Birth, Baby!

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Welcome, this is Birth, Baby!

Your hosts are Ciarra Morgan and Samantha Kelly.

Ciarra is a birth doula, HypnoBirthing educator, and pediatric sleep consultant.

Samantha is a birth doula, childbirth educator, and lactation counselor.

Join us as we guide you through your options for your pregnancy, birth, and postpartum journey.

Thank you to our listeners for your continued support.

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This helps us gain visibility to other people that could benefit from listening in.

Hey, everyone, today we have k'mae martinez, who is extra special in my heart, because she used to be part of our Empowered Beginnings team.

She's a birth and postpartum doula, space holder for folks moving through big transitions, birthkeeper, womb tender, and aspiring herbalist.

She is also in kinship with Robozo and is a belly binding practitioner, which is exactly what she's here to talk to us about today.

So thank you so much for being here.

Well, thank you so much for having me.

I'm so happy to connect with you again, Ciarra.

I'm so special.

So to start us off, can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what got you into birth work?

Cause I know your story of coming into birth work is a little bit different than ours is.

Yeah, I am somebody who has not given birth before.

And I know a lot of people into this being like rocked by birth and being like, oh my gosh, I can't not stop thinking about birth, right?

But for me, it was having never held a pregnancy or birth, or given birth before, it really was just a calling up the heart.

Like it got so loud that it was undeniable.

Like there was nothing else that I needed to be focusing on at that time.

It was a time of great transition in my life.

And I was really holding that prayer in my heart of like, I know I'm here.

I have a lot of gifts.

I have a lot of like medicina.

Like what am I supposed to be doing?

And birth was so loud.

It was just undeniable that I'm meant to be in these spaces and that I do have something to truly offer here.

And so, yeah, I signed up for my first little dono, three day week, you know, three day weekend kind of deal.

And that wasn't quite it.

And so I found the people who really spoke a language that resonated with me and talked about birth in a way that I intuitively knew was true in my soul.

Like that birth is this monumental spiritual experience, you know, that it's not just like, you know, a natural biological function of the human body.

Yes, but also it's so much more in shaping who we are and further shaping the world we live in, you know?

So yeah, I got started in 2019 and it brought me to Austin, Texas.

And the first person I connected with out here was Ciarra.

She brought me on to her team.

And that was just so enriching to have, you attract such a diverse range of clients.

So I got to work with a lot of different people and to really hone my skill and figure out like what I'm about and what I'm not, you know, and all the things in between.

That was really cool to watch, honestly.

Like I got to see you really transform because you came here, yes, I'm going to do birth work.

And then, I even had a couple of people ask me, like, May is so much different than you are.

Like, where's the alignment?

And I was like, that is what I love about her.

I love that she serves clients so differently than I do.

And I respect it so much.

And I don't care if she's been doing this work, even if she was doing it for two days, her knowledge is amazing.

Like, the space she holds is amazing.

When I speak to her, I can feel her spiritually.

Like, she is the coolest person.

And watching you grow and evolve in what you were offering people, what you were choosing to engage in changed.

You know, you're like, I, Ciarra, you know, I just don't even, I'm not gonna work with this part anymore.

I'm only gonna do this.

And I always respected you so much because you really listened to that inner voice and stayed very true to what you wanted to do.

And eventually, belly binding came into play, right?

So what is it?

Like, how did you get into that?

What is the history of that?

You know, what brought you to it and what can you tell us about it?

So one, I wanna say that belly binding is nothing new.

I know it's like trendy right now.

You know, you can Pinterest it and see all these beautiful wraps and knots and all these things, but belly binding is, it's nothing new.

We see it all over the world in cultures that seemingly had no contact with each other, right?

Like we've always known how to tend to birth, how to tend to postpartum, right?

It's just innately human to know how to do these things.

So we see a really popular version in the Malaysian version of Bangkok belly binding, right?

That's like probably what you're gonna see if you Google it.

There's, like I said, traditions all over the world, traditional Chinese medicine in Ayurvedic context.

