Latest / MyMaine Birth / 77. Mid-Week Midwife Episode - Embracing Birth with Student Midwife Gabrielle Gonzales

Transcript

77. Mid-Week Midwife Episode - Embracing Birth with Student Midwife Gabrielle Gonzales · MyMaine Birth

• 0:00
  Gabby: Yeah, I went for my first doula birth and this was kind of during the time where we were training to be a supportive person in labor and I was doing a birth for a friend that actually couldn't make it and I volunteered.
• 0:19
  Gabby: I was like I can do this birth and I I went there.
• 0:23
  Gabby: And that's when I met Chris and, at the time, anna, who I know a lot of people know Anna from Holly number seven.
• 0:29
  Gabby: She was a student and I think it was when we were doing the placenta tour.
• 0:36
  Gabby: After, after the placenta came out, we got onto the conversation about midwifery and schooling and she was in school at the time at BirthWise and she was like, have you ever considered becoming a midwife?
• 0:49
  Gabby: And I'm like, hmm, no, but that that sounds really interesting.
• 0:54
  Gabby: And that night I went home and I was on cloud nine after seeing this out of hospital birth and really falling in love with how everything unfolded and what they have to offer there.
• 1:05
  Gabby: And I just went into this deep dive of researching what midwifery was and I think it took me like a week of like researching and learning all about it to be like, okay, this is what I want to do, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life Like I can't imagine not showing up for my community in that way.
• 1:32
  Angela: I'm Angela and you're listening to my Maine Birth a space where we share the real life stories of families and their unique birth experiences in the beautiful state of Maine and their unique birth experiences in the beautiful state of Maine From our state's biggest hospitals, the birth center births and home births.
• 1:49
  Angela: Every birth story deserves to be heard and celebrated.
• 1:54
  Angela: Whether you're a soon-to-be mom, a seasoned mother or simply interested in the world of birth, these episodes are for you.
• 2:04
  Angela: Welcome to a midweek midwife episode of my Main Birth.
• 2:08
  Angela: Today's guest is Gabrielle Gonzalez.
• 2:11
  Angela: She's currently a student midwife at Holly no 7 Birth Center here in Bangor and she's here today to introduce herself, share all about what led her to becoming a student midwife and what her education journeys looked like so far.
• 2:28
  Angela: Hi, gabby, welcome to my Main Birth, hi.
• 2:32
  Gabby: Angela.
• 2:34
  Angela: So, to start, would you introduce yourself and share a little bit about what you're doing currently, and then we'll get into what brought you here.
• 2:43
  Gabby: Yeah, sure, yeah, so my name is Gabrielle, I go by Gabby and I'm 22 years old.
• 2:49
  Gabby: I'm a student midwife at Holly number seven birth center in Bangor.
• 2:54
  Gabby: I'm technically under the preceptorship apprenticeship role with Chris, but all of the midwives they're my teachers.
• 3:05
  Gabby: I'm gaining so much wisdom from everyone and I'm so thankful to have all of the midwives feel so open and willing to teach me.
• 3:15
  Gabby: Yeah, so that's where I am currently.
• 3:20
  Gabby: I graduated almost a year ago from the University of Southern Maine and during that time I was doing nursing school.
• 3:31
  Gabby: I studied for three years in the nursing program and in my last year, for many reasons, I decided to switch to pre-med track.
• 3:44
  Gabby: It's called health sciences it's your basic pre-med kind of thing and I was also doing a holistic health minor and during that as well, I was a doula.
• 3:58
  Gabby: So I've been a doula for four years on top of it all.
• 4:01
  Gabby: So, yeah, I'm not new to the birth world, but I realized during that time that I really wanted to be a midwife and I was originally going the certified nurse midwife track, which is why I was becoming a nurse.
• 4:18
  Gabby: But while I was a doula, I started experiencing home births and out of hospital births and I really fell in love with that side of the birth world and, yeah, it was very interesting to walk those two paths being in the more medicalized hospital route and then also seeing births out of hospital.
• 4:40
  Gabby: It was interesting.
• 4:43
  Angela: So what led you to want to become a doula?
