Wilmar's experience supporting birth at home (United States of America) || Homebirth across cultures USA + Australia + Guatemala

Today is a special epsiode where I chat to Wilmar in Texas, USA where we talk all things homebirth and birth culture in the context of Australia, the USA & Guatemala, where he was born and lived until 2002. Wilmar is dad to 4 children, all born at home. We connected via a podcaster group, and I couldn't not have him on the podcast! 

For those who don't know, Guatemala has a very high homebirth rate, and also a high maternal mortality. Wilmar himself was born via c-section, and grew up believing homebirth was only for those too poor to access healthcare. I found this fascinating considering in Australia, homebirth is very expensive! 

It was a very thought provoking episode and I hope it makes you think about homebirth in a global context and the issues and challenges that exist in well resourced versus less resourced countries. 


CHAPTERS

00:58
Guest Introduction and Birth Culture in Different Countries

03:12
Personal Journey and Decision to Have Children

05:07
Cultural Differences in Home Ownership and Family Planning

06:52
Education and Access to Healthcare in Guatemala

08:44
Home Birth Rates and Healthcare Privileges

10:36
The Influence of Colonization and Religion on Birth Culture

13:26
Socioeconomic Factors and Family Planning

14:24
Maternal Mortality and Complexities in Guatemala

17:38
Changing Perspectives on Home Birth

20:18
The Emotional and Intimate Experience of Home Birth

23:08
The Impact of Home Birth on Self-Perception and Trust in the Body

26:07
The Importance of Informed Choice and Advocacy for Home Birth

28:26
The Supportive Community and Joy of Home Birth

32:55
The Lasting Impact and Cherished Memories of Home Birth

39:42
The Empowering and Transformative Nature of Home Birth

46:03
The Symbolism and Emotional Connection to the Home Birth Space

49:20
The Legacy and Awareness of Home Birth in the Family

50:11
The First Memories

52:03
The Importance of Connection

54:24
Going for the Best Experience

57:53
Exercising the Privilege

58:22
The Joy of Home Birth

01:05:53
Perception of Home Birth in Texas

01:09:04
Keeping an Open Mind

01:12:26
Examining Your Why

Transcript

0:02

Hi, welcome to Birthing at Home, a podcast. I'm Elsie, your host. I'm a home birth mom of two little boys. I'm a mental health nurse, a home birth advocate broadly, but also more specifically in the state of Victoria, and I'm an ex-student midwife. Before we begin, I would like to acknowledge the Wurundjeri people who are the traditional custodians of the land I'm recording on in Melbourne, Australia. I would also like to acknowledge the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have been birthing at home. country for tens of thousands of years prior to the British invasion and acknowledged that sovereignty has never been ceded. This is another part and episode but it's not just any part and episode it's one from Wilma. Born and raised in Guatemala then moved to the United States in 2002 where he met his now wife who he supported to have four home births. This was such a great episode to record and I found it extremely thought-provoking. I'm so grateful for Wilma for reaching out to chat about birth culture in America, Australia and Guatemala and about the beauty of home birth. I hope you enjoy it too. Welcome Wilma to Birthing at Home, a podcast. Well thank you for having me. Of course. To everyone that's listening, you may have heard in that very brief thank you for having me that Wilma is not from Australia, not an Australian accent. Wilma, do you want to tell the listeners about who you are, where you're from? Because this is a kind of special episode. I'm really excited for this. Well, I am too, because it's a topic I ended up learning about your podcast through a conversation in a group of podcasters. And I just casually asked what your podcast about. I asked that question 50 times and I'm like, okay, cool. But when you said what this was about, I got So excited, but I needed to be careful to not overwhelm you. Like, can I talk to you? Can I talk to you? Yeah. I am Guatemalan. I was born in Guatemala in the year 1975, so I'm currently 48 years old. I moved to Texas in the year 2002. At the time, I thought I'd be coming here to work for six months or maybe a year. It was very unplanned. But one thing led to another, and I've been living here for now 21 years, since 2002. I still visited Guatemala about 30, 35 times in those 20 years. So, so I still stay in touch. Guatemala, where I come from is in the same time zone. And a direct flight is three hours away from Dallas where I'm at. So it's pretty close. I tell people, if you take a plane from Dallas to New York and I take a place, a plane from Dallas to my city, I'll beat you by 10 minutes. Yeah. But. despite being that much close geographically, is a huge difference in many aspects, not only the language, but the culture, which is a culture that comes from having been conquered by the Spaniards. Here in Texas, you have also some influence of the Spaniards, but around 200 years ago, the Spaniards abandoned. And I'm a teacher by profession and love work cultures, so I don't wanna go too much into it, but we connected on the topic of home birth. I... met and married my wife in the year 2007. It was not my first marriage, but in the previous marriages, I did not have children. I was more focused on career. And when we met, we were both in our early 30s. I believe I was 31 or 32 already. I don't remember exactly. So the conversation about having children was very important, whether one way or the other. Having been married before I have begun thinking I would not have kids at all. Yeah, wow. I was still wanting so much for me, for my career that I even said to her on the first couple of dates, I think I might not even want children. Who knows if I even can because I've been married about six years and didn't have children. Now she said that was extremely important for her. So I said, well, okay. Now here's... It's not that I did not want them for the sake of not having. I moved from Guatemala to Texas for economic reasons only. I had a very good job there that allowed me to be very happy professionally, but it ended. So when I moved to Texas out of economic considerations and being from Latin America, the economy always weighs heavy on your mind. I have about 30 cousins and I'd say about 25 or 26 of them only have two kids. Because the economy does not allow them to raise more. Yeah, to have more, yeah. Correct. So for me, to me, I needed to be well-settled financially before considering kids. Now, for my then fiance, I don't think I even proposed before we settled that topic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't even propose yet. The conversation about having children was very important, because for her was. She wanted a family. If for some natural reason we could not have one, that was okay. But it was not going to be a decision that, Oh, I'm going to marry a guy who wants to focus on his career. Yeah. So I said, okay. Um, you know, uh, more like a way of saying whatever. Yeah. I was still thinking I still need to achieve. We didn't own a home. I had never owned a home in Guatemala. In six years here, I had not owned a home. I did not even want to purchase a home because my dream was to return to live in Guatemala. Yeah. In Guatemala, do most people own their homes or? Yes, a lot of people do, but I think about this a lot. People usually owned one home in their lifetime. Like, their parents held them probably if they are of some means. or people usually save for the home before they get married. If they get married before buying the home, that feels like you're doing it wrong. When I married my wife, who is American, we've been married 16 years. I had been married twice before, but both women were from Latin America, different countries. Our mindset was very common with them because we came from the same socioeconomic structure. It was important to buy a fridge, to buy a stove. to buy the TV before you get married, because once you get married, you have to either pay the rent or the house. You don't have to save. People live with their parents. It's very common to live with your parents until you graduate college, until you are 30. That has to do with the size of the countries. Countries are smaller. They only have one big city. And I'm always thinking that we're talking about birth, but this is relevant because- Yeah. Actually, the other aspect is that because we have one big city in those countries, the capital city, and usually the second largest city is like a third or a fifth of