Welcome to the Free Birth Podcast, a supportive space for people who are learning,

exploring and celebrating their autonomous choices in childbirth.

Together, we'll unpack truths, share personal stories,

and claim our ability to birth freely and intuitively. Here's your host, Emily Sal day. Today we have Lela from Maui. She birthed both her children outside under the bamboo trees of Hawaii with the moon on her face and a fire blazing.

Her stories carry the essence of ancient birthing wisdom.

Listen in as Lala shares her intuitive guidance towards free birth at six weeks pregnant

and her ability to set appropriate self-preserving boundaries with family and her surroundings.

Leila's story is truly inspiring. Well, I grew up in Chicago and my mother is a neonatal nurse and she's been a neonatal nurse her whole life and so I definitely

grew up with a lot of horror stories about premature babies and how dangerous

birthing can be and and was just very afraid, essentially very afraid of giving birth to the point where I didn't even know if I wanted to

give birth because of how afraid I was and it wasn't until I met my my husband

who I met on Maui which is where we live now with our two children that I really felt

Like I wanted to be a mother and I was willing to face the fears that I was just holding in my body and in my mind my entire life about not being able to do it essentially and especially not being able to do it by myself.

And so yeah it was definitely life changing to become pregnant. We did it very, very consciously. We both knew that we

wanted to create a being. I had a dream about him and knew it was a boy and I was open to doing a home

birth with a midwife or a dula and I was open to doing a hospital birth. I was really open to everything but I

most importantly wanted to just be really connected with what felt right to me and what felt safest to me and what felt most comfortable

because I felt like it's a very vulnerable sexual, sensual experience to even be pregnant and also to give birth.

And so it felt so important to make sure that I had a context that that felt like it was going to

create the success and the most fulfilling birth that I wanted to to experience and I definitely along the way was faced with every fear

that I've ever had in my life. It really totally brought everything to the surface

that I had been trying to become free of for my entire life and I was able to be open enough and

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