• 4:44
  Angela: Did you start that right out of hospital?
• 4:44
  Angela: It was, it was interesting.
• 4:45
  Angela: So what led you to want to become a doula?
• 4:45
  Angela: Did you start that right out of high school?
• 4:48
  Gabby: Yeah, I.
• 4:49
  Gabby: So I went into college in 2020.
• 4:53
  Gabby: Freshman year was before COVID happened, and then right around our spring break period was when lockdown happened, and during that time, you know, we all had to go home and do switch to online schooling, and I think it was then I had a friend of a friend who was like, hey, there's this doula class happening.
• 5:16
  Gabby: And when I went into nursing I knew that I didn't necessarily know yet that I wanted to be a midwife, but I was pretty certain that I wanted to go down the obstetrical side of nursing and be on labor and delivery in a hospital.
• 5:30
  Gabby: And when I started that course, that's when I realized that midwifery was a thing.
• 5:40
  Gabby: And, yeah, I ended up taking the course during COVID and at that time too, out of the hospital births became more common and popular because so many people were having difficulties with having a support person in the hospital and yeah, so it was kind of around that time where I was becoming a doula and also being on the nursing track that I discovered what midwifery was, and my first birth I ever attended was at Holly number seven.
• 6:12
  Gabby: So it's really cool how I had this kind of like full circle moment.
• 6:16
  Gabby: Yeah, I went for my first doula birth and this was kind of during the time where we were training to be a supportive person in labor and I was doing a birth for a friend that actually couldn't make it and I volunteered.
• 6:35
  Gabby: I was like I can, I can do this birth.
• 6:37
  Gabby: And I went there.
• 6:41
  Gabby: And that's when I met Chris and, at the time, anna, who I know a lot of people know Anna from Holly number seven.
• 6:47
  Gabby: She was a student and I think it was when we were doing the placenta tour.
• 6:54
  Gabby: After, after the placenta came out, we got onto the conversation about midwifery and schooling and she was in school at the time, at birth wise, and she was like, have you ever considered becoming a midwife?
• 7:07
  Gabby: And I'm like, hmm, no, but that that sounds really interesting.
• 7:11
  Gabby: And that that night I went home and I was on cloud nine after seeing this out of hospital birth, um, and really falling in love with how everything unfolded and what they have to offer there, um, and I just went into this deep dive of researching what midwifery was and I think it took me like a week of like researching and learning all about it to be like, okay, this is what I want to do, this is, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.
• 7:45
  Gabby: I can't imagine not showing up for my community in that way, so it really clicked.
• 7:52
  Gabby: It was cool how that all came together.
• 7:56
  Angela: Yeah, so you were in nursing school at this point, right?
• 8:01
  Angela: So how did your education start to shift as you had these new realizations and discoveries?
• 8:09
  Gabby: Yeah.
• 8:10
  Gabby: So I was in nursing school and when I went into nursing school it was kind of the same as a lot of people in my generation.
• 8:21
  Gabby: I was told you really have to go to college to be successful and I don't necessarily believe that.
• 8:28
  Gabby: But you know, that's kind of what we were fed in my generation and I ended up going to school and pick nursing because everyone was saying, oh, you, you're a really great advocate for people and you care for people.
• 8:44
  Gabby: So naturally great advocate for people and you care for people, so naturally like that's what you should go into.
• 8:49
  Gabby: So, starting nursing, I was still kind of like in this space where I'm like I don't really know what I want to do, um, but I guess this is like the best option, um.
• 8:58
  Gabby: And so during that time when I really found what I wanted to do after that birth, it really clicked for me that that's how I wanted to proceed in the medical world and how I wanted to have fulfillment for the rest of my life and my career.
• 9:14
  Gabby: And I remember sitting down with my mom and this was probably around my sophomore year in college and I was saying to her that I didn't want to continue nursing school, that I wanted to go to birth wise, I wanted to go down this CPM route instead of becoming a nurse.
• 9:35
  Gabby: And my parents weren't the most excited for that.
• 9:42
  Gabby: They weren't very supportive at the time.