the size. Most of the health services are only provided first in the mayor's city where you have access to public hospitals, and then in the other cities you have some access, but it's always somewhat poor. I mean, there's a reason they call them third world countries and underdeveloped. see that the biggest problems our countries face is what we call demographic explosion, too many births, too many people having too many children and not having the means to support them. So when you're raised going to college in middle class, you're always thinking children are somewhat desirable, but be careful because too many can be a curse for them and for you. The best thing that you can do is plan for everything, including planning for the births. And you think of a hospital birth as the only option. I was born through C-section. And up until the time I was 30 years old, I'm the first born of three children that my mom had. I was 100% sure that every time that a woman had a C-section, every single child after had to be a C-section. Because that's what my mother told me that they told her. Yeah, wow. That's so interesting. So she's she is obviously also a Guatemalan mother and in Guatemala, I learned last night that the home birth rate in Guatemala is about 50%. And it's so interesting talking about home birth from another culture from Kind of two different countries and the United States and Guatemala in more Central America Because Yeah in Australia the home birth rate And I mean they don't really distinguish between free birth and home birth in the statistics, but basically birthing at home is about 1% in all of Australia and What's funny is that we are considered an economically quite privileged country. And Guatemala, not, not so much, you know, but the home birth rate is so much higher. And I guess, yeah, it comes back to the fact that healthcare is a privilege and not everywhere in the world has healthcare like. For example, you might in the United States or in Australia. Obviously in Australia, we're quite privileged to have the Medicare system. So every single citizen of Australia, and even if you're a permanent resident, you can get some sort of Medicare, which is public health care. So you can quite easily go and have your baby in hospital for free. Most women do. This happens to me a lot, even speaking the same language, there's things that are different. You say the term Medicare, and here in the United States, Medicare is a government-funded health option for seniors, for people over 65. So Medicare is a... Yeah, it's funny that they use a similar name. Yeah, what you say about birth rates in Guatemala, it's a consequence of several factors. The economy is one, but the economy... You know, to me, I love that. I have a master's in education because I'm a teacher, but I also took a master's in intercultural studies just because I'm fascinated about, I mean, why are countries in such different shape? Now, to me, the question goes back at least 500 years in the case of Guatemala when the Spaniards came, in the case of the United States, about 300, and in case of Australia, at least a few centuries as well. But one of the things that happened is when we were colonized, we were colonized by the Spaniards that brought forth the Catholic Church. And the Catholic Church up to this day has very clear dogmatic lines. I was raised Catholic, and I still have a lot of respect for the Catholic tradition, but they have very clear dogmatic lines about birth control. So people that are wanting to climb economically in Guatemala, they know that they need to make decisions about that because... economy, even if you're an engineer married to a lawyer or a doctor married to another professional, you know that salaries will never allow you to buy a nice house and buy cars and send four kids to school. Yeah. Now that I said school, something came up very interesting that happened to me about 10 years ago. Actually, it must have been less. It was probably seven years ago because I already had four children. I went to a gathering of cousins that I had not seen in about 10 years. And there are professionals. They have actually had their professional degree for 15 years more than I have. I mean, I had to leave my country because of losing a job and not having, being able to get another one of the same. And that's as a teacher? No, when I left, I was more involved in communications. I can work here at a small office of a family. I became a teacher after the birth of my second child to spend more time at home with my kids. But at that dinner, everybody, every cousin is talking about their kids and most have two children. And they look at me and say, how in the world you have four? I was like, it's lovely, it's beautiful. How do you pay for school? And it hit me, Elsie, I don't pay for school in the United States. Yeah. They have access to a very good education. You can criticize public education a lot and that's okay. But the topic is they can access a free public education. In my country, there's free public education, but it's horrible. You don't even have desks. You have rooftops that leak. You don't have a floor. You have rodents on the floor. You don't have windows. You can easily find that information on YouTube. And that is extreme poverty. I have never met a single person that went to a public school in my country. Because the priority of a family after having children is paying for their education. And at the time, 10 years ago, the people with two kids, 40% of their income was being using their kids. About 20% of them were kids. So let's say if a person make, I don't know, a number that is approximate to what a modern reality, $2,000 a month in salary, which is a very good salary. They were paying $200 a month per kid per month for them to go to school. How can they afford for kids? Yeah. So that shapes a lot even of the mentality of having kids. So people, as soon as they begin accessing education and have a desire to climb economically, they think of having at most two kids. And the idea of mindset is one boy, one girl, which is another, you know, a very traditional idea that comes from our values. Yeah. And on the other hand, you have a lot of people that don't have access to health services that live in poor areas that end up being 25 and already have six children. Yeah. And those children don't have access to education. So I've known people who are 60 and are great grandmothers. Well actually that's one of the things that I learnt last night researching a little bit on Guatemala as well, is that, okay so there's roughly, you know I think it was from a couple of years ago, but the home birth statistic is about 50%, but there's also an extremely high maternal mortality rate in Guatemala, and it's quite easy to say oh that's because of home birth. But actually, the answer or the explanation is a lot more complex than that in Guatemala, I guess, influenced by all of those things that you've just said. There are also high rates of young girls becoming pregnant and the complexities with, I guess, being under- being developed enough to, you know, make a baby. Or nutrition and access to health. Listen, I am not familiar with the statistics you mentioned because I am just a father who... Yeah. I'm a teacher, but I am not examined statistics at Guatemala. But one thing I learned about statistics is we sometimes erroneously have this misconception of correlation meaning anxiety. A lot of the women who give birth in their homes in Guatemala will probably die either at childbirth or before age 30. That's true. That's a correlation that is because of poverty. They don't die at childbirth because of the home birth. Home birth, yeah. They could have died because of a bicycle accident and they're bleeding and their nearest hospital is two hours away and they're in a mountain where they don't have access to clean water. And I'm not exaggerating. I've seen this because my job in Guatemala was to go to every little... municipality for about six years. So I have some horrible things. The first time I learned about home birth, my mother was a social worker and she would tell me how she would drive a car for seven hours for 200 miles. I mean, at 30 miles per hour because there's so many mountains. So seven hours is not like in Australia that you go. Yeah, it's flat. Yeah. It's literally like 200 miles and then she steps off the car. And then she has to ride a horse for like 40 minutes into the mountain. And then she still had to walk an extra hour to get to a small village. And she told me that's where women are having birth in their home, because there's no option. So up until the age of 31, where I met my current wife, I thought home births