I learned through a traditional Mexican medicine context.

I learned with my maestra, Tema Mercado of La Matrice Birth.

I learned with her also in 2019, I took a spinning babies course with her, which also just like blew my mind.

Spinning babies is amazing.

But the next day she had a belly binding and so bad as course.

This workshop, this knowledge share, where we talked about why do we belly bind and how it really is just a small part of the postpartum healing.

And so in a larger context, what we're doing for postpartum is we're trying to bring warmth into the body.

Pregnancy is a state of warmth in the body.

And then postpartum is a state of cold, right?

Like we have all this space within us, right?

The womb is now empty and beginning the involution process, tucking behind the bladder and the pelvis, and the organs are all displaced and they're slowly migrating back to their space.

And there's a lot of opportunity for air or wind.

They call it mal de aire in Spanish, like bad air to enter.

And this is how they interpret dis-ease entering the body.

And oftentimes we talk it up to, oh, it's normal to feel these aches and pains.

You have to position yourself different when you're nursing.

Or that's really common to have this, or the lower back ache.

And it's through the lens of traditional Mexican medicine, it's like, these are actually evidence of air entering the body.

And what we need to do is warm the body.

And so we all know drinking herbal teas, right?

And warming spices, chicken stew and bone broth, and all these different ways of nourishing ourselves to bring in warmth.

But there's other factors too, and belly binding is one of those.

So in essence, what we're doing is we're helping bring warmth in and we're helping hold that person.

And there's different physical benefits to this, emotional benefits, spiritual benefits, energetic, right?

Like there's all these different levels that belly binding touches.

So I can get into some of those if you want, or we can talk like breast tacks, like what exactly, what are we doing here?

How would you like to?

Yes, yes, I want everything in your brain.

I want to talk about, really whatever calls to you, whatever you think that you want people to know about this practice.

Yeah, okay.

I would even someone want to do this, you know, like I'm gonna joke about myself, like little white girl like me, why would I want to do this?

And is this something that everyone does or is it just people in traditional circles and culturally sharing with each other?

Belly binding, you know, it's our birthright to have an empowered birth and to have a safe and protected birth.

It's also our birthright to have a well nourished, nurtured postpartum experience, right?

So this is available for everybody.

It might not resonate with everybody, you know, not everybody, you know, relates to reality in this way, but certainly this isn't like an exclusive thing.

This isn't trying to, you know, only if you're brown or something like that.

It's not like that at all.

Like postpartum healing is for everybody.

So like physically, what this is going to do is it's going to help, like I mentioned, the involution process of the uterus, right?

Helping all those displaced organs find their pre-pregnancy space.

It's going to gently wrap around the abdomen.

This can help with diastasis recti, the separation of the abdominal walls.

It can help to stabilize the lower energy centers.

So talking a little bit more energetically here, this is like the root chakra, the sacral chakra, the solar plexus chakra.

These are the last, these are the bottom three energy centers of the body, major energy centers of the body that are most affected during birth.

I'll just share a quick little visual for people who resonate with it.

On the energetic level, what's happening during birth is this mass opening, right?

This like really big opening of the physical body, right?

The cervix, the hips, we're opening, but also energetically, which is why we are so sensitive, right?

Like lights are brighter and sounds are louder and that just feels weird on my skin, right?

Like we're so sensitive during it because like we're having life move down.

Life is like coming through.

And so the way I've been taught and the way I actually visualize it is kind of like an hourglass, like up here is like a wide opening of the crown, of the third eye, of the throat, literally vocalizing, and it converges in the heart and then opens again the bottom of the hourglass in the solar plexus, the sapral and the root chakra, right, the physical opening.

And so, and it's all converging in the heart, of course, because that is the essence of love, right?

Like that's like, we're doing this out of everything's for love.

And so we're left wide open after birth, wide, wide, wide open.

And this can manifest when the air interests from those big openings as depression, as anxiety, as, you know, we can see physical ailments, like a lot of postpartum bleeding, right?

We can see indigestion, we can see all kinds of things.

