Maternal Wealth Podcast - Own Your Birth
The Maternal Wealth Podcast creates a collective space for sharing all birth-related stories. I want to acknowledge birth's uniqueness, honor its variations, and remind us of the power we hold in giving birth.
As a Labor and Delivery Nurse, I see the impact of our stories. Let's share those stories with those who come after us to prepare them for what's to come. For those who came before us, allowing them to reminisce and heal as we realize we were not alone in our experiences.
Maternal Wealth is currently streaming in twenty-five countries: New Zealand, Australia, Slovakia, Canada, Finland, South Africa, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Rwanda, Poland, India, Sweden, Germany, Puerto Rico, China, Italy, Denmark, Brazil, Indonesia, Vietnam, Spain, Greenland, Cyprus, Tanzania and the United States.
Maternal Wealth Podcast - Own Your Birth
We all enter through the Ladies' Entrance: How motherhood awakens our creative power.
Creativity isn't just something we do—it's fundamentally who we are as mothers and birthing people. This profound insight emerges throughout my conversation with Carla, a visual artist who uses her gifts to help mothers reconnect with their innate power after birth.
Carla's personal journey through two dramatically different birth experiences—from a disconnected hospital birth to an empowered home birth during a hurricane—reveals how our bodies hold wisdom that conventional systems often ignore. When providers changed shifts during her first labor and pronounced she had regressed from 6cm to 2.5cm dilation, Carla felt her birthing energy fracture. Later, when her baby was taken away immediately after birth due to complications, she experienced a disruption in their early bonding that took intentional healing to restore.
These experiences catalyzed her transformation from teaching art to children to creating healing spaces for mothers. The "belly bowls" she creates—clay vessels formed directly on pregnant women's bellies—serve as powerful ritual objects honoring the transition to motherhood. Through her studio aptly named "The Ladies' Entrance," she facilitates creative healing for women navigating birth, trauma, and the complex identity shifts of motherhood.
What makes this conversation particularly valuable is Carla's nuanced understanding of how we heal energetically as well as physically. Her holistic pelvic care work views the pelvic bowl as both physical structure and energetic center—a container of creativity, intuition, and relationship. By using art to access this wisdom center, she helps women reconnect with themselves after trauma, birth, or other life transitions.
Whether you're pregnant, postpartum, or simply interested in the intersection of creativity and healing, this episode offers a refreshing perspective on how we might reclaim our power through artistic expression. What creative tools might help you connect more deeply with your maternal wisdom? Listen and discover how art might transform your motherhood journey.
Want to Learn More about Carla and the Ladies Entrance? Click on the link below.
Music Credit
https://uppbeat.io/t/paint-the-skies/reflections
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Welcome to the Maternal Wealth Podcast, a space for all things related to maternal health, pregnancy and beyond. I'm your host, stephanie Terrio. I'm a labor and delivery nurse and a mother to three beautiful boys. Each week, we dive into inspiring stories and expert insights to remind us of the power that you hold in childbirth and motherhood. We're here to explore the joys, the challenges and the complexities of maternal health. Every mother's journey is unique and every story deserves to be told. Please note that this podcast is for entertainment purposes only. It is not intended to replace professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always consult with your healthcare provider for medical guidance that is tailored to your specific needs. Are you ready? Let's get into it. Welcome to Maternal Wealth Podcast. Today we have Carla. She reached out to me a couple weeks ago. She sent me a message on Instagram and she said to me quote I am an artist and a mom who uses creativity to help moms connect to their superpowers. After I read that, I was like yes, we need to connect Carla. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:I'm so glad you're here Me too I'd like for you to start off by sharing with us a little bit about yourself before you became a mom Ooh, before I became a mom. Okay, that takes me back to being super little. I always knew I wanted to be an artist, so I did end up going to art school and I've always taught as well, always done some kind of teaching with kids, always loving art, and did a lot of work in the community Before I became a mom, working for the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program. Philly was the city where I was in my college years. I'm from the Boston area and then I got married, moved out to Portland, Oregon, and now I have two kids and I came back to Massachusetts.
Speaker 1:Tell us about when you first found out you were pregnant with your first child.
Speaker 2:I remember, oh my goodness, I was living in Portland Oregon, Portland Oregon. And yeah, I remember, I remember taking the test for sure, you know, seeing the the line on the on the pregnancy test. I do remember telling my husband well, I remember that moment we were in the kitchen so, yeah, I mean, it was just a super, super exciting moment. I always knew that I wanted children. That was always something for sure that I wanted. How?
Speaker 1:was that first pregnancy for you?
Speaker 2:I was blessed to be in a community of I'm from Massachusetts. We went out to Portland Oregon. We had no family around, but my block was like everybody. It was like magic Everybody on the block. We were friends with all the neighbors. There were young children, there were people, you know, just starting families. So I was so lucky to be like my whole community was on my block. So I definitely had, you know, I had. There was a doula on my block. There was a woman who worked at Planned Parenthood on my block.
Speaker 2:I was also the kind of person that I sought out information. I knew like, okay, this is what's on my mind, this is how I want to go about things. I've always been that just curious and gathering information, and it's different in Portland Oregon too. I think there's much more, so many more alternatives out there that I was not exposed to when I was living on the East Coast. I mean, they're there on the East Coast, but out in Portland there was just a lot of just alternatives and alternative approaches and it was everywhere. So it was easy for me to access what I was looking for while I was pregnant with my first child.
Speaker 1:When you say alternatives, what do you mean?
