge that it was and like I did it wow , that's amazing .
AngelaSo how was your actual like birth experience ? I mean it was hard .
KeelyIt wasn't . It wasn't super long , it was . It was , I mean it hard , but I don't think it was any harder than any other first time mom having a baby at home . You know , like it's hard work and I was totally caught off guard by the pain . I remember like people being like , oh , it's so painful , it's so painful , and I guess I just was like , okay , whatever , like people are so dramatic , I have period cramps , like it can't be that much worse than that and it was so much worse than that .
KeelyUm , and you know , maybe it's good that I didn't have any , uh , like real understanding of how intense it would be before it actually happened . You know , maybe there's a reason for that , but , um , it was good . I mean , there were no complications . Uh , I was in like active , hard labor for about 12 hours and , uh , I was just so relieved to be done . I was like , yay , I'm done . And it probably took a couple of weeks to like
Second Birth: Smooth Home Birth Experience
Keely, really like the magnitude of the whole experience to really hit me . But , like in the immediate aftermath , I just remember being so glad it was over .
AngelaDid you have a midwife with you ?
KeelyI did . Yeah , I had , um , I had two midwives there . They worked together but they were super hands-off . I know that they checked me a few times , but mainly that's because I was asking . It wasn't like it was forced on me , it was just me being impatient and being like , okay , can I push yet Tell me , tell me if I'm almost done . And then I I'm assuming I don't actually remember , but I do assume that they probably used a Doppler a few times during active labor , but other than that , I mean they didn't , I mean they didn't really do anything . They were just there , um , you know , like all the times that I kept being like I can't do this , I can't do this , you know to remind me that , like , but you're doing it .
AngelaExactly . That's just really late , that's . That's so helpful , you know so . So you had a good experience then for your first . How was your postpartum ?
KeelyHow was your postpartum ? My postpartum was really difficult and a lot of that , I think , was just identity shifting and being a young mom and me and my husband we didn't know anybody else our age who had a baby or any of our friends who had a baby , you know . So it was like it was a big shift to go from , like being in college and all of our friends like you know , doing the college thing , and it's like all of a sudden we have a baby and we're not doing that . And then also and I mean , you don't you love it and you learn , I guess we um , my husband was so excited and so proud and like literally invited like every person we knew , to our house , like within the first several days of our daughter being born , and I was like just physically wrecked In hindsight , like that was horrible to like have all these people at my house right after I just like went through this like huge physical , emotional , like shift and it was like everybody we knew got to witness it and that , you know that was definitely not repeated , but that was that made postpartum pretty difficult .
KeelyAnd then we had family that came and stayed with us for maybe a week and a half after she was born and again , that was something that we definitely have not repeated because it was just it . Just for me personally I'm a pretty private person that was just really uncomfortable and maybe it was my in-laws who came and stayed with us . And physically postpartum , I did have a tear that was stitched and caused quite a bit of pain in the initial 48 hours post-birth , but other than that , everything was pretty seamless physically was , everything was pretty seamless physically so when did you find out you were pregnant with your second ?
Keelywell , pretty , I said it probably took a couple of weeks to for everything to settle and for , like I don't know , I mean it took more than a couple of weeks for everything to settle right , it's a huge , especially the first time . It's such a huge , just such a huge shift like from maiden to mother , you know , and I think that hit me really hard , being so young but also right away , like I just fell in love with being a mom . I fell in love with my baby and I knew I wanted another one , like soon , fell in love with my baby and I knew I wanted another one , like soon . So we got pregnant . Our first was I think she was eight months old whenever I got pregnant with my second . How did you find out ? Um , I am not a daytime napper like at all . I don't like to sleep during the day . I get super grumpy when I wake up and I was like needing a nap every day and I was like you know what , I'm pretty sure I'm pregnant . And so we took a test and I was pregnant .
AngelaSo what were your thoughts in choosing your care then the second time around ? So what were your thoughts in choosing your care then the second time around .
KeelyThe second time around , I like , went straight to the midwives who had helped me with our first baby and I had midwifery care just from the beginning of that pregnancy .
AngelaSo how were you feeling during that pregnancy ?
KeelyThat was probably like my easiest pregnancy well , I mean , pregnancy is always hard , but that was probably like it was . It was a good experience . Like I felt good , I felt excited , like I can remember , like some big emotions around , like my baby her name's Nat not being like the center of our world anymore , like you really just can't comprehend that . Like the love multiplies , it doesn't divide .
AngelaRight , it is . It's hard to understand until they're like in your arms and then you're like , oh , it works .
KeelyYes , yeah , yes . So I remember being really hung up on that and really worried about that , but it was a good pregnancy , it was pretty , it was pretty uneventful .
AngelaDid you do like any testing like throughout the pregnancy ?
KeelyI did do . I did a 20 week anatomy scan and I believe that's the only testing that I did and during I believe in that scan it showed that like my placenta was too close to my cervix , so I did have , like at 36 or 38 weeks , of repeat scan to make sure that my placenta had moved . But other than that we didn't have any testing or lab work or anything like that any testing or lab work or anything like that ?
