Freedom and the Seed

Big News!!! FATS and Tempe Birth Center are merging into one!! This FB page will stay alive but all the latest news and events will migrate over to Tempe Birth Center. Keep up to date on all the latest haps by liking Tempe Birth Center's page here on FB and following us on Insta . You can also sign up for our very infrequent news letters @ www.tempebirthcenter.com at the very top of the page! Much love and thank you for all the years of FATS support and love!!

Tempe Birth Center | Tempe, AZ Tempe Birth Center is a midwife-owned, inclusive, client-centered birth center offering holistic midwifery, informed decision making, pregnancy care, water birth, and well-woman care to the greater Phoenix area.

Have you heard the statistics about the breastfeeding disparity? Curious about how you can get involved? Check out these 4 ways to support Black breastfeeding families and commit to taking action today!

Yes. We must tell the truth!!

♥️ “What if we told women the truth about birth
We’d have to tell them that contractions will probably be more than “surges” or “sensations.”

That they’ll probably rock your f✨cking world and leave you begging for salvation as you clutch the edge of the tub or the hospital linens

That your gentle breathing exercises and your Spotify soundtrack will be left in the dust as you sweat and pant and sway and swear your way through it

That you’ll trip harder than any mushroom you ever did in college and vomit with the same ferocity and travel to places deep within yourself that you didn’t know existed. That you’ll float above your body and simultaneously be trapped in it with an intensity you’ve never tasted

And in that intensity, in the sweating and the swearing and the swaying and the vomiting and the endless hours of contractions crashing down upon you
You’ll find your strength
You’ll find a resilience you’ve never known
You’ll find the power you need for the journey of motherhood ahead

In the messy humanity of it all
You’ll find that you are holy
A portal to the divine
Capable of indescribable miracles
A vessel of sacred life

What if we told women the truth about birth?
We’d have to tell them they are capable of anything
Worthy of being treated like goddesses
Made to walk through the flames
Surf the tidal waves
Dive into the underworld
And come out alive

Not unscathed
Not unchanged
But whole
And healed
And ready to take on the world

If we told women the truth about birth
We’d have to admit that we’ve lied about everything else
And that they are more powerful
More fierce
More capable
More beautiful
Than we’ve ever let on.

If we told the truth about birth?
We’d shatter the world.”

Spirit Y Sol

Hey FATS Families! Come play with your midwife this Saturday!!! Come eat pancake, play with water and bubbles and foam, bounce in a bounce house and support Tempe Birth Center in the process! Of course we will not turn any one away at the door, but it to get a count, please get your tickets TODAY!!

Pancakes with the Midwives of TBC Family Fun TBC Fundraiser! Come eat pancakes and play with other families who support community midwives and community birth!

What do birthing people want for their pregnancy and birth care?
And what does the best care look like?

Learn the findings of a new report that includes the voices of 2700 women and birthing people.

Join us for a live conversation moderated by Nzinga Blake, Executive Producer, Race and Culture / ABC Owned Television Stations, who is going to help us dig deep as we share our experiences about what pregnancy and birth care looks like now and imagine a future where all birthing people receive high quality, respectful care.

Participants include:

Tatyana Ali, actor and mother of two, on the experience of giving birth in the US
Jennie Joseph, LM, CPM on what care looks like in perinatal safe zones
Chandra A. Adams, MD, MBA and Nicholas Rubashkin, MD, PhD on how midwives and doctors can listen to and act on what is most important to the people they serve.
P. Mimi Niles, Ph.D, MPH, CNM/LM on how equity, safety, and respect can change depending on how care is delivered

🗓️ Tuesday, June 28th
11 am PDT/2 pm EDT

➡️ Free Registration Required: www.birthplacelab.org/voices [For IG, link in bio]

Always at FATS. ALWAYS.

I began to specialize in trauma-informed intimate healthcare because I sought approaches to improve my own clinical practice that could work for s*xual assault survivors and q***r people, of which I am both, and wanted to take the best care possible of my communities. many years ago I drafted this “stop” and “out” language, and began demanding that providers attend attention to the patient’s non-verbal cues as part of ongoing consent. this script (this image is just an excerpt of the longer dialogue) and many others are available on my blog, linked in bio. I write a new script almost every week in my subscription newsletter - would love to have you reading there, too 💌

I’m still crafting language and drafting suggestions. I still want to really understand the research, history, and ethics behind true informed consent, the challenge of healthcare provider power dynamics, and approaches that seem easy and “of course” to so many and yet are so difficult for the MIC as well as many midwives, nurses, and other intimate care providers. If you read my work and say “of course,” and “that’s so easy!” then I couldn’t be more thrilled we are on the same page! but if you read my work and your response is defensiveness, excuses for why these suggestions aren’t possible, or an attempt to discredit my experience and knowledge, I can almost guarantee that what I write and advocate is meant for you and the patients in your care. if your response to yesterday’s post about physicians cancelling birth plans was an gut-reaction “well some patients,” take a step back. and think about what sort of an MIC environment creates that response within you, and how that same environment creates how you view “some patients.” start here, with informed and consent, gentle intimate exams, and verbal and nonverbal cues about patient comfort.

