50. [BIRTH STORY] WITH PATRICK - FREE BIRTH - PART 2: DAD'S VERSION - AWAKENED TO SOVEREIGNTY
Patrick See is a digital artist raised in Brunswick, Maine. After high school, he moved to Chicago where he spent a decade living, first in film school and then working in various industries. Immediately upon graduating, he spent one year in New Orleans working on a medical advocacy documentary about thyroid disease before returning to Chicago. At that time he began his career as a live visual technician which he still does to this day.
He met McKenna at the end of 2019 and they were married in 2023, just about a year before their baby joined them on earth.
Working on the medical advocacy documentary helped open Patrick's eyes more to the fog of delusion and lies that grip our country. Going through the process of preparing for birth to take place opened his eyes to another entire level of corruption and malfeasance previously unknown to him, and fostered in him an appreciation for the life-methods of the vast majority of our ancestors.
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Music The Ancients (feat. Loga Ramin Torkian) by Azam Ali
Disclaimer:
The information and resources provided by me are not intended to constitute or replace medical or midwifery advice or a Mother’s intuition. Instead, all information provided is intended for education purposes only. My advice is not to be seen as medical diagnosis or to treat any medical illness or condition of Mother or baby/fetus.
The following is AI generated so there will be errors
Emily: welcome to Soul Evolution.
My name is Emily, also known as the Birth Advocate. I am a retired nurse, health coach, women's circle and ceremony facilitator and and the host of this podcast. Here we dive deep to reclaim our rites of passage with a big dose of birth story medicine, intentionally curious conversations with embodied wisdom keepers, and a sprinkle of polarity as we will hold space for our men from time to time too.
I hope you find nourishment for your soul here, as you probably heard my course so youo Want a Home Birth, your complete guide to an Empowering Physiology Theological Birth is now available.
You can listen to episode 41 to hear all about it, or you can go to my website www.birthadvocate.me course to learn more. I have poured my heart and soul into this complete guide to an empowering physiological home birth Course.
You will walk away feeling ready, body, mind and soul, knowing that everything you need to birth your baby already exists when within you, your questions will be answered, guaranteed your fears will be quelled.
I walk you through, step by step, exactly how to prepare yourself, your partner and your home for the most incredible experience you get to have in this lifetime. Birth is a sacred rite of passage worthy of honoring.
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Welcome Patrick to the podcast. I am. I'm really excited. I have no idea the birth story you're about to tell because I haven't heard the mama's version first. I told you before I hit record, it's the first time I've heard the dad's side before the mom's side.
But you also were the one who reached out to me on Instagram and it just warms my heart and soul, when the men out there are advocates for natural birth and home birth.
And I feel that you are one of them. So, yeah. Welcome to the podcast.
Patrick: Yeah, thank you. It's a good story. It's a chill story and I think you'll like it.
Emily: Yeah, Yeah, I have the feeling as well.
So why don't you just kind of orient the listeners to who you are, where you are on the planet, and maybe even, you know, why you guys chose to have a natural home birth.
Patrick: Yeah. So my name is Patrick. I live In Maine, about 15 minutes away from where I grew up in Brunswick.
And we.
I met my wife, McKenna when I was living in Chicago.
After.
After high school, I moved out to Chicago, where my parents are from, and went to film school out there.
And about like nine years later or something like that is when I met my now wife, McKenna.
And I did spend one year right after I was. After I finished school to go down to New Orleans to work on a movie project.
That movie was. It's called Sick to Death. It's a medical advocacy documentary about.
It's called Sick to Death.
Emily: Sick to Death. Okay.
Patrick: Yeah, it is. It's a medical advocacy film about thyroid disease told through the story of the director, Maggie Hadley west, who has had a. A couple really good documentaries in the 90s and 2000s.
And so I was the assistant editor on that and through just hearing her story. But also I had access to all these long interviews with experts in the medical field and kind of patient advocacy, and we had the former editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine and all these like, really solid interviews that I got to watch in the entirety.
And through that year long process, I became very aware of lots of basically malfeasance in the medical industry. And I had already kind of had a penchant or an interest in looking at the world through like a conspiratorial lens.
Um, and because they happen all the time, you know, people work together to hold power or influence or gain money at the expense of people's lives.
And it's been that way from the beginning. It's kind of naive to think that those things don't happen.
So I was already kind of in that wheelhouse, and then this kind of just opened my eyes to another aspect of it and kind of what I hone in now on, like, the biggest aspect is like, the destruction of our health.
And through that process, I, When I was down there in New Orleans, I was at like the most unhealthy I've ever been and kind of after that process, I went on a journey to heal myself of various issues.
Like, just, like, one example that kind of opened my eyes is I had this weird pain in my neck, like, kind of in the back of. Or in the back of my throat almost.
And I got bounced around to specialists and got tubes stuck down my throat, and no one really had any sort of solutions, and no one was really asking me about, you know, diet or lifestyle.