were extreme poverty people. Yeah, it's only if you literally, I said, when she went after the question of do you have children in a different date? The second question that she asked me was, what do you think about home birth? I'm like, it's great if you're living in the mountains and you can survive it. Yeah. I mean, because that's what I thought. I mean, home birth, like who is so desperately poor that they cannot afford to go to a hospital for what's probably the most critical life decision. Yeah. Now that's a misconception, of course, but everybody that I've known from or even more privileged, I think we a lot share the idea that providing good care means providing the best hospital you can. And birth being one of the major situations where it's supposed to be like, like my dream was to have a lot of money to, if I go to a, a social hospital for an accident for the birth of my children, I need to afford the best hospital in the country. Of course that was just an idea, but, but it came up with the with the foregone conclusion that home birth is bad. Home birth is a consequence that you're doing terrible in life. Yeah. Now, my education began to change in the year 2007 when I was dating my wife and she began explaining to me, I like, what? And because I was still not ready to commit to having children, I was like, okay, it sounds interesting. Now I'm very naturally curious. So I began asking her questions. And every time there was an answer, she was incredibly well informed because she'd have a close friend of hers who had already three daughters. The first one was at a hospital. She did send me a note yesterday, this friend of my wife who they met, they've known each other for I believe about 38, 39 years. She had the first birth at a hospital and she was unhappy. So she researched Humbert and she had her two other daughters with Humbert and my wife was present. Wow. Moving labor and everything. So that was 10 years before I met her. Wow. So is that how she learnt about Humbert then? Yes. Wow. Well, she didn't learn through hearing about it or through reading about it. She learned because her best friend, and they're still very close, decided to... to go for home birth and my wife being as close as she was, she, I think at one point she lived with them in the same apartment, but she was present in the labor in process. Wow. And I was seeing a video of those births from what, 25 years ago. Yeah. I was not even in Texas when those happened. Yeah. And my wife is in a couple of scenes. So she saw it and she witnessed that, ah, I come short of words because using words like, I think any birth could be called a miracle. But such a majestic experience of life, of humanity, of, I don't know, I could go on for hours and still fall short to the worst. Yeah. Because to me, the birth of my children has been the best thing ever, but not merely because of the birth. Yeah. Was because they were home births. Yeah, yeah. This is a phrase that I always think when people talk about, I mean, I have four children, which is more than usual for the circle. I mean, it probably most people have three here in America in what amounts to. I always say, I mean, we were younger, we would have had more just for the experience of the home birth. Yeah. I would probably agree. Um, I am obviously quite young. Um, and I have two children. Um, but I think, I think I'm done. Older. You know, I'm only 27. Oh, you are very young. Yeah, I'll be 28 in February. I was 32 when we married, so she must have been 33 when we had our first. Yeah. Here's the interesting thing about home birth, not to interrupt you, but we had our last one when my wife was 41. So home birth is not, I mean, we were way more concerned, but even a person that goes to the doctor in a hospital will be concerned about a birth of over 40. So every little stigma or preconception, I could have a home birth. has been completely erased from my experience. Yeah. Tell us more, you're 27 and you have two home births? Yeah, so, yeah, I would say, yeah, I'm starting to reflect more about my first home birth experience, which, yeah, I guess home birth is amazing and midwifery care is amazing, but when you have what some women call like med. midwives, like more medicalised midwives attending home births, things get a bit blurred. And I think maybe that was my experience. My experience with my first home birth was, I thought it was amazing, but having had my second son in June at home, I'm like, wow, they're very different stories. And if, if I could like replicate or have a similar experience to what I had in June, I would birth like, maybe not 10 more times, but that whole experience, yes, to me it was painful, sure, because like everybody always latches on to pain and like, you know, I'm not denying that for me, personally, it was painful. But... Are you talking about physically painful or emotionally painful? Physically painful. I guess... Let me ask you one thing. Yeah. If your second birth was physically painful, would you not describe the first birth as physically painful at all? Interestingly, it was painful, but the way that I had been describing was that it was a different kind of pain. I think I... my 25th recording and in this podcast I've learned so, so much and even in the past six months listening to other amazing podcasts about home birth and physiological birth and things like that I'm constantly like oh like I wish I could do birth again because like I would try that you know to try and you know and it's lost wisdom. And I'm just like picking up pieces because like once upon a time this would have been like known knowledge within you know society but it's all lost you know now. But yeah I would describe that it's the same that yeah if I actually don't like being pregnant I find being pregnant extremely uncomfortable and obviously that's the nine or ten months. So for that reason, I don't think I'll have another baby, but the actual childbirth I would do again. Let me ask you something. Yeah. Especially with what you describe our pregnancy. What is to you for your own self, as briefly as possible, the goal of pursuing a home birth? Is it to reduce pain? No, I think it's to feel safe. Um, I, yeah, I'm not sure if I've mentioned so much to you before, but, um, I was a student midwife, um, a few years ago and I was a student midwife for three years. And I think in total, I probably saw like between 10 and 15 births and they were all in the hospital because we weren't allowed to attend home births at that time. You were not allowed because you were a student. because I was a student and in Australia midwives, private midwives, aren't able to get insurance for the birth part of... like, like pregnancy care, I guess. So they can get insurance for antenatal and they can get insurance for postnatal. And that's why, one of the reasons why it costs so much is because there's this issue with Medicare, not having, not covering a home birth, like the birth part of it and insurance and that it's like very messy. But, It costs like between six and $10,000. That's going through my mind because I can respond that question easily for myself. But if you were to ask me, I mean, I can respond the following question, not the next one, but the one after. If you were to ask me, why am I doing this conversation with you is because I am so passionate about home birth that I would like to share my experience so others can learn. how it can become the right choice for them. I agree that it's not the right choice for everybody. And we ourselves knew that eventually either because of the law or because of a wise decision, we might have needed to have one of our births at a hospital. We never did. But my desire is to advocate for people to inform themselves and consider home birth without stigma and prejudice. But one of the things is to determine the why. Why would you choose Humbert. I know that for myself. When I, before I had the children, my why was because the woman I want to marry is set on it. I could tell you, and I'm not joking, I could tell you that if I had said, I will not under any circumstances consider a Humbert, she would have said, then I don't want to even go on another date with you. Yeah. Which I think is valid. It's very important. It's like when you decide... What religion are you going to raise your kids in or what's their primary language going to be? Those are major decisions. And I believe people have a right to split. Yeah. I didn't have a strong opinion. All I wanted was the best possible outcome for my future children. And in my mind, the best possible outcome was great hospitals. Yeah. And because I didn't think I was ready to afford great hospitals, I wasn't ready