Wow!! FATS was busy! We could not have done any of it with our our amazing team and our fabulous community!!!

We had the honor of walking with:

74 families

27 primagravidas
47 multigravidas
29 boys
45 girls
Biggest baby 10’8
Smallest baby 5
28 water births
46 land births

🌺🦅🌺Danza Mexica~Grupo Coatlicue~🔥🦌
🌺🔥🌺Community Altares Cihuapactli Collective
🥖🍲Comida, Arte y Spoken Palabra 🎤 Open Mic🎤
🌺🦅🎶Música con Los Waukis Andinos🎶🦅🌺
918 S. Mill Ave.
Tempe, AZ
Freedom and the Seed
Semilla y Libertad
Honrando todos nuestros antepasados, nuestros queridos cuidandonos desde los cielos y más alla de las estrellas🌺🦅🌺
Esté Viernes~Friday: Nov~5~2021

We are having a Mu***os celebration on November 5 at Freedom and the Seed! Everyone is welcome! There will be food and drink and live music and traditional dancing. We are creating an alter where we can honor our loved ones who have passed over. We would love to see you there!!

"I'm going to check you"⁠
"I'm just going to break your water" ⁠
"We're going to start an IV antibiotic" ⁠
"You really need to do this right now"⁠
“You’re not allowed to (walk around, eat, fill in the blank…)"⁠
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None of these are examples of informed consent. ⁠
Informed consent is a legal, human, and ethical right - established by law.⁠
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It’s a discussion that includes:⁠
1️⃣ risks (including future potential risks, i.e. repeat cesareans, post-episiotomy pain, impacting s*x life)⁠
2️⃣ benefits⁠
3️⃣ alternatives⁠
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Informed consent also includes the right to INFORMED REFUSAL.⁠
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That means you have a legal right to say NO at your birth to anything you believe is not in your and baby's best interest.⁠
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Your voice counts and what you say matters.⁠
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Being guilted into something or otherwise psychologically pressured is a violation of informed consent.⁠
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But violations are common and accepted. It’s common for a practitioner to say something like: ‘a good mom would do this’ and ‘you wouldn’t want to harm your baby’ or “I know this is what you want, but my job is to look out for your baby.” Legally YOU are the one who gets to choose for you and baby and LEGALLY that should be without repercussions to you regardless of outcome. YOU get to make the risk-benefit analysis, but that means getting educated ahead of time. And that’s what I’m here to help you do.⁠
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If you want to learn what your birth rights are, the difference between birth rights and hospital policy, and more on how to be your own advocate, I invite you to join my FREE pregnancy, birth, and postpartum course via the link in bio.⁠
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Once you join, you'll have access to the previously recorded videos (including the one on advocacy), in addition to supplemental PDFs and guided videos - and all of the ongoing classes coming up, plus the ongoing weekly support group.⁠
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Speaking up for ourselves, and speaking our truth makes a difference. It’s how every change in healthcare has actually occurred. And never doubt what s group of committed women can do!

Starts in a few weeks @ FATS!

For most of the 20th century Black grand midwives provided safe community midwifery care to Black families as white birthing people were moving into the hospital setting. Grand midwives were subject to racism and punitive regulations, and eventually was over-regulated out of the ability to practice while medicaid was coming up as an option for paying hospitals for birth.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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While grand midwifery was being pushed out, the modern homebirth movement led by white community trained midwives like Ina May Gaskin came about in resistance to hospital birth practices in the 1960's and 70"s⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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This movement (which led to the creation of the Certified Professional Midwife credential that we hold), is majority white. Our systems, payment structures, and institutions created to support this midwifery movement were designed around the needs of white women. Today homebirth is financially inaccessible in most places in the United States. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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In 2020 we participated in the - where ourselves and and provided home birth care at cost for black families trying to leave the hospital system for a safe birth in the pandemic (in Philly it costs us $2,500 to provide prenatal/birth/postpartum care). Each practice agreed to attend 5 births, and our work with the showed us that we can be doing so much more for reparations than we had been. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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So in 2021, we raised our prices so we could fund providing 10% of the births in our practice at cost to low income Black families and teenagers. This is not a perfect model, nor does not go far enough. It does gives us the opportunity to provide justice through care and learn how we can do more. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Systemic change will not happen through small midwifery practices. However if you're midwifery is not explicitly anti-racist, its reinforcing our current white supremacist perinatal care system.

Make no comparisons. Do your own thing. Birth the way YOU want to birth.

Here is the list of topics we will be discussing at our Family Circle starting in April. I hope you will join us. All are welcome.

Freedom and the Seed updated their address.

What is something your birth provider said or did that really helped you in pregnancy, birth or postpartum?