And at the time, I was drinking pretty heavily, and I just stopped drinking for, I don't know, a couple weeks, and the pain just, like, magically went away.
I say magically because it's like. Yeah, obviously, like, giving the body a chance to heal helps it to do that, but it just makes, like, little things like that where you can just heal yourself in very intentional ways.
Kind of, you know, got my attention and kind of made me open my eyes to, like, what was really possible. And maybe these systems that were kind of, you know, put in and raised in aren't gonna have all the answers.
So, anyway, I love that I. I.
Emily: Absolutely love that, you know, it was. It was an awakening for you. And how interesting was. Was the throat thing when you were also working on the thyroid documentary?
Patrick: It was a little bit. A little bit. And then. Yeah. Yeah, it was towards the end of when I was working on that.
Emily: It's so interesting, too, because, you know, like, voice. Like, using your voice, too.
That's what I'm getting as well. Obviously, anything that goes on in that throat area.
And. Yeah, just attuning to our body's innate ability to heal and this understanding that we are not victims, we absolutely stand here with full control over our choices and what we decide to do.
And oftentimes it is more about taking out what isn't serving us and just allowing and supporting the natural processes of the body.
Patrick: Yeah, because the body, like, is a healing machine. It can heal, like, all the way up until, like, death and old age. Like, the body can still heal.
So that's, you know, just a good framework for looking at, is how to support my body to do what it wants to do, which is to, like, heal and be vital.
Emily: Exactly, exactly. Yes. So you met your sweet wifey, and did you guys have a conscious conception or. Or how did this pregnancy come about?
Patrick: So we didn't specifically have a conscious conception, although we did.
We were open to it. We just opened ourselves to allowing it to happen, and it very quickly did.
We got. So I was living in Chicago when we met, and then we lived in the Midwest for a few years. And then just after getting married, we moved back to Maine.
She was pregnant, and it was super exciting.
Emily: Did you guys have a plan right away how you wanted to birth the baby? What did she want to do?
Patrick: So we.
We did not have a plan thought out before getting pregnant. I guess we kind of always thought that we would do a home birthday because that's just kind of where we were both at.
We had both interacted with the medical system several times and to our detriment, you know, several times. And kind of saw, you know, it just like, keeps unraveling more and more, how ubiquitous and kind of just like lying, like, so much influence and one size fits all medicine just stands to basically lower everybody's health, you know, to.
In an effort to try to raise a few peoples.
So we both kind of thought that we would have a home birth. And so we started to look for a midwife.
We interviewed or had meetings with two different midwives, both pretty close to us, like in Brunswick and West Bath.
And we ended up going with the one who was kind of a nurse, you know, had worked in the nursing industry for a long time, and now it's a midwife.
And presented herself as very natural and hands off. And everything was going to be, you know, a question like, do you want to do this? You want to do that?
Informed sent was, you know, talked about. And so it seemed like that was going to be fine. And so we had maybe. I think we had two meetings with her, like, a month apart from each other after that.
And so she did use the Doppler a couple times on those first two visits. And then at this point, we were both pretty uninformed about birth and all of the choices.
And we were kind of, you know, we kind of had our heads down in. In a way where it's like, okay, well, we know we don't want to do this conventional way that everyone does it.
But then we didn't really. We didn't know what we didn't know, essentially. And so we were just being taken down this other path that I think.
Well, essentially we got out because we told her that we weren't interested in having an ultrasound at 20 weeks.
And we basically informed her of this and at the same time told her, like, we weren't interested in doing the Doppler anymore. We have a fetus scope that we can use to listen if we need to.
Because it was about at this time that a friend of mine, who's also a podcaster, her name's Lanny, she has a podcast called Inner Postures and her.
Yeah, it's Greener Postures podcast. And she also has a podcast with her husband, Chud, who is called the World as it is Today.
That.
That's awesome.
And she recommended me an episode where the host of Free Birth Society podcast was being interviewed on the Terrain Theory podcast where she was talking to 2Dads and basically went, that's a great episode.
Emily: Such a great episode.
Patrick: Yeah, yeah, it is. It really. It changed everything for me.
At the same time that that was happening, kind of separately, had come across the idea of giving birth alone.
And we both just, like, came together at that time and was like, yeah, well, so basically, when we sent our midwife that text, she was like, okay, yeah, well, I'm not going to be your midwife anymore.
Sorry.
But that was a huge blessing because we didn't need her, which is awesome.
So, yeah, from basically a few months into the pregnancy, we had decided to just do it along the Jovas.
Emily: Oh, I didn't know this was actually a free birth. Cool.
Patrick: Yeah, it was awesome.
And there was just lots of learning, lots of unlearning. We listened to a lot of podcasts and listened to the many stories of, you know, hundreds of. I mean, there are many more, but we listened to hundreds of stories of people doing this, you know, doing it after being told that there's no way they could do it.