• 9:45
  Gabby: They really wanted me to finish school and they were telling me you know I put so much work into basically getting halfway through college and you know there's a big financial factor in that too that I would be wasting all of this money that I had put into my schooling.
• 10:05
  Gabby: And I heard them when they said that you know I understood what they were fearful of, that you know I could go down this other route and then if anything were to happen, then I would be kind of left with nothing and I could see their, their parenting, really coming out, um, and they just wanted to protect me and I understand that now.
• 10:30
  Gabby: And um, yeah, so, after having conversations with them, they really, really encouraged me to stay in the nursing program and I was like, okay, um, maybe a nurse midwifery would be a really good idea.
• 10:48
  Gabby: And so I kind of started researching the nurse midwifery track.
• 10:53
  Gabby: Then for a little while I was really interested in doing that and um, at the same time was still a doula.
• 10:59
  Gabby: So, walking these parallel paths, um, and I think it was in my junior year, um, halfway through my junior year, I ended up, um, going through a really rough uh breakup with my high school boyfriend and it really changed my perspective on how, how I wanted to proceed with my future and for the first time I was like, okay, why don't I take into consideration what I want and how I want to show up for the world around me and how I want to, you know, find purpose in this life?
• 11:39
  Gabby: And that's when I called my parents and I was like, ok, I'm going to switch majors, this is what I want.
• 11:51
  Gabby: I've been in the birth world now for quite some time and from many different things that happened during my nursing path such as, you know, doing clinicals during COVID and seeing both like the hospital side of birth and the doula side of birth in out of hospital and hospital births I really just started accumulating all of these like signs and reasons why I didn't want to be a part of that, that world in that sense.
• 12:30
  Gabby: Um, in the hospital and that's not to say that I don't respect people who are birth workers in in the hospital.
• 12:38
  Gabby: I have so much respect for them and not everyone can have out of hospital births and I completely understand that but for me, I just knew that I could show up for people in the best way by attending out of hospital birth, and so I really kind of put my foot down and I was like this is what I want, this is, this is what I need to have happen for me to be happy in in this world.
• 13:11
  Gabby: And yeah, from from then, I withdrew from all of my nursing classes, which was kind of a scary thing.
• 13:18
  Gabby: Um, and yeah, I ended up, um, working really hard, I took a lot of extra credits so that I could graduate at the same time as I would have if I continued doing nursing.
• 13:33
  Gabby: And I graduated with my pre-med degree and my minor in holistic health and I was still doing doula work.
• 13:42
  Gabby: And I remember the spring before, like a month before I graduated from USM, I called Chris and I asked if she would be available to take on a student and she was.
• 13:57
  Gabby: She was ecstatic about it and super fortunate that all those cards aligned for me.
• 14:03
  Gabby: Um, and yeah, that's how I kind of proceeded after, after having that experience wow.
• 14:11
  Angela: So when you were working as a doula you were going to both in hospital and out of hospital births to kind of get.
• 14:17
  Angela: So you had all the experiences over those four years while you're also yeah yeah, it was really cool.
• 14:22
  Gabby: Um, sometimes I would be um doing a clinical for school on the med surge floor of main med and I remember one time I had to go up to a birth after one of my clinical shifts.
• 14:34
  Gabby: Um, and then, yeah, I was working doing postpartum and um out of hospital birth as well.
• 14:42
  Gabby: So I had um a view of kind of all of these corners of of the birth world and I'm really appreciative about that.
• 14:52
  Gabby: Um, looking back, and I'm really appreciative about that.
• 14:53
  Gabby: Looking back, I'm kind of happy I didn't end up dropping out of nursing school altogether because I wouldn't have had all of those experiences to lead me down a very certain path of what I wanted and I was able to see kind of everything, all the choices that I could have proceeding from there.
• 15:14
  Gabby: So it really made me confident with my decision.
• 15:19
  Angela: Yeah, yeah, oh my gosh, that's really exciting.
• 15:22
  Angela: So how long have you been at Holly number seven now?
• 15:25
  Gabby: I've been there for well.
• 15:27
  Gabby: I'm into my fourth month.