Speaker 2:Well, there's a high there's a lot of people that do home births out there. I think Portland Oregon has like the highest percentage of home births. You know prenatal yoga, just a lot of naturopathic doctors, you know holistic approaches, a lot of Okay. I forget if the group was like Portland moms, but they're showing them all the alternatives, kind of like I don't know just more a natural sort of being okay with just breastfeeding in public and things like that. And it's so funny because when I did come back to Boston I hadn't been back in so long and I was like it feels very different. Here too, I call Portland Oregon. My former husband and I were just always like, yeah, it's a bubble out there. So yeah, and I was exposed to and that's where I was first introduced to, tammy Lynn, kent and Wild Feminine, and that was a book that I read. That was, you know about more just discussing the wisdom of women's bodies and ability to birth. I was reading Ina May Gaskin too, who was a person that was a leader in midwifery and home birthing.
Speaker 1:Speaking of all the alternative aspects of maternal care, prenatal care, I'm curious to hear about what you decided to do for the labor and birth of your first child.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so for my first child I had a hospital birth through nurse midwives. So the program I went to was all nurse midwives. So for me it was at the beginning anyway I felt like, oh, this made the most sense to me, even though I was definitely interested in home birthing. Like I said, I have a doula on my block, a woman who had two home births, and I also had a woman on my block who had a regular hospital birth. So I knew what all the options were and for me, having a nurse midwife care in a hospital, that was that's where I started. And then, interestingly, like I said, I was reading Ida May Gaskin, I was reading Wild Feminine, or you know. I was interested in, you know, natural birth. I took a birthing from within class and I remember and I catered my my appointments to have the same nurse midwife at every single appointment and this nurse midwife, a friend of mine, had her for her birth and she's like, oh, betsy, she's amazing. I'm like great. I met with her the first time and then I decided I wasn't going to follow the hospital rules, which were every time you go for a prenatal visit they say they want you to see all the midwives, because you never know who's going to be there when you give birth. And I was like, no, I'm keeping the same ones. So I got to know her, she got to know me and it just felt better and that's what I wanted. And I remember I was getting close.
Speaker 2:I think I was in 30 weeks, I think it was 32 weeks, and I said I'm reading Ida Mae Gaskin and I'm like what's the difference between what I'm reading in that book versus what it's like in the hospital? And Betsy was like it is nothing like that. And I'm like, so she worked with me and she, you know, then you take the hospital tour. And I remember taking the hospital tour and I was like, oh boy, I'm like this doesn't. There was just something about it that I was just like I'm not, I'm not sure I want to give birth in the hospital anymore. So at like 30 weeks I was looking at birth centers and like a different thing, I was like I think I want a birth at home. In the end I stayed having the hospital birth with the midwives.
Speaker 2:And you know, at the time, like everybody says, like you can have a birth plan, but you never know how it's going to go Right and I think, as first time moms we always try to or I'll just speak for myself it's like, okay, this is my idea of what I want and I have no idea what I'm getting into, but I'm doing all this preparation for it. And I decided, you know, and I talked to some close people, I'm like, what do I do? And the advice I got that really stuck with me was like you're having a baby and you at the, at the end, you will, you will have your baby Right and think about you know. So I was like, ok, I'm going to be able to do, I'm going to stick with the hospital birth Cause it was a little bit, um, yeah, there were just a bunch of different reasons that at that time, um, I made that decision and, as you know, as they say, your birth goes how it goes, and you know.
Speaker 2:And then afterwards, I mean there isn't just. I think one thing as a pregnant mom I remember from my personal experience was you do so much preparing, preparing, preparing, but there's no real what happens afterwards while you're pregnant and preparing, like you don't get that information. You're doing all this front loading of the pregnancy and the birth, but what I feel like is missing in a lot of that information. Maybe it's because you know you're excited and all that, but I think what a lot of what's missing is like, no, you know what Breastfeeding is. You know it's not just easy peasy, like there can be challenges there. Or you know your your postpartum time, like I think I remember, like you hear, like, oh, postpartum depression. But at the time when you're just giving birth, that you're on, you're like it doesn't really sink in.
Speaker 2:I think about what life is like after the baby's here. And I remember, you know, just with my birth, which was challenging I don't want this to sound wrong in any way, but I remember telling someone like it was easier to love my baby and be attached to my baby and do everything with my baby while my baby was still inside of me. And then, when my baby was out in the world and crying and I'm trying to figure out what to do, I'm like I know I signed up for this and it's just it's so hard afterwards. And so, again, I was super lucky I had a community to help me afterwards and just sort of help me sort out all those feelings that can come up. And I had a neighbor who had postpartum depression and so I understood better from her experience. We shared, women share. Like we talked about all of it on my block, so I never felt alone. I did feel supported for sure.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you had that community on your block to support you in the postpartum time. It can be difficult and it's a recurring theme that I hear I've experienced myself. It's a recurring theme that I hear I've experienced myself. So thank you for sharing that, because one of the points of the podcast is for us to share the realities of what we're feeling postpartum, bring awareness to those who are pregnant or trying to get pregnant of the realities that can present postpartum. So thank you for sharing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean that's yeah, it's real, it's really real. And I'll I'll never, ever forget, Like remember I was telling you about, like I remember getting the, you know, seeing the pregnancy tests in that moment. And I also will never forget the moment I was with my, my firstborn, who was probably like three or four months old, maybe five, I don't know not like baby, like still like a baby, and I went out my front door and then I saw this little note that was stuck in my front door and I was like what is this? Like? Someone left me a note. I opened up the note and it was from my neighbor, saying moms are getting together at my house, come join us. And I didn't know, like I said, we were like a young block and I went, you know, to her house and there were other moms there. I swear I call them my Kellogg's angels.
Speaker 2:I lived on Kellogg street and so we went to this mom's house and she was like the mom on the block who, at the time, you know, had the um. There was just, you know, the ability to record shows and watch them. It wasn't like full time streaming like we have now or whatever, and we record. And so we had a mom's gathering where we watched each other's babies. We brought food. It was like a potluck and we watched Project Runway together and that was like our you know, like you know that there's like a meme, that's like you know what.