I don't know. I guess, personally, I am the type of person where if you tell me I can't do something, I would just naturally want to do it. Like, it's not always the best aspect to have in a person, but definitely leads me to succeed in ways that, you know, maybe I wouldn't have been able to without that little push.
Emily: Yeah. And it's questioning the why. Right. So it sounds like you guys were very, like, educated. Like, you educated yourselves. You didn't go in blindly.
Patrick: Yeah. One of the best. I have a fairly analytical mind, and one of the resources I found was the most helpful for me was gentle birth, gentle mothering.
Emily: I love Sarah Buckley.
Patrick: Heather. Sarah Buckley.
Emily: Yeah, yeah. Heather Baker is another great resource.
Patrick: Yeah, that. That's what I was going to say. Home Birth on your own terms was the other one.
Emily: Those are my.
Patrick: Really?
Emily: Those two books? And Reclaiming Childbirth as a Rite of Passage. Those are. And Portal by Yolanda Norris Clark. Those are the four books that I recommend everybody read.
Patrick: So I've only read the first two, but the combination of those two was. I felt. Well, the combination of those two and all the stories that I heard were really what I were really necessary for me to, you know, become knowledgeable on the subject.
And I just love how Sarah Buckley puts all of these. Basically, every intervention that is going to be offered shows you exactly what the likelihood of something bad happening if you don't do it is.
And just, you know, getting informed. Because there, there really isn't informed consent at the doctor level. They're just taking you through, like, oh, you know, this is, this is an ultrasound.
Like, they don't tell you, like, you know, what the potential dangers are that, yeah, they really fail. Fail us, you know, along every step of the way to a certain degree.
Emily: We'll take a second here, just a little brief education moment. So ultrasounds create very high frequency sounds, so it's very loud. And it also has been shown to heat the tissues, so.
And they're also inaccurate up to 40% of the time.
Patrick: Exactly.
Emily: I, in my, in my course that I just released, one of the myths that I bust is all about ultrasounds. And I go into the evidence around this. It isn't just conjecture.
Like, this is truly documented, evidential.
Patrick: Yeah. These machines and stuff that they get are hugely expensive. So it's like that, I think, was their way of getting introduced to Rich or, I mean, getting their foothold is that these clinics or whatever would get these machines and then they would have to use them to pay them off.
And it kind of weaseled its way in as something that everyone ubiquitously thinks like, is necessary. Right.
And it's like if you tune into your body, you can know when something is wrong. So in 2020, about a year into, you know, the COVID stuff, I had been drinking heavily still at that point.
And that through the help of McKenna, not, you know, intentionally, not her being like, you need to, you know, do this, that and the other. But I was able to quit altogether.
Haven't drank since then. And one of the biggest things I notice is that when you are numbing your body in particular ways, it becomes impossible to know when something is actually wrong.
When something always feels wrong. You can't pinpoint any. Any particular thing that needs addressing.
So through that process made me. And separately, McKenna's just always been. She's very intuitive, very magical.
She frequently will bring up things that I'm thinking about.
And the amount that we just connect on a deeper level or more spiritual level is.
Was unthinkable to me.
And most of the time it's amazing. Sometimes it's like she knew exactly what I was thinking. Like.
But anyway, I love that so much.
Emily: Did Anything come up during the pregnancy that you guys felt you needed some support around or was it fairly smooth?
Patrick: Oh, yeah. So, yeah, basically McKenna knew how she was feeling and would be able to tell if something was wrong. And nothing ever was. So she's a very healthy person.
Her pregnancy was low risk and everything felt good the entire time, which kind of also led us to believe that, like, you know, the stuff that we were doing with our original midwife, like, it wasn't necessary if something was wrong and something could have been fixed or whatnot, like, that's all fine, but nothing was wrong.
Like, spoiler alert. Like, nothing is wrong. The baby came out and is perfect.
Emily: So then take us to the very end of her pregnancy and what it was like for you as she started feeling early signs of labor. And what did you guys do to prep your space and.
Yeah, take us into the story.
Patrick: So we prepared.
We did a lot of cooking to prepare. We really wanted to honor the time after, you know, the fourth trimester, postpartum, and in the best way possible. I have spent a lot of time in my childhood in China.
We really vibed with the whole first 40 days just cocooning.
So I luckily was able to have like a month or so off work.
And so we got a chest freezer back in the.
In the fall or no, in the springtime rather.
And I had. I was just spending a lot of time filling it with food.
I do a lot of cooking. I love cooking and I love cooking. Nutritious.
Emily: What a gift.
Patrick: Yeah, I've. Yeah.
Basically throughout my journey of trying to heal myself and just working in restaurants, I have, and I guess just coming from a home where we ate lots of, you know, home cooked meals just primed me as a child to really enjoy cooking and nourishing myself with healthy food.
So thankfully I was cooking a lot. I was making a lot of. We were making bone broth and like date chicken, ginger date soup, and just really trying to stock the freezer with as much food as possible.
