153. The Free Birth Society Scam: Emma's experience with the MatriBirth Midwifery Institute

A glossy website, a “world's leading” tagline, and a $12,000 price point can make an online school feel vetted and legitimate. 

Then the curtain lifts. 

I sit down with Emma Moore, a fellow Mainer who grew up in Bangor and enrolled in the Free Birth Society’s Matribirth Midwifery Institute (MMI), to share what it felt like to walk in hopeful and leave alarmed, embarrassed, and determined to tell the truth.

We talk about the emotional setup that makes programs like this so compelling: the hunger for sisterhood, the desire to reclaim birth, and the promise of a “sovereign midwifery” path that blends freedom with structure.

Emma shares her early experience of imposter syndrome inside what was supposed to be a high-intensity cohort, the moment a traumatic birth story from Nicaragua shifted the tone, and how simple questions about terminology, risk, and integrity were treated as threats instead of openings for honest dialogue.

From there, we get specific about what was missing. Emma describes a birth-focused quarter that never actually taught birth skills, a reliance on anecdote labeled “evidence-based,” and a dynamic where dissent gets reframed as “gossip.” 

We also trace what happened when mentors left, and students started comparing notes.  Emma says she was removed quickly after calling out leadership’s denial, losing access to separate paid content and a MRF festival ticket.

We close with the nuance that matters: freebirth can be a valid option for some families, but ideology that blames mothers for complications is dangerous. If you care about home birth, midwifery education, informed consent, and how to vet online birth courses, this conversation offers practical insight and hard-earned perspective. 

Additional Resources:

MyMaineBirth.com

Closing song by Kate Sutherland.  You can find Kate's community songs and deep nature connection work online at KateSutherland.ca

The Guardian Article - Title: Infludencer's made millions pushing 'wild' births - now the free birth society is linked to baby deaths around the world

The Guardian Article - Title: She was like a deer in the headlights': How unskilled radical birthkeepers took hold in Canada

The Guardian Article - Title: Five Key Findings from our investigation into the Free Birth Society 

The Guardian Article - Title: Friday Briefing: How the free birth society's philosophy contributed to a preventable death 

Interview - Exposed: the business linked to baby deaths around the world

The Guardian Podcast - the BirthKeepers

Transcript

opening clip

SPEAKER_02 0:00

I was so intimidated. The first call, I was like, what am I doing here? And I had a lot of insecurity actually about all these women because I I have not had very many close female friendships in my life. And so suddenly I'm in this massive group of like-minded women, and I immediately get really, really strong imposter syndrome, and I think I'm like a failure out of like nowhere. So that was like my first impression. Like just very intimidated. Like this is a high caliber group of women. That's the impression that I really got. Um, I was very, very engaged in the beginning. Um, I I liked the intensity, I liked the feeling of the promise that this is gonna get really intense, guys. Don't, don't like forget and hang in there. It's gonna get really intense.

Why This Story Matters

Angela 0:51

I'm Angela, and I'm a certified birth photographer, experienced duela, childbirth educator, and your host here on the My Main 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 153 of My Main Birth. Today's guest is Emma Moore, who actually grew up in Bangor. But Emma and I first met in the fall of 2024 when we both enrolled in the Free Birth Society's then Matribirth Midwifery Institute, which was marketed and sold with the tagline, the World's Leading Sovereign Midwifery School. Quick spoiler, if you don't know by now, it was not that. And Emma is here today to share all about her experience with the Free Birth Society and MMI. Now, as you hopefully all know by now, I very much support a woman's right to choose where, how, and with whom she births with. So the purpose of these episodes is to continue to separate the beautiful idea of free birth, which can be a perfectly fine option for many healthy women, from the more dangerous ideologies that are promoted by the company, the Free Birth Society. Also, don't forget to check out our new closing song, Walk of the Wild Ones, by Kate Sutherland. Kate's community songs and deep nature connection work can be found online at katesutherland.ca.

Meet Emma And Her Path

Angela 2:41

Alright, hi Emma. Welcome to My Main Birth. Hello. To get started, would you share just a little bit about who you are?

SPEAKER_02 2:53

Yeah, I'm Emma. I'm 27 years old. Uh right now I live in Iowa, but I'm actually from Maine. I grew up in Bangor, um, so very close to you, actually, which is really, really cool. I left Maine when I was about 18, 19, and I did a significant amount of traveling. Um, I was a uh muralist for a while. I kind of traveled and painted and then found myself in the southwest, and then eventually I was brought to the Midwest, and now I own a house here on a little acreage, and I live a very quiet, peaceful country life. So that's kind of where I'm at right now.

Family Birth Stories And Imprints

Angela 3:35

Amazing. That's beautiful. So now getting into birth, what were some of the stories that you heard about birth growing up? And yeah, like what were your kind of opinions on birth?