to even have kids. But when she said... I mean, she was, she's incredibly good at communicating. She never forced the idea of having kids. She said, okay, we'll talk later. I want you to remain open because that's important for me. In Homeworth, she was probably a little bit more firm. We had also dated longer, but I could see I had no choice for two reasons. Number one, because she was firm, and number two, because I had no information about what a typical birth would be better. And that was the first birth. But as soon as I began taking classes with her, which was just a couple of lessons on the weekend, and I just spoke today to the person, I reached out to her to help me clear my memory. Yeah. I believe it was two mornings a Saturday, two different Saturdays for four hours. Yeah. After that, I was like a soldier going to battle. You're like, oh, I'm so ready for this, I wanna do it. Yeah. We had some difficulties during the first birth. She laborally found her mistaken for about 28 hours. Yeah. So it was very hard. She even ended up with some lesion in her bones because of having to readjust her weight so much and so much pressure in different positions. And anyway, so it was not perfect. It was challenging, but the outcome on an emotional level, at the time for us, it was more expensive. because the health system, the way it works here, when she was in the middle of her pregnancy, we decided she would no longer work. And we also talked, because we don't have family nearby. At the time, we didn't have family in the city, like a grandpa or an uncle or anybody that could watch a newborn. We decided that as soon as she had the baby, she would not return to work within a few years. So because of that, we did... qualify for some government assistance when it comes to health and for birth, because I was the only income earner. There was only one salary for a soon to be family of three. But that service would only cover hospital birth. That government insurance did not cover any. So for us, it was every cent we spent on the birth process, including all the visits in advance with the midwife. came out of our pockets. It would be cheaper to go to the hospital. Absolutely. So it was not an economic decision. First it was because of what she wanted, but once I experienced it myself as a male, as her husband, oh my goodness, Chelsea. My mother, who is from Guatemala, who she passed earlier this year, she passed in January, so she's no longer with us, but she had always desired grandkids and she had hurt a lot when I left the country. Yeah. So I had been living out of the country for six years. She was there at the birth. And the expectations that people have is they're gonna wait for the birth. They're gonna wait for two hours for the nurse to take the baby to another room. And then they're gonna wait maybe till next morning till they can see the baby through a window. And then 24 hours after the birth, maybe the grandma can come and touch the skin of the baby. My mother was holding the baby within 10 minutes of birth. My mother cut the umbilical cord. My mother heard all the moaning and groaning of my wife trying to push that baby out for a full day. And my mother heard the first cries of the baby. Yeah. I did not have a great relationship with my mom, but that to me was the best gift I could ever give her. Yeah. And for me, to myself, it was like, oh my goodness, what is this? And there's so many other aspects, Elsie. Being an immigrant, I... I had, especially around 2007, I had no friends. I mean, I had friends that I could see every now and then, but nobody that I would hang out with on a weekly basis. My wife did have lifelong friendships. So for three or four years, I mean, three or four days before the birth, we had like 10 people in our house. Yeah, wow. Like camping, we had an aunt that flew from her home state of Oregon. I think her mother flew in as well. Yeah. Her couple of best friends and her sister who live in town were there. So that was at least five adult females. They were there all the time. I was literally hugging her or napping. I didn't even have to cook. And not that I was surrounded by this sense of community. Yeah. It felt so, you know, it made me think of, of a pack of lionesses protecting the, the lioness that's. Yeah. And thankfully, one of those friends, actually the friend who got my wife into learning about humbers, she's also a very good photographer. She was never a professional photographer, but she was incredibly gifted and skilled in taking family pictures. So she took a lot of pictures. Those pictures are still up. She also had a blog, so she would write her thoughts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Another one of the friends was journaling. Like at 2 a.m., she began... thinking that the bird was gonna come. The midway was sure, the dilation was so many centimeters, but 40 minutes later, this changed. So it's a process that I even took video. It was before iPhones and before digital video. So it's on tape somewhere. I have never seen those videos. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But there's not a price for that, Elsie. Yeah, and I think when I say safe, I... Um, like the reason for why I chose home birth, it was because, you know, I'd seen all of these things happen in hospital and I knew that I had never, I'd seen like home births in videos and things, but I didn't know anyone personally that had ever had a home birth. Um, like, yeah, I just knew that it must be different. And actually I will give credit to my husband because he was born at home in the Netherlands where there's also. um, a high home birth rate compared to other countries. Um, and I remember being in the appointment with, I knew that I wanted a private midwife, I knew that I wanted that I wanted the continuity of care. And it was proposed to me, do you want to have a home birth? Then previously I had thought, yes, I'll always choose a home birth. But when it was presented to me, I was like, Oh, like, can I actually do it? Like, you know, I've seen how birth can go wrong. I've seen what can happen. Do I believe in myself enough? Do I trust my body enough? And I guess, yeah, probably I didn't. I did have the home birth, but probably I felt like I needed the midwives rather than I needed to trust myself. But it was my husband who was like, well, yeah, let's have a home birth. And I was like, okay, let's have a home birth. But yeah, I wouldn't. Something you're saying you felt you needed the midwives. Does that mean that there was an alternative to have a home birth without any midwife assistance? Um, like, so there is a rise. I'm not sure how it's documented. I think antidotally, we know that there is a rise in free births in Australia. So, uh, yeah, births at home or wherever you want really without a medical. I'm guessing your audience will know more about strata, but let me let me share what I learned how it was for us in Texas. Yeah, the midwife has actually have to be licensed. Yeah, she needs to have a partner doctor that in the case of an emergency and the emergency could come in month six of the pregnancy. Wow. The emergency doesn't mean an emergency at birth. Yeah. But we meet with her about if I'm not wrong, 10 times during the pregnancy. like once a month the first three months, twice a month the next three, and in the last eight weeks from week 30 onward, I think every week. And of course she comes and stays at her house the last two days. So that was her only option because I believe practicing a free birth would have precluded us from a few other opportunities. The midwife has to have a backup plan, including a route for an ambulance. If we were to need to call an ambulance, the moment of birth, saying a follicle cord is around the neck or the baby's breech. So it was that was information given to us during the first pregnancy, which made me feel very confident, not because I trust hospitals a lot. I mean, I'm the person that says, if I'm not bleeding, don't take me there for anything. Yeah. A lot of it had to do with being raised in lower middle class. I didn't have money to go to the hospital for. Yeah. But through my learning process, I realized that there's an industry. a health industry that needs to feed their cycle. They need to bring people to the hospitals. But here's the thing. What is where the hospitals are good. Doctors are great. Yeah. What's the scenario where they add more value to your life when your life is at risk because of an accident? Yeah. And when your life is at risk because of an accident, you have no choice, but to trust a great doctor and go to a great hospital with all the resources. But chances are, if you have an accident, you're