And the body really just needs to stabilize after being so open.

And so the belly bind is just one thing that we can do to help a person feel held together and closed.

And, you know, that opening in birth happens so quickly, right?

Like in the matter of like usually 24 to 36 hours, like oftentimes less, but like, right?

It's an acute moment of opening, mass opening, right?

Baby's coming through.

Whereas that closing of the postpartum time is more like a feather, like gently coming down back to the ground, right?

Like it's slow, it can get swifted away with the wind, it can go all the way over here, it can like get raised back up, right?

Like it's not linear, it's gentle and it needs a lot of care.

And this is where mothering the mother comes in.

So the belly bind can really help to help somebody feel a sense of togetherness as they're swiftly, or like coming down to the earth, that little feather.

Yeah, it holds a lot of emotional and energetic benefits because birth trauma is real, whether it's a beautiful birth or a really scary birth or however birth looks like it's something that happens quick and fast in the body relative to like how we live our lives.

Like it's an acute moment and trauma is defined as something that happens too fast for our body to integrate in real time.

And so even if you had an amazing birth, right, it's like, oh, this one thing like just, I wasn't really sure what we were doing and then it moved really quickly, but then my baby was born, it was fine, right?

Or maybe it doesn't even look like that.

It can look so many ways.

And the belly bind is something that can help us feel a sense of togetherness, a sense of holding.

It's like a hug, you know?

So what does like a typical belly binding session look like for you?

Like when is it done?

How often does it need to happen and postpartum to be effective?

What does all of that kind of look like?

So I'll say even getting wrapped one time, this can be extremely effective, right?

As I mentioned, postpartum isn't linear, neither is the healing.

We can bind as soon as postpartum vitals are stable.

That can be like two to four hours postpartum, right?

In fact, in Mexico, most people leave the hospitals with these vendas, these wraps.

They look like large bandages.

I'll show a thing right here for people who are watching online.

This is what it is.

It's a very thin material.

It's very breathable.

I'm going to wrap this in a certain way and then secure it with these little things.

So these are like, you can find these-

It's like an A-bandage almost.

Pretty giant A-bandage, yeah.

This is called a venda, and you can find them at the supermarkets in Mexico.

This is-

It's so common.

When I first was learning about this, I saw a video of somebody leaving a cesarean and getting this wrapped.

And we're not doing it super tight or anything like that.

It's more about holding.

So typically, when people choose to work with me, because of accessibility and stuff, I say, hey, within that first week, I would love to see you.

My maestro says before you get up for that first bowel movement or for that first time using the restroom, to prevent that feeling of falling out of yourself.

Samantha, the eye roll.

Yeah.

I remember it so clearly.

It's so jarring getting up after, for many people, especially those who are delivering in a hospital, you're in the bed that whole time, you've had this big old baby sitting in there, taking up so much space, and then all of a sudden you get up to go to the bathroom, your baby is no longer with you because somebody else is holding them while you get up, and it's just, it is, it's just like this falling into yourself, and it is really jarring.

Yeah.

And I was just at a birth the other day with a mama, it was my third birth with her.

So it's been really cool to watch all of her births and be on this journey with her.

And when she got up to you, she actually wanted to shower, it was funny.

I mean, she just recovered so fast, it was wild.

The midwife joked that her uterus was already in the spot, it should be four days from now.

She's like, you did four days of healing in about 30 minutes.

And she gets up and she's like, gosh, it just never gets not weird.

And she's just kind of poking at her stomach.

She's like, it's just jello, you know?

It's all of this space, all of this emptiness.

And if you talk about the heart piece of this, it's like this really weird jump in your brain and in your heart from your baby being inside of you to now you see them out here on that piece, even though you're happy to see them out here, it's still almost a feeling of loss for some people.

And so to bring your belly back and to have this binding and to kind of feel like you said, like this hug, this holding, where you don't feel as empty.

I'm not pregnant and will not ever have any kids and actually I don't even have a womb anymore.

I've had a hysterectomy, but I know someone that was training for this and had come home from training and wanted to practice the technique.