SPEAKER_02 3:49

Well, the only stories I really had were from my mom and from my grandmother. I never had a very vivid imagination on what birth was truly like. It was almost like I would hear the stories, but I didn't really get much of a feeling associated with it. Like both my grandmother and my mother had hospital births, and I believe they were both they had epidurals and um were induced, I'm pretty sure. And they at the end of the day, you know, they're just happy to have a healthy baby like most people are. As I got older, I learned more about my own birth, and I learned about the really severe trauma my mom went through to have me. Um, you know, she was very, very naive. She was expecting to have a natural birth in a hospital setting and had no idea that when they induced her, the contractions would be ten times more strong, like unendurable. So she ended up having an epidural after that. And it was a very, very long birth. It was not what she wanted. I was forcibly removed with four steps, and I have my own imprint of that experience still in my own body that um is very real for me. Um, I think it's so interesting that everybody says, Oh, you can't remember your own birth. But it's like, I can. I definitely can. And I've had some very deep cries about it over the years. Definitely been a really big theme of my own healing, is reclaiming my birth induction uh like process of like the soul entering the body coming into the world was very, very, very fragmented and very painful and confusing for me as a baby. And that definitely imprinted me. And then yeah, I didn't really think much about birth for a really long time until I got a little older the last few years, and just midwifery started to come to me in a way. I it's hard to describe because I didn't feel like I was choosing it, and yet there I was like it was I kept coming back to it. And it was confusing for me because at the time uh the partner I with I was with did not want kids and actually got vasectomy, so kids were off the table at that point, but I was still being drawn to it, and um that's when I found Free Birth Society, and the rest is kind of history after that point.

Angela 6:25

Oh my gosh. So we're definitely gonna get to that in a second. But did you have any siblings? Like, did your mom have any other like birth stories, or was it just you?

SPEAKER_02 6:34

Yeah, my mom had another uh child, my sister. She's 18 months younger than me. And similar story, but not the same, like still hospital epidural. But my sister was born in like four hours or something, very, very quick. Yeah, it's yeah, she she will talk openly about it now. Um, I don't know. It seems like that um era of that like generation didn't really get a voice with their birth. It was like it's just something you go through and you're happy at the end that you have a baby, you know. Same with my grandmother too. So yeah, I'm I'm always so interested when I can kind of like peel back a layer and really listen to them. And actually, my other grandmother, she had, I can't remember what it's called, when the baby comes out butt first. Do you know? Breach. That's breach, right? It's yeah, so she she's actually put out, she was she was um not conscious for that and had an epesiotomy and in Germany, like she was not even in her own country. And you know, obviously there's no memory of it, but very painful to heal from. And um another thing I do remember, because I asked her this, this was like an assignment during MMI. Can you talk to your family and uh ask about their birth stories or something like that? And she told me when she had my dad, it was very, very empowering for her because she was in her body, you know, it was very quick and it was really healing for her to have that. So yeah, that's kind of what I can think of.

Angela 8:12

Wow. Oh my gosh, that's such a brutal thing. I can't even imagine to have an epesiotomy and still a vaginal breach birth while you're put out. That's that's crazy, that's really intense.

SPEAKER_02 8:23

Yeah, so much.

Discovering Free Birth Society

Angela 8:25

So, what year was it when you discovered the Free Birth Society? So recently, it was 2024.

SPEAKER_02 8:34

Yeah, I discovered them right before I signed up for MMI, actually. Wow, that's funny. Yeah, somebody had sent me uh a midwife, like a registered midwife in New Mexico, had sent me Wapio's material. Um, I was actually signed up to go do her doula program in New York, and then we got a huge snowstorm and I ended up canceling. And then I was I was looking around again and found Freebird Society. Um, I was going back and forth between Wapio and Freebirth Society, and there was just this quality about the branding in Freebirth Society that made me feel like it was better. Like, I have this really weird story in my head, and I don't know where this came from, but when I first saw Freebird Society, my impression of Emily Yolanda was that these two women were selected by a like almost like a board or something to teach this class. Like they were super, super experienced and vetted, and they they really give themselves that impression about themselves, even though there's nobody backing them. It's it's them backing them. But for whatever reason, I had this impression in my head that these are super, super loved, super, super experienced people. And the price tag means that this is really the school you want to be in. That's you know, that's how it works usually. It's how it's supposed to work. Um more expensive thing is better.

Angela 10:04

Like that was kind of yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:05

Yeah. And I looked at the curriculum and the syllabus, and I loved it. I loved the the different quarters and integrating self-responsibility and self-mastery with real mid-3 skills and business skills. I was like, this is it. Like they really understand what it means to run a business as a midwife. So yeah, that's what got me really attracted to it. And I think I was the very last person to sign up.

Angela 10:36

I had just discovered them like summer 2024, then.

SPEAKER_02 10:41

Yeah, and I was binging their podcast as one does. And it was one of those weird portals where it's like the the portal is open, you can choose it, or you can choose something else. And it was like really, really intense for me. And I had literally 24 hours to make the decision, and I got all my family members behind me, so many people helped me pay for that course because they wanted to see me do something that I I was really passionate about and really aligned with. Because I think they know that about me by now is that I'm not like a traditional person in any way. So if if if there is a hybrid model of structure and education that can be almost like integrated with freedom and sovereignty and almost like a holistic mindset, then they it really seemed like it was a good deal for for for me and something really legitimate to have my own almost like business or something. Yeah. So yeah.

Angela 11:49

So you signed up for MMI, and what was your initial like thoughts as you started the program?

Joining MMI And Early Red Flags

SPEAKER_02 11:57

I was so intimidated. The first call, I was like, what am I doing here? And I had a lot of insecurity actually about all these women because I I have not had very many close female friendships in my life. And so suddenly I'm in this massive group of like-minded women, and I immediately get really, really strong imposter syndrome, and I think I'm like a failure out of like nowhere. So that was like my first impression, like just very intimidated. Like, this is a high-caliber group of women. That's the impression that I really got. Um, I was very, very engaged in the beginning. Um, I I liked the intensity, I liked the feeling of the promise that this is gonna get really intense, guys. Don't, don't like forget and hang in there, it's gonna get really intense.

Angela 12:48

Um yeah, like advertises the fire hose of information. It was just too much for RBK. So, like, we're gonna put it in MMI and you're gonna get this fire hose of information. And yeah, like just hold on, it's coming. I know that it never did. Like a bad guitar solo.