KeelyWhat were the kind of final weeks and then days leading up to when your labor started looking like , I mean , you know , impatient , ready to meet my baby , ready to be done , but also like a lot of that anxiety about , like , how am I going to love this baby ? Like I love my daughter and
Third Birth: Hospital Complications
KeelyI was excited because with my daughter , we had found out the gender before she was born and with our second pregnancy we didn't find out the gender . So I was excited . So I was excited , I was excited for the surprise of that and my brother-in-law had been living with us for over a year and I was excited that he was going to be moving out . Not because I don't like him or anything , but it's just nice to have your own space . So I was excited to like finally put our nursery together . That like really didn't come together until the , you know , maybe a week before I went into labor .
KeelySo I remember being really excited to like be able to get into that room and paint and put in the little things that I had scavenged . We were pretty poor at the time , both in college , you know , working and going to school . So , like some of the thrift store stuff that I had had had Like repainted or whatever , I was excited to get in there and we painted my , my , because our little , our daughter , was still in her crib . So my parents gave me my brother's old crib I don't know why they still had it , you know seven years later or eight years later , but they gave us his crib . So I got to paint that and that was kind of sentimental because I always I always say he was like my first baby . So we painted his crib and just was excited and anxious to meet the baby .
AngelaAwesome . So how did your labor start ? Awesome ?
KeelySo how did your labor start ? I woke up in the middle of the night , probably like four in the morning , and was having contractions and I just kind of just kind of laid there and rested . And then my husband woke up a couple of hours later for work Nurses , you know , you have early shifts . So he got up and I told him like I'm having contractions and he was like , oh , should I stay home ? And I was like no , no , go to work . I you know this will probably be a while , and we had wanted to do like one of those belly casts . So before he went to work we did the belly cast , just in case , and then I like went back to bed and set him off to work and things just kind of progressed from there .
KeelyHe didn't end up being able to stay at work very long before he needed to come back home , but it was mainly just me and my baby for probably the first half . And then my husband came home and I was in touch with our midwife and just kind of like you don't need to come yet , you don't need to come yet . And I guess at some point she heard me have a contraction and she was like , well , I'm just going to come by and check on you guys . And she came and she ended up staying and my baby was born maybe an hour after she got there , so it was pretty quick . That's awesome .
AngelaYeah .
KeelySo I'm glad I'm I'm . I was definitely not in the headspace to have an unassisted birth at that point , so I'm glad I'm . I was definitely not in the headspace to have an unassisted birth at that point , so I'm glad that she came when she came and it it was , it was a . It was a really good birth , you know , like it just it went really well . I didn't have any tearing I was a little bit nervous about that because I tore with my first and it just it was . We ended up having a little boy . So we were excited we had a boy and a girl . I was able to like pee right afterwards without hurting , which , with my tear the first time , was like horrific . So I was like so pumped that I could pee and it didn't hurt and I like got to shower and just like get in my own bed and nurse my baby and it was , it was just really perfect .
AngelaThat sounds beautiful . So how did you find out ? You're pregnant for the third time , so after .
KeelySo our first two are pretty close . They're like 18 months apart and that was pretty wild , especially as , like at this point I think I was , I think I was 23 when he was born , so we're still pretty young and we have these two little babies , and you know , trying to trying to finish school and working , and it was just pretty . It was pretty wild , like they were both pretty easygoing babies too , but it was like it was a lot having the two of them so close in age and we kind of figured we were done , we had a boy and a girl , and we just kind of we just kind of figured we were done . And probably around the time my son was two , I was like , oh , actually , I definitely am not done . And my husband was like , no , no , we're totally done . And we kind of went back and forth about it for a while and finally I was like , well , can we just try one time , please , please , just one time . And so we tried one time and I got pregnant and so that pregnancy was just totally different than my first two really , which were pretty normal pregnancies .
KeelyI pretty immediately realized that I was like really sick and I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease . Whenever I was like six or seven weeks along , I was diagnosed with Graves , which is like an autoimmune thyroid condition , and it was just , it was pretty miserable . And it was just , it was pretty miserable . It was affecting my heart , it was just like it just was . It just made everything really complicated . I risked out of a home birth like immediately , which was like pretty hard to stomach , and so I had OB care through the whole pregnancy and high risk care . Through the whole pregnancy I was seeing a cardiologist , an endocrinologist it was like a full-time job , practically going to all the appointments . And then at some point in the third trimester I mean the whole pregnancy they were telling me like there was a lot of encouragement at the beginning to terminate the pregnancy , which just wasn't an option for me , and then , just through the whole pregnancy , just constant bombardment about like everything that's probably going to go wrong . You know you're probably going to get preeclampsia , you know you could have a stroke , like just it was just constant . You know something's probably wrong with the baby . It just just really pretty constant . Looking back , I'm like that's so harassing , so much harassment , pretty constant harassment from the high risk , the perinatologists and all of that and I was probably a problem patient because I just never gave up on my home birth . I was like , but if this gets better I can have a home birth right . And they were like , no , so I don't know .
