Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club Morning.
Everybody is DJ Envy Charlamagne the guy. We are the Breakfast Club. We got a special guest in the building this morning. Yes, indeed we have Miss Elaine well to Roth Welcome, Hi guys this morning.
I'm good.
How are you good?
Goods Black and Holly favorite.
I love it.
I'm just really taking in this whole chair, the throne that you're sitting, that the two of you are sitting on.
Met I didn't get a throne. Where's my throne?
We got it.
We're thinking of something for the guests in twenty twenty four to make them because we're all regal, right, but this is really just for television, right ron.
BT and for the Internet and stuff like that.
And then when we add the new third person, they'll have a thron So we're gonna have a whole watch the Throne campaign.
Okay, but we have to figure it out because the thrones will be too high to block the cameras, which you didn't think about beforehand, so it's gonna be a cluster f You're gonna figure it out.
Get came.
So now you're here for a conversation project.
Yeah, Stations Project.
Yep, Now what is the Conversation Project?
So the Conversations Project, which is on Hulu is basically so it's inspired by the Harlem Renaissance Salon. It's like, you know, think back to the era when you know, black intellectuals, academics, entertainers would rub shoulders and break bread and and share ideas in a safe space. And we wanted to recreate that on television. And it's it's really incredible. It's it's bringing together some of the greatest minds in
our culture from every corner of the world. So you have you have artists, you have entertainers, you have we had a black astronaut all coming together to really exchange ideas, and you know, you don't have anything like this on television, which is kind of crazy when you really think about it, It's like, how has it taken this long for a show like this to come about?
But I'm so glad that it did.
And we just talk about everything under the sun that affects our community, and we talk about it through a black lens, and we debate, we laugh, we you know, we agree, we challenge each other, and it's really intergenerational. It's just a really positive, nuanced place to have conversations that matter in our culture.
I feel like it's very all of it. I'm sorry.
I feel like it's very hard for us to have conversations nowadays. I feel like we're all talking at each other instead of tune with each other that part.
And that's why I think a show like this is so important, because it's modeling how to have productive, constructive dialogue, how to listen, how to not react, you know, defensively.
It's really important, I think, especially in these times that are so divided, it's so divisive, to really give people an example of how you can articulate your point of view and also appreciate and listen to somebody else's point of view and maybe even evolve, you know, maybe even maybe your maybe your perspective might evolve in the process. So I think a show like this is so important. And for me, I always, whether I'm writing books or on television, I want to create what I think the
world needs more of. And I think the world needs more of hard converse examples of hard conversations that are being tackled in a really constructive way.
I love that because I feel like, you know, over the last several years, we've seen all of these, you know, topics that we never discussed come to the forefront, but we're still not having nuanced conversations about them.
We're not peeling back layers.
We're just telling you your trash if you believe this, your trash if you don't think like this.
But it's just like, yo, where's the exchange of ideas?
So those people that you may not like the way they think about a certain thing, they might evolve on the subject if you just have a conversation.
Exactly and you might evolve.
I think that's the that's the thing, is to come to the table with an open mind and be willing to listen. I learned my mind was open, you know. I came with an open mind and open heart. I think everybody did. And you know what helped. I forgot to mention this. I can't believe I forgot to mention this.
It's a dinner party. So you have like Michelin Star, you know, a Michelin Star chef who is giving us incredible food and black owned wines, and we are just like so I feel like everybody came in like maybe a little.
Nervous, like was about to happen at the table. They gonna there's.
Gonna be there, gonna be some gotcha questions, and then everyone just realized this is actually a safe space. Sip some wine, you know, you relax your nerves, you know, settle a little. And we really we came to the table, many of us strangers, and we walked away feeling like we had extended community. We like like a family, honestly.
So it was it was beautiful, and I hope, I honestly hope that it inspires people to have some of these conversations at their own dinner table with their own friends, at their work, at their church, Like whatever the community is that you are a part of, this is how you can have these conversations and also invite people over
to your house. Again, Like we've all been in isolation for so long, and we thrive in community, you know, but it takes somebody to be intentional about curating the right group, about sending that invitation, bringing people to creating a safe space and really guiding the conversation. So I really hope that like this is like the return of the dinner party.