nowhere near one. Yeah. So your body is incredibly resilient. And this industry is established to save lives, to rescue lives from situation of risk. It could be a long illness too. But why do we treat pregnancy as an illness? Yeah. Here's the other thing. And these are some things that I learned from the midwife 15 years ago. Which do you think is more contaminated? Your house, where there's five people sharing the same viruses every day. and breathing and sleeping in the same bed, sharing utensils for eating or a hospital where there's a hundred people who come actually sick with some sickness you've never had. Yeah. Wow. Even the maternity ward as a sterilized and clean as it may be people, the traffic and everything before COVID, it was much more there. I was like, you're right. A hospital is contaminated. Yeah. Why do we think that handling a baby off to three or four people within 10 minutes is safer? Why, why do we wear masks? for a father to see their child, if for 5,000 years or whatever amount of time you want to believe people were born without needing to protect from them. And another thing that she said was, your baby during pregnancy has been listening to the mother's heartbeat every second of their life. It's the biggest sound they've known. Why does it have to be cut so suddenly at birth? And I almost cried when I was told that. I would be the most cruel person if to my babies, I would take them away from their mother or not me, but have them all to go to another room or to if my wife wanted to hold them with them. You know, I don't recall each of them, but I know at least one of my kids had the umbilical cord at least an hour, an hour and a half after the birth is still attached. Yeah. And then after, after all the love and warmth and the emotions and the crying had happened, And we chose who would cut the umbilical cord. You know, you saw a picture of my fourth child. Yeah. With the cord bending. With the two older children that had the cord together. Yeah. And even though they might not remember as clearly, to see the picture, it means so much for their unity as siblings. Yeah. But what I'm trying to say is there was an amount of arguments that to me made this, I don't want to use the word empowering. But it was like, if life is meant to be at 100% by the fact of who we are as humans, only through a home birth could I as a man experience the whole value of my wife's pregnancy and only through a home birth could she feel in control having the agency to determine what's best for her and for her child. Yeah. with consulting of the midwife, with support of friends, with even a backup plan for a doctor if necessary. Yeah. She was in charge. She would not need to be tied to a to a bed, to a room, to a floor of a building on their certain schedule. She was in charge of how she wanted to do it. And she would ask questions to the midwife, but my wife would decide. Yeah. And so the word empowering seems to justify that. But. But it's more than that. It's more than that. I call the birth of my children the happiest moments of my life. I'm happier than the marriage, than the wedding itself. It's just, I get emotional thinking about that. You know, I've looked back on it and yeah, there were times where I feel sad that we knew, my wife was 42 by the time we were holding our fourth baby and we knew she could not get pregnant again. We also did have two losses. before baby number four. So we knew that was going to be your last baby. And I was like, you're telling me I'm not going to have a birth again at home? Yeah, it's like addictive. Yeah, I would. But it's chemically and physiologically addictive. Yes. The amount of whatever your body releases. Yeah. Of hormones of well-being. Listen, we are adults. So I'm going to say this. It's better than the best sex you can have. Yeah. It's different, but... the amount of intimacy in the emotions in your brain, you're obviously surrounded by other people, but all the chemical aspects of the union that can be serializing in sexual intimacy, a birth is so much more intense. Yeah. I mean, look, the last birth I ever saw of my children was almost eight years and what? Eight years and nine months ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get so excited talking about it. Yeah. I would describe the birth of Frankie who I had in June as the best day of my entire life. I don't think I'm certain nothing can top it. Like, I just... Yeah, and I think I've said this before in other episodes that if more women and partners and families could have this experience. like how things in the world might be different. I know that's like a big step, but I just see it as like, it's, yeah, and I hear this all the time in the stories that are shared on the podcast that the way it's impacted how a woman feels about themselves as a mom, as a woman, as a parent. how they parent like it. It has so many on flow effects, this amazing experience. And by raising children is, is tricky. It's like every child is different. And when you said raising children is. Yeah. Yeah, it's hard. Yeah. I have a like, yeah, Murphy is three and a half at the moment. Oh, it's requiring a lot of emotional regulation for myself. Um, but like it's just. Yeah, I would agree with all of the things that people have said before that, yeah, it's, it's changed how I feel about myself and my body. I trust my body. I, I truly believe that like, um, you know, my body, my body worked. And it was really like full circle the other day. My son Murphy, he had a cut on his finger or something. And he was saying, oh, I have this. And he said, oh, but don't worry, mom. My body will fix it. And I was just like, oh, yes. Here's an interesting concept. Let's say that there's two lines of thoughts about this. People believe in either evolution or creation. If people believe in evolution, our body has evolved and improved each time. Our body right now is at its best way in history because of all that it has learned. So why not let the body take care of the most basic function, which is to continue the life cycle itself. And if you believe in creation, then the body is the most perfectly created organism body. Why don't you let it achieve what it did for thousands of years? Right. Yeah. I mean, especially if you believe in creation and Western religions. the birth of Christ was on a manger. It was so assisted. Yeah, and it was a home birth. Yeah, it was a home birth. Exactly. And so the idea that, again, I'm not trying to put hospitals down in any way because they serve a purpose, but what I think is that the ideal setting for a birth is where a woman feels safe. I like the word that you use safe. In control is another way that I see it, mostly because of my mindset at the time. I thought that it was a home birth could be out of control without all the structure that you would assume you have. But here's another thing to me is the climax of the human experience. The climax of the human experience. I love that. It is the birth, but a home birth where you're relying only on your own natural abilities. And if we had video, people would see me putting my hands around the car. And all these gestures of how capable the body is. Yeah. As a male, I get to witness that. But also I felt I'm not a person, you know, that is mystical in any way. But if there was a mystical religious experience moment, being a part of that community of friends that my wife had, there was a friend who played the guitar. And for doing hours of labor, she'd be playing songs that they like. Yeah. Come on, you cannot have that at a hospital. No. I chose some, I am more into rock music, so I chose a couple of songs to play off the iPod. And I knew what was the first song that my babies would hear. Obviously they don't remember, and now I'm like, I need to see it. But in a sense, it's a big party. Yeah. It's a celebration of life, where you are in your sacred space, which is your home. Or our first song was born in our bedroom. It was quite difficult because it was a long labor. So for the second child, my wife decided to have a bathtub and it was in our living room. All four children were born in the same home. The very first home that my wife and I bought. When we moved, because with four kids, we couldn't stay in the same house where we couldn't sell that house. We couldn't sell it. We figured out so many ways to keep it. And about a few months ago, we're going to sell it. And guess what? The sale fell through on the day of closing after 40 days that we were going to sell it. It fell through. And the first thing I did was take my children back. The house is all empty and say, this is where you were born. And here's some pictures. Yeah. I cannot imagine