Speaker 2:What really turns on a mom or something is like when their partner, their partner, is like vacuuming for them or whatever, and cleaning up the house. Like that was our, that was our like, oh my God, like super indulgence time. We got together. Somebody else had their eyes on my child. I got to watch, like Christian Siriano, like make these beautiful dresses out of trash. That was the Project Runway time, like the very beginning of Project Runway, and for us, like that was our creative space, like our creative gathering. Like way back when, it was like moms sitting around the fire or whatever. Right, this was our mom sitting around project runway, Our babies were our babies and we could go to that and just be like man. I did not sleep all night long and we're like, uh-huh, we got you. I got my eyes on your kid for you. And so there was a group of us, a group of these little kids, and that was my saving grace and that's what really helped me, too, to make the changes that I knew I needed to make once I became a mom.
Speaker 1:I want to hear your birth story for your first child. I'm curious. I know you had a nurse midwife. Did you go in for an induction? Did you go into labor? Talk us through your birth story, sure.
Speaker 2:No, I went, I went into, I went in naturally, and the thing was the. The first thing that surprised me when I went in was that the person that was on duty then, the person I'd never met before, wasn't even part of the nurse midwife practice that I was going through through the hospital. So immediately I'm like I don't know you. But I was like, okay, okay, we'll do it. And then they changed shifts and everybody keeps asking you the exact same question, even though you've said it 10 million times, like what's your name? And da, da, da, da. I had one thing that was big at the time too was a water birth, and I liked this hospital because they had tubs. They would let you labor in the tub, but you couldn't give birth in the tub. So I did, you know, I did that, I got to go in the tub. But then and I was like you know, progressing, whatever but then you know they also come in and check you. And then I got startled because like, again, you know you're in your mom world, right, and the birthing experience. And then somebody came in, I heard the voice. I said, okay, I'm going to check you. But then when this person checked me to see, you know how much I had dilated, you know, before I was at. The last time they checked me I was at six, six centimeters, six and a half. This woman came, checked me she's like you're two and a half, and I was like what, and like I immediately came out of my like birthing you know field, my birth field. I was like what I was six and a half Like, and here I was thinking I was like getting, I was getting further along. She said nope, you're two and a half. You've been, you've been laboring for a really long time. You need to get an epidural. This is, you know, and I was just like like I was just jarred and I remember saying get this person out of the room. Yeah, I remember saying that. And so that was like my sort of a big pivotal moment and I was hoping to have a natural birth and I didn't want to have an epidural.
Speaker 2:And it was that time, you know, like the sort of crisis moment where I'm like, okay, what do I do. That's when I wish I had a doula in the room. I figured I didn't need a doula because I had nurse midwives attending me. You know I was like, oh well, I'm having nurse midwives. So I don't, I don't feel like I need a doula and at the time, you know, I had my then husband and my mom there as well. So I thought they were enough of like my support team, you know, like that's, that's how I went into it.
Speaker 2:So I went into this real internal crisis of what do I do. You know, I want to turn this around. But I also said, like I said, okay, you can go get the anesthesiologist right. However, internally, I was like I want to turn this around for myself, like I don't want that, and so in some ways, it's kind of good, right, so it takes a very long time for them to get the anesthesiologist to show up.
Speaker 2:Or maybe my time warp was all weird, because your time is all weird, but I went to like all my resources and all my things that I remembered and I did this.
Speaker 2:You know, visualization of my baby, opening, you know, and I was saying the word like open and visualizing and all of that.
Speaker 2:And so by the time the anesthesiologist came, I had come back to like not needing it anymore. Actually, no, I think maybe that's when I said get the person out of the room. Yeah, great, I think, because at that time there was, you know, I was like in a better spot. I had, like I had regained I guess the you know what I mean, like the to where I was before I had regained. I guess the you know what I mean, like the to where I was before. And, of course, post birth, you know, I realized what had happened, like as I understood my birth story, more, so, yeah, so then things progressed more and then, but then to the very close to the end, there was a moment where all of a sudden and they're like the cords wrapped around the child's neck, and so I did have a moment where all the doctors came in, everybody came around, they put the oxygen on me and all that, and so the very end of the birth.
Speaker 1:It was challenging and scary when you say the end of the birth and then they put the oxygen on you. Is this when your child was still inside, or is this like immediate?
Speaker 2:birth. It was while, I guess because the cord was. I mean, this is my understanding, right? I can't tell you, I actually do have the records. I didn't look, but this was my understanding.
Speaker 2:Like when I was, as the birthing person in the room, the cord was wrapping around the baby's neck, so they needed to quickly get the baby out and they put oxygen on me and did whatever they do. Like it turned into, you know, like everybody was around and I just heard beeping and I saw all these faces and masks and I was like, oh my God, what's going on? And they were like, um, and then they were telling me not to push Cause I was going to hurt the baby if I pushed. But my body, naturally, was doing what it was doing, right, and so I got super scared because I'm like, because they said I'm like, I don't want to hurt my baby, you know, and my baby was born, they were counting me through whatever, like pushing and all that stuff. I don't remember exactly, because you know your body's doing what your body's doing, and as soon as he was born, I didn't see him at all. I barely saw him.
Speaker 1:And somebody said take him away.
Speaker 2:And then my husband went out with the baby, like out of the room. So I guess you know they do all the tests and stuff to make sure the baby's breathing and all that. So I never got the put the baby on the mom's chest thing, I just I just got taken away. I was like where's my baby?