And I let her practice on me.

And it was such a beautiful feeling.

You know, the belly massage that is involved in this and the caring, you know, especially as doulas being such givers, we're very, not very often on the receiving end of ceremony and love and just this connection.

And it was so beautiful to receive this.

So even not pregnant or not postpartum, I really, it felt really nice.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We need that kind of intentional loving touch.

You know, we're so deprived of it in so many ways in our culture.

And yeah, we need that kind of like soothing holding, you know, to feel mothered, to feel cared for in that way.

And that's why I've so deeply resonated and fallen in love with these practices within traditional Mexican medicine, like working with the robozo and building a relationship with that, because even, you know, and that's a whole different conversation, but like, you know, these are different techniques that we can use to really heal ourselves and hold ourselves.

And even if we don't know if anything's wrong, like, you know, the body doesn't forget, the body doesn't understand things like, you know, linearly.

And so it might be holding on to something from a birth that you thought that was a great birth, you know, or from any other, you know, kind of situation in life, you know, these kind of intentional, slow, gentle practices are sometimes what our body needs in a world that's so like fast pace.

And we're quick to find the shortcut to this and the shortcut to that when really like, the body is a representation of Earth and the Earth moves slowly, you know, in cycles.

And, you know, things might seem good and then they arise again with the next season.

You're like, oh, this is something that keeps coming back.

And this is just one way that we can, we can, you know, tend to ourselves.

You know, you mentioned that just a second ago, that we kind of rush through things, we find our shortcuts.

And even with belly binding, there are kind of shortcuts.

Some people take with belly binders that they purchase online.

And although, yes, sure, that shortcut is better than not doing anything at all, the ceremony aspect of belly binding is part of the healing, I think, and the piece that is missing if you kind of do that.

So, and I know you said even one time a belly binding is better than none.

Could you tell us kind of what the ideal situation would be postpartum for how often someone is getting this?

Yeah, totally.

So ideally, as I mentioned, I would love to see somebody within that first week, the sooner, the better, right?

Especially if I'm not your birth support.

If I'm your birth support, we're like, we're for sure gonna like do this.

Like right away.

But I would love to see somebody within that first week.

And this style with the Venda is most beneficial within the first three weeks because it's really going to support physically that organ migration.

It's gonna help release the fascia and the ligaments so that they can have a little bit of a break.

It's gonna help regain that bladder control, like all those physical things I already mentioned.

That's when that's most beneficial.

I would love to see somebody a few times during that period.

And I also wanna show like if they have, you know, a partner or a mom or a friend or somebody who's gonna be like with them and postpartum hopefully, I wanna show them how to fold this and how to do the binding, you know?

And my work is really centered in like feeling empowered in yourself and feeling a sense of body literacy, you know?

Like so often do we like take our power outside of ourselves like into this doctor, into this midwife or into this healing practitioner, like they're the ones who can heal.

And it's like healing happens from our own self too.

Certainly people can help, but like I wanna teach people how to palpate their abdomen, how to know, how to feel, where's your uterus?

Can you feel that separation of the abdominal walls?

You know, like how does your digestion, this is something you can do, you know?

And I wanna show them, you can even purchase these from me, you know?

If you get done for me once and you wanna take it on, like take it in your own hands, like that's amazing, but you're right.

There's also that ceremonial aspect to it where we've come in, we start with what we call platica.

This is like a heart to heart share and we're gonna drop in and see like what's alive right now, like what's going on, how has today been?

Are we ready to talk about the birth?

We don't have to, you know, like whatever's coming up, like we go there with love and without fear, you know, for however, whatever's needing to be seen.

And then we'll move into some body work.

We'll move into, and I usually do that just so that people can like physically relax, you know, like, oh, okay, you know, like, let me like rub your muscles a little bit, help you like come into that parasympathetic nervous system where we're belly breathing and we're like feeling safe.

And then we can go into a little bit more of that energetic work, always asking for permission, of course, if we're ready for that, the body's ready for that.