another way to communicate to my children, how much they were loved, how much they were wanted, how much they were desired and planned for, for months before. Yeah. I cannot imagine what they feel. I remember knowing, I mean, my parents had a very rocky relationship. They divorced by the time I was 12 and I was very happy that they divorced. Yeah. But but I always felt that my birth had been oppressing to my mother. Yeah. She went she was taken to a hospital. She didn't have a choice. She had a C-section from then on. The birth of my brother and the birth of my sister were also C-sections because the first one was C-section. My father, I don't think was able to be in the room until the next day. I don't even know if she wanted to be, if he wanted to be, or mom was wanting him to be, but I found nothing of joy about my birth. I would, I would say the same. Um, yeah, I, I know that, um, I was in induction, um, because I had, yeah, my mom has told me very briefly because I was like overdue, but like, what does that mean? I that could mean anything. But yeah, I don't really know many details of my birth. I don't know if like my parents also divorced when I was 15 and I was happy about it as well. I, yeah, their relationship was extremely toxic. And I actually like whether my dad was at present when I was born, I have no idea. I think there was some disappointment that I've only discovered, you know, later in life, um, that I was born a girl. Um, so I think like just the whole situation was, yeah, not very nice. And I'm so happy that I'm able to give my children a different, a different pathway, you know, I, yeah, like you, I mean, you sent me that video the other day. And although your kids might not have been like, Oh, Let's tell my birth story to some random. All of them 14, the girls. Yeah. But, but they already know that home birth is probably a possibility for them. I mean, yeah, no, no. But, but they're very aware. They're so aware of their own birth. My eight year old every other month asks, can I see the video of my birth? Because there's a moment where I took a video of 30 seconds before he was pushed out and 30 seconds after, and a lot of joy. I'll share that with you, of course. Yes. I love to share it. I remember I was studying for a master's degree when he was born and I had to go to school the next day because you know it's a master's degree and you cannot miss a class. Yeah. And I said, how did everything go? I cannot tell you, but do you want to watch the video? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't want to watch the video. But she was in a tub in the living room. But see, when I heard you talk... An idea came to me that I had never thought of. And I look back on my parents a lot. My dad passed about 20 something years ago. And I don't know the exact year because he was a traumatic experience for me. We were very distant. My mom passed away this January. I never, ever heard my father talk about my birth. And we had a good relationship even after the divorce. For a few years, we had a good relationship. It went bad later in the last five years of his life. But we hung out so much. We I felt I got to know him better than my mother. And I knew I was loved as a son to him and to my mother. But I never had those glimpses of joy. And when I heard you talk about that and about your dad, I was like, what is the first memory that my father had of me? I don't know. Yeah. The first memory that my mother has of me was the bad news that she got pregnant at 17. Yeah. And then the fact that she got to marry when she was already pregnant with me, like six months. But the first thing I know about me is that I was born in a C-section that seemed to have been very oppressing. That is the word. Even when I say C-section, there's a little like thorn in my heart that makes me feel sad because my mother always said it with such a sadness. I think she was even giving general anesthesia. I mean, it was 1975. So she was put to sleep and she wakes up and boom, there's a baby. Yeah. Well, often the women, yeah, I've read many stories about and I mean, I've experienced it as well. Like I was a part of an elective C-section and I thought, oh, it's elective. Like she's chosen this. She wants this amazing. She's got her makeup on. She's prepared. Blah, blah, blah. It was her second C-section and at the C-section ended up, you know, baby came out. But then they were like, oh, but we didn't realize that. Um, some things actually happened from the first C-section. And so she was put under and we, the dad and I had this baby, like back up on the maternity ward while the mom, like the mom hadn't even like met the baby yet. It was just the most bizarre experience to be like this mother. Like, yeah, it's amazing that the dad could hold the baby and stuff, but like for so many physiological reasons, like that connection with mother and baby needs to happen. Instantly, of course, there's always like little instances where, you know, something critical emergency happens and maybe that can't happen. But I think it happens far, far too much. It's definitely much more unlikely in a home birth setting. There's a lot of research now to say that, you know, even if you do need to resuscitate the baby, the baby can still be connected. it doesn't you don't have to take the baby over to the corner of the room and like it's work around it, you can work around it. And just some of those things, I remember that I was told some of those things. I mean, the classes we took was before the first birth. So that was around the year 2008. 15 years ago, more than 15. My son is 15 and two months. Yeah, it was really 15 and a half. And I've never again heard it. And I know that a part of me was like, okay, I don't want to hear that part. I want to think about those possibilities. But I had this reassurance that I knew that the midwife was thinking about it. I would be on top of that. So that allowed me to be much more confident. I knew that I didn't just like at a hospital, I don't need to do anything. You trust them. But I learned that to a point she was a birth expert. That my wife also had some midwife studies. She, I don't know. She wasn't trying to be a midwife, but more of a doula. I don't know if you've heard that before, it's a tradition in Australia. Yeah. So she also knew some, but to me, more than anything, it was like, okay, I don't need to know how a surgery goes. You can talk to me for 20 minutes. All I need to know is, are you good at it? Yeah. Are you confident that you can handle it well? The same thing with the midwife. She did explain a lot, and there were many things that I'm sure erased her, but other were like, Okay, I don't know and I don't care as long as you know, and you can do it when it comes to it. So we've never had any major issues. But to me, I'd like to go back to the question that I posed, because I would love for anybody to examine why. And the why is, to me again, is very clear to respond. I think that's what I've been talking about the last 20 minutes, is not just to avoid a hospital, is not to prevent something that wouldn't be great. is really to go for it, to go for, yeah, you took note of it. And I think I like the phrase too, to go for the climax of the human experience. If you like hiking, why are you gonna stop at the middle of the hill instead of going all the way to the top? Yeah. And we could make another adult analogies, but the important thing is why don't you go for what it could be at its best? What the body of the female human body can do at its best, which is birth. you women have been burdened children for thousands of years. Literally thousands of years. Yeah. And you know, it has worked well. Yeah. I just thought of it as well. If whether you think of creation or evolution in both ways, the body is currently the human body as it maximum potential. It's either evolved to its best or was created at its best. Yeah. Why do you need to put so many stop signs in between? But the reason to me has to be. for somebody to go for a home birth to examine what is their why. Financial considerations are important, of course. We knew that going for home birth would be more expensive. But we dove into it, we thought of it, and we knew that going for a hospital birth could be cheap. When I had a job when we were pregnant and had the first and second births, I lost that job, which was a very good job in a corporation, and I was in the upper management. level, I lost a job when my wife was five months pregnant with her third child. Yeah. And and we were I was literally unemployed for about eight months. Thankfully, we were able to qualify for financial assistance. And that's how I became a teacher. That's