Speaker 1:So yeah, we paused this episode for a quick message from our sponsor At Maternal Wealth. We aim to ensure that you have access to the best and the most appropriate care. That's why we created a maternal health care provider database. Maternal health providers can easily create profiles to promote their services and business, helping to increase access for those seeking their care. This is a one-of-a-kind database that offers a new and exciting way for women to search for and find maternal health providers near them and tailored to their specific needs. Profiles feature badges that highlight various services, such as TOLEC-friendly practices, all-female practices, lgbtqai plus inclusivity, language options, access to vaginal breach services and more.
Speaker 2:And then I also had to get stitches afterwards because I had some tearing and so it was quite some time. It was like, maybe, like in my mind again, timing is all weird but I had to wait, I had to have stitches and I had to wait until after they stitched and I could feel the stitches a lot because I hadn't. Whatever they gave me didn't work, and then my baby came in, but it wasn't until, like I feel like, 20 minutes later or half an hour. You know what I mean. But yeah, that was my birth story. I did get my baby at the end, even though it was 20 minutes.
Speaker 1:it stays with you, right, yeah, right. Even though you get your baby back, those 20 minutes that you're separated kind of always stays with you. Right, yeah, Right. Even though you get your baby back, those 20 minutes that you're separated kind of always stays with you.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, it. It was definitely like I didn't realize it at the time, you know. So this was 17 years ago, but that was for me, it was a. It was a birth trauma. It was a traumatic experience. The birth was a birth trauma and I had previous trauma before giving birth and a lot of times and this is what I've learned through my work you know, things can get triggered with your body when you're in a situation like the birth field is just so. It's just such a vulnerable time of opening and that that is why, like, my body closed up when the nurse came in to check me, because I didn't feel safe, you know, and so, and again, like these things didn't. I didn't understand these things until afterwards, but once again, I had you know, and so, and again, like these things didn't. I didn't understand these things until afterwards, but once again, I had, you know, support around that. But what I feel like is that so many moms go into this birth experience. But we need to love and support the moms afterwards to help them, to help them heal and understand, like this wasn't their fault or their body, this or that. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Like I, for one, felt a lot of shame, for I remember this too. I was like one of those moments I was at one time I was very vocal, I was loud in the birth and I was very aware that there was three other rooms and other birthing mothers around me. And I remember when I finally got my baby and they put me in the wheelchair and they were wheeling me out right to my room, I was like I'm so sorry, I was so loud, I'm so sorry, I was apologizing, and you know I felt bad about in that moment. I felt bad for screaming and being loud and be like you know, whatever, whatever it was that I need, that I needed to do, you know, to get me through that experience. So then by the time I was in my room, the nurse midwife he was the first one on duty that I went into and I I'm like I don't know you at all, cause he wasn't part of the nurse midwife program, he was back on shift or whatever he's like, oh, so how'd it go? And he took longer than we thought, because that nurse midwife said to me you're progressing, this is, we're going to have this baby born before the next day. That did not happen, right? So that was like a positive encouragement, that one, that guy I liked he was being a midwife, you know, and, and then he heard what happened, whatever. And then he comes back and he's like, so, how, you know, I understand, and I was like, you know, I just felt so bad because I was so loud and he said to me what you think you're the only birthing person who's ever made sound, you know like, and I'm like you know, and I'm like, yeah, you're right, like absolutely Like he was, he was helped me, like he wasn't there and that's the thing.
Speaker 2:Like in the hospital they keep changing shifts and there's different people coming in and out.
Speaker 2:Like I and my full my first intention was, or wish, was like I want the person who I'm connecting to all throughout my prenatal to be the one that's there when I'm giving birth.
Speaker 2:I would have felt, I know, you know hindsight's 20, 20, but I know things would have been different if I had called my midwife and if she had been there, the one that I had known the whole time, who was definitely comforting me and helping me, and the thing was she actually like broke the rules and she gave me her phone number and she said to me Carla, if at any time when you're in the hospital giving birth, you call me, you know, and because she knew, she told me about the birth world and she was like and she was actually exiting it because she had a lot of challenges with you know, she wanted to be able to be more like a home birth midwife, you know, and she was like a veteran a veteran, She'd been in the field for so long.
Speaker 2:So, you know, had I called her, I know my birth would have been different if she was the one there with me the whole entire time Hands down. I know that, you know, but that was the birth I definitely had and I, you know, I grew so much from that experience and it led me to, absolutely positively, I'm like next baby I had, I am having a home birth and I did.
Speaker 1:I appreciate that you're recognizing the fact that the connection that a woman makes with their midwife or their birth provider throughout the prenatal period is so essential in having a positive, empowering birth. That connection you're creating a sense of safety, a sense of sisterhood, of love, nurturing, and it's so vital in the current system that exists in the hospital and rotating all the providers. That's missing. And I appreciate that you're bringing that up because even in your story you're acknowledging the fact, you're saying out loud, with your voice If I had that midwife who wanted to be there for me, my experience would have been different. So thank you for sharing that because it is so vital and I want women to hear that message.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean you learn. Want women to hear that message. Yeah, yeah, I mean you learn. It's like there's like especially for first time moms. Like you know there's, there's only you can learn and and. But you also learn through your experience of birth, right, like we do all these things to prepare because we don't know what to expect, and then, like you can learn just as much or grow, or you know heal, heal.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:After the birth too, like I learned so much more about myself and then I applied that to my next birth and I think I hear this often. Like you know, if a woman has a traumatic first birth, it can often be healing to have a second birth. Like the healing can happen Like the like. If you think of like the circle you know of the birth and and the cycle of birth, one birth can also help heal another birth and I hear stories about that like all the time. And I was able to do healing with my firstborn from that traumatic birth. After the birth, and I think women need to know that for sure that you can reenter that birth field, reenter the birth energy. You don't have to go through the trauma again. You can work and heal it. Yeah, and you can heal. What happened to me was, since my baby wasn't placed on my chest right away, I felt there was a disconnection, there was a fracture in the birth energy because it's a loop and the loop wasn't able to go all the way through when my baby was first born and, like I said, I was having challenges with nursing and breastfeeding. Part of that was because there was a fracture. I didn't feel the connection to my baby and I was like what's going on here? I'm supposed to love my child at first sight. You know, like my ex-husband was like, oh my God, I've never been so in love at the first sight. You know, like this is like kind of what. We're here, right, and I'm like what's wrong with me? I don't feel that. Of course I love my, it's my child, I love my child Absolutely, but there was a connection piece that had was missing because I wasn't with my baby the first, however long, and this is part of my story too. But the what? The first words I heard was it's a boy. And so I was like, my body was like, oh, I had a, I had a boy. And I thought, I thought I had a girl. Like I didn't, we didn't, we chose not to have the sex revealed to us, but I just had a feeling I was, I had a girl, and so I think that was part of, you know, my like. There was like this, like now, like again, I can say like later on, you know. So my body was confused because then, before I got my baby back, the pediatrician on call came and was like oh, congratulations on your baby girl and I was like I told her I'm like no, I had a boy.