And if they are, we can do some of that abdominal work, right?

And really start to tend to, you know, the belly brain.

I don't know if you've heard that, like the second brain is in the gut, the gut brain, but we hold a lot of emotions in there and a lot of stories.

Stories and experiences.

So we'll work through that.

And then we'll move into like the very last thing we do is belly binding.

It's so funny that that's like kind of how this has been like marketed of like, oh, it's belly binding, but it's like, it's so much more than that.

And it's literally the last thing we do.

And so, yeah, I guess, like I said, even doing it once can be really effective for physical benefits early on, emotional, emotional, energetic benefits.

Sure, if you really want, if you're devoted to this, if this really like resonates with you and you are in a conscious state of like closing that grand opening that happens during birth, if you're like really focusing on that and intentional with it, this might be an ally for you.

This might be a tool, a cosmic tool that like really helps you.

So I hate to leave it so open-ended, like it's whatever you want, but it really comes down to the relationship and your intention in it, and how beneficial it really is.

And how long does somebody like leave that wrap on for when you put it on them?

Like is it like all day or as long, until you shower next time or what does that look like?

I would say let's not shower with it on.

Let's take it off before you take a shower.

I always say no more than like 24 hours.

And that's simply because like your skin needs to breathe, your body needs to know, like come into contact with what its actual shape is right now, like what is happening in the body.

It needs to have those moments of recalibration of like, oh, this is where we're at though.

You know, the liver is sitting over here.

You know, the spleen is kind of over here, right?

Like we're kind of not fully in integrity here.

The body needs to have those moments of check-in.

This is just a tool.

This is just something to assist and help.

So I don't recommend having it on like 24 seven.

I also want to empower people to know that there's not like a wrong way to do this.

You know, like if I come and wrap you and in a few hours you're like, this is actually like, oh, I don't really like this.

Take it off.

That means you're done with it.

You know what I mean?

You don't need to like force yourself to wear it for eight hours or 16 hours or something like that.

Like that's where this like whole decolonization process happens of like doing things by somebody else's numbers.

Like this is where like the spirit of like tuning into your body, tuning into what you need comes in.

So again, kind of open-ended, but like if we're gonna get like the bullet points down, no more than 24 hours so your body can check in with itself and so that your skin can breathe and know its size and what's going on.

And even if you wear it for a few hours, that could be really beneficial.

When we work together, I'm going to guide you through exercises and guide you through visualizations, ways to be able to tap in with yourself, even if that's like a practical kind of like every few hours or meeting people where they're at as always.

Yeah.

I'm laughing to myself because at the very beginning of this, you said, intuitively we've always known how to take care of birth and postpartum bodies, pregnant and postpartum bodies.

And then you just said, I want you to kind of like the decolonization of this whole thing.

Let's not be so in tune with other people's numbers for ourselves.

Let's tune in with ourselves.

And it's funny because both of those things are true, except that in our culture, it seems like we don't.

We don't know how, it's because we are so flooded with the noise of everyone else.

And I am so type A, you know that about me.

That is why we are so opposite.

That is why I just think that your spirit is so beautiful because you calm those around you and you really help people focus back in.

That is one of your gifts is helping them get out of that never ending cycle of silly external information, all the noise.

And you know, so yes, we should know how and I have people in hypnoperthing ask me all the time, if you're saying all of these things are natural and normal, then why don't we know how to do them?

Why do we even need this class?

It's like, well, because we have so much noise around us, we have to figure out what's true and then we hypnotize ourselves from everybody else's information and tap into yourself, which I hate that we even have to do.

So I love that you're saying, again, it doesn't matter what a box says, what a Google says, what you're saying.

It's learning to tap into yourself and making sure that this is what's right for you, which brings me to my next question.

Are there any spaces where belly binding isn't recommended?

Is this something that some people should not do?

Or is it not safe ever?

Like, what's coming to mind right now, like physically, like if somebody has, uh, okay, if somebody has high blood pressure, we're not going to do this very tightly.