• 15:28
  Gabby: Um, I started January 1st and, yeah, I'm in my assist phase.
• 15:34
  Gabby: We have a pretty high birth volume for a birth center, which is really fortunate, and yeah, so I'm in my assist phase.
• 15:42
  Gabby: There's one other student there too.
• 15:44
  Gabby: We do an on-call, off-call schedule, so she does one week, I do the next week.
• 15:49
  Gabby: Yeah, it's been, yeah, no, it has.
• 15:54
  Gabby: I really appreciate that and I know that's not going to be forever.
• 15:59
  Gabby: Like I know a lot of um midwifery practices or people who are their own practice, um don't have that luxury.
• 16:06
  Gabby: Um, yeah, so I it also helps me support myself because, um, one thing that's really uh hard in in school in general, whether you're doing college or this kind of like route, you have to support yourself and you have to still be able to afford gas to get to the births, you have to feed yourself, you have to house yourself.
• 16:32
  Gabby: So it allows me to to work at the same time as yeah, learning, learning.
• 16:38
  Angela: Yeah, that's awesome.
• 16:40
  Angela: So now, so you graduated from USM, but are you taking a separate midwifery program now?
• 16:46
  Angela: Are you just doing sort of the like internship version, cause there's two different?
• 16:51
  Gabby: ways.
• 16:52
  Gabby: Yeah, yes, yeah, so um version, because there's two different ways.
• 16:58
  Gabby: Yeah, yes, yeah, so um, with midwifery in the state of Maine it's, you have two options.
• 17:01
  Gabby: If you want to attend out of hospital birth, you can become a certified nurse midwife, which is becoming a nurse, and then going to kind of a master's level of education specific to midwifery.
• 17:14
  Gabby: And then there's the route that I'm doing, where you go to an accredited college.
• 17:20
  Gabby: The one I'm attending is National College of Midwifery and they have a program where you do two years at the minimum of didactic work, so your book work, where you do two years at the minimum of didactic work, so your book work, and you can do it before or during your clinical apprenticeship, so it's a two year minimum of both.
• 17:43
  Gabby: So you can't do it any quicker, which is kind of a good thing.
• 17:47
  Gabby: You get a lot of experience.
• 17:49
  Gabby: But a lot of people tend to go for like three to five years in this kind of school because you're doing it all self-paced, which is really helpful and works really well with the midwifery schedule, because there's some weeks that you don't get to go and do tests and studying.
• 18:10
  Gabby: You're so focused on the clinical aspect.
• 18:13
  Gabby: So, yeah, and for licensing, you have to go to an accredited school to be able to sit for NARM, which is the exam that registers all the midwives in the state of Maine.
• 18:30
  Gabby: Whether you're a CPM or a CNM, it's the same exam.
• 18:33
  Gabby: So, yeah, that's what you have to do for licensure and thankfully, with the degree I got at USM, a lot of credits were able to transfer over, which is nice that if you have college credits you can transfer some of them over.
• 18:49
  Gabby: I think they accept up to like 25 credits or whatever, and that's helped a little bit to lessen the load of like classes I have to take.
• 18:59
  Gabby: But yeah, it's, it's a really great setup.
• 19:04
  Gabby: I highly recommend that that kind of training.
• 19:11
  Gabby: Whereas like nurse midwifery it's it's a lot different and I'm I'm not going to go into like the logistics of it Cause I really don't um, I'm not part of that kind of program, but I know it's.
• 19:23
  Gabby: It's very much structured like a nursing school would be.
• 19:27
  Gabby: So you're doing um clinicals in a hospital and the hard thing is, with nurse midwifery you don't get a lot of out-of-hospital birth training and I think that's something to consider if you ever want to go into midwifery when you're choosing what path you want to go down.
• 19:46
  Gabby: You can certainly attend births out of hospital as a nurse midwife, but you don't really get that training, you don't get any opportunities to do out of hospital birth unless you advocate and go find a CPM that would let you apprentice with them.
• 20:04
  Gabby: And something that I've noticed in the CPM route has been a huge emphasis on self-autonomy when it comes to people's birth preferences.