SPEAKER_02 13:04

Honestly. Um, so yeah, I loved quarter one. I I really, really engaged with the the uh self-help tools and the models that they presented of um like being being in the whole concept of being above the line or below the line is I I don't resonate it resonate with it now, but it sense to me at the time. Like you're trying to kind of get into a place of non-judgment about yourself and quote below the line. But I I think over time I realized that's a really good way to manipulate people into feeling inferior.

Angela 13:51

Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

Yeah, so it was interesting that I don't know if they intended to do that that way or not. That's because it's that's not their original material, you know, that's borrowed from someone else. And I read the book, I listened to it on audio, and yeah, that part gets a little gray for me, but it was definitely, in my opinion, weaponized against dissenters um later on. And it really primed the group to be very divided uh when you know stuff was really hitting the fan and people were starting to ask very serious questions about their integrity.

Angela 14:28

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

The Nicaragua Call And Pushback

Angela 14:31

So what were your thoughts? I think it was it was in the first quarter. Was it in the first quarter? Or Yolanda had the call where she kind of had a breakdown after attending a traumatic birth herself when she kind of was like trauma dumping on the class. So, like, what were your thoughts as that was unfolding, as you're like being kind of new to this?

SPEAKER_02 14:49

Yeah. Um, yeah, I was hoping we could talk about that because that was really interesting. So yeah, she attends that really traumatic birth in Nicaragua. And yeah, she pretty much immediately becomes very afraid that she will be arrested and she flies to the United States, and she's joking that she's an international fugitive, I think is her words. Um, yeah, and then she gets on this call. It's the very last call of quarter one. It's right before we're supposed to get into all of the really heavy birth-related topics. Um, and she appears to have come to some revelations that um attending a birth as an unlicensed midwife is dangerous, and you could go to jail. And so a part of me, and I was still naive and not totally awake to all this at the time, um, was like, that's a really vulnerable thing to say to a group of women you're instructing to be an unlicensed midwives. Like, good for her for being so honest. That was kind of my first impression that this is an opportunity to go deeper into why are we here? Like we're we have it. I thought we had all assessed the risk beforehand and said, yes, of course you can go to jail, and yet we still feel drawn to do this. It was kind of shocking to me that it seems like a revelation to her that this was a very real possibility. So I was kind of excited that we could get into a deeper layer altogether. And I made a post on mighty networks. I was just kind of rambling. Honestly, I just wanted to kind of get into more of a conversation with more people, and I did say some things. Um, one of actually the things that I was questioning broadly was, you know, they they make these um contradicting claims about the origin of midwifery because they say we're reclaiming midwifery because it was hijacked away from women. And then Yolanda also says midwifery was corrupt from the very beginning. There's nothing to salvage here, and yet it's called a midwifery school, a sovereign midwifery school. And so my question is like, well, I think I opened my post with like, isn't it if if if you're claiming that midwifery like there's nothing to salvage from midwifery and it was always corrupted, isn't it ironic to call it a sovereign midwifery school? Like, why are you trying to reclaim this word when you're also saying there's nothing to reclaim? And I was starting to just kind of prod a little bit. I didn't really know what I was doing. I just was kind of like, I feel like I should say something. Um, and I was I was excited. I was like, great. And the way Yolanda responded made it clear to me. I was very surprised that this was not welcome. I didn't quite understand what button I pressed, but I was like, oh, you're triggered, you're not excited about this. I was very taken aback. I was like, oh, we're not arguing, but this is not welcome either. She's she kind of took it in a direction as an attack that this isn't a midwifery school, or it's it's wrong to be teaching midwifery, or it's illegal to be teaching midwifery. And I wasn't going in that direction at all. So I kind of was scrambling at that moment, was like, oh, whoa. Like, no, I'm not questioning the legality of the school at this point. I just wanted to talk a little bit more about the terminology and what are we reclaiming and where is everybody else at with risk assessment? Because I had already assessed that this is obviously a risk. So I just yeah, yeah, that's kind of what I wanted to talk about. So at that moment, I felt like I was speaking truth to power in a in in in in in an inconspicuous way. I didn't really realize I was going to be doing, and that just became amplified over time in kind of a surprising way. So that's kind of where my eyes started to open to okay, I don't know what this is. I don't know what they think it is, but I'm feeling like something is amiss here.

When The Curriculum Never Arrives

Angela 19:22

Yeah. So that kind of brings us to quarter two of the school, which was the birth section. What were your thoughts going into quarter two?

SPEAKER_02 19:34

Well, I was really excited. I was like, okay, that was a weird ending to quarter one, but this is quarter two. This is like where we really get into it. And the first, I think, two weeks, I I loved because uh the first two weeks were like supposed to be the foundation for the rest. And it was very much about the philosophy of uh why the medical system is inherently against women and very philosophical, and I appreciated it. It made sense to me. And then by week three, the philosophy didn't stop, and then there was no transition into legitimate skills, and as time continued and continued, and I kept watching these videos, I kept coming back every day for hours sometimes of rambling content. I I just started to feel like I was a little crazy. Like I was confused because it felt like a bait and switch.

Angela 20:39

You could tell they were like just making these videos the week they were putting them out in the school. Like it nothing was really prepared ahead of time, it felt like.

