00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 Having a baby completely changed my relationship to health.
00:08 I had a really tough pregnancy from beginning to end.
00:12 My first trimester was so much harder
00:15 than anyone had ever told me.
00:18 I was exhausted and nauseated every single day for 19 weeks.
00:23 I developed really chronic pain in my hip, pelvis area.
00:30 And I was diagnosed with this condition called SPD,
00:33 which is pubis symphysis dysfunction.
00:36 And it turns out that one in five pregnant women
00:39 experience this condition that is debilitating.
00:42 And for many women, you cannot walk in your pregnancy
00:47 and you have to be like wheeled around.
00:49 It literally feels like your legs
00:52 are disconnecting from their sockets.
00:56 Even rolling over in bed is excruciating.
00:58 Getting out of bed to go to the bathroom
01:01 is something you can no longer do by yourself.
01:03 So I felt really dependent in a way
01:06 that was really hard for me psychologically
01:08 and emotionally, and it was just a very vulnerable time
01:13 all for this child that I didn't plan for, frankly.
01:17 It was so much change all at once
01:21 and really, really so much harder
01:23 than I thought pregnancy would be.
01:25 But thank God for me,
01:26 I had the most beautiful birth experience out of hospital
01:31 with a team of black midwives that made me feel so safe.
01:36 My husband ended up being my doula.
01:40 I called him my dad doula.
01:41 And we brought this baby into the world
01:44 in such a sacred way.
01:47 I was truly like on a high,
01:50 on a natural high when I gave birth.
01:51 And I haven't come down.
01:53 It's been a year and like three months,
01:55 and I am still on a high.
01:57 I'm like in love with my baby,
01:59 and I feel so supported.
02:01 I have not let my midwives go.
02:03 They're like my aunties.
02:04 I invite them over all the time.
02:06 They came to the baby's first birthday party.
02:08 They're a part of my tribe forever.
02:10 I think that I was aware
02:12 of the black maternal mortality crisis in a peripheral sense
02:15 as maybe a survival tactic.
02:18 I tried to insulate myself from that awareness
02:22 because I didn't want to bring that fear
02:26 into my birthing experience.
02:28 And I also think that I naively believed
02:33 that my privilege would insulate me in some way
02:38 from those negative outcomes that you hear about,
02:41 those deadly outcomes that you hear about.
02:43 Black women are dying three to four times more
02:48 than white women.
02:50 And that stat is inclusive of every socioeconomic status.
02:55 It doesn't matter how much money you make.
02:58 It doesn't matter what school you went to.
03:00 It doesn't matter who you know.
03:02 You can very well become a statistic.
03:05 I became pregnant shortly after I moved to LA
03:08 in the pandemic.
03:09 So I didn't have a doctor, let alone an OB.
03:12 Nobody was going to the doctor during the pandemic
03:14 unless God forbid you had a really serious case of COVID
03:17 or some other health crisis.
03:19 So I thought, how hard is it going to be to find an OB?
03:21 Like how hard could it be to have a healthy baby
03:24 in this country?
03:26 It's pretty hard.
03:27 I went to see doctor after doctor
03:30 and I had awful experiences.
03:32 I had doctors that straight up gaslit me
03:35 that absolutely did not want to hear my questions,
03:38 didn't want to entertain any of my curiosities.
03:42 I had issues with negligence, like gross negligence.
03:46 What I knew after going to eight different doctors
03:50 is that this is not a system that is set up for me.
03:52 I was so grateful to have my eyes really opened
03:55 to the world of midwifery care.
03:58 They came into my life and they just made me feel so safe,
04:03 so seen, not like a statistic.
04:06 They cared about like my holistic health.
04:10 They asked about my marriage, how I was feeling in general,
04:15 and they would spend like hours with me if I needed it,
04:19 which is night and day
04:20 from what you experience in a hospital.
04:22 You get 15 minutes if you're lucky with a doctor.
04:25 There isn't just one way to have a healthy baby
04:28 in this country.
04:29 If anyone is making you feel that you have to stick
04:33 to this model of maternal health that isn't working for you,
04:36 they're lying to you.
04:37 There's more to know, there's more to explore.
04:40 Now part of my work is to make sure
04:43 that the next generation of moms
04:46 aren't going to this as blind as we were
04:49 and as naive as I was.
04:51 I went from hearing about the Black maternal mortality crisis
04:55 through the lens of statistics
04:57 to understanding it in a first-person way,
05:02 where I was experiencing the failures of our medical system
05:06 up close and personal in my lived experience,
05:10 even as a Black woman with all of the privileges
05:13 you could have in this country.
05:15 It did not separate me from those statistics.
05:18 And I hope that we are reframing this conversation
05:21 for this next generation of women through the lens of hope,
05:24 through the lens of options and agency,
05:27 and like a safe, sacred, beautiful birthing experience
05:30 is what we deserve.
05:31 [MUSIC PLAYING]
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