You know, who are some of the people that are I know, every episode is a different cast. Who are some of the people that are at the table.
Yeah, we had a whole wide range of people, like I said, from black astronauts to entertainers to authors, athletes. So we had a couple of people we had that I really love Phoebe Robinson, She's hilarious, Shine Jim Jones, Ali Love roy Wood, Junior Tory Notton, Torri Notton, she was amazing. Yes, Lena Bloom And so the hosts were the three hosts. One is the chef, David Lawrence. He has a restaurant in the Bay Area, but he's originally from the UK and he's a.
Little bit older. I call him uncle.
And then we have Mark Spears who is at ESPN and Landscape. He's a Hall of Fame sports writer. And they conceived of this show, they pitched it, they got it sold, which is a miracle to me in this landscape, especially for a black show, bringing together black folks to have black conversations that are you know, smart, intellectual and not trash, Like We're not sitting there trying to trash each other, which is usually what you see get sold.
And then they brought me on.
They wanted to have a woman's perspective at the table, someone who could help bridge the generations. And I immediately, I mean, once I understood the concept of the show, the spirit of the show, the intention of the show is like, sign me up, this is a dinner party. I feel like anybody would want to be invited to. So it was an honor to be a part of it.
How did you pick the people you wanted to have a conversation because you know, when you talk about curating right people, even when you say let's bring back the dinner party, I'm just not letting nobody in my house.
Your energy gotta be right.
Your energy got to be right. That's the part I think. I think we all just kind of agreed. We we all brought our lists, and we all kind of thought, we want to make sure every single table is really intergenerational.
So that was a really important piece.
We wanted to make sure that it was co ed, so there was a nice mix of you know, men and women, and that everyone was represented, so trans folks, queer folks.
You know.
I think the beauty of this show is that it showcases the spectrum of blackness, right, Like we talk about what it means to be black and queer black and trans to what it's like to we talk about the biracial experience and everything in between. We got, you know, old elders in the room, we got the young folks in the room, we got the millennials. And what you see is that which it just reminds you that blackness
is not a monolith. We come from all different places all over the world with different personspectives, and it really it shapes our worldview. But when we break bread with each other, when we break down these conversations together, we realize how much more we have in common then than what divides us.
Yeah, what about the titles of the show, like, like those are the conversation starters within themselves?
Like what it's called We Him is one episode called.
I Didn't Name, I Didn't Name? Did you guys? Have you guys seen any of them?
If you have not seen them, it's a six episode series. It's totally bingeable. You once you watch one episode, you will naturally want to just keep going. And I've gotten such great feedback from everyone that you know, they're excited to see black folks coming together to have these rich conversations,
these intergenerational conversations. Especially in a time like this, Like, honestly, guys, it's dark times out there, absolutely, and we need something that is feel good, that makes us think, that opens our mind. And I think this show is exactly that. And I hope we get to do it again and again, and I hope we can bring y'all to the table next season.
What's one conversation that stood out the most to you that that you remember. That's something that she was like, Wow, this is going to spark a lot of conversation and interest when this episode's released, So when people see this episode.
Yeah, So two come to mind.
One is a conversation with Brett Gray, who's this gen Z actor, and he brought such an incredible energy to the table, and he got into a kind of a contentious conversation with the older gentleman at the table, who we were calling them ogs, so David Lawrence, Mark Spears.
They were talking.
About sort of how this older generation we're talking about black manhood and and toxic masculinity, and how the older generation of black men in us, with the intention of trying to protect and guide the next generation of black men, sometimes their way can crush the spirit of this younger generation. That aren't as oppressed, that aren't as you know, they aren't, they aren't facing they're living in a completely different world.