KeelyAt some point in the third trimester they diagnosed my baby with intrauterine growth restriction , when she was only like in the one percent , two percent first or second percentile for , like her gestational age . So she was really really tiny and I guess there were some issues with the placental blood flow , I don't know . So there was a lot of talk about a C-section between 34 and 36 weeks . So they were doing ultrasounds like two to three times a week , biophysical profiles and then growth scans like every two weeks to like track , to make sure she was growing at all . And so she did . She did grow , she grew enough . She grew enough that I didn't have to have like an early C-section or anything . They let me go to 39 weeks , which , generally speaking , my babies don't come early . So like there was just no way I was going to go into labor by 39 weeks .
KeelyAnd they induced me at 39 weeks and I just I remember like walking into the labor and delivery room and just like breaking down crying because like I , that's just like was not what I wanted , wanted , and I'm pretty sure they all thought I was like just absolutely insane . But I was like get all this stuff out of here , like I don't want this baby warmer in here , and I and they were pretty much like too bad , like the baby warmer has to stay , and I like gave them like this huge list of things that I , you know , didn't want and pretty much , pretty much it just I mean , once you walk in and sign the admission documents , I mean you really are just signing away like you're you know , any like autonomy that you have , like it pretty much is what they say it's going to be . So I was induced and probably the first like eight hours weren't that bad and they , you know they started with cytotec , cytotec and a few hours after that they like , because I wasn't dilated , like at all , like I was , like you know , fingertip dilated it's my third baby , Like that's probably just how my cervix is so they shoved the cytotec up there . A couple of hours later they're able to do the Foley balloon , which wasn't super comfortable , but I was like , okay , I can do this , not a big deal . And I guess they were hoping that like contractions would just start on their own at that point , but they didn't . So they started the Pitocin , which was absolutely horrific . So at this point I've had two natural births . Like I know what contractions are Like , I'm not super worried about like being able to handle the pain and I'm still planning on having like a natural vaginal hospital birth .
KeelyAnd the Pitocin was just like out of this world , like it's just not , it's like transition contractions from the start . And so they have me on the Pitocin and they you know they keep cranking it up . When they started the Pitocin , between the cytotec and the balloon , I dilated to four centimeters but I wasn't having contractions . Like I pretty much had my cervix manually forced to four centimeters and it wasn't . I wasn't having contractions . I pretty much had my cervix manually forced to four centimeters and I wasn't having contractions . So then I'm on the Pitocin and they're checking you pretty often and I'm making no progress . I'm staying right at four centimeters .
KeelyThey keep cranking the Pitocin up . They won't let me get in the water because they can't . The monitors aren't picking up the baby's heart rate well in the water . So I'm walking around . We need you to hold .
KeelyStill we are not getting good readings on the baby , like so , pretty much I end up stuck in the bed flat on my back with like these , like horrific transition contractions and like I can't . I really can't even move because if I start moving around the monitors aren't working right and I do that for about 12 hours and make zero progress and I was just like I can't do this anymore and so I ended up with an epidural which I was like super , super ashamed of . I was like just so down on myself about that . I like I had a really , really hard time coming to terms with that postpartum . But I get an epidural and I'm able to go to sleep and they're able to crank the pitocin up even higher and not like at that point I'm just like totally dissociated , right , like I'm just like okay , like I just am not gonna be here anymore .
KeelyAnd after a couple of hours of like really cranking up the pitocin , I still haven't made any progress at all and the baby is starting to not tolerate it . So they tell me they're going to break my water and put an internal monitor inside
Fourth Birth: Return to Home Birth
Keelymy uterus , on the baby to get a more accurate reading so they can really crank up the Pitocin and they were like but the baby's already not really tolerating it , well , so you're probably going to have a C-section . And I was like to me that was just like the absolute worst case scenario and I you know , but it was just like , okay , I mean , at that point I was just , like I said , dissociated and resigned to my fate and was just kind of like , whatever you have to do , I guess , and the midwife walked out and literally as soon as she had walked out from telling me that , my water broke and the nurse came in and I was at a 10 . So I was able to , I was able to have my baby , like I didn't have to have a C-section , I was able to have her vaginally . But it's like there's all these strangers that come pouring in whenever it's time to push . And like , literally five minutes ago , I just was told I was four centimeters and probably having a C-section . And now my room has like six or seven people in it and I'm being like told you need to push right now . And I was like I'm not , I'm not ready to push right now , like I'm not ready yet . I had wanted my mom to be there and I had sent her home . It's like seven in the morning now I sent her home for the night and I was you know , I'm just I'm not ready and it was pretty much like too bad . And I can remember there was like a nurse's assistant and somebody else standing behind my head and they're like having like a little workplace , like conflict bickering thing going on and I'm just like what , like what is going on here ? Like what alternate reality am I in right now ? And like I don't know .