Speaker 2:So like so, for the first 20 or whatever how long, while I was going through the stitches, like all that I thought I had a boy. And she's like no, and I'm like and, of course, boy. And she's like no. And I'm like and of course she leaves Cause, she's all like there. I mean, there's so in the hospital, what's your name? And they put your thing on there, like what, to make sure there was no like baby switching or whatever going on. And and she went out and checked and she came back and she's like no, I just checked, you have a girl. And I'm like okay, so going through that as a mom, you know that postpartum, like stage of like bonding with your baby and there's so much that is going on. Like moms need so much nurturing you know it takes a village. Like moms need other moms.
Speaker 2:You know, like I said, I felt shame for being loud. You know I I didn't understand. Like you know, we all had our birth stories, but I had my group of moms, I had my project runway peeps, where I know it was a safe place. We told our stories. That was where the healing happens. Healing happens when you're feeling safe because we walk into a birthing situation, we're bringing into that birth situation all of us and giving birth is the most vulnerable thing that a woman you know. It's that you need safety around you. You need the people that are going to hold you and not disrupt the birth energy in the birth field. Like I know, I'm using terms like birth energy. Birth field like this goes with my sort of training in the holistic pelvic care and all that. Um but it and this was this was all stuff that I was. That was part of my understanding and my desire of wanting to give birth naturally.
Speaker 1:All right. So you had your birth at the hospital and I previously you mentioned the next time I'm going to have a home birth. Did that happen for you?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yes, it did. I know you have a little bit of a cool story to share with us. I'm excited for our listeners to hear your home birth story for your second child.
Speaker 2:Now you've got my interest peaked because I'm like, oh you know, life happens right and I, my family, left Portland Oregon. We moved back to Massachusetts. I was eight months pregnant. I knew I wanted a home birth, had to find a home birth midwife pretty quickly, it's interesting. So this time I didn't have. I had like three prenatal, three appointments before my home birth. But I call it my homeless home birth because I still hadn't found a place for us to live. I was living with my mom.
Speaker 2:While we were going through the move, my husband was still needing to finish up work. I moved here with my kid. I did that, but I did the things that moms do, right, the nesting, the nesting. It was like, okay, get to it, find your home birth midwife. And I did. And immediately I interviewed like three people.
Speaker 2:One day when my husband had his job interview here like he was, you know, and I knew right away I'd sit down. I talked with each one of them. They were all wonderful, amazing people, but I knew right away which was the one that I felt the most comfortable with and connected to and she was amazing. And we talked about my previous birth and we just went through it all. We went through what I wanted, how I was feeling, and I told her about my history of trauma. I don't even think I've even said it like yet in this interview. I have a history of incest and childhood sexual abuse, so she knew all of that.
Speaker 2:And the birth was so different. And I think part of it too was because when my first birth I was more in general, going into the birth, more detached from my body, from my trauma, and then the experience of having my first child opened up that trauma and exposed it and I worked with it. So in my second birth experience I was already more attached to my child right Throughout the pregnancy, like of course I was attached to my first one, but the second one was different because I had a different relationship with my body at that time from having gone through the first birth. So I was more able to attune to not only sort of like, say the words, like open or, you know, imagine it Like I was able to actually feel it more, if that makes any sense, like I felt. That connection of like I was not like the the idea is you're birthing with your child when you're giving birth Like there was a relationship between me and my baby in while we were birthing Right, and I didn't have that understanding the first time, you know it wasn't so much there, it was there on the intellectual level but not as much on that body level, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:And so, just having had the first birth experience, having done more work with my trauma, my sexual trauma and understanding healing, it really did feel like it was a co-birthing experience with my second son and it was completely different and I mean I understood too. There was less fear and there was a lot more safety. It was a fast birth. It was not a scary birth, like my body knew what to do. I was more in touch with my body and I knew my body knew what to do. I had more confidence in myself.
Speaker 2:It was amazing it was, and he was born in somebody else's house Because I didn't have a place to live and my mom was like there is no way you're doing home birth in my house, which you know I respected my mom and my mom took care of, you know, my son while I was in somebody else's house giving birth, and this time it was only my husband that was there and yeah, and I got, I had my baby right there, right away. You know, he was put on my chest, you put on my chest and there was actually a hurricane happening outside.
Speaker 1:Did your midwife make it with?
Speaker 2:the hurricane. Well, yeah, the funny thing is, no, yeah, she made it. She wasn't far away, but because I was birthing so quickly, her backup midwife came after the birth. She didn't make it. Her backup midwife came after the birth, she didn't make it, she came right at the very end. That's what it was. Here's another thing I'll never forget. It was only the next town over, but because there was a hurricane, we wanted to get back to my mom's house. We slept, so we slept over.