SPEAKER_02 20:47

Yeah, nothing was prepared ahead of time. They were making these videos in real time, and there were no resources to reference. All you had was a rambling monologue from Emily or Yolanda. There were no references, there were no resources, there was no additional reading of any kind. And it it was really frustrating because they marketed themselves as we have all the answers, but I wasn't getting the answers that I wanted. And they expected us to just trust them for everything. And they called that evidence-based too. They were they were like, This is our evidence-based group or body of work, but it was purely anecdotal, like purely. And I'm not a medically minded person by any means, but I did expect, you know, to learn about shoulder dystopia or how to stop hemorrhaging. And there were just wishy washy answers. There was just, you just really won't know. There's just really no way to know until you meet the woman herself. And even after you're there, it's really not your call, anyways. It's the mom's call. To go to the hospital, even if she's bleeding out, you know? And I don't know if they would describe their own work in that way, but that was absolutely the impression that I think most women got over time. And that that really bothered me.

Angela 22:17

And getting into quarter two, I was feeling the same exact way. When is this going to get good? When are we actually going to learn about birth? What are the real complications? Like, we all know about Rockefeller medicine, right? Like, that's why we all signed up for this class. Why are they still trying to tell us like we don't know, right? I felt like that was really insulting. Like the philosophical stuff where it's like, I thought we were on the same page with some of this stuff. Can we just get to the birth talk, right? That we thought we signed up for. Yeah. And like you said, where they're just like, go out and do it. You'll figure it out as you go. When on the flip side in Wapio's program, she's giving us all of the information. There's a lot of support from the mentors and teachers in the program who actually have a lot of experience attending sovereign births and births in all different situations. And they're still saying, hey, you really should have an in-person apprenticeship before you go out and, you know, start calling yourself a traditional midwife or whatever you plan on calling yourself. Like those terms are misleading if you have not been to any births. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 23:27

Yeah. Right. And like for people who are listening, like we are literally not exaggerating. Like one of my actually another student now, like we were in a group chat, she sent a really wonderful PDF, just a really basic PDF of basic, basic information for like first-time moms and stuff like that. And in that like 28-page PDF, I learned more there than I did in this year-long $12,000 program. It was just, there was no substance. It was completely opinion-based monologues. And we did not get anything else. Um, so I really want to stress that this is this like we're actually speaking very objectively when there was no content to be had except for these anecdotal opinions on what birth should be. And it was very much structured about the hierarchy of birth, where the mom is actually the one in charge, which is a great thought. I I understand it. I I like that a lot because obviously if you're in birth, it's your birth. But also you're your most vulnerable when you're in the birth portal. So I I don't agree with that anymore. That like you you may not be able to make the best decision for you in that moment. I don't know.

Angela 24:48

I've never given birth, but yeah, especially when people are getting a lot of their information from listening to their podcast, which is heavily censored. There are lots of people who have reached out to Emily and said, Hey, I had this thing come up during my free birth that I had no idea about, even after taking your complete guide to free birth and listening to all these podcasts. There wasn't a single story about this negative outcome that came up. And that's because the Free Birth Society podcast is heavily censored. The stories on there, of course, are amazing and true, but they are only the positive stories, and that is not the whole story. There are plenty of other stories. So this idea of like, if you free birth, everything will just be fine is not true. And also, it's for anyone who's keeping track in Naya's episode, she said from behind the scenes they were originally going to repurpose some of the RBK material and put it in MMI, but they didn't do that. From talking to some of the other people in our group that were in RBK before, that had gone through the MMI content, they said that a lot of the stuff was not even in there. So there was really no real information about birth in this entire program. Like, not even the information that they had in RBK. Like they hadn't even taken the time to repurpose that and put it into MMI. It was just kind of empty. It was a complete scam.

SPEAKER_02 26:19

Yeah. And this was supposed to be their capstone. This was their largest project, their most promising, like pinnacle of Freebird Society Expression, if you will. It's like a year-long midwifery program. Like, how much more big can you get except for in person? And it really does just the downfall from that false promise was obviously very intense for them. Yeah, so yeah, I we all had accountability buddies in our program. And me and my accountability buddy were just like, what is going on here? Like we were talking, and like, are we only ones who feel this way? Um, I I really was a little worried that I was the only one, and maybe she was the only one, and we were these outcasts that just didn't appreciate it enough, or something like that. And then she connected me to two other pairs or one other pair of accountability buddies who were very disturbed as well. So we all started talking. We're like, what is going on here? And it just slowly started to get bigger. And I don't know when you were when we connected or what that was like to you.

Angela 27:41

I think it wasn't until there, so there started to become this like group chat that was growing of people who had left MMI because we were all leaving. There was like dozens, I think, of us that left at that point. And yeah, I think I didn't connect with you until that point, but I was just like checked out, just like you were. Like they were like, Where's the birth stuff? Like, come on, this isn't this is yeah, ridiculous.

SPEAKER_02 28:03

Yeah, and I stopped listening to their weekly live calls because they were like three hours long and they would not really be talking about anything substantive, but it was just draining my energy. So I stopped listening in live.

Angela 28:15

When did you buy the tickets for Matriarch Rising? That was right around the beginning of quarter two, was it not?

SPEAKER_02 28:22

Yes, it was. It was I think the the week or two, like the first week or two into the second quarter. Yeah. So I I went even deeper in. I invested even further into FBS and I bought a Matriarch Rising Festival ticket. I also bought their other course, the Blood Mystery School. And I was taking that simultaneously to MMI.

Angela 28:48

So, what were your thoughts in signing up for the blood mystery school?