KeelyThe first two times like I caught my own baby and like pulled them up to myself , like the the midwife didn't even ask , like called my husband down there and was like come catch the baby , and so which ? Like maybe some women like don't care and want their husband to catch the baby or whatever , but like didn't even ask and like I'm too out of it to like even comprehend . And then there's like a baby that and like my poor husband , you know he whatever , he didn't know he puts the baby on me , like backwards , like facing away from me , like so he puts the baby on my stomach facing him , and she has a super short cord and so I can't pull her any higher and like I can't really twist her . So it's like probably 10 minutes before I like even get to see my baby's face because her cord short and she's turned away from me , and it was like they they knew I wanted delayed cord clamping and like wanted to wait until the placenta came out to cut the cord . Um , but they were like , uh , it's been you know however many minutes five minutes and the placenta is not out yet . So we have to cut the cord . So my husband cut the cord , whatever . I finally got to like actually hold my baby .
KeelyAnd another thing like I did not want the baby like wiped off or washed or anything like that . And they started like hovering and like being like the baby's not maintaining temperature . So they ended up taking my baby and like washing her off and like putting her in the warmer , which I yeah , as you can remember , I was really opposed to the warmer . But like at this point it's like what can I do ? They're telling me to either let them do this or they're going to take my baby to the NICU . So then my baby's like in the warmer , being rubbed and , you know , washed and harassed by strangers , and I'm like just across the room watching , you know , and then it was just the whole time . It was always something else . Well , now her blood sugar is a little low . If her blood sugar doesn't go up , we're going to have to take her to the NICU . It's like , well , you just took her from me to go spend 15 minutes in the warmer . I haven't even got to nurse her yet , of course her blood sugar is low , just leave us alone .
KeelyAnd then I had the baby and I wanted to go home .
KeelyI was like , okay , we're here , she's fine , we're going to go home now . And then it's like , well , you can't go home , you can leave against medical advice . But if you leave against medical advice , they'll be like stuff filed with CYFD for you taking the baby and your insurance won't pay for anything . So then it's like I'm held hostage in the hospital with my baby , for you know , they said it had to be 24 hours after the birth , but you know , at 7 or 8 am the next day there's nobody there who's like ready to discharge us . So then it's like three or four in the afternoon the next day before we finally get to go home .
Fifth Birth: Unassisted Precipitous Birth
KeelyAnd so I had a really , really , really rough postpartum , a lot of postpartum depression and anxiety and just was really unhappy for a while . I mean , even now it's not super pleasant to talk about and yeah , it was just a really , really horrible experience . And the sad thing is I think I probably had a better experience than a lot of women get in the hospital .
AngelaYeah , what were your thoughts like around induction at that time ?
KeelyI feel like they , they like kind of spent the whole pregnancy Like I don't know know what the right word is , telling me these stories about something's wrong with you , something's wrong with the baby . This is a really dangerous pregnancy . It was just constant indoctrination about the risks of what I was dealing with and just like constant reminders that something's probably wrong with the baby . You know , and at one point we did consent to like some like I didn't ever do like an amniocentesis or anything like that , but we did do some like blood work to to rule out some genetic stuff , just to see if that's why she was so small , because I guess , like dad syndrome , you could have a really small baby . Um , so I mean , we did do some minor genetic , you know , like whatever they could do via blood work I was okay with doing , just so we would know if there was something like that that we were dealing with .
KeelyI don't know where I was going with that other than like I just feel like it was just like indoctrination the whole time and just like a complete teardown of , like my trust in my body and myself . So I didn't really feel like by the time we got to 39 weeks , that I had any other choice but to do what they told me and be induced like it's like you either do this or your baby's gonna die . Like IUGR babies are this much percentage like every week that passes after this point are so much more likely to be born still stillborn . So it didn't really feel like a choice , like it just felt like if you want your baby to be born alive , this is what you have to do .
AngelaYeah , I feel like it's a lot of like standard of care versus like maybe there's differences in each individual and it's like these ideologies on each side that we're going to get into , but , like this hospital side has their ideologies and the way everything should be , which fuels the extreme and the other directions too , and it's like there should be a middle ground . When did you find out you were pregnant for the fourth time ?
KeelySo we have a pretty big age gap between our third and our fourth . After that experience , like at the beginning of my pregnancy , there was like a lot of encouragement to terminate and also like a lot of like warnings like don't ever do this again , and also like a lot of like warnings like don't ever do this again , which obviously I've heeded really well . So after that experience , like I don't know , my husband had a vasectomy scheduled for I don't know , like her daughter was maybe eight weeks old , and he didn't go . He was like I just I don't know about that . So I guess that's kind of the you know the opening for maybe we'll have more . He , you know , didn't go get his vasectomy . So I had an IUD put in at my six-week postpartum appointment and at that point like just was like really trying to—I had a pretty severe postpartum relapse of my autoimmune disease and so I was just trying to find answers and find healing outside of the medical system and outside of the medical model . Because after that whole birth experience I just lost all faith in Western medicine and just started to look for , just started to look for something else and that's kind of started , like I mean I would definitely say , a journey that I'm still on , just like health and wellness and well-being , like outside of traditional medicine . So that was kind of a long road .