We prepared some ties for the cord, so we braided some string together to act as, you know, little umbilical cord ties.
And we had gotten a puppy in February.
It's my first dog that I've ever had. And so we were really excited about that and we, well, we were just excited to have him and get him kind of acclimated before the baby came, but that was really fun.
And yeah, we got like a placenta bowl, like a nice big glass dish. It's beautiful.
And I'm trying to think, I guess we just did. Yeah. A lot of the reading. Reading those.
Emily: Was she planning a land birth or did you guys have a birth pool?
Patrick: That's a great question.
We.
We took a baby moon in April to go see the eclipse. We stayed at this cool little A frame on somebody's.
On someone's land.
And right down the road from them, we found like a giant inflatable hot tub that was on the side of the road. And I was like, all the pieces were there and it's like, okay, well, I'm the type of person who's like, let's take it and see if it works.
Like, worst case scenario, it doesn't. So we like completely packed her little car. It was like full. Full of the roof. And we took that home and I, like, cleaned it out and got a new filter and fired up and it didn't.
It didn't hold air.
There was like a little leak. So that's fine. We, like, knew it wasn't for sure, but we ended up getting another little pool that we were maybe going to use.
We didn't really have a vision of, like, it has to be on land, it has to be in water, but just the ability to go to water whenever she wanted to because of the sensations.
Maybe it would help or. I mean, she was just going to intuitively go wherever she needed to go.
So that. And so, yeah, we set up some cur. Like some makeshift curtains in our backyard around the pool and wait, what time.
Emily: Of year is this?
Patrick: So it was in June. It was like mid June.
Emily: Oh, okay.
Patrick: And so that was all set up and ready to go and we had it figured out with like a hose adapter to the sink to fill it up with hot water.
And.
But then the day came around. It was a Friday night. She guessed her birth date was going to be the solstice on June 21. She guessed that, like three months into pregnancy or something like that.
We also knew she was going to be a girl.
We were telling everyone she was going to be a girl and it's like, oh, how do you know? It's like, okay, well, we think we know, I guess. Yeah. We don't know.
No, no. And even if we did know. No, that wouldn't really be knowing. Like, we're very comfortable with the amount that is unknowable.
Yeah. Anyway, on the 21st, she came to me after a bath or a shower or something. I was like, I want you to look at this. And I kind of already knew, like, oh, she's going to show me some stuff.
On the floor and it's going to be starting. And that's exactly what it was.
So, yeah, she was kind of leaking fluids that night. And then the next day we ended up it. Her sensations were super light and we ended up just going to sleep that night, kind of wanting to get some rest before it started.
And then the next day came around and it was super gray and rainy, so we kind of ditched the outside plan and instead made the bathtub the kind of, you know, water source, which was definitely, I think she would tell you, was nice to be in, but it was tiny and like, she was really filling it up and not that many positions she could get in that were comfortable in it.
Emily: Yeah.
Patrick: She.
We woke up and we took Buddy, our dog, outside and went for a walk together. And at around 9, I think Am, her sensation started getting stronger. And I kind of took Buddy and just occupied him for a while.
And she let me know that she would text me when it was time to, you know, come inside.
We had talked about another aspect of preparing was like, my.
My mental preparation of, like, not influencing the space unduly, I guess, because we have both had many experiences with psychedelics. And kind of my assumption, and I think it's accurate, is that the birth space tracks very similarly to the kind of state that you can be in under the influence of a psychedelic.
And little things that someone can say or even like, a facial expression can really, like, throw you into a loop and. Or get you stuck or, you know, basically it's just like a very delicate time.
And so preparing for me was like, how to not impose on the space.
And part of that was basically like, not telling her that she's doing a good job.
Basically, the only encouragement that we had discussed that I could give her was like, you're doing it. Like, you are doing it. And that was really beautiful to me because it's like, yeah, I don't.
You don't need five, a team of five people around you telling you, like, oh, you know, you're doing so good. No, that's no shade on anyone who does feel like they need that.
But.
But just the knowledge that, like, it is happening is just a very, we felt was a very grounding kind of just a little snippet of like, if something was needed, you know, I love that.
Emily: And so I. I want to just interject here, just from my own anecdotal experience, when I was in labor, it was like I forgot I was in labor because it was just this intense storm of intensity.
Right. And so yeah, just like that reminder that, like, you're doing it, you're in labor, your baby's coming, was. Would have been so helpful. I ended up having to, like, do that for myself mostly.
But I love what you're saying here. This is. This is crucial.
Patrick: Yeah. Thank you.
So about noon or like noon or 1:00, I was walking Buddy outside and she texted me and told me it was time to come inside and be with her. And she was in the bathtub.
I put Buddy in his cage and he was such a good boy and just sat there. He knew something was up and didn't fuss at all. Just held the space like, you know, like a perfect little.
I heard someone else on episode, I can't claim it, but midwolf, like, you know, just. Yeah, just holding the space.