how I pursue a new degree. But at that point, me without a job, we even talked about it. We even said, should we consider not push? We had already hired the midwife. Yeah, we already started the process. We had already started the payments. we discussed should we not have ourselves a home birth because we just cannot afford it. And our conclusion was, even if we borrow the money, we'll be able to pay it back within a year or two, we will never get back what we lose. Yeah. A home birth. Yeah. And not only us as adults, now I see it with my daughter. I mean, each of them has a lot of pictures to look at. Imagine if one of them did not have a home birth because we couldn't afford it. I mean, I am privileged that I'm in Texas, in the United States. I did have access to what they call food stamps. I did have access to unemployment insurance. In my country, those do not exist. But if I have a privilege, if I have this opportunity, why don't I make the most of it? And you talk about privilege at the beginning, how there's a privilege in the health system. But if we have the privilege of having a human body... women as having this privilege of birthing and having a body that can withstand all the process and then offer the most wonderful first few seconds of life to their baby by the physical touch, by the contact, by letting the baby listen to the heartbeat, by keeping it warm in the arms of the mother, in her breast, in her bosom, not necessarily just with an electric blanket, not be taken away. Why don't we exercise that privilege? Yeah. If we have the privilege, I mean, my wife, thankfully, never complained about the physical pain too much, but if we have the privilege to be distant from that pain where we have the privilege to be attentive, be servants of the woman at that moment and be there, just fully focused on the ability to be there with our children, to hold them, to watch them, to take pictures, to enjoy the moment. Why don't we take advantage of that privilege? And that's what home birth gives us. Yeah. a privilege of a lifetime. I mean, it sounds so, so rhetoric and repetitive, but it is of a lifetime. It is wonderful. It's the climax of my experience. I'm saying it for a lifetime, but I like that. And that's why I love talking about this, Elsie, because it's like if you ask anybody, hey, what's the best football game or cricket game or the best concert you've gone to, they'll tell you all about it. The best concert you've gone to. How was your first dance in high school? Your first kiss. people would love to talk about it. I can talk to you for hours and hours about the joy of the birth of my children because I was there every moment. Yeah. And I was there only because of home birth. The circumstances would not have been allowing it in a different setting. Yeah. What is, in Texas, what is the thoughts around home birth? Oh, great question. Listen, when my wife talked to me about it, I was influenced by my own background in Guatemala, in Latin America. I was influenced by the fact that I thought it's only for people who live in the mountains. But then I asked her and it was also, what's the word? It's like a fringe concept. A lot of people that she knew kind of knew because they knew them as friends for a long time. They knew my- and her best friend who had educated her about that for a long time on the topic. But a lot of other people were like, I remember at work when I began telling people, they were like, what? You're going to have the baby at home or I remember when we said that we were praying and then we would be talking about the birth of our children. And the first question is, OK, or what hospital is it going to be at? Yeah, yeah. I'm like, no hospital. Yeah, exactly. So it is still... It's not like ridiculed because midwives are... I mean, it's a large state. And I believe it has about 35 million people as a state of the US. But it's still an outlier. People, I don't think other than friends that she already knew at the time of our home births, I met other people. When I talk to, I mean, I met other people, whether males or females that experienced home birth for their own kids. Yeah. And I thought the best answer I get is like, oh yeah, I know of a friend who did it. Yeah, okay, yeah. So it's not common practice. Now, here's one interesting thing. When we had our second child, I believe at 48 hours after the birth, she did cough for two seconds. It was more like a hiccup. Okay. But because she was just, you know, a tiny little baby, yeah, she lost one or two moments of breath. Like, you know, we breathe in, out, in, out. In that hiccup, she lost two. So for three seconds, her face went purple. Yeah, okay. It was nothing else. It was a hiccup, she lost her breath for three seconds. It's a baby turned purple, gone. But my wife was worried. It was only her second baby. We called the midwife. Since the midwife did not see it, she could only go from what she heard from my wife. She said, listen, it doesn't seem like a major thing, but it's better to be safe. So I recommend you take her to the hospital to describe what happened. And they might check her lungs to see if there can be an infection. Yeah. And I mean, immediately she refers to a hospital. Nobody's trying to be enemies with the hospital. But as soon as we arrived, after the whole intake information, the nurse said, okay, how old is the baby? Two days? Where was she born? Because, you know, a baby that's two days is usually still at the hospital. I said, she was born at home. Oh, and when the doctor arrived, we went to the emergency service. When the doctor arrived to take the information, I could even see kind of like whispering in her ear, you know, like in high school when they gossip about one another. And my wife and I could both tell that doctor was already before meeting us, frustrated with us, because she knew that we were mechanizingly saying things like, well, you're already taking a few risks and we're gonna check, I hope everything is okay, but you already put the baby in danger and stuff like that simply because of our decision. So. We were not trying to make enemies with them. Yeah. But the truth, the enemies. Now, I am not going to say that's the case for everybody. That was our experience. That was not one specific doctor. But that's the only doctor that I've seen in the first month of the life of any of my four children. So I came out with this impression that she was rude, that she was mean. And I cut her line. For example, she kept talking to us about all the risks that could have been associated with the home birth. And. One of the things that they wanted to do, I remember this moment so clearly, because it was a tiny baby two days old. They needed to do a spinal tap. You know what a spinal tap is? I knew that was the name of a rock mockumentary movie. I heard the phrase, you need to do a spinal tap. I was like, what? How's that going to help? We want to do a midnight oil or an ACDC. She said that there were a lot of things that they, as doctors, could only do in the hospital because of all the considerations about cleaning and knowing how to do. And she calls on a nurse to request assistance for doing the spinal tap. Then she hands the responsibility to the nurse to perform my daughter's spine, a baby, a two-day-old baby on the spine with a syringe. And I hear this nurse tell another nurse, can you help me? I've never done one of these. And I'm like, what in the world? And a few minutes ago, you were telling me that you are the best, safest place for doing all of this. And then I believe the baby needed to, you know, she wasn't wearing a diaper or was, I don't remember, but there was some remnants of feces in her lower back and the way they were cleaning, and I could tell that there could be a risk of contamination between the fecal matter. I mean, it's a baby, so it's just a tiny little bit. and the area in the spine where they're about to put the xyrogenic, this, this one seems worse. But, but mostly the two things that stood out was how she talked to us. The doctor was moving to us. And then when that nurse said to the other, can you help me? I've never done one of these. I'm sure a spinal tap is something you don't do on every person. I don't know. I've never even cared to research more. But the fact that we were talked to down and then so that's to respond your question on how is it perceived I believe I don't want to go too radical on this but my perception is they see it as a practice that hurts their business. Yeah yeah well you said that you listened to uh Lloyd's episode um and yeah I mean he was saying the same thing I think we all have this all most of us in you know that whatnot. We understand this very well. Um, because yeah, maybe it feels uncomfortable to understand that reality, but it is a reality that it is a business. And as, um, I'm pretty sure it was Lloyd that said like, it's marketing. It's very bad marketing. If you, if you say, um, oh, like another woman has died. You only have in Australia, you pretty much only hear about women dying if in childbirth, if it's associated with a home birth, then every news outlet has it. And it doesn't happen that often. So, of course, it's like built up, but it's never reported in a hospital. You see it on the news in Australia where a woman dies in home birth. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Or like some you hear about midwives losing their registration because it's quite strict and in Australia it's very, very much run by obstetricians. And in Australia we have a governing body called what's abbreviated to APRA and APRA is responsible for registering midwives and you have to adhere to the strictness of APRA. and you can be reported by anyone. I could have that experience in an emergency department like you had, and I could figure out a way to report it to APRA, and then APRA is meant to investigate the practice of that healthcare person. But like Private Midwives, I listened to an episode of another podcast a couple of weeks ago, and... They were saying that the stats or whatever about private midwives who are the ones that are supporting women having home births, if you are a private midwife expect that at least one time in your career you will be reported. And reported could mean you lose your registration and with that you are not allowed to practice. Unless yeah it's... Yeah, I realize obviously this episode is about you and your experiences. Like we said, from the start, I say it's using my story to advocate for this because to me as a man, as a father of children born at home as a husband of a woman who had that in her mind, I went from what is this? craziness. I was not against it. I was just uninformed to being totally passionate about it. Yeah, I cannot have children anymore. My wife cannot have children anymore. We're more close to our 50s than our 40s. So it will not happen for me, but I would love it if my daughters do. Yeah, I love it with my sons. With my sons, I mean, this is another concept of culture and gender roles. I believe that they have less of a deciding power on that. Yeah. But to me, Once again, why would you, having the opportunity to experience the best moments in a lifetime, choose to diminish them through going a different route? Yeah. So, my goal is not to tell you all the intricacies of my personal story. My goal is to share how wonderful home birth has been to enrich my life. You said at one point, when you stop there and say raising children is, I was thinking hard. You're going to say beautiful, but I think it's hard. I have three teenagers now and it is hard. But when you think of how it all started with that beautiful moment of birth, it's just so wonderful. It's an anchor. It's an emotional. Yeah, an anchor. It's an emotional anchor for me as to understand. Like I told you, I just realized I never heard my father talk about my birth because he wasn't there and my mom talk about it with sadness. Yeah. And yeah, I hear the word c-section and I feel sad because I think my poor mother was forced into it. Yeah. She wasn't necessarily forced. So these are consequences of not having the information and not using the information to exercise, to make the most out of our lives. And those are the most joyful moments of my life. Those births. Yeah. The birth is not just the second of... comes out and by the way, in our case, the first three babies, we didn't even want to know the gender because the matter was as long as it's healthy. I mean, before I met my wife, I remember thinking, as soon as we get pregnant, we're gonna find out the gender, we're gonna paint the room the color of the norms, all that. It all changed, so as a man, I think one of the most important things is to keep an open mind because... There's so much that I could read and study and examine, but there's no way I can know as much about it as a woman. There's, even as a father who was there for four homers, there's not as much as I can share about what it means than having burdened myself. And that's what happened, that never happened. So to be open-minded and be supportive and allow yourself to be led. Because many times I was, like I told you, there's when people... talk about what I was doing, I was eating and taking naps. Most of the time I was not doing much, but I was there. So it's not about my story, it's about how to use that story to empower others with what to me would be the best thing they could consider for their lives, for their journeys. Yeah. People are considering having children if they're an age of bearing children, do the research. But... But that is a very personal decision as well, because again, examine your why. If the why is because it's going to be more convenient, you are probably going to be disappointed. There were times that it was hard. Yes, it's not cheaper. In our case, it wasn't cheaper. And there's a lot of things. But then examine your why. And my response to that is because I want the best opportunity to have the most wonderful experience in life. Yeah. So that is my way. I mean, I'm repeating myself, but that's the one word I can. Yeah. Examine your why and consider it. Yeah. I think that's like a perfect way, I guess, to end the episode, because yeah, I really love what you said about like the climax of life, you know, and yeah, if you're going hiking Um, climb to the top. Don't stop halfway. Yeah. True. Yeah. Well, um, thank you so, thank you so much. Um, is it like 6 PM there? Right now it is. What time it is for you? 11 AM on the morning after, after that it's on Saturday and for you it's Friday. So that's yeah. Okay. So. So listen, I know we said we're gonna close and I know we talk about maybe doing a second part, but in case we don't, allow me just a minute to read this text that I got from the friend of my wife. She said, Yeah, please. I basically asked her, Hey, how do you learn about home birth? Give me one or two phrases. She didn't give me one or two phrases. So I just, I had just had my first baby in the hospital. I didn't even know home birth was an option. My experience was disappointing. I had not wanted the epidural, but they told me I had to because I was hyperventilating, which meant my baby might not be getting enough oxygen. Then after I had the epidural, I couldn't feel anything and couldn't push effectively, so they had to suction her out. The first try, the suction pop off her head, and then they did it again. They also gave me an episiotomy with no warning, and then botched the stitches so that five months later, I had to have surgery to repair it. Through all of it, the doctor and my nurses were all very well, they were all very condescending towards me. I felt stupid and powerless and completely at their mercy. When, and she has given me permission to share this. So I'll share the name Collie. That's her oldest daughter who is 28. I believe right now when Collie was two weeks old, I was at a church event and there was a woman there that I did not know well. She also recently had a baby and was admiring my new baby and asked about the scar on her head. that was still visible from where they had screwed a heart monitor into her forehead while they were suctioning. I told her what it was and repeated what the hospital had told me, that it didn't hurt her even though it had left a scar. The woman looked slightly horrified and very gently said, how do they know it didn't hurt her? That was the first time I began to question everything. I went to her a few weeks later and started asking questions about how she had her babies and that was when I learned about a gentler... more natural way to birth, with a midwife helping me in the comfort of my own home. It was life changing for me. She had two more babies. That's how my wife learned about it. That's how we had four babies. I get like chills because so, so many, so many things. Um, yeah. Thank you so much for sharing that. And thank you. Um, make sure you thank her for allowing that to be shared. She asked me to give her the link of the episode. Her name is Leslie. So give her a thank you. Thank you so much, Leslie. for sharing a little snippet of your story. But such an impact, like a small snippet, but so impactful. And I'm so glad that you were able to find that better way for you that, you know, probably was very healing to know that it doesn't have to be like that. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you.