SPEAKER_02 28:51

Well, I'm trying to remember the exact timeline because I think the wool was still pulled over my eyes at that point. And I just I was really into this almost like archetypal identity of like the wise wild woman, and I'm really gonna get it from this group because that's what they prey on. That they had that vulnerability of I want wild sisterhood. So I just kept going deeper and deeper in. Blood Mysteries was fantastic, not gonna lie, it was really, really, really wonderful. And it was taught by two different women, and it is full of information. Those are women of high integrity, and they have since separated from Free River Society, and I'm very glad that they did. So if anyone is interested in Blood Mystery School, I definitely would recommend that. Very, very integral, high-caliber space full of real information. So I was going through that simultaneously. Um were you able to finish that school? Kind of. Okay. I think it was kicked out before the closing ceremony. So at some point, I'm just like, I have to, I have to speak up, I have to say something. And it m it was at the end of quarter two, actually, right at the end, I sent a very long email to Emily and basically said, quarter two was not what you promised at all. And I said it very respectfully. It was almost poetic in some ways, I think. Um, and I'd like to figure out a way to share that maybe on I don't go on Reddit anymore, but I don't know if it's on Reddit.

Angela 30:30

I'm gonna do a blog post associated with this episode. If you wanted to share it on there, I'm happy to put, you know, things like that in the blog post. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 30:36

Yeah, definitely. That would be really good to do, I think. And I perhaps one of my own weaknesses is that I give people the benefit of the doubt up until the very, very end. I really, I push, I see the best in people, and it's gotten me in a lot of complications and trouble over the years. Um, and so like there's the deeper gut sense that something is very, very wrong, and then there's the lighter, more optimistic feeling of they're just not like they're just confused. Like they're just not quite seeing it, and they like they just need some feedback and they'll they'll work on it and they really care. Yeah, and she did respond, and in a way, she did kind of like appease the optimistic part of me, and she made some um, I would categorize them as superficial changes, like some changes to the um the the mentor groups that we were in, like something kind of uh small, like I mentioned uh you you want us to talk about our homework with each other, but we don't have access to each other's submissions. So we're talking about something we can't even see, and that's like completely counterproductive. So she changed that and was like, okay, well, she's trying, and she she did comment on the unedited videos, but the rest of it, you know, like there was no substance to the birth quarter, was just kind of like she basically no, literally said, I'm not going to defend myself about that. And I was like, Okay, like cool, thanks. I feel like maybe we we got some progress there.

Angela 32:26

Um at least you know about Rockefeller Medicine.

SPEAKER_02 32:30

Yeah, exactly. Um yeah, so I just kind of kept my head down for a couple more weeks. Uh I stayed through the business sec no, the oh no, it was um what was a third quarter?

Angela 32:45

Birth trauma on debriefs, the birth trauma debrief section. That was when I really was like, this is insane that they are teaching women to, you know, that's crazy the way they're they're teaching that.

SPEAKER_02 32:56

Yeah, I agree. I was not happy with some of the example sessions they were giving. I I my myself personally, I would never talk to a grieving woman the way that they did like that. There was just some things where I was like, are you allowed to say that to someone? And I can't think exactly what it is, but it's the tone, it's the pressure to accept responsibility and almost like failure in a way that, oh, this wouldn't have happened if you just did this differently, if you felt differently. And it's subtle, it's not overt, it's it's just a subtle aggression towards people who are in a lot of pain and confusion looking for answers. That was my impression that I would I would never ever conduct, I would never accept money to to give that to someone.

Angela 33:48

So yeah, it was some of those example sessions were were really sad to watch. Yeah. What were some of the next things that happened for you?

SPEAKER_02 34:00

I was so overwhelmed at that point. I knew through the grapevine through other women that there was someone who had lost her baby. Um, but I was just like, what is going on? Like, there's so much information. I don't know, I'm not seeing it directly for myself. I'm I'm confused. If this is true, it's very disturbing. And then, you know, obviously the Reddit thread started to happen right around that exact same time where I really started to see, oh, I am not the only one. And this has actually been like endemic for quite a while. Like, this is this this is an ongoing offender, uh, an abuser. And I'm oh, I'm not the first person to notice this whatsoever. So that was incredibly validating. And I was like, oh, I was right again. Yeah, it was just an absolute massive explosion. And I was traveling, I was in the car for all of this. I was driving from Iowa to Georgia for a significant portion, and then visiting family where I'm really not able to be so connected to the internet. It just felt like an absolute explosion. The box had been opened, it could not be put back, things were flying around, people were very upset, very I just I was so bewildered, and I felt like I had a role to play, and I had already started to play my role before the Reddit threads happened. And so I was very, very much like in a feeling sense. I felt like I was on the front lines of this thing being dismantled in real time. And I don't think you were on this call, but me and the three other women that had really connected in the beginning about our disappointment, we hosted a Zoom call and we brought up our grievances to an even larger group of women. Um and we just wanted more feedback. We wanted to kind of rally and say, okay, who else is feeling this way? Is there anything we should do about this? Um and I was like literally in the car for that group, and I had all these talking points, and I was trying to share what I had seen and the misrepresentation of marketing. That was the most disturbing thing to me at that point from a personal level. Um, and it was very interesting to hear the polarized responses because some people really wanted us to shut up and go away and just stop. And then other women were like, Yeah, I see what you mean. Yeah, I never thought of it that way, but now I definitely am, and um, kind of all those variances in between. Um, and just the stress of that time was exhausting. I was trying to, oh, I haven't even talked about how I got kicked out.

Angela 36:56

So how did so that happened before the Zoom call that you're talking about?

SPEAKER_02 37:01

No, it happened a few like two or three days later. So sure.