KeelyWhen my daughter was about a year old , I knew that I wanted to have another baby . But I definitely wasn't in a place health-wise yet to have another baby think is pretty crazy , especially like a nursing mom . But I did some pretty just some pretty intense like healing things . I did some pretty intense fasting , like even dry fasting for days at a time which I think like really let like a lot of healing happen internally . I did a bunch of different dietary protocol things and I was able to get off the medication that I was on for my autoimmune disease and not have a relapse . So I was like in remission and took out my IUD , which in hindsight I think caused a lot of problems . I had the copper IUD and I think that that really affected my fertility .
KeelyI really struggled to get pregnant with our fourth baby . Uh , we , I probably . I mean the first , our first baby was like an accidental surprise , and then our second , two , I mean we got pregnant immediately pretty much . So our first three we conceived like with zero effort and it took from the time that we like actively started trying till I got pregnant . It took over a year and a half , which was pretty discouraging . That's like such a hard thing to deal with , like really wanting a baby and not being able to get pregnant . So that was like really hard . We finally got pregnant when our youngest was almost four . By the time .
KeelyI got pregnant with our fourth and I just called up the same old midwife that I had had my home births with before . So at this point it's been quite a while since I've talked to her , even longer since I've had a birth with her , and a lot has happened . This is like right during COVID , it's the end of 2020 when I get pregnant . We had spent pretty much the whole time between when I we moved into an RV , when my third baby like the horrific hospital birth baby was three months old , we moved into an RV and started traveling full time . And when I got pregnant with our fourth baby , we had like got that out of our system a little bit and had just bought a house back in the town where we had been living before , so we'd been traveling full-time for three and a half years . It felt like I don't know . It just felt like we were totally different people in a different family at that point and I'd really made as much peace as I could with my last birth and knew that getting pregnant again , my midwife might not be able to take care of me . I might have to have another hospital birth and I was not happy about that per se . But I at least knew what I was getting into from the start . But my autoimmune disease was like under control and I was able to have a midwife , and so it was great , super , super uneventful pregnancy . I had my daughter on her due date . She was born in call , which was really cool and just like a really , really , really useful pregnancy .
KeelyI can remember postpartum being such a shock because I had been so comfortable . I mean my kids were older , like I did still have like a four and a half year old or whatever , but four and a half I mean that's not a baby anymore . Like you're sleeping through the night every night and like everybody can get their own snacks and like wipe their own butts and you're not through the night every night , and like everybody can get their own snacks and like wipe their own butts and you're not taking a stroller anywhere . So postpartum like kind of hit me like a bus . I was like whoa , I forgot what all this was like , even up until 40 weeks pregnant , like I was sleeping through the night . That baby was positioned just right , like I didn't have to get up to pee or anything . So going from that at 40 weeks pregnant to a newborn was like whoa , this is so hard .
AngelaWere you able to catch this baby ? Yes , beautiful . How were things looking as you got pregnant with your fifth baby ?
Keelybeautiful , how were things looking as you got pregnant with your fifth baby .
KeelySo my fifth baby was another , like accidental surprise , and I had a really hard time like coming to terms with the fact that we were going to have five kids , like whoa . So the pregnancy was kind of emotionally hard coming to terms with that and like feeling guilty , like not that I considered termination , but just like I felt so guilty for not wanting , like not being 100% , like so pumped and like wanting it and I'd never experienced that before , experienced that before . So the pregnancy itself was a lot harder , emotionally and then also physically . All my babies except for my hospital baby who was barely five pounds , were all like seven pounds , like right around seven pounds , seven pounds , whatever ounces , and my fifth baby was over nine pounds . So I think that's probably why , like , the third trimester was so much harder , so much pelvic pressure , like I had a baby that was , you know , two pounds heavier in there but his birth was really precipitous . My fourth baby , my labor was about three hours and my fifth , my labor was about an hour and a half .
AngelaDid you have the same ?
Keelymidwives . I did have the same midwife and she didn't make it to the birth . So I guess that's kind of like when I had this like mental shift to where I was like , oh why , my husband was like do we still have to pay her ? Like , yeah , I'm pretty sure we still have to pay her , but yeah , she missed the birth and yeah , that was like kind of another turning point where it was like why are we paying somebody all this money ? We obviously can do it alone . What do you kind of do as a nurse ? Nothing like that . We've both done a whole lot of other stuff , but that I mean just from almost the beginning of my nursing career . I graduated from nursing school when my daughter was two weeks old , my first baby . So like from the beginning I was kind of like I can't do that , like that goes against everything I believe in about birth . So that's not ever been , that's not ever been like I'm an interest and that's not ever been on my radar as something to do as a nurse .