So, yeah, she was feeling much more intense feelings. We listened to this breathe it in, breathe it out little mantra song thing that played over and over again. And I just sat with her.
And then basically we were going back and forth to the bedroom.
She stopped in her yoga room for a minute, but didn't really stay in there and just kind of spent the time going back and forth from her bed to the bathtub.
And then probably around 5:00 or something, the baby was really coming.
She was like, sitting on the toilet and was like, baby, I'm gonna need you to, like, catch her. And I'm like, I can't. There's no room for me to get in there.
Like, her belly was huge and I'm like, I can't get in there. And so she got off the toilet and then was just, you know, on hands and knees. And at that point we had felt her head coming and she was pushing and.
Oh, well, yeah, I guess at one point for that, she heard a voice inside her head which said, like, like, baby's not ready. And so at that point, she went to the bed and laid down for a while.
And then she said that, like, clear as day. She heard, like, okay, baby's ready. That's when we went back to the bathroom. She was sitting on the toilet and baby was totally ready.
And she was on hands and knees and she pushed and her head came out and I was behind her. And our baby, her name is Era. She opened her eyes and looked at me and just gave me this big, like.
Like a big frowny face.
And it was. It was amazing. And with one more push, she. Her body was out.
And she pretty much immediately after that started crying. And immediately Buddy from the other room started whining and, like, it's like, what. What's going on? Like, someone's in here.
Or maybe he was celebrating. We don't really know. But, yeah, the baby was out, and she was perfect, and she had a huge head of black hair.
And so she was out. And I passed her to McKenna in the bathtub. But her cord was pretty short, and she was, you know, a little hard to handle just with that.
And so after a while, you know, her cord was completely white.
There were some blood clots in it that, you know, I didn't. I never thought to expect, like, blood clots in the umbilical cord. So that was interesting. But we wanted.
We were thinking of doing a lotus birth if we could, but we're definitely open to not, you know, based on the scenario. And so we decided to tie her cord and cut it, which we did in the bathtub.
And then at this point, I do want to get a little bit into, like, my shortcomings in this situation, which is that during that last bit, she was bleeding, like, more than I ever expected someone, too.
And I'd watch a lot of birth videos, and it's like, oh, yeah, blood is normal. And I hear this all the time. It's like, yeah, it's definitely normal. But then in my mind, there were tons of blood clots, huge ones.
And in my mind, I'm calculating like, okay, what is the conversion from blood clot to, like, ounces of blood? Like, pints of blood? And I'm like, like, is this too much?
And it's like, I definitely am guilty of bringing a little fear into the space at that time. And it wasn't super bad, but I just.
At one point, I had to. She didn't want to pass out. She felt a little lightheaded and was in the bathtub and didn't want to drop the baby. So I was holding on the baby, and I was holding era, and I was.
She wanted to make it back to the bedroom, and I was outside the bathroom, and I was like, can you just check in with me, like, every 30 seconds or something so I know you're, like, still conscious?
And she totally did. She is a trooper and kind of army crawled back to the bed.
And we were on the floor of the bathroom before that, and I kind of snuck some pictures. I mean, we had discussed that getting some pictures would be good. It's not like it wasn't consensual, but she didn't notice, which was awesome.
I made sure to turn on the, like, silent mode on the camera. Because I'd heard stories like, you know, the, the shutter clicking just like ruining the vibe. And so I snuck some awesome pictures.
We went back to the bed and just cuddled her and she was just like wide eyed looking at us and had an amazing time in bed together.
Emily: Well, I would like to speak maybe a little bit more to explore that, the bleeding and the feeling lightheaded because yeah, please, I know that I can feel that you like, you feel guilt and like you're judging yourself.
But you know, I mean, that is a time to be a little more hyper vigilant. The important thing obviously is keeping the chemistry intact, that divine chemistry. So keeping the vibe as calm and as nurturing and as warm and as low stimuli as possible and like keeping mom and babe together.
And it is a lot of blood. And really what matters is how mom's feeling. So if she was feeling a little lightheaded, then I mean, that is cause for a little more concern.
So your concern was very, well, potentially valid, you know.
Patrick: Yeah, I don't think it wasn't valid or anything like that. It's just that I maybe could have, I could have approached it with a little, a little more positively and it's not the end of the world and it's not like I don't think that there's any lasting like, you know, emotional or mental pain from that particular aspect or experience.
But yeah, it was, it was a lot. And she had had like incredibly painful periods for several years and I guess, I guess. Well, the way that we, a potential way that we're viewing it now is like all of these massive blood clots like needed to come out and as like a clearing purging, you know, like who knows how long they were in there for, but it seems to have been a good thing in the end.
Emily: So how was the birth of the placenta?
Patrick: It was, it took a little while, but yeah, she, I guess she was just like for about an hour so we weren't worrying about it. And then after that it was a little more active trying to get it out and, and she tried a few positions that didn't work.
And then eventually she just like squatted over the placenta bowl. When it came.