Angela 37:07

So that Zoom call, there were other women that reported back to Emily or recorded it, showed her the whole thing. Something like that happened, right? So she had known what went down in the Zoom call part of the next like class.

SPEAKER_02 37:19

Something like that happened. There were moles, if you will. Okay, and then the other catastrophic thing, because there's just so

Mentors Leave And Emma Gets Removed

SPEAKER_02 37:28

much. The other catastrophic thing is that the mentors started to leave. Yes, mentors had resigned all at the same time.

Angela 37:35

My mentor left, another mentor that I knew from my mentor left, Naya left, like four mentors, like all at the same time. Yeah, all left.

SPEAKER_02 37:44

Yeah, and so women were coming on to the private platform and saying, can we talk about what's going on here? Like, what is going on? We'd like to have a time set aside where you, as the leaders, can explain to us what is going on. And Emily and Yolanda played the denial game, and they said, Nothing is going on. There is nothing to talk about here. It's not interesting, there's nothing to discuss. We're going to continue on as normal. You guys are all just being dramatic. Dramatic online internet trolls. We have no time for it. And um, I can't remember what was said. Oh, somebody said, Well, what about these mentors leaving, or what about these students leaving? And Emily said, I don't know anything about that. And for whatever reason, her lying to the face of women made me snap. I I stopped thinking rationally because I do not like liars. I do not like seeing leaders lie. It's something that I just have very, very low tolerance for. And I really need to collect myself when I see this because it just is so incredibly infuriating to me. And so I wrote a comment that said basically, I have a very hard time believing that you don't know that your students are leaving and you're minimizing this. It should not be minimized. We need to talk about this. And before that, there's so much, I had sent her a second email saying you need to answer these questions in order for me to restore my faith in your business. And the questions were how many births have you attended in person or uh over the phone as a like as a virtual assistant, where you are present for the emergence of the baby, not after. Like, you know, like I had to get very, very specific because I didn't want them to play any games. Like it was I asked very specific questions about their the structuring of their financial structure of how they decided to price this course. And then I asked them to please address the egregiously high number of stillbirths that have happened in the past year in their sample size of 600 women in their closed group. It was like 10 stillbirths out of 600 women, which is I I I don't even know how to comprehend that because that does that does not happen in the medical system, as far as I know. So I asked, I I I sent them a very fiery email. And then I I wrote a very fiery comment, and it was very honest, but uh in my opinion, it was not slander, it was not gossip, it was just very much like I laid my foot down and um I was uh removed within 15 minutes after writing that, and I got an email that said, Your gossip and lies do not um align with the code of conduct or something like that. And they removed me from MMI, they removed me from Blood Mystery School that I had not finished and had paid for in full, totally separate entity uh school, and then they canceled my MRF ticket, which I had paid three out of the four payments.

Angela 41:25

So for So that was like $1,500, right? Just for people that don't know how much three of the four were the payments were like how how much had you paid on your ticket?

SPEAKER_02 41:34

I think it was about $1,500. Yep, and it had about $450,500 left. So with that, when you've paid $1,500 and you don't get a refund, but they cancel your ticket, you have no recourse. You've you just lost money and you you cannot attend. And so they literally stole that money from me. That that was, in my opinion, unlawful for them to take. They should have given me a refund for that. Um, the MMI stuff is a little bit more vague because the contracts and stuff like that, but for the uh Major Ark Rising Festival, I think that was it appears to be legal to me for them to do that. Um so I was very relieved actually to be kicked out. It was a huge, huge, huge relief. And our little MMI group stays in touch to this day, actually, and we're very close. Actually, this group has been very very close. We're an awesome group of women. And so I stay connected to them and I don't really go on Reddit anymore. It's it's just a lot, it's a lot to go through. It it makes my heart very like uh, you know, just a lot of injustice and a lot of people, a lot of very loud opinions that I agree with and don't agree with, so I don't spend a lot of time there.

Angela 43:02

So right after you got kicked out and you're kind of processing all of this, what were some of the actions that you took?

Legal Options And The AG Complaint

SPEAKER_02 43:13

So I, in the first few, like the initial phase, was very, very convinced that they had committed fraud and this was illegal, and that the chances of me getting my money back were quite high. I was very optimistic at that point, and somebody had sent me the number of a lawyer who had sued Emily before. He was a very, very wonderful gentleman, an older man, very kind, very trustworthy. And we talked a little bit. I sent him the contract, and his assessment was that this is not worth pursuing because everything in here can be interpreted subjectively. Even words like evidence-based school can be subjective. And as frustrating as that is, I do understand it. So that was one thing that I did. I I tried to pursue like legal action that direction. And then simultaneously to that, I was just trying to figure out what is the best way to do this. Is it a class action lawsuit? Is it for me to sue personally? Is this getting into the range of like this business is a threat to the public, like because of their you know malpractice for lack of a better word? What do I do? And so I also filed a complaint with the Attorney General of North Carolina, and they sent the complaint to Freebirth Society. They, I think, had 10 days to respond, and they did respond. Um, Emily, Emily's lawyer sent a very interesting document back to the AG that I was able to review that was very, very dishonest, and just a bunch of lawyer talk to move things around, to shuffle around like my original complaint, and it was just full of um distortions. And there is very little that makes me more angry than that, which it's just points to how much I distrust and dislike the legal system, the medical system, because they're not fighting for truth, they're fighting for personal interests. One of the most obvious uh things they did, which really bothered me, was that they distorted my timeline of communication with Emily. So they had completely left out my first email to Emily. They just decided that that did not exist and that my first um which it totally didn't even make any sense, anyways, because the screenshots they submitted were clearly like um like an incomplete part of the email chain because there's things missing. Like I don't they they just decided to like take that out. It's like, okay, whatever, that's like their MO. They're trying to self-preserve it. Definitely bothered me. And then they used some very interesting language that I made threats, some I can't quite remember, but they they interpreted my requests for transparency as requesting confidential medical records and proprietary business information. And they also um redirected my complaint because my complaint was that you misrepresented the content of the course. And they said, we made it very clear that this was a non-licensure pathway, which of course I knew that. I knew it was not a licensure pathway. That was not my complaint, but I did expect to get actual information, and especially based on the syllabus. When you look at the syllabus of the birth quarter, it's like we're gonna go through hemorrhage, shoulder dystocia. Everything, every, every complication was listed in that syllabus. And so I reasonably relied on that syllabus to represent that we will learn about those things. But the bait and switch here is that they they use all of this medical terminology to lure women in that wanted a legitimate holistic training. And then they said, Oh, psych, this is actually just a deprogramming and none of it's real. Please give me your $12,000 for that. And that was that's really the thing to this day that I'm like most upset about because I think that is so reasonable. It's a reasonable, um it's a reasonable position to take that you you see that kind of curriculum and syllabus and believe that that is what you're going to receive. Not that, oh, just kidding. This is not our philosophy at all. None of it's real, none of it is important.