And and so how can you prepare the next generation of black men to navigate the world as black men when they're in a completely different world than you came from. And so he's sitting there with his like fly like denim jacket on. It's sparkly, he's got sequins, and he's like, to be honest, I think that when you don't want us to sparkle, when we sparkle, it makes you uncomfortable. You put us in such a rigid box of what it means to be a black man. And and and frankly,
I don't identify with that. I'm more than that. I want to be more than that, but you put me in the box and you actually make me feel more oppressed than than than the world. And so it was like this really intense moment where you just know, like this is a moment that is so powerful that people need to see. And I hope that it really sparks some debate. Not some debate, but I really hope it sparks kind of introspective conversations between black men of different generations,
and you know, it was beautiful. Is I feel like there's a lot of conversation about women, which is important. We've made a lot of you know that that's been very intentional on media to focus more on the women's gaze, but there's so much ground that we don't cover when it comes to black malehood manhood.
And so it felt.
Nice for a moment to just sit back and know that, like, this is not for me to participate in.
This is for me to listen and.
Learn and and appreciate the way these black men are navigating this conversation. And you could see the ogs, you know, they're not they came from a different generations where generation where young people you know, you're supposed to stay in your place to speak when you're spoken to, you respect your authority and your your elders, and you don't take a certain tone. And and Brett was coming in there
just speaking his mind. He was very strong with it, and you could tell the ogs were getting a little like okay, now, young brother, okay, like you don't have to you.
Know, like but they they really they they I was.
So proud of them in that moment because they listened and they there was a breakthrough I think for everybody in that room, and they made it clear, like listen, they apologize on behalf of kind of like this generation of black men for breaking their spirit and and and clarified that our intention is to protect you and to help you navigate this world in ways that we didn't We didn't have male guidance in this way. And so while our way might not be perfect, know that it
comes from love. And I just felt like it was a really kind of beautiful, heartwarming moment and.
That's something I learned it therapy or like, you know, I think that our father, or at least my father, I can't generalize, but my father, I think he was raising me out of fear, not necessarily love, because he was just afraid for me in this world as a black man. He didn't want me to make the same mistakes that he made as a man. But all he did was still that same fear exactly inside of me. So it kept a generational trauma going, you know, exactly.
But he also raised you from the side of the Times were different, you know, I mean, I mean, racism is still big now, but it was ten times worse back then, where my dad tells me stories where he couldn't go to certain bathrooms, he couldn't drink out of certain water fountains, where he looks at white people a lot different than we do because when he was a kid, he could never trust him because it was always them versus.
Yeah, that's how my dad kind of raised me. But for us, my dad.
Was my dad was afraid that I was gonna turn out like him in a lot of ways, even though you know, he had his good side, you know, but he had battled substance abuse, and he was in the street and stuff like that. But I think he was more afraid of how if I went on that path. He knew the white man had a plan for me, which is frizy. So I think that's what that's what, That's what it was. I remember my first breakthrough in therapy was realizing, like, damn, my dad. My dad used
to punish me for things he never taught me. So he would discipline me for things that you never even taught me. You told me to follow your lead in a lot of ways, and then when I did, I would get.
Punished for it.
And you know, I think part of part of this conversation is how does a generation of black men who didn't have black fathers in the household, or whose fathers were really challenged by outside factors related to racism, you know, and and so that that debilitated their ability to be a good dad, Like, how does that generation of fatherless black men turn around and figure out how to be great dads to the next generation when they didn't have a model for that, And so of course they're going
to make mistakes. And I think the important thing is now to have dialogue about, you know, how the next generation can do it differently and what they can learn in the process. And and even like Chef David, you know, he's he has a son, a grown child, and he kind of he had some reflective moments where he said he could have done some things differently. And I think that it might have led to some offline conversations that
that were really healthy and really necessary. And I really hope that that's the that's the result of this show, And for viewers who are watching, you know what I mean, I hope it. I hope it triggers some conversations that are maybe overdue in our community.
And you know what else too, It's like it's not even about what we what we uh, it's about what we learned, but what we got to unlearned as we get older, because you know, I'll be the first to admit we were a whole generation that was raised wrong.
You know. I mean I'm raised wrong in a lot of ways, you know. So it's like, yeah, it's about what you have to and learnt.