AngelaYeah , so what were your thoughts as you were thinking about signing up for a program like the mmi ?
Keelyso after my son was born , I like kind of like , with every pregnancy like , um , like my postpartum period like became a little more sacred and like I started , you know , you know wanting to do kind of like a lying in sort of thing and spending some weeks in bed and was very specific about , you know , the nutrition that I wanted postpartum and like herbal remedies and tinctures and stuff that I wanted on hand , and just kind of started sharing some of that with like women in my community and friends and taking , you know like , instead of taking a meal or something also sometimes doing that , but instead of taking a meal or whatever to most part of moms in my community , taking , you know like bone broth and some herbal tinctures and things like that . And it just seemed like , you know , my , my best friend got pregnant when my fifth baby was just a couple of months old and she was planning an unassisted birth and had asked me to just be there for like emotional support and just to , like you know , just have a friend and a sister there and then so I was there at her unassisted birth and like , after having my own and then being like a helper at this one , I was just like so lit up about , like this possibility that like , not that we don't need midwives , but that birth is just it's so natural that it's literally going to happen whether there's somebody there or
The MatriBirth Midwifery Institute Experience
Keelynot . Like it's just , it just works . And then , a couple of months after my friend had her baby , I was invited to another birth and I was just like whoa , like this is happening , people want me at their birth , like what .
KeelyAnd I , like I just felt like I , if that was something that I was going to be doing , like if I was going to answer this calling , I needed more to feel comfortable doing it . Doing it Like I needed not necessarily something medical , because at this point I am pretty anti the medical establishment but like I need something . Like I need some kind of training , like some kind of wisdom around all of this . That like there were some kind of emergency , I would be able to do something right Besides like 9-1-1 . Like I felt like I needed some kind of like skills , more skills yeah , and some guidance probably right .
AngelaYeah , so when did you first hear about the free birth society ?
Keelyso my friend who was planning her unassisted birth like I I'm sorry , like I'm at this place where , like I can't even use the term free birth without like just feeling so like it , just like after my experience with them , so I have been using the term unassisted birth my friend who I was at her birth that was in February of 2024 . She had bought the free birth society like whatever the guide to free birth or whatever and had like shared some of that information with me , since I was going to be like her partner , and so that was the first time that I was exposed to it and I wish that I had like honored my first reaction to like watching some of those videos with her . I was like really really turned off by both of the teachers , really really turned off by both of the teachers , but I valued some of what they were saying . So I I know you're using this for a podcast , but it's like not my preferred mode of like obtaining information .
KeelyI like can't . Maybe it's just cause I have so much going on , but like I can't just focus if I'm just listening right like I am more of like like I have to read something . Like I'm not an auditory learner , I guess . So I tried to like get into the podcast and stuff and I never really could , but I was like that's cool , I like what they're doing , I like that , I like the idea of . And then , like right at the time that I started searching out like some kind of alternative midwifery education , they started putting out stuff about MMI .
KeelySo what they were marking as the world's leading sovereign midwifery school , which is not what it ended up being , but it definitely was not what it ended up being and I just like fell so hard like hook line and sinker for the marketing I was actually debating , mainly for cost reasons , between MMI and Mafios program , which is just like she doesn't do a lot of marketing Right , and the website her website . She's lovely . Her website is a little hokey , you know , and .
AngelaI was like oh , I don't know about this , like I don't know . So I ended up going with MMI , which was obviously a huge mistake , and I way wish that I had gone with . Wapio has the real wisdom . Spoiler alert for anybody that's listening . What we were all kind of looking for in MMI is inside of Wapio's programs . So that's hard , but you don't know , I fell for it too . I had no clue about who Wapio was or what her program was when I had signed up for MMI and I was looking for the same thing . So that is where we met each other . We were in the same pod . When did you first start to notice that the content was really lacking ?
KeelyI started , I mean even from the first semester , there would be , or like first quarter or whatever there would be weeks that I would log in to look at the content and I'd be like what , there's three videos for the week and one of them's a 10-minute meditation . Like I'm paying this much money and paying thousands of dollars for a 10-minute lecture and a a 10 minute meditation that somebody is reading me from a book . So I guess , like through that first , through that first quarter , I kind of just was like next quarter will be better . You know , I can see why this is important and I really do see the value in if you're wanting to serve other women , like really knowing yourself and dealing with like your own traumas and your own issues , right , like I 100% am behind the idea of that . So , almost right away to answer your question , yeah , almost right away I was kind of like seriously . And then , as we moved into the second quarter , which there's only one quarter of this program that's actually devoted to midwifery , and like how could you possibly like cover all aspects of midwifery in 12 weeks , like , and that's just that's on me , cause I think that that was .