Speaker 2:You know, my son was born in the middle of the night, like at 2.30 in the morning, slept in the next morning and then, of course, you know I'm from, you know, the Boston area, right? So my son, my mom and my son come to, you know, meet the new baby with Dunkin' Donuts, with the munchkins. And I'm like, oh yeah, with the munchkins. And I'm like, oh yeah, it was so cute.
Speaker 2:But we were there just for a short time and then we hurried up and got back to my mom's house and so then the owner of the house was like I didn't even get to see you, she was on vacation. She came back the next day and she was hoping she'd kind of get to be there and I'm like sorry. So we rushed back home and yeah, and I really took to the advice I got from my midwife in the second birth of you know, stay home with your baby as much as you can. You know, spend that as much as you can. And thankfully I did have I was at my mom's house so my mom could be with my, you know, with my son and stuff, while I was spending time with my second. So it was interesting, yeah, and then we moved to, we finally moved in, so he was born August 27th and I think we moved October 1st to our apartment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, After sharing your two birth stories, one in the hospital, one at home, thinking about your work as an artist, how did your experiences transform your expression in art and your gift with art to help heal other women and mothers?
Speaker 2:I was always on my personal journey of healing from my sexual abuse and incest trauma and I just knew, going into pregnancy, that I was going to need some extra support and guidance and I had been teaching children art, lots of community art, like I said, doing community murals and teaching kids by the time I had my first child and what I was going through, and with the support of the other moms on my block, and I went through what I called my mom's identity crisis with my first child, because I was like, who am I? What am I doing? Because my husband was also an artist and we had had business together and I realized I'm like my child is not going to know that I'm an artist because I'm not doing my art right now, and so I was like I just so. It's a long story, but I'll try to make it short. So the flip was I'm no longer wanting to teach kids because I've got kids. I want to work with the moms and because moms need to be supported. We're we're fucking excuse me, I don't know if I should swear on this we're amazing creative human beings. Okay, we are creative human beings by, like our bodies, you know, our, our creation. We make the babies right. And we need support.
Speaker 2:And through the arts you know, project runway, that was a form of using the arts to heal we gather around and we're commenting on, oh, I wonder what their material they're going to use this week. And we're talking about the fashion and we're commenting on, oh, I wonder what material they're going to use this week. And we're talking about the fashion and we're talking about the colors we like. We're like little mini, not mini fashion designers, but we're gathering in a creative way and we're supporting each other. And so that's where the ladies entrance, where my current business that was the genesis of it was right there, where I started having moms coming over to my studio in Portland Oregon and coming together and doing art together. Like, come on, moms, like we, you know, let's do this kind of thing.
Speaker 2:I knew I needed to get back to doing my art, my art for myself, as far as my own part of identity, and I also knew, as far as the work I wanted to do, it was with moms and women and pregnant women. So the start of Ladies' Entrance happened in Portland. Then I moved to Massachusetts. Right, I should say too, the belly bowls started in Portland, oregon. But anyway, when I was pregnant with my second, I was still within the young mother's community, so I had mothers and friends that I knew around me still within the young mothers community. So I had mothers and friends that I knew around me and I to help with that sort of connection.
Speaker 2:I got this idea from taking that class of birthing from within, but they, they incorporate arts into that class and it's really about honoring and mothering the mother like that. That part of that birthing course really stood out to me and the you know the ideas also of having a mother ceremony, like a mother way or a blessing way or, you know, a celebration for the mom, right, because it's such a transformational time and you're going from maidenhood to motherhood, right, right, but honoring this, asked a friend of mine if I could make a belly bowl, which was so I have experience in clay. So we got together and I'm created a bowl on like I mean you think of, you know, when you like are in school and you learn how to do like a coil pot, yeah, symbolism too with that. So I made a coil pot on her pregnant belly as a way to honor her, because at the time there's different ways that different people do. I know sometimes people do casts like plaster, casts of their bellies or something like that. But because I'm more earthy natural, I'm like I personally, I'm like I would prefer something of the earth to be, you know, and I'm like clay is of the earth and plaster, you know, is just a whole different. I, just aesthetically, I was like I wonder what it'd be like to actually create a bowl, you know, from the earth. And so that's what I did.
Speaker 2:I did a couple belly bowls and, did you know, created these bowls and then I glazed them and then the moms had these precious keepsake of that time, of, you know, being connected with their child while their child was in utero and and that idea just sort of. I remember too, I, I did a few belly bowls in Portland and then I, when I came here to Massachusetts, you know, I was like eight months pregnant or whatever, and we needed to make my own belly bowl, right, and I also do belly bowls with families. I've done it with people as a group too. So I remember we did my belly bowl in my mom's house. It was the day before I went into labor, because my son came a little early, right, I'm like thank God, but it was this beautiful thing of my mom, my husband at the time, my son, three of us rolling out the snakes and creating this bowl. And then I asked my son how he wanted to label it and so we wrote baby brother. So yeah, because I remember I inscripted like I wrote baby brother on the bottom. When I make the belly bowls for moms, you know we can write whatever we want. So, just going back to like your question about moms and healing and art, so that all that started in Portland, I came here, I continue to do the belly bowls.
Speaker 2:I opened up the Ladies Entrance Holistic Art Studio, which is for women, mothers and pregnant women. I offer gatherings for mothers to connect through the arts. I want it to be a safe place. And you know, and it's amazing, I've done a lot of work with groups and it's just amazing the power of the group. Um, when you have, when people feel safe and they're in a group, the healing that can happen is incredible. And so that's what I do. And once a month I offer a community come create night. It's for anybody who identifies as a woman, like all ages, because I think multi-generational is important too. So it's like mothers bring your daughters, like I invite everybody to come together and craft and or do art or talk, or you know we have food.