Yeah, and you know, I'm a new mom. I just had a baby seventeen months ago, thank you. So I felt like I was there listening more than I talk on topics around parenthood. And you know, Roxane Chante came on, and you know, she was one of the sort of our elders.
We respect her.
And she was talking about, you know, parenting as a black mom, especially a single black mom, how parenting a young black man is different from parenting a young woman. And I really leaned in because I was like, because I'm a boy mom.
And she talked about how.
There is this tendency in our culture for black moms to kind of overly caddle black men, which is again coming from a spirit of love and protection because they
know how harsh this world is on black men. But in the end, sometimes the outcome is that these men are not they're not getting the tools that they need to be men in the world, and they're being coddled to the point of you know, they're they're not standing on their own two feet, and so you so there was this conversation about this generation, this generation of black men who were raised by mothers that were coddling them a little too much, and what is that impact on
families black, the black family in this generation. So that's something I hadn't really thought a lot about, and so I feel like I learned a lot. You know, normally you come into conversations, you feel like you have your talking pointspecially as a journalist like I. I listened and I learned. And another another really standout moment for me was Lena Bloom came on. She's a beautiful transactivist and model, so eloquent. I really encourage you guys to listen to to watch that episode.
But she sort of.
Challenged the room. She looked around and she said, how many trans people have you ever invited to dinner or into your home? And the whole table went silent, and she really made a compelling case for why we as a culture, as a community, really need to open our minds and open our hearts, and and you know, even if you do not understand the trans experience, it it is your job to protect and to love your your sister and your brother, your sisters and your brothers in
the trans community, and that we failed them essentially. And I was really again, I was really proud of the room for holding space for that difficult conversation.
And I think we really hurt her. We really hurt her.
And and I hope that especially for the older heads, this is a conversation that's a little bit new. It's newer for the older heads in the space. I think it changed some of their perspectives.
Yeah, you had your child at home?
Right?
I think I read that I did.
Ye, I had a home I had a home birth with a with a midwife.
Is it because of all the things that are going on in the hospitals and the way the black maternal death rate is you just didn't trust it.
It's also during the pandemic COVID right seventeen months ago? Right?
No? No, wasn't it.
I mean, are we still dependent? I don't know.
I don't know what stage we are, but I mean, well, listen, I got married at home, am I stooped during the pandemic and I had my baby at home. I don't know what stage of the pandemic it was, but yes, it was because you know, I went into pregnancy thinking that I was going to have a hospital birth, just like you know, my mother did and my grandmother did.
That's the norm in our country. But and I sort of knew.
About the maternal mortality crisis, and the black maternal mortality crisis, like in a peripheral sense, like it's something that happens out there in the world, but maybe not as much here. I think I bought into this myth that it also, you know, tends to happen only in impoverished communities, and so here I am as this, you know, as as black women go in this country, I am.
I have all the privileges you could have.
So I thought I wouldn't have a problem having my baby in the hospital, finding a great doctor, finding great care. And I was so shocked to learn how difficult it is to find a healthcare provider in our current medical system that makes you feel safe, that makes you feel listened to, that makes you feel like you know they there's a compassionate person that's going to make sure that you have the.
Birth that you want.
I'm based out of LA and so I went through from doctor to doctor to doctor, and this is me.
I am, like, you know, I'm I'm pretty well connected.
I got resources, I could go to the best of the best, and I had bad experience after bad experience after bad experience. It was so incredibly humbling, and it it was the first time where I had to really confront the fear that I could very well become another statistic And what I learned as I went through this journey is that this issue is so complex. It is this crisis, this maternal mortality crisis that you know that overly impacts black women, is very real, and unfortunately, the
rates of death are actually surging. It's really scary, and I think when you talk about it with folks, I think people still have there's this concept, this misconception that this isn't happening in this country, that this isn't happening to people who look like me or come from where I come from. You know, it's not happening to well educated black women of means.
It absolutely is.