KeelyI mean , the four quarters were advertised as what they were going to be . There was a syllabus that you could look at before before you signed up , before you signed up , but the second quarter brought like some glaring uh issues for me , like I am trained as a nurse and even though I'm pretty anti-western medicine , I'm not anti anti like physiology and like how our bodies actually work . And this program had no physiology like , no actual , like pretty , pretty close to zero actual physiology presented , maybe like some very brief mention of some of the hormones involved in birth . No textbooks , no resources , nothing to point you to other places you could learn about it . It was just completely absent .
AngelaYeah , that was hard and a major letdown , for sure . What led you to remove yourself from the program before it finished ?
KeelySo , even like wrapping up the second quarter , I was still pretty committed to staying because I was like , okay , like the business stuff , like what if there's something there I need ? And then so like I'm already having these doubts and concerns that I had when I first watched videos from the guide to free birth , like a lot of those things like had stuck with me through the program . One of the teachers in particular would show up to class and there wouldn't be a lesson plan . It would just be like we're just going to chit chat for three hours . And I was like what ? Like that's not what I'm here for , I'm not here for that . But so like a lot of those things like kept coming up , like it just felt like there wasn't a plan , that people weren't prepared .
KeelyBut I really really did like and respect and feel like our pod mentor had a lot of knowledge and the last time that I met with her there just seemed like something was off , like yeah , she pretty much told us that she wasn't supposed to be pointing us towards other resources . We were asking for more information because in that pod meeting we were supposed to be talking about the videos . The project for that month was to make a video talking about physiological birth , you know , even though you've been given no information on physiological birth . Yeah , so like there were people like asking , like is there going to be more info on this , or where do we get more resources ? And she like was kind of like I , you know , like I'm not supposed to be giving you , I'm that's not what my role is supposed to be , like I'm not supposed to tell you that , or I don't know her exact words , I'm not trying to put words in her mouth .
AngelaRight , I remember that call too . It was very strange . And then , like immediately after that , like four mentors , they had stepped down .
KeelyYes . So that was like a huge red flag to me that she had left and then , like all the Reddit stuff started coming out . Then students were being kicked out of the program for having private conversations in spaces that were outside of the school social network and that really really rubbed me the wrong way . I was not kicked out I will say that I left voluntarily but that just was like a huge like that was a really big problem to me that they and openly on the school network , like the school social mighty networks page , were encouraging women within the program to turn each other in , and that just to me that was just like a hard , a hard pass . That's not , that's not what I'm . Just I don't like that at all . Like I feel like a big reason that I went with MMI was to like build community with other women and I just felt like it was really wrong for them to be trying to get us to turn on each other .
AngelaFor asking questions about like hey , are we going to like learn about anything like kind of related to midwifery ?
KeelyLike we're not even we're not looking for like the actual hands-on skills , but like we'd like to have some information , some resources , some , you know , guidance that we signed up for , right , like yes , I don't think that most of the questioning that was going on was like I don't think , and I don't think that any of it started out as like people wanting to leave the program or malicious , like I think it was like genuine concern and women
Leaving MMI and Future Birth Plans
Keelywanting to was like genuine concern and women wanting to , I think , women even willing to wait , like you know , like we have lifetime access , like can you use this feedback to add to the program and we can have the information later , or whatever .
KeelyBut it was just not there was . They did not accept the feedback . And then the other really really huge red flag for me , where I was just like I can't , I can't stay , was whenever one of the one of our classmates I don't know her personally never talked to her Her baby died during her free birth . And even after we had just gone over and talked about , like infant loss and you know , stillbirths and things like that and like how you needed to come up beside these mothers in these hard times , even after going over all of that , there was no outreach from them , like there was no encouragement from them to like come alongside this woman , like in our immediate space .
AngelaYeah , so that was disturbing . Yeah , and that's about the time when it wasn't just you , there was several of us that all kind of started leaving the program right around that that time . And what and what was it like for you , as you were unenrolling ?
KeelySo I was kind of on the fence about unenrolling , mainly because of all the money I had spent , and I showed up to the last Friday call that I would attend .
KeelyIt was at the very last Friday of March and I was hoping to get some clarity or some answers , hoping to hear something that would make me feel like I hadn't just wasted a bunch of money and was still in a good space . And what I heard in that call was pretty much the opposite of that . Like one of the you know the founders of the program came on the zoom call and pretty much like openly mocked all of us and was like you can attend three dog births and open an online midwifery school , and was just kind of like so you get what you get , you know . And after that I was like no , no , I'm , I'm , I'm , I'm leaving . That was like the nail in the coffin for me . That was just like so degrading and disrespectful , like I came here to learn from you and you're telling and have you attended any births ? Or just three dog births ? Like what are you saying here ?
AngelaYeah , that kind of became the question that a lot of us started asking at that time . We're like how many births have they attended each like outside of the system you know , and nobody really knows the answer to that yeah , so I withdrew on April 1st and it was a good thing for me .