Emily: Was there more blood then when the placenta came out?
Patrick: Yeah, there was more blood then and there was a huge blood clot like attached onto the placenta as well that made it look basically twice as big as it was.
Holy cow. Yeah, that placenta is huge. But it was actually like half blood clot. And then underneath it was the Placenta.
Emily: Yeah. So when the placenta comes away from the uterine wall, all those very large arteries and vessels that had attached between the mom and the placenta, that's. They do bleed and they do cause quite a few blood clots back behind the placenta, you know, but that's why we keep the chemistry intact, is to keep that uterus contracted down so that, you know, the bleeding stops.
But, yeah, I mean, this whole. This whole topic and conversation on bleeding is so big and it's so nuanced and it's so individualized. And at the end of the day, the point that I always hammer home is like, how is mom feeling?
Patrick: Yeah.
Emily: Is she feeling okay? Cause if she's not feeling okay. Cause some people can lose 300mls of blood and really not feel well. Other people can lose, like, up to a liter and feel fine.
So, yeah, it's very individualized.
Yeah, for sure.
Patrick: Yeah. And so.
So. But at that point, yeah, at that point, she was already separated. I guess the only thing that maybe I would have done differently is tried to keep ERA closer to McKenna, like, as close as possible.
Like, I didn't. I could have been out of the way, you know, but at least, like, kept her a little closer than on the other side. But we've. We've talked about it.
It's not something that I'm just, like, thinking of right now, but, yeah, it was absolutely beautiful. The she. She was just so full of life when she came out. It was really beautiful.
And we put her on a. Yeah, we put her on a little scale and she was seven. Seven pounds, ten ounces.
Like a. Yeah. Perfect little baby.
Emily: Perfect little baby. Oh, my goodness. So did McKenna experience any tearing or anything? How was her postpartum healing?
Patrick: So we don't know technically if there was tearing.
I think that there was a little bit on one of the sides and we just let it heal.
We just, you know, she stayed in bed for as much as possible, you know, except to go to the bathroom and stuff like that, for a while. Like a week and then another week just, you know, around the house.
Kind of followed that little. Seven, seven, seven.
Emily: Yeah. Perfect. Yeah.
Patrick: And yeah, she did experience quite a bit of pain that lasted maybe like, at least three weeks. But, yeah, we just let her heal and.
Emily: Yeah.
Patrick: Spent a lot of time with the baby, and it was awesome.
Emily: Yeah, the body heals. It does. It takes several weeks to recover from an experience like that.
Patrick: Yeah. And it took nine months to get to that point. It's not. It's silly to expect it to just heal immediately. Like stuff that takes time to.
Yeah, I mean, the time is reflected in how long it takes to change in the first place.
Emily: Absolutely. 100%. Absolutely. And you know, the body is absolutely incredible. We were designed to grow babies and birth babies and heal. The vagina is very much like the inside of your mouth.
It heals very quickly. The goal is to lie flat, keep your legs together, keep things clean. You know, unless it's like a major tear, the vagina is very adapt to healing very well.
So it sounds like you were just a wonderful, supportive partner. Husband. In her postpartum experience, did you guys invite the community in or was it just you two?
Patrick: So I guess to go back a little bit. The reason why we chose to just do it alone. Between the two of us, we were both open to having somebody else in the space who we connected a lot with.
But for this birth, that wasn't a situation that we found ourselves in. So we were totally fine with that outcome. In the future, we may have. If we find somebody who, you know, we feel strongly with that, you know, we could have other people there in the future.
But in terms of postpartum, we, We.
My parents came over a few days later and I guess just kind of tried to let people in as slowly as possible just to. I mean. Yeah. Continue to keep the vibes low and chill.
So most of my family is out here.
Most of her family is in the Midwest. And so it was a little bit before anyone from her family came. Well, about three weeks after she was born, her cousin came and stayed with us for a week, which was really great to have her around.
Emily: Yeah, Yeah, I. I say this all the time too. Sound like a broken record, but like a cared for mother is a cared for baby. So making sure that all of mama's needs are met, that's crucial.
But like, who does that? That, you know, dad comes in and makes sure mama's cup is filled, but who's filling dad's cup? It's so crucial that you are taking care of yourself as well and like, that you're supported by the community and others around you.
And prepping all that food is like, amazing.
Patrick: Yeah, I. I mean, that's another thing I could have done differently is like, prep more. And like, I think maybe in the future if I'm, like, not as successful in prepping food as much, then maybe like, talking to some people about, you know, bringing us some food.
Emily: Oh, yeah.
Patrick: So that we wouldn't have to leave the house. Yeah.
I could have prepared a lot More food. I. I did decent. But there can always be more.
Yeah, yeah, there can always be more.
But, yeah, just trying to, like, you plan a dinner party or something. It's like, okay, how much food for eight people? It's like, okay, how much food for two people for a month?
You know? Yeah.