• 20:17
  Gabby: We are extremely vigilant about providing informed consent, informed choice and non-biased language around the many different decisions you have to make in labor, in pregnancy and postpartum.
• 20:37
  Gabby: So for us, midwives are very aware of people wanting different things.
• 20:44
  Gabby: Everyone's preferences are going to be so different and at the end of the day, it's the family that knows what's best for them and what's best for that birthing person.
• 20:54
  Gabby: We could never assume you know what's going to be best for them.
• 20:59
  Gabby: So I think it's really amazing that we support that in the CPM world and why we're I don't want to use the word aggressively advocating for people in hospitals, but why we're very, very upfront about things is because we know that we've done the best job we can do to give them non-biased, informed, best evidence information to make informed choices so we know when they make those decisions, that that's what they want, and we're really really about making sure that is respected, which isn't to say nurse midwives don't do that.
• 21:39
  Gabby: I know a lot of them do, but um, it's easier to um be afraid in the hospital and feel like you don't have autonomy.
• 21:53
  Angela: So yeah, I just like everything's happening to you and just to have someone to be like, wait a minute, this was you know her preferences is huge, Especially since you guys spend so much time talking about all of those things.
• 22:08
  Gabby: Yeah for sure.
• 22:09
  Gabby: Nurse, midwives you can see your client more than I guess a regular OB would and you might have a higher chance of getting your midwife in the hospital when it comes time for you to have your baby.
• 22:24
  Gabby: But it's not guaranteed With midwives.
• 22:30
  Gabby: You're creating this relationship For CPMs.
• 22:32
  Gabby: You're creating this relationship over however long you're you're with us.
• 22:36
  Gabby: We have people starting as early as eight weeks pregnant, whereas it's kind of unheard to be seen that early in um the hospital model, um, a lot of people have to wait until they're 20 weeks.
• 22:48
  Gabby: Where we, we start as early as someone thoughts to.
• 22:52
  Gabby: We develop this really personal relationship.
• 22:55
  Gabby: We have visits that are usually 50 minutes to an hour long and we're not just talking about, you know, the fundal height and fetal heart tones and movement.
• 23:06
  Gabby: We're also talking about what's your social life like, what's going on in your world.
• 23:11
  Gabby: How can we support you through mental challenges, through physical challenges, how can we be a overall support person in every aspect of your life?
• 23:23
  Gabby: Um, and how can we continue to take care of you after you've had your baby?
• 23:28
  Gabby: We I think one of the midwives was saying you know, once you've had care with us, you have us for life.
• 23:34
  Gabby: You know you can always text us, you can always um check back in and, yeah, it's, it's really important for us to have that relationship and that intimate trusting bond with them.
• 23:47
  Angela: It's always like that.
• 23:48
  Angela: That was my midwife, you know.
• 23:50
  Gabby: Yeah, no, exactly, and I, from so many people that I meet, um, even before I started at Holly number seven, um, I met a lot of people that had had their babies there and they, they were just, yeah, kind of like in love with the whole midwifery model because it's it's so different than obstetrical care and, yeah, I'm very proud to be in a practice that's like that, where I've seen many other practices and how cold and rigid it can be and it's a very you and them kind of relationship where you're the authority and they're not, and I've never really agreed with that.
• 24:29
  Angela: So yeah, yeah, wow.
• 24:37
  Angela: So for someone that might not know, then do you?
• 24:38
  Angela: I think that was a really great point that you brought up too about you start care sometimes as early as eight weeks, which literally I hear a lot of moms say like they called the hospital and like they wanted to get an appointment because they just found out they were pregnant.
• 24:47
  Angela: They want to talk about all of these things and it's like they're like sorry, we're, you know we'll see you in another, you know 10 weeks.
• 24:52
  Angela: And they're like, sorry, we're, you know we'll see you in another 10 weeks and they're like what?
• 24:55
  Angela: So?
• 24:56
  Gabby: you know, they just you know, yeah, yeah, I think it's.
• 25:01
  Gabby: It's really.
• 25:02
  Gabby: I mean, we we don't do a ton of like physical palpation and things like that during those early visits, but we're still building a relationship.