And as I've gotten deeper into this work and into the stats, I realized that black women, black wealthy women are dying at higher rates than poor white women in
this country during and after childbirth. So when you understand like truly, where where, what the picture is, how how prevalent this issue is in our country and the richest country in the world, you start to you start to think about what informs your your point of view on what a safe where a safe birth happens, and and who's delivering your baby and why these messages are what you believe, you know, And so I thought, you know, I always thought like, oh, to be safe, I should
have you know, I've heard of.
Home births, I've heard of midwives.
Sounds beautiful, God bless but to be safe air quotes, I'm going to have my baby in a hospital. But is it truly safer to have your baby in a hospital when you're a black woman in America? You have to really, you have to unpack that. And so I decided to have my baby outside of the hospital. Really because it was the place that I found the best care.
It's as simple as that.
I am so lucky that I found black midwives, Kimberly Dirden and a Lager Hill. They owned the only black owned birthing center in all of southern California, which is wild. Wouldn't you think that there would be plenty of birthing centers and black midwives there, But it's still it's you know, it's a bit of a desert as it relates to this kind of maternal care. But these women were like angels. They were truly like they're unsung midwives and doulas are
unsung heroes in our communities. And they came in and completely changed the trajectory of my pregnancy and really opened my mind, opened my eyes to this crisis. And and I feel compelled now to do something about it. And I will say I think we I had a beautiful birth, I had a sacred birth. I felt so safe and cared for. And I feel like we need to share more positive birthing stories with black women, from black women.
Explaining the process.
Because we've had Thomas time me and my wife several times.
Thomas is your wife pregnant?
Well, we had our last two. Latham was our dula for our last two.
She what Latham is incredible. Latham is like also another unsung hero.
Oh man, She's She's several times so explain the process, because I think what most women think when when you think of home, you think of pain, right, And I think a lot of people go to the hospital for that epidoro. They go to the hospital make sure that if there's any complications, especially with the baby, that.
The doctor can can take care. So just you know, explain.
I have six but all out of hospital, all hospital, all hospital, and my wife who all hospital. But break down the process of the experience so women listening don't get frightened, because if I'm listening, I would get frighten. Now, all I'm thinking about is pain, I'm thinking about what happens, I'm thinking blind, I'm thinking a whole lot.
So break gone a process.
Oh, I'm so glad you asked this, because we need to reframe pain for birthing people. I too, was so incredibly scared of not having access to an epidural. Like even when I found my midwife, I fell in love with her. I was like, I would love for you to birth my baby.
But can we just have an epidural just in case? Could it just be there? And She's like, kind of like the whole thing.
You can't have an epidural for a home birth, and that was the thing that made it. It was like the hardest part for me to overcome is like what if I can't handle the pain correct? And I actually did not decide to have a home birth until thirty six, thirty six or thirty seven weeks. It was like go time, and I still was like, you know, dating doctors and
tiptoeing like that line. And ultimately I made the call because I was able to shift my mindset around pain, and I did that with the support and the guidance of my midwife. She talks about pain, the pain of childbirth as purposeful as directional, and she doesn't even use the word pain. She used the word She uses the word waves. She uses the word words like intensity. And she made it clear to me that your body has been preparing for this since the day you started your period.
Those cramps that you feel, that discomfort that you feel, is the exact pain that you will feel as labor starts. So it's not an unfamiliar pain like I thought I was going to be, like, like it's gonna feel.
Like knives in my Please make it seem like it is.
Absolutely horror horrifying, like the movies and everything we've ever seen about birth is all inspiring fear. None of it is inspiring self trust and what a midwife does and what my wife did is completely she gave my power back to me. I feel like we have been trained as a culture, conditioned as a culture to give our power away as women, as black women, as birthing people.
We give our power away to these authorities in white lab coats that often undermine our intelligence, that often gaslight us, that take advantage of the power that we give away. We're not taught about our bodies. We're not taught about what we were built to do. We're not taught about how babies have been getting here since the beginning of time,
which was not in a hospital, right. We're not taught about how the obe opstroenetics came about and that it was set up to as a business that prioritizes profit over patients. We're not taught this. Once you learn just how systemic and complex this issue is, you start to realize that, like you need to, there's a lot of unlearning that we have to do. And I was so grateful that like this woman, this midwife, the way she talked about birth was like pleasurable and I was like, Oh,
iing this. I know she's crazy. She's crazy. Is she talking about birth like it's a pleasurable experience? But y'all, when I tell you, and God as my witness, my husband as my witness, my midwife as my witness, delivering my child at home in an unmedicated birth was the single most empowering experience of my life.