We're not going to like, you know, and the belly bind isn't like, we're like, you know, like really bringing somebody in.

It's not a corset.

Samantha, yeah, this is what's different than like the stuff you might buy online.

Like this is not a waist trainer.

This is not a bounce back.

This is not a get your body, you know, like this is healing.

This is tending to emotional, like energetic things that are happening in your body, right?

And so yeah, the first thing I can think of is if you have high blood pressure, we're going to be even more intentional about being so gentle with this, you know what I mean?

And so that you don't feel constricted at all, I might bind somebody a little bit looser.

But you know, this is really adaptable, you know, if somebody is needing more holding, we can do it a little bit tighter, less, a little bit less, you know, right?

So these techniques working with the Venda, you know, what I've been showing, or even like, this is a faha, this is like a thicker woven thing that you can use, it's reusable, it's washable, you know, like, you can just wrap this around you, this is better for like later in postpartum, or even like with the robozos, like, these are things that we can, they're gentle, we can adapt to whatever ailment might be going on.

So truthfully, nothing can really come to my mind of like, when this might not be good, maybe if somebody has like, intense feelings of like, claustrophobia, you know, like, they don't, they don't want to be held or bound, then maybe we'll just do like, laying the blanket or, or like, like, if they have a blanket or something like that, or like, if we're using a robozo, like laying the robozo like over them and just giving like a hug, you know, with it.

And then maybe they don't need that, maybe they don't need the full, the binding of it, you know, maybe that feels really uncomfortable.

But this is really adaptable and it's really gentle.

I mean, like people are leaving cesareans with this on, you know what I mean?

Like major abdominal surgery and we can still, you know, protect the incision site and also like help close that opening, you know, and that and give that sense of togetherness, that sense of security, you know, so it really, like I said, there's physical benefits, but like this is so much more than that.

So yeah, that's what I can think of.

So it sounds like paying attention to how it's making you feel, of course, like your intuition, but then also probably working with someone who knows the signs to look for, like not just like going and buying a, you know, waist trainer on Amazon or something and putting that on as a belly binding technique, but working with somebody who can really customize it to you and your individual needs.

Yeah, I mean, to each his own, you know what I mean?

Like things are going to resonate with different people and I'm not one to say it needs to look this way.

But like certainly there are like literal experts, they're like here in Austin, you know what I mean?

There are people who are sabadoras who can like, you know, help on deeper levels, you know, like help.

Yeah, yeah.

And I think the intuition piece is so huge because like I said, my little type A self, I'm not going to slow down.

And so for someone like me, it would be so helpful to have someone like k'mae come in and do this with and show me at least the first time and to just accept and receive that love and that ceremony and the peace of that moment and being around someone who is so good at that like you, it can really help kind of guide your own intuition, even though you want to be able to tap and do it on your own.

Having someone else that is so comfortable come in and show you, I just think is so hugely beneficial.

So, is there anything that you'd like to leave people with about this that you just maybe think is misunderstood or you just really want one takeaway from our conversation?

Yeah, and I think I want to do it in the form of a story if you don't mind.

Oh, I wish you would.

Yeah, this has the potential of being deeply relaxing, right?

Like a moment where like somebody's tending to the baby, right?

And you know, this poor sleep deprived person has been like just up all night and they get a chance to finally like tune in and relax.

And like oftentimes people will fall asleep.

I'm not kidding you.

And I'm like, great, that's what you need.

Your body needs rest.

And I'm here to facilitate your body's healing, right?

Like I'm here to assist in that.

And sometimes people need sleep.

So sometimes it can just be like really relaxing.

I've also like held somebody sacrum before and like had them have a huge, huge, like emotional release, right?

And this was in the form of like, like processing some of the sexual trauma they had been through as a young girl.

You know what I mean?

Like the body holds memory.

The body, you know, and sometimes just somebody holding your hips or holding your sacrum or just like having that gentle touch like can help like, like move these things out.

Like we're working with, you know, in the context that everything is vibration, these things can get stuck and stagnant and like hold in our body and not know how to release, you know?