• 25:12
  Gabby: We're still able to do blood work visits, but we're still building a relationship.
• 25:16
  Gabby: We're still able to do blood work.
• 25:17
  Gabby: We're still able to talk about previous pregnancies or previous births or you know anything that they they want to talk about.
• 25:24
  Gabby: We even have some people do preconception meetings and they're with us before they even become pregnant and they become pregnant.
• 25:32
  Gabby: And there are clients from like two become pregnant and they become pregnant.
• 25:36
  Gabby: And there are clients from like two, three weeks, like it's, it really is kind of up to the client and what they're comfortable with.
• 25:40
  Gabby: And we have late transfers too, which we were okay with as well.
• 25:44
  Gabby: Yeah, it's, it's much more loose and we, we recognize that once you're pregnant, you're pregnant, like that's amazing, that's something to be celebrated.
• 25:56
  Gabby: And, um, even in the case where we've had clients that lose their baby before the 20 week mark, um, you know, we're still offering our support to them because that's something that's incredibly hard to go through.
• 26:11
  Gabby: And, yeah, we, we don't see it as a risk on taking like someone in, that's, you know, before 20 weeks.
• 26:19
  Gabby: That's.
• 26:19
  Gabby: That's silly to me, that like people don't get seen earlier, but yeah yeah, especially if they're like really wanting to.
• 26:26
  Angela: Like.
• 26:27
  Angela: Some people are fine, like, oh, we'll just, you know, see you when you know I get bigger or whatever, but some people don't really want to talk to somebody in that time.
• 26:34
  Angela: Yeah, nice to have that available, even to know it's available in the community, versus, you know, getting the hospital.
• 26:40
  Angela: That's just like sorry, like not now, yeah.
• 26:42
  Gabby: Right, right Cause, like I mean, with people who suffer from like terrible morning sickness and nausea, like we have things that can help them with that, because you certainly are experiencing so many different things before the 20 week mark.
• 26:57
  Gabby: So it's, it's yeah again.
• 26:59
  Gabby: It's just kind of silly to me that people aren't seen sooner if they want to.
• 27:05
  Angela: Yeah, so how do you feel now, kind of going into this um being young and you haven't had any babies um to have a birth experience?
• 27:15
  Angela: What would you kind of choose for yourself?
• 27:17
  Gabby: Yeah, oh, I'd love to answer that question Um, yeah, I, I am pretty young and that's something that I've had to deal with internally.
• 27:29
  Gabby: Like I've had a lot of, um, internal thoughts and feelings about almost kind of like imposter syndrome, almost like, oh, am I too young for this?
• 27:38
  Gabby: Am I not worthy enough?
• 27:41
  Gabby: Am I like not, you know, ready for this?
• 27:44
  Gabby: And I think that's more of like something that's.
• 27:49
  Gabby: I've had a lot of people ask me that, like, aren't you too young for this?
• 27:54
  Gabby: Like, aren't midwives, like you know, or?
• 27:54
  Gabby: I guess a lot of people ask me that like, aren't you too young for this?
• 27:55
  Gabby: Like, aren't midwives, like you know, or I guess a lot of midwives that I know have had their babies and then, after having their babies, they are like, wow, this is incredible.
• 28:04
  Gabby: That's that's what I want to do.
• 28:07
  Gabby: Um, and for me, I guess it's a little bit harder to understand when I haven't had kids myself.
• 28:11
  Gabby: But, yeah, no, I, I don't know it.
• 28:16
  Gabby: It was something when I was like a kid that I never really had much fear around.
• 28:21
  Gabby: My mom was always very open about what our births looked like, and my great grandmother, um, she was one of 17 children and they were all born at home, so I've always kind of had that like picture in my mind.
• 28:39
  Gabby: Oh my gosh, I have this ancestor, who's this like major matriarchal, like figure in my life and I've never been afraid of birth and I'm super fortunate to have had that upbringing, because I know a lot of people haven't.
• 28:53
  Gabby: A lot of people have fear around birth from societal and family matters, but, uh, no, I've always wanted to be a mom.