Angela 48:23

So was it before or after you got kicked out that they had the call where Emily changed the name of the school to the Match of Earth Mentor Institute now and admitted that Yao and I overplayed our hand by calling it a midwifery school?

SPEAKER_02 48:41

Like we're not calling what's happening. That must have been after. And did they change the name of the school that year or was it for the next year?

Angela 48:50

It was like effective immediately. Like, this isn't a midwifery school anymore. It's a mentor institute.

SPEAKER_02 48:56

Like oh wow, I missed that part. I thought that they had changed it for the next year. Um, I was I was really upset about that. Let's just say, and yeah, she had openly admitted, like you said, like she they had overplayed their hand by calling it a midwifery school, which just further proves my point. Like, this is like you should not be teaching midwifery. You're not midwives, you don't even have the experience that you claim to have.

unknown 49:23

Yeah.

Angela 49:24

Well, they're simultaneously talking crap about midwives who have skills, you know, and like re trying to like recreate like this term. Like, it's just doesn't make sense. It's and it's really disrespectful to the midwives who have been fighting to be midwives since you know the 70s, really, all these years. Like it's like so disrespectful to all of the work that they've put in.

SPEAKER_02 49:46

Yeah, I agree. And to think that they know better just based on their incredibly limited experience. I I actually am starting to think that their whole philosophy is based on Yolanda's like physiology, because she can birth very effectively. Because she had so many of those experiences that actually translated directly into their business model of like, look, I can do it and I'm fine. So everyone else who has problems, you guys just don't believe in God enough, you know, like didn't do enough work. How fair, yeah.

Angela 50:23

So is there anything else that you want to share about how things unfolded as the time went on that you were out of the school?

SPEAKER_02 50:33

Well, they so the the lawyer, uh, it's bounds law, by the way. I thought I should mention that. Um, they're in Kansas City, I believe. Um, their lawyer did that response. And to be perfectly honest, when I submitted my complaint, I had no idea what I was doing. So I didn't really submit any supplemental documents or evidence. But after I did that, I I submitted back to them, I can't remember how many pages it was. So many pages, so, so, so, so, so many pages of a rebuttal document where I go through and dissected every single lie that they told and gave ample evidence, gave them screenshots of the course, gave them highlighted uh transcripts of insane things that they said, like, I don't know, I don't believe in gravity, and STDs aren't real, and just the complete nonsense. And I I worked on that for like seven or eight days straight. And I had a partner at the time who was very helpful, and I need to give him credit for that as well. So it was sort of like a really, really, really intense team effort to get that done. And I was very happy with it at the end. I thought there is absolutely no way anyone could ignore this because it's so obvious. And I made sure that it's obvious and documented that this something is wrong here. You know, I didn't totally understand the statutes that they broke. I'm not really good about understanding the legal jargon, but my partner at the time had done all of the research on which statutes that had been violated, like North Carolina statutes. And so we referenced those. We were just hoping for them to take action and notice. And I sent it to the AG, the AG sent it to Freebird Society, and I waited and waited and waited, and I think 18 days went by and I followed up and said, Have you heard from them? What's going on? And they said, We cannot force a business to respond. And if you'd like to, you know, do anything else about this, you need to hire a lawyer and take this up personally, which was disappointing because so many women had been harmed, they had been kicked out. I thought that and also just my my personal part was more about the fraud, but simultaneous to that was just all of the women who had been directly harmed by their philosophy. It just was so overwhelmingly like something here is nefarious and wrong, and something needs to be done on a larger scale. So I was very disappointed that that was a dead end. So at that point, I just let go. I I had to let go that I lost all that money, and I felt incredibly embarrassed because one, two, three, four. I had four people give me substantial amounts of money to cover that course, and I had absolutely nothing to show for it. I was back at square one. So yeah, but it's it's okay. It's it's okay now. Like it's it's in the past, it's not. I I survived, you know, I survived the embarrassment and the loss of money. Um and at this point in time after the Guardian article came out, I'm just so much more focused on the the real harm they cause, which was the deaths of children. And that part I can't let go, and I can't I don't know. That part is so much worse than what I experienced.

Angela 54:24

Yeah.

The Guardian Article And New Nuance

Angela 54:26

So what are your thoughts on the Guardian articles?