Speaker 2:I guess it's like my recreation of the Project Runway Nights and yeah, and I also offer work that's a little more specific healing work energetically with I mentioned prior holistic pelvic care, holistic pelvic energy, which is a practice developed by Tammy Lynn Kent who is from Portland, oregon.
Speaker 2:At first I said you know I was doing that work there, but actually I knew of the work and I read Tammy's book when I was in Portland and then it was after I moved back to Massachusetts that I went and I studied with her so that I have that training of, like I said, going back to those, that deeper understanding of the creativity on an energetic level and the birth process on the energetic level and what happens when there's fractures and when there's interruptions in the birth field and using ways creatively of healing. So I'm not a physical practitioner, I'm an artist who can connect with people. So I created ways to use the arts to invite a woman to have a healing experience and that's what I do, that's getting into the energy portraits and doing pelvic energy work and guiding women through meditation for healing.
Speaker 1:First I want to say I love the name of your studio the Lady's Entrance. It's just when I first read it it can mean so many things. When I first read it, it can mean so many things and I love how it's welcoming and also empowering and a powerful name to it. So I love that name that you gave for your studio.
Speaker 2:Well, there's a story to that, there's a birth story to everything, right, because creativity, like things like a business, is a birth Women don't know, women don't need like this is the thing. Like you know, we're all mothers. Like, we all give birth to creations, whether it's a physical human being or whether it's an entity like the business, or you know all of that. Like, I use mothering on the broadest terms and we all mother every single human being, regardless of your gender identity, because we're talking about nurturing, right, but anyway. So, ladies' entrance I used to live on top of a bar in South Philadelphia and the ladies' entrance was the sign I went and saw every single day while I was going up into my apartment, because it was the rear entrance to the bar. Right, it was way back in the day. Right, you had to have. The males had to enter the front of the bar and the ladies had to enter the back of the bar and the ladies had to enter the back of the bar because it was like uncouth, right, or whatever. Like the ladies couldn't see the men drinking and doing the stuff they do at the bar. They had to enter through the back and go in the back room and get their service or whatever right, because there was that big separation right Of men and women.
Speaker 2:That one day this was back when I was still in art school in Philadelphia no, I had graduated from art school, I was working in the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, but I was living with my husband. We were living together in South Philly before we moved to Portland and one day I saw the sign. The sign came down and it was a it's a hand-painted sign. It was, you know, in Philly if anything's out on the curb, it's free. It's free. In Philly people will swipe at everything. So I saw the sign.
Speaker 2:I'm like, oh my God, the ladies entrance sign. And I had no idea what I was going to do with it. I had no idea. I'm just like this is a really cool relic of history. It's a hand-painted sign from I don't know, probably the 1930s, maybe I'm not sure. So I took it. I'm like this is a relic, it's a piece of art, it's something that says something about history. I had no idea what I was going to do with it, I just thought it was cool. So for a couple of years it was just. I put a light in it and it was like I put my plants on it in my apartment Like it was just this cool thing, right. But then, as again, like I could talk about this forever.
Speaker 2:I'll try to make it succinct, but as time goes by, I'm like the lady's entrance is the main entrance, right, we all enter the world through the female body in any some way, shape or form, right? Yes, and I like to put these ideas on it, spin it on its head, because, you know, we, the honoring of women and everything like women shouldn't be going through the back door for whatever reason, right, like we're, you know we're, we gather together, we're, we're important, we, you know, we all, every single human being has a connection, whether it's good or bad, to their mother, right, mm-hmm, every human being. So, in my desire to make it's a sort of like above ground basement, but I always I just think of, because I'm from Boston, right, I grew up in the 80s. But Cheers, right, the Cheers bar, yes, and Carla the bartender, and for whatever reason, and don't tell me I have no idea but that Cheers song, even before the Ladies' Endurance, even before I went to art school, whatever, I always would hear, I have this thing of hearing songs over and over.
Speaker 2:They're just kind of like messages. The Cheers song has been with me in my life and I hear it all the time. Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name and just that song and what that song represents, or cheers and what it represents, like that. That's what I want for this business. Sometimes you want to go like that feeling of community and connection and where people tell their stories at the bar. I mean where how many people tell their stories at a bar?
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:And like I'm not serving I'm not serving, you know, alcoholic drinks I I'm serving, but like I'm serving art and opportunities for connection. And so I just love this sort of idea of the ladies entrance being like the ladies bar, in a way right With the real, like it was actually a real sign from a real bar and just yeah, there's just so many meanings you could, you can add on to the ladies on turn.
Speaker 1:I want to talk a little bit about the holistic pelvic care for women. So many times I find that the English language limits us in what we need to speak about healing and experiences, especially relating to motherhood and birth. For anyone who's listening, who might be interested in learning more about holistic pelvic care, maybe they have seen a physical therapist and they've had pelvic PT physical therapy, but there's just something else needed that they can't even put their finger on it. Tell us a little bit more about the holistic pelvic care that you offer if somebody is more interested in learning about what that is and how that might be beneficial for them.