• 29:04
  Gabby: That is definitely a huge factor.
• 29:07
  Gabby: Is isn't why I wanted to be a part of birth work.
• 29:11
  Gabby: Um, I, yeah, uh, I think it won't be for a while.
• 29:16
  Gabby: I have put school as like a big priority of mine, and my brother had kids really young and I saw how that kind of affected his ability to finish school and, um, um, make a living, because you know he kids are are a lot, they, they take a lot of your time and that's a good thing in itself, but, um, it's hard when you're trying to create this career for yourself.
• 29:46
  Gabby: Um, yeah, so probably won't be for a little while longer.
• 29:52
  Gabby: But, yes, definitely would love to have a home birth.
• 29:55
  Gabby: That's my goal, um, my dream.
• 29:58
  Gabby: But I also have seen birth long enough to know that you can't, you can't expect or um plan everything in detail.
• 30:09
  Gabby: Um, it will unfold the way it unfolds.
• 30:11
  Gabby: Um.
• 30:12
  Gabby: So, yeah, I want more than anything to be a mom.
• 30:16
  Gabby: Um, but in due time.
• 30:19
  Angela: Yeah, that's really interesting.
• 30:20
  Angela: So that's kind of what brought you into this sort of in the first place.
• 30:23
  Angela: You're kind of curious, yeah, like.
• 30:25
  Gabby: I said my great grandmother had all of those children and I was just like that was a huge story for me as a kid that I like fixated around, I'm like that is so cool, like imagine having 17 children at home and raising that many children Like it's insane.
• 30:48
  Angela: Do you know how old she was when she had her first and how?
• 30:49
  Gabby: old she was when she had her last?
• 30:51
  Gabby: I think she was.
• 30:51
  Gabby: I think she was like 18, um, when she had her first and then she was pregnant, like from then until, like, she had her last period, probably like it was.
• 31:01
  Gabby: It was a lot of like like she was.
• 31:04
  Gabby: There was like never longer than like a year gap between like her having a child and when, um, my great-grandmother like gave us the list of like all of her siblings it was just so cool to see it all on paper like when their birthdays were and I think she only had two, uh or no, so she only had one set of twins, oh, that's really interesting.
• 31:32
  Angela: Yeah, yeah, that is quite the family story to live up to Right.
• 31:35
  Gabby: I know I'm like oh gosh, no, no, um, I, yeah, no, I I probably would only have like two children at the max.
• 31:46
  Angela: But, yeah, I can't 17 is a lot, but, oh my gosh, good for her.
• 31:50
  Gabby: I know Well.
• 31:51
  Gabby: I mean, they had a potato farm in Van Buren For them.
• 31:55
  Gabby: You know one, not much birth control at that time.
• 31:59
  Gabby: And two, you have a potato farm.
• 32:02
  Gabby: You kind of need free labor Might as well.
• 32:04
  Gabby: Have as many kids as you can, yeah, yeah, no, it's always been kind of a lighthearted funny story, thinking of it in that way that it's kind of free labor.
• 32:15
  Gabby: But you know, I'm sure she'll be very happy.
• 32:19
  Angela: Me and potato farm family.
• 32:20
  Gabby: Yeah, classic Aroostook County.
• 32:27
  Angela: Yeah, that's so cool.
• 32:28
  Angela: So now, as a final question, I usually ask if you were to give advice to someone who's expecting, or even new parents, what's the biggest overall thing that you would want to say?
• 32:43
  Gabby: Yeah, definitely do your research.
• 32:47
  Gabby: I know that not everyone has time to do that, but I am a huge believer in people having self-advocacy for what they want in birth and it will kind of get you prepared for I'm assuming like this would be a first time parent.
• 33:06
  Gabby: It really gets you prepared for parenthood and like there's going to be so many different decisions that you have to make when raising a kid and birthing a kid that really knowing what's out there for options and knowing that you have options is a huge thing.
• 33:22
  Gabby: And for young families, you know, listen to what feels right in your intuition and what feels right for your family and knowing that at the end of the day, it's your choice and you know your family best and no one should have an opinion on what you think is best for your family.