And so sometimes it's just in that gentleness.

But the story I want to share is actually an experience I had with a Empowered Beginnings client very early on.

I was working with this mama.

It was her second baby and her mom was in town.

Her mom was in town from, oh, where was she from?

It might have been either Venezuela or Guatemala.

I'm not sure.

But her mom had come in and was going to be staying for like six weeks or so.

We came in for our postpartum session.

I laid out everything, all the robozos on the bed.

I began working on her daughter and mom's in the corner holding the baby and just tending to baby and just kind of watching.

There's a huge language barrier here too because I don't speak Spanish and she speaks only Spanish.

So the client, the person I was working with was doing a lot of translating and we would talk.

But for the most part, I'm here working on this woman and her mom's just watching.

We finish and then we're about to leave the room and clean up and the mom stops and says, like, do you have to do this right after birth or like, could you wrap me?

She was like, can you wrap me?

And my client is translating and I was like, of course.

Yeah, like this has the power.

When we step into ceremony, when we step into ritual, we have the power to transcend time.

As I've been saying a million times on this podcast already, the body remembers, the body stores things.

And so we can, when we enter these intentional spaces, we can touch things way in the past, and bring them alive in our body right now.

We can touch things in the future.

We can move through time.

And I was like, of course, not saying this, but I was like, yeah, I can wrap you.

Yeah, of course, let's try it.

And so I started working on her and I don't know her story at this point.

I don't know her history, her births or anything like that.

But as I begin to work on her, using my hands and because I can't like talk to her, you know, and she doesn't understand my words, I'm like using vibration of my voice, like I'm humming.

I'm like just helping her feel safe, right?

Like a mom would hum to her child or something.

And throughout the session, she went from like, like kind of giggly to the laughing hysterically to then sobbing.

And then a gentle like cooing coming out of her, like just, just her body was releasing, you know, and sometimes it happens like that through laughter or shaking or crying, you know, sobbing, like all these different ways that the body expresses.

And then finally, I, you know, we finished our session and I wrapped her belly and she felt so like, I could just see like, like a haze had moved out of her eyes and she was like, like breathing deeper and she had a smile on her face.

And, you know, then we began like talking, you know, and she started sharing a little bit about her experience and her daughter was translating.

And she shared with me that she had had four Caesareans, back where she was from.

I think, I think it was Venezuela.

She had had four Caesareans.

And, you know, at this point, this woman's like in her mid sixties, at that time, you know, once you have one Caesarean, you always have a Caesarean.

That was the mindset.

And the first Caesarean she had got infected.

There was something that was in there, right?

Like something was left in and she knew it and nobody would listen to her.

And so she had to have this emergency procedure to remove whatever was left in her.

And then she continued to have three more babies after that.

And this was a while, you know, that she kept saying something's off, something's off, finally got somebody to listen, had the procedure.

And then she went on to have three more babies, three more Caesareans all on the same part of her body, right?

And so her womb was holding not just these four major abdominal surgeries where this poor organ, her poor uterus was cut open.

And I don't mean to be graphic, but just saying what it is, went under this procedure four to five times because they had to get the thing out that was left the first time.

And there was no sense of honoring this place in the body that literally creates life from nothing to something, right?

Like we're literally a microcosm of the macro, of the universe, like birthing out, like we are spiraling, like moving things through our body.

And this place on earth or this place in our body, which I call like where, you know, this is heaven on earth.

This is where like heaven meets our body, where we can literally bring souls through, had had this physical trauma multiple times, you know?

And even though she might not call it that, because I don't know what she would call it, but she had four beautiful babies, you know?

Maybe she wouldn't call it trauma, but I would call that trauma to this organ, you know?

Something that happened so fast, where the body's like moving through the opening of birth and then immediately has to stop to get cut open and have her babies, right?

And again, I'm not trying to get dark.

I'm not trying to get like, I'm just calling it what it is.

Like this is what this woman experienced, you know?