SPEAKER_02 54:31

So I read the first main article, and I was so relieved to read it. I thought they did such a good job. And I can't even imagine how much content they had to cut just to get it down to that. But whatever they decide to cut, I thought it was really appropriate to focus on those stories. Um and I felt so much relief to see that because when it's finally reflected in the outer and it's so eloquent, and it really is it's presented in a really honest way, but it's not a hit piece, it's just the truth. It just calmed my nervous system down so much, and it was so relieving for me and validating really that I'm not crazy. Yeah. And I haven't read the other ones yet. It's just so much information all the time to get through, but um, I will probably read those.

Angela 55:33

To wrap it up, what are your views on birth now, like at this point in your journey?

SPEAKER_02 55:40

Oh my god, I don't know. I I don't know. I've thought a lot lately about what I would do in during my own births, and I genuinely don't have an answer. I would probably hire a midwife, to be honest. It just feels like that's the safest thing to do. Um through this process, I've learned so much respect and reverence and nuance for licensed midwives. And especially where I live in Iowa, the the licensure is so um, or the the requirements to be licensed are so flexible. When I was in Free War Society, they made it sound like you absolutely have to do a cervical check every 90 minutes or whatever. That does not exist here. There's nothing, there are no requirements as far as I'm aware. Now, licensure was just put into effect in July of 2024. It's so new. So we have that advantage. Um, but I was talking to some local midwives here because I wanted to start apprenticing, and I was like, please let me know. Like, I just really want to understand what you are required to perform at a birth, and they're like, nothing. I was like, what do you mean, nothing? That doesn't make sense to me. They're like, no, like you have to be licensed, but you don't have to do anything else. So that was really relieving to me. And it's just I think that's a more accurate picture of what licensed midwifery is. It's not the same in all states, but it can be genuinely supportive and safe to have someone with medical experience at your birth. It doesn't have to be a sabotage story every time. So where I am now, I have really, really good midwives in this area. So I would probably do that and have a home birth naturally. But yeah, I I think I think the big thing is that I once believed that because of the FBS propaganda, that if there's a problem or a complication, you're just at fault for it. And now I know that bodies are so complicated and so unique and so diverse. And there's just in a sense, there's no way for me to rationalize that someone is wrong because they had to transfer or whatever. Like to me, it's like, how did I even believe that in the first place? That's so out of touch with reality. That is so like morally simplistic and superior to hold that. So I'm really glad I I have come out of that.

unknown 58:29

Yeah.

Angela 58:30

Yeah. Wow, it is. It is really like you said, it's like that that tone and that condescending like language. Like they're not directly like doing that, but it it really is that whole vibe. And yeah, I I think I'd like to end this on like a quote from Wapia where she says, you know, over and over in her course, like it's not my privilege to know the destiny of another human being. And that like nuance just was not present, you know, in the course. And I really think that anybody that might be considering, I don't know if they're gonna do MMI again or whatever, but if you know you're even considering the RBK program, like Wapio's Wapio's course, you know, has that information that you're looking for. It's not in the Free Birth Society programs.

SPEAKER_02 59:15

Yeah, definitely. And I do want to just shout out Blood Mystery School. They're not associated with Free Birth Society anymore. That is such a valuable, valuable resource. I would, I I still think that one is great.

Angela 59:30

Um did you end up getting your access back to that? I think I saw something where they did like kind of make that right with some of the people that who unjustly got kicked out or removed from the MMI program.

SPEAKER_02 59:40

Yes, I actually did. And what's interesting is the course or the the year that I did it, they actually abbreviated it to eight weeks instead of 16. So now we have access to 16 weeks because they took from a different year. So that's really exciting. I really appreciate that they did that. Um yeah, and I think the fate of Free Birth Society is still to be determined. I don't know what should be done with all of that. I would like it to just kind of disappear and for Emily to sort of be humbled and grow from it, like because I would want that for anyone and want that for myself. But you know, it is so out of my hands. It's it's kind of exactly what you said, like it is not up to me to know the fate of another human being. So we'll see. We'll see what happens, and I hope it's not worst-case scenario, whatever that is.

Angela 1:00:34

So yeah, we're just sharing our truths and that's all we can do. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, well, thank you so much, Emma, for taking the time to chat with me today and share your story.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:47

Yeah, thank you so much for giving me a platform and being such a great listener and host. I I really, really appreciate this.

Closing Song Walk Of The Wild Ones by Kate Sutherland

SPEAKER_00 1:01:00

Follow the walk of the wild ones into the woods and the darkness. Rebirth the ways of the ancient ones whose tracks were washed away in blood. It falls to us now to open up and taste beyond what we prefer. Take up the phoenix fire, cleansing, change to light the set. Follow the walk of the wild ones, into the woods and the darkness, revert the ways of the ancient ones, whose transfer washed away in love. It falls to us now to open up and taste beyond the death. Take up the feelings of our cleansing, change to like the path. Set myself through the unknown, I'll be on the light and yellow light. In darkness, let love like the way to feed the soil of changing times. Set myself through the unknown, I'll be on the light and open light. In darkness, let love like the way to feed the soil of changing times, follow the water, the water ones, into the woods and the darkness, re birth the ways of the ancient ones, its transfer, washed away the light. It was to us now to open up and taste beyond the head. Take up the feet of cleansing, change to light the tons. Step by step through the unknown, I'll be of a light and you'll be mine. In darkness, let love light the way to feed the soil of changing times. Step by step through the unknown, I'll be of the light and you'll be line. In darkness, let love light the way to feed the soil of changing times.