Speaker 2:Sure. So most people understand like the term holistic. You know mind, body, spirit, and we've got a physical body and there's physical tools we can use right To help us connect. You know, like, if you you have a sore, if you're sore and you get a massage and you can do a physical massage to help ease the aches and pains right in your physical body, and there's also a release that can happen, like a physical release with that tight muscle or how you're feeling. You know, like they say, you know there's, you know there's this connection right, if you feel things in your gut and your body kind of gives you signs and signals that there's something off right and you have this feeling, you just know and you know, but you don't know how you know, but you just have this feeling or you have this intuition or you have this, you know this thing that you can't shake Right, right. So holistic pelvic care is developed and created by Tammy Lynn Kent, who's a women's health, physical therapist. So, yes, her training is in the physical, women's health and pelvic floor PT. So she works and trains, you know, on the physical body but also the energy body, our energetics. So we all have like a creative, like the way that she taught me that I just that made like so much sense to me is like our womb space. Yes, it's have, you know, the pelvic bones right, the pelvic structure, but think of your womb as a bowl space. Or think of the womb as a nest, like the physical. Think of a pelvic, you know the pelvic bones, like what it creates is a bowl, because it holds your womb right In your body, like it holds it. The bowl, it's a container. And so even, yes, we have organs we have, you know, but our body is held up basically in that space. And if you think of the pelvic bowl as a nest and I do a lot of work with that analogy and metaphor of a nest, our nest, what our intentions are, what our feelings are, what our experiences are, those are held in our nest, in our pelvic bowl, in our creative space. And if we're talking energetics, in terms of energy centers, the second chakra is that pelvic space and that's the space for creativity and the face of relationships, right, because we have our sexual organs, like there too. So it's creativity and relationship is held energetically in that space.
Speaker 2:Going back to holistic pelvic care, it's the combining of both physical and energetic tools to create balance where there's imbalance right. Or to open things up where there's tightness, or to, you know, heal fractures, right. If there's something that's not sort of feeling, right, we go from a dissonance to like a resonance that makes sense, like think of, you know yin and yang, right, like everything. So, like any one given day your bowl could feel, it could feel great one day, and then even in one day, and then you're like, oh, something's off here, you know. And how can we tune in to this wisdom, creative, intuitive center that we all have? Every human being and again, once again, not just like every human being has it In males there's a different name for it or different traditions that call it like the dantian, or there's this other, but specifically for women and the female pelvis and the pelvic bowl, for those who are born as female at birth, we can combine these tools together.
Speaker 2:And when you do holistic pelvic care, it doesn't have to be physical work, like in the physical. If you went to like a pelvic floor therapist, what you would be doing, it's pelvic floor massage, really myofascial release. This is combining that myofascial release with you, knowofascial release with you. Know, if you had a session, a person that does the hands-on holistic pelvic care I would say would bring you through a guided meditation of like here, focus your thoughts here, right, and we're combining sort of the energetic qualities of the womb space, the energetic qualities of the ovaries, and doing the balancing and the clearing. It combines meditation or just imagery, guided imagery with the physical components.
Speaker 2:So that's how I don't, I can't say I, I can't speak for people who do straight pelvic floor therapy to to know you know exactly what happens in a session with them. But I can speak to what happens in a holistic pelvic care session and I came into it through solely the energetics of creativity, through the energetic realm. Being an artist, I draw the energy actually is what I end up doing. I work with the energy by drawing the energy because physically I don't have the training as a physical therapist or a chiropractor or anything like that. So that's how I approached the work and I created a way that I connect to energy, to work with it, because everybody has different ways of connecting with energy. My way is actually very kinesthetic.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, so women who are interested in this kind of work, I think it's. I mean, I've had it done myself and I can speak to the power, the power of this healing modality. I just there's lots of different sort of approaches to it. You know there's lots of different ways. It can be used for women's health, not just for a birthing person and, like for me you know I had a session. You know, post birth you can heal the connection with your child, no matter what age they are, or if you have any thing happening in your life where you feel an imbalance, whether it's in a relationship or not even in a relationship. But anything that, any intention that you have, you know you can go to your bowl for the wisdom that it contains. It can never be that medicine and that wisdom can never be broken. It's always there, but sometimes we can get sort of disconnected from it. But it doesn't mean that it can't be healed for sure. So yeah, I don't know if that sort of answers your question, no it absolutely does.
Speaker 1:I love how we're talking about different ways to heal right, to grow, to become connected, and in our culture and our society there's so much emphasis on the physical realm that it's nice for us to create a space to learn that we can also heal on an energetic realm, on a spiritual realm, and I think that we need that. I think there's a need for that. There's a need to make that connection. There's a need for women, birthing people to find women like yourself who are offering these services to help us heal right. I think there is a lot of trauma, there's a lot of birth trauma, there's a lot of disconnect and we need to find that connection. We need to find that space so we can heal within ourselves, heal within our families, heal within our relationships to lead a more healthier however healthy looks to us individually life. If women are interested, if people are interested in learning more about your services, how can they find you? Sure?
Speaker 2:They can find me at the ladies entrance and I'm online. But, yeah, my website is ladiesentrancecom and I'm offering belly bowl services and I can do one-on-one holistic pelvic energy sessions, which are these are like I don't do. I do not do any internal physical work. You'd go to a holistic pelvic care provider who's a person that works in the physical realm, but I am training right now to do that. We kind of came into the whole field backwards in a way. I went you know you go from physical to energetic, I went from energetic and we have first Fridays of every month, we have the Come Create Nights at the Ladies' Entrance, which is open, and it's by donation, and the donation proceeds go to my other baby, my other project, which is called the Survivor Nest Project, and these are opportunities for me to be able to offer arts to survivors of incest and childhood sexual abuse. So yeah, so come find me at Ladies' Entrance or at Survivor Nest.
Speaker 1:It has been such a pleasure chatting with you. I'm so grateful that you took time out of your day, out of your busy schedule, to come on the show and share your story, to open up, be vulnerable. Together we can hear from each other, listen to each other's stories and grow and heal and move forward together. So thank you so much for coming on the show.
Speaker 2:Thank you, stephanie, and I just want to say when I met you and heard about you through a mutual contact, I was amazed by what you're doing. So we're doing it together. I just want to say too so this is April, it's Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and the national sort of campaign for this month is Together we Act, united, we Change. So I just really wanted to thank you, because you know, being able to meet you and seeing what you're doing, I'm really wanting to get you know just do more right, do what we can for women, for birthing folks, for mothers. So, yeah, so together, together we're doing it and United will help others, we'll heal. We'll heal together.
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