And in that session, it was like one of the most profound things I've ever seen to witness the body move through those emotions again and to have these surface in different ways and to still find that over 35 years later from her last birth, was she able to find a sense of healing, a sense of closure, a sense of honoring for what she went through, you know?

Like the first time anyone had paid attention to her as a spirit and a human that had gone through something.

And how beautiful, k'mae, that you helped.

Like you didn't go in there knowing that you were going to do that that day.

I mean, what a beautiful thing for someone to trust you so much.

It gives like, I'm teary.

To trust you so much and then speak so much to who you are.

Y'all, if you're just listening to this podcast, I suggest you go watch on YouTube.

I'm telling you, there's something about k'mae and I have always been so touched by you and that you are able to give to other people through this beautiful ceremony that's healing is really cool.

And I can't tell you how thankful I am to have you be the one coming on to explain and tell about seriously.

Oh, thank you so much for saying that, you know, and yeah, it really has been such, and I'm so honored to be talking to you right now because you saw me at like the beginnings of figuring out like what I'm about, what is this, you know, and like having a sense, you know, and like that inner compass, but not knowing like, okay, so what direction exactly do I go with this inner compass, what, you know, and I'm so grateful that I got to link up with you as the first person here in Austin because I received so much mentorship.

And, you know, this work is so much more than the spiritual healing that I'm talking about.

And it's definitely my niche and like where I go to, you know, but there's so much more to know in birth.

And I'm so grateful to have received your mentorship like so early on because I got to know what's what in the birth world.

And that's a huge part of this world too.

You know, of like, hmm, you know, like, oh, this practice, that'll be practice.

Or like, this is an option, this is an option.

Here's a technique.

Here's, you know, like you are such, you know, being so type A, I know you always joke about that, but it means you hold like a wealth of information and you know who your resources are, you know.

And I always just really respected that about you and your practice and your devotion.

Again, like when I met you, you were like, I'm a solo doula looking to bring on other people.

And like, and you've built this beautiful offering.

Like I've seen you build this like from the ground up seemingly and partnering with Samantha has been so beautiful to watch y'all in your collaboration and how you have this podcast.

Like I just, so I just wanna reflect back to you, like just all the effort that you've put in and that you've, you've birthed something beautiful.

And I'm so happy to have been a part of that for a small time and to still have you as a friend and as a resource and an ally as we, you know, help people navigate birth in this crazy time.

I mean, birth in 2024 is wild y'all, you know, like there's things you gotta know.

So I'm grateful for the work that y'all do too.

Thank you.

Yeah.

It's cool how we've both really evolved from where we first started.

And you can't just stay stagnant.

You've got to listen and kind of hear that inner voice and follow it, you know?

Yeah, it's been a wild ride and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Full agree.

k'mae, thank you so much for coming on.

Can you share with us where people can find you if they'd want to connect with you about your services?

Yeah, yeah.

Really just my website.

So my business is called Birth Magic ATX and you can log on to birthmagicatx.com and you'll see my different offerings.

I share this with everybody.

If there's something that I offer that isn't quite it, but you still are feeling into somethings here, I'm really adaptable and I've seen, I've done a lot of different things for a lot of different people, always meeting them where they're at.

So whether that's with price or whether that's with services or whatever, this is community care for me and this is a way in which I get back to my community and I'm in a place of privilege where I can do that.

So yeah, if any of this resonates with any of your listeners, I encourage you to reach out and yeah, even if it's just having a conversation, my deepest prayer is that it would lead to inspiration or plant a seed of what you want your birth or postpartum journey to look like.

And I have my Instagram too.

I don't use it as much because social media freaks me out.

So I'm working on it, but you can also follow me @BirthMagicATX on Instagram.

And we'll link all of those in the show notes for everyone listening.

Thank you so much for coming on.

This was so powerful and we're just so blessed to have you as a resource and an ally.

Yeah.

Thank you for joining us on Birth, Baby!

Thanks again to Longing for Orpheus for our music.

You can look him up on Spotify.

Remember to leave a review, share and follow wherever you get your podcasts.

See you next week.