KeelyI don't regret doing it , I don't regret , I don't regret withdrawing . Like there have been like a few moments like where I mean , like I said , it's not regret like that , I'm not an MMI it's just regret that I didn't make a better choice . I found out that I was pregnant maybe a week or two before I left the program and so like right now , you know , I spent probably over an hour on the phone with Wapio . She opened modules for me to look at . I think her program looks really , really like what I was looking for , but I just was not in a place where I could jump into another program at the beginning , a place where I could jump into another program at the beginning .
AngelaBut that's definitely on my radar you know , as my seasons continue to change , yeah , so how has your pregnancy been going for you so far and what is your plan ? If you don't mind sharing , I don't mind . Yeah , I don't mind sharing .
KeelyIt's been a really hard pregnancy . I was really really sick the first trimester , which I think is really normal , and then , like right as I was starting to feel better , my family got whooping cough , which has been like absolutely horrific to deal with . I mean , just in general it's been rough , Like all of my kids have it and that's that's hard . I mean like we got it in May and we're still coughing at the end of July and having that pregnant has been really , really hard . My sixth pregnancy , my bladder control isn't what it used to be , so it's like coughing so hard I'm peeing myself , Coughing so hard I'm throwing up . It's been really , really rough , I don't know . So at the beginning , like before I got pregnant , and then , like in the immediate , like you know , the immediate realization that I was pregnant , I was planning a free birth , and then just everything that happened with MMI , I like really really started to doubt that . I was like have I just been indoctrinated by the women who are like just out to make money off of people like me who fell for their marketing ? So it's been like a lot to process mentally , like a lot to process mentally .
KeelyThe midwife that I used for my other pregnancies retired and so I like didn't have that crutch to fall back on where I probably would have just done that . I've interviewed a couple of other midwives and one of them I really clicked with . And one of them I really clicked with and she um , she's really cool . She's an older lady . She's attended like over 7,000 births . She's like really I mean I've not attended births with her , but she made it sound like she's very hands-off and like has a similar mindset around birth to me as I do . I like we talked a lot about like me leaving MMI and just like a lot of the thoughts that I had around that I felt like being in MMI , like I felt almost like ashamed of having midwifery care , Like I hadn't like done the ultimate thing , which was like have a free birth , and so like my births were less than in some way .
AngelaWhich is not true , but it does make you feel that way , like when you're inside of these programs , like don't talk about that , like in class , or you know .
KeelyTotally so . She was really . She was really cool lady . We I mean she probably spent three or four hours with me over several , several meetings and like I actually offered to like let me apprentice with her and stuff , like we really connected . But I just didn't feel and I would love to do that at some point when I'm in a different season but I also just didn't feel like it was the right choice to have her at my birth . So I am planning an unassisted birth .
KeelyI haven't had any traditional prenatal care to this point . In traditional prenatal care to this point , my retired midwife did write me a referral for an anatomy scan because I did feel like for me that felt like something that's relatively non-invasive and could give me a lot of information . So I did have that a couple of weeks ago and everything looks good and that's something I've had in pretty much all my pregnancies . So I don't have any regrets about doing that and I'm kind of doing I guess I'm kind of doing my own prenatal care Me , my husband has checked my blood pressure a couple of times and I guess that's the extent of my own prenatal care right .
KeelyAnd my best friend who I went to , her unassisted birth is going to be coming out for a few weeks . I don't know if she'll be here for the actual birth or not , but she's going to be here . Hopefully she's here for the birth I would love that . But she'll be here for like three weeks around the time I'm supposed to have the baby and the immediate postpartum period . So I'm glad to have somebody here to like help me make help me make all my like little brews and tinctures and and my husband's great at a lot of things but those aren't his strongest specialties . So I'll be glad to have her here to help me with all of that and just to have a friend here . It's nice in postpartum to have that female connection .
AngelaYeah , birth alone and do postpartum in community , for sure .
KeelyYes , totally .
AngelaAs a final question if you were to give advice to someone who's expecting , or even new parents , what's like one of the biggest things you might want to share ?
KeelyI feel like the biggest thing I would want to share with somebody who was pregnant for the first time or , you know , even not the first time , just expecting and wanting to do something a little different is that birth works and your body works and it , you know , it was all designed to work perfectly without intervention . Yeah , couldn't agree more .
AngelaWell , thank you so much , keeley , for taking the time to chat with me today and share your story . Yeah , thanks for having me , angela . Before you go , I just want to remind you I have a ton of resources for pregnancy and birth If you're pregnant , whether you're a first-time mom or if this is your fifth baby . I want you to check out the show notes , because I have some free trainings and free downloads that you can sign up for , as well as the link to access my Labor of Love , a comprehensive , self-paced online childbirth education course . I created this course specifically for moms who don't want to be told what to do , regardless of where you're birthing or who you're birthing with , and I'd honestly love to teach you everything that I know so that you can prepare for an autonomous birth experience and prepare to step into your role as the leader of your birth journey . So click to the show notes , check out all of those links and , if you ever have any questions , feel free to DM me at my main birth over on Instagram .