Emily: Three meals.
Patrick: A little harder of a calculation.
Emily: Yeah.
So I would love to hear just, like, how this experience has changed you, has shifted the directory trajectory of your life and, you know, just any advice you might have out there for dads specifically, or families that are leaning towards this natural birth, free birth, you know, what.
What would you say?
Patrick: So I feel kind of.
I don't know, I feel like I am in a place where maybe not a lot of dads are.
I. I guess what I'm trying to say is I feel lucky that I felt so on board because I'm imagining myself in the shoes of somebody who's like, okay, my wife is saying she wants to do this alone.
And all I've ever come across is like. I mean, mostly media, like Hollywood, like, oh, we need to get her. And, you know, blah, blah, blah, all this crazy stuff.
And it's like, it's an emergency. Birth is, you know, is.
Is like a sickness that needs, like, the hospital care. All this stuff like fear, fear, fear. At the end of the day, it's just like supporting whatever your wife or girlfriend, whatever it is, wants, and, like, the safest place is going to be where she feels safest.
And like, that is evolutionary. That's not like, you know something. I'm just deciding. It's like, all you have to do is think about it and think about where we came from and the type of situations that we've been in.
And even in other countries still to this day, who just have a different perspective on life, Life and, you know, medicine, like, it doesn't.
There. There are many instances where it's amazing to have the resources and the technology that we have, but it's a system that you need to.
You need to interact with on a need basis, not on a. Like, this is what everyone does. Social, you know, cult culture, cultural. Like, this is what we do as a culture.
It's like, no, you need to think about everything that is being pushed and just consider if it's necessary or not. Yeah, that's.
You just need to be as supportive as possible. Listen to podcasts, listen to episodes where husbands or partners weren't supportive and just kind of know the influence that other people.
I mean, if you're staying away from hospital because you're worried about these other people influencing or sabotaging your experience in these other ways. It's like, okay, well, they. You're guarding yourself from that because they are able to do that.
And you as a husband or partner are also able to do that. So you just need to chill out and, like, trust in your partner. Also trust in yourself.
Like, this wouldn't. It's not possible if you don't trust that.
That the communication is going to be open. And, like, if somebody says something and you're, you know, battling, it's like all of this stuff is not the time or place.
So, yeah, I guess just, like, supporting as much as possible. Like, these women are the reason that we're all here and have always been here. And, you know, we play our part as well, but this very spiritual moment is for them and really not for us.
So I have tried to figure out, like, how. Because I do feel so passionately about this, coming from this kind of medical condition, conspiracy background. And so I've been trying to think of, like, how best to support not just, you know, obviously my wife and my family, but to, like, heal the earth with these healing births.
And I'm still trying to figure that out. Like, nobody needs a. Nobody needs a dude law. Like, I'm not trying to, like, go into other people a dudla. I don't know if I came up with that, so sorry if I didn't to whoever did.
But nobody needs a doodla.
We need more wise women in these places. But I think there is. There's somewhere for me right now I'm working as a paralegal for a family friend of ours, and I think it was an episode of yours where you talked to a child.
Yeah, Child breath attorney. Yeah. I was thinking maybe I could really reach out to some in Maine to be more helpful in a kind of, like, nuts and bolts way.
So that's where I'm at now.
Emily: I think just sharing this story is huge, you know, like, keep sharing it. Absolutely. I'm actually. I've been meditating on creating a course just for dads and having some of these dads that I've interviewed come into the workshop and, like, give testimony and be supportive for the other dads.
I think that it's. It's just. It's so needed. And thank you so much for articulating the way that you did. I have a lesson in my course called My Partner's not on Board.
And I try to say it with as much compassion and empathy as I can.
But really, the message is, daddies, this decision is the mother's. It is.
Patrick: Yeah. Like, get on board.
Emily: It's her physiology. It's her process. It's her sacred rite of passage. She grew the baby. Nobody births the baby but the mama. So, like, it is the father's responsibility to do whatever he needs to do, whatever work he needs to do to get on board.
She is a very porous, open, energetic, in a state of, like, very influential, as you also articulated well in the story. And daddies cannot bring their fear in. They have to do their work somewhere else to get on board with her decision.
Patrick: Yeah. And if they can't, then I don't think it's the worst thing in the world to just go away. Like, if you really can't be there, like, that would be better than being there.
Not beyond is how I personally feel.
Emily: Yeah, yeah. And I do agree, and I. I just, like. I hope and pray that this ripple effect continues to happen. And I know it is. There's a great birth rebellion.
There's a revolution happening, because we do want fathers to be a part of this. They are sacred space holders. They are the mountain. You know, they helped bring this baby in.
And for them to be able to hold space that's clean and clear, it's. It's invaluable.
Patrick: Yeah. Yeah, I totally agree.
Emily: Obviously.
Well, thank you, Patrick, for sharing your story. I'm looking forward to talking to Makena in a couple of days and hearing her version.