It was.
It was transformative. It was oh my gosh, I'm getting emotional. It was spiritual. It was beautiful, like the pain was so secondary to the downloads that I got spiritually, to the access to my power that was unlocked for me. It was absolutely beautiful. And I just wish that more women were told, you were built for this. You can more than handle this. You will. You will not just survive, you can thrive through your birth. And so this is
not to demonize you know, the epidural. Listen girl, if you want to go epidural, get the epidural, press the button, go for If you want to have a hospital, girl, do that. But make sure that you feel comfortable and safe and seen by your healthcare provider, because too many of us are dying in the hospital system. And if you are not finding the healthcare that you deserve that you need. Look outside, look into alternatives, look into other options.
Other options are available, and you can have a beautiful, safe birth experience outside of the hospital system.
Let me ask you one more question, right, you said, well.
You guys got me emotional. I didn't expect to go there today.
It was real conversation because there's a lot of women out there that need this information. Now, you said it thirty six weeks that you will still quote unquote dating doctors.
Right.
I could be wrong, but I thought your gynacologist is the one that usually delivers your doctor, and that gynecologe is somebody that you've been with for a long time and trust.
Is that not the because I have six kids?
Right?
So the first the first delivery, Madison effed up gynecologists. It was like a dating the doctor type of thing. My wife went to somebody was horrible, bad experience. My wife almost passed. She had one hundred and four temperature for three or four days. It was very, very bad.
We moved to Jersey and she got a gynecologist, minority woman that we trusted. Delivered out other five babies no problems, but that woman was somebody that we trusted. If my wife said there was a problem, she dropped what she did to get to that hospital she believed she trusted. So when you said data doctors don't most people use their gynecologists to deliver their baby. So with somebody that they see that knows them, that they trust or is that not true?
No?
Absolutely, that's the ideal scenario, right. But you have to understand we were, first of all, in a pandemic.
I had just moved to a new state. In a pandemic.
I didn't have a general doctor, you know, I didn't have a regular physician, let alone an obgyn. I hadn't gone to the doctor since the beginning of the pandemic. I'm generally healthy, and so I wasn't thinking about seeking out a doctor or an obg yn until I got pregnant. So once I got pregnant, I thought, Okay, how hard is it to find a good doctor? Can't be hard. I live in the mecca of you know, I live. I live in La So I got referrals. I did all the things you're supposed to do. I got referrals.
I checked, you know, I checked everyone at all these doctors out on Google. I went in prepared with questions, and what I found is that I was met with what is the word, I was met with resistance. I would say, at best, it's like the most polite way
I was. I was met with resistance when I came in with questions, when I came in sort of informed, and when I had the audacity to, you know, just ask what I thought, we're basic questions about how this would go to and also just try to when I tried to just form some sort of you know, connection to this person, it was like I was rushed the in and out girl.
I was literally told.
Like a fast food service, I'm not fast.
Food service, I'm I'm I don't think people understand that when you when you are pregnant, you are in your most vulnerable state, right. I didn't even know to expect that, And I was very emotional, and I came in and I was rushed people. These doctors would not look at me in my face. They just kind of toss medication my way without even asking me. I mean, it was just it was so inhumane. I had I had vials of blood, six vials of my blood taken on accident
without apology. They tried to excuse it and act like it didn't happen, like so many things happen.
I was like, I now see how this happens.
I just don't like how they don't allow you to film.
Right, you pay for service. You're paying for that. It's not free, right, you're paying for that. But they won't allow you to film your birth in most hospitals, and they say it is to protect them, so if they do something wrong, you can't protect yourself. I just never understood.
That there's so much you can't do that I didn't know in most cases. In many cases, I should say, you can't eat in the hospital