• 33:48
  Gabby: Um, and it's really hard because we live in a world where I feel like people feel they can give opinions about family matters and parenting like it's something that people are just really comfortable giving their opinions about, and not that I don't appreciate people sharing and stuff, but don't don't feel pressured by anyone else about the decisions you make about your family.
• 34:14
  Gabby: It's your, it's your choice and midwives really advocate for that.
• 34:21
  Gabby: They really want you to feel confident in the choices you make and they they want to support that.
• 34:28
  Gabby: And I guess, to kind of add on to your question, I wanted to give some advice to people who want to work in the birth world.
• 34:34
  Gabby: I guess kind of why I really wanted to talk on this subject and share kind of the journey that has brought me here.
• 34:43
  Gabby: I really want to tell those who want to be part of the birth world to also research, figure out what feels right for you, what path feels right for you, and the same with advice for new parents.
• 35:03
  Gabby: Really make sure that it's what you want to do and don't let anyone else decide what your future is going to look like.
• 35:11
  Gabby: Really advocate for what you want to do for the rest of your life, what brings you purpose and what brings you fulfillment.
• 35:20
  Gabby: And um, it's probably cliche, um, saying you know you want to wake up every morning not feeling like you're going to go to work.
• 35:29
  Gabby: You know you, you really should strive for feeling a sense of purpose in your job and in fulfillment.
• 35:38
  Gabby: Um, and I know that's kind of a luxury, like I know not everyone has that opportunity, but if you do my gosh.
• 35:46
  Gabby: You know, do what you love and and you know that's that's the best advice I can give to to people who want to be part of the birth world.
• 35:58
  Gabby: And becoming a doula was a huge thing.
• 36:01
  Gabby: I think that was a really great starting point because the training itself, it can be intense, but it's a really great way to open your mind to all the pathways of birth and, who knows, maybe that will be your pathway.
• 36:16
  Gabby: Being a doula was one of the most incredible experiences of my life and if it weren't for that, I wouldn't be here today.
• 36:25
  Angela: So yeah, yeah, yeah, I can definitely give you that experience to like learn about all of the basic things about birth and how to teach people about birth, and to practice being on.
• 36:38
  Angela: You know, get used to being on call, like is it really you know something for you before you jump into like the midwifery program full on.
• 36:46
  Angela: Yeah, I agree, that's all great advice.
• 36:49
  Angela: Thank you so much, gabby, for coming on and sharing about all of these different things.
• 36:55
  Angela: It's been such a pleasure.
• 36:57
  Gabby: Yeah, no, it's really great to be able to share my story and I hope I get to see many of your listeners.
• 37:05
  Gabby: I listened to a lot of the the Holly number seven podcast specifically for for the birth center, but I I know that I'll I'll be seeing a lot more of your listeners, so, um, hopefully that gives them a sense of who I am too, and, yeah, it was really great talking with you.
• 37:24
  Gabby: Thank you for having me.
• 37:26
  Angela: And that's the end of another episode of the my Main Birth podcast.
• 37:31
  Angela: Thank you for joining me and listening.
• 37:34
  Angela: If you're looking to document your birth story or if you're interested in doula support for your upcoming birth, head over to my website, mymainbirthcom and check out my packages.
• 37:47
  Angela: I am a certified professional birth photographer and an experienced doula, and I offer in-person services to families throughout the state of Maine, as well as virtual birth coaching worldwide.
• 38:00
  Angela: I want to invite you to grab my top free resource for newly pregnant moms.
• 38:05
  Angela: It's called 37 questions to ask your care provider whether you've already established care or if you're in the process of interviewing new providers.
• 38:15
  Angela: This is for you.
• 38:16
  Angela: Not only are you going to get the questions to ask, but I also share how to assess their answers and the major red flags that you should be looking for.
• 38:26
  Angela: So go grab that.
• 38:28
  Angela: It's at mymainbirthcom slash download.
• 38:31
  Angela: Thank you again for tuning in and I look forward to bringing you more amazing birth stories.
• 38:38
  Angela: Don't forget to subscribe and leave me a review, and I'll see you back here again next week.