Why don't you share a little bit, too, about this work that you do now, how people can find you.
Patrick: Yeah. So after.
After working mostly on documentaries or not mostly, I worked on one feature documentary film, but after that, I kind of pivoted into making.
I do live video performances, basically at concerts.
Anytime there's like an LED wall or a projection map stage. I do improvisational performances as the musicians.
And so I make my own animations and then perform them in a way that, like, a DJ would perform songs, you know, have like a huge library, you know, mix them together and add effects and all this stuff.
And so that is kind of one of my focuses. Now. You can find my work on Instagram mainly at Neocord Vision. N E O C O R D dot Vision.
And my family also has a tea company that we sell a lot of organic fair trade tea in Maine.
If you want to know more about that, I guess just message me. I don't know if they, you know, want me dropping the company on this podcast, but, I mean, if you want.
Emily: To you're welcome to. I'll link everything in the show notes.
Patrick: Yeah, it's. I guess it's. It's called Little Red Cup. We sell a lot of tea around Maine and it's served in some cafes and coffee shops. It's really fine tea that we get from farmer owned co ops that we work with in China.
Emily: Nice. Nice.
Patrick: Yeah.
Emily: Thank you so much. Patrick, this was a beautiful story. I. I love how intentional you were throughout the entire process and you were the shining example of supporting your partner. And also, you know, that.
That introspection that you had about moments where you could have maybe done better, and I just. I think it's so valuable. So thank you for sharing.
Patrick: Yeah, no problem. Yeah, it's definitely.
During the pregnancy is a time where you want to keep stress and just negativity at an all time low because that those chemicals or those emotions can have physiological effects both on you and those same chemicals can affect the baby.
And so part of that is like not telling people your plans if you know that they're gonna come at you with a bunch of fear and nonsense. Um, it's like, we didn't.
We're not. We're not choosing this because we're stupid. You know, like, I don't need you to try to convince me using facts and data, which typically people don't have because they're coming from the perspective of like, oh, you need to do this because, you know, this is what we do so that babies don't die.
It's like, whoa.
Anyway, yeah, like, protecting the pregnancy space also is really important.
Emily: Thank you for weaving that in. And I mean, I feel very strongly too, that that is also the man's role is to protect the boundary, you know, again, whether it's in pregnancy and birth and the postpartum.
But, like, you are her protection.
Patrick: Yeah. And yeah, I feel that way very strongly. It's like, that's kind of my role is like, take care as much as possible of my family. And I feel really lucky to have her and now ERA as my family.
They're awesome.
Emily: And Buddy, I think maybe.
Patrick: And Buddy.
Emily: Yeah, I'll have to see if she sent me a picture of Buddy, but if not, I want to have a picture of Buddy to share on Instagram too.
Patrick: Okay. Yeah, totally. I think she. I think he might have made an appearance in one, but if he didn't. Yeah, let me know. I'll send you one.
Emily: All right, sounds good. Thank you, Patrick.
Patrick: Yeah, no problem. Thank you.
Emily: Thank you for listening through to the end. I do hope you found good medicine in today's episode and that it encourages your own soul evolution. I have a few new offers, both in person and virtual that I'd like to tell you about.
Beginning in January, I will host a free in person perinatal Women's Circle for anyone trying to conceive, pregnant or postpartum, seeking community and support. There will be a focus on preparing for natural birth and healing from birth trauma.
Children are welcome. You can sign up via my website.
I also now offer a monthly online Virtual Village circle for families seeking an empowering physiological conception, pregnancy, labor, birth and postpartum. It's just $10 a month or free when you purchase my online course.
So you want a home birth? You can gain access by signing up via my website.
As always, I host women's circles once a a month at my home in Southern Maine. All women are welcome. For details go to my website.
I have 20 years of experience in the medicalized system. I let my nursing license expire in 2023 and now I walk with women seeking a physiological, instinctual and deeply spiritual conception, pregnancy, labor, birth and postpartum partum journey.
I help prepare and repair for the most expansive rite of passage that women get to experience in this lifetime. It is my greatest honor and sole mission to hold sacred space and witness women as they claim their own inner authority and power.
I am a fierce advocate and guardian of natural birth using the culmination of my life's experiences including my own embodied wisdom when it comes to being a home birthing mother, nearly two decades of experience in our healthcare system and a year long sacred birth worker mentorship with Anna the Spiritual Midwich.
I support births with or without a licensed provider present at home birth birth centers and the hospital.
I offer birth debriefing and integration sessions for women, their families and birth workers.
I offer therapeutic one to one sessions, individually tailored mother blessings, closing of the bones and fear and trauma release ceremonies.
If any or all of this resonates, I offer a free 30 minute discovery call.
If you have a birth story to share or if you're a embodied wise woman, witch healer, medicine woman, I am also interested in sharing your contribution to our soul evolution.
You can book in via the link in the show notes.
Thank you so much for your love and support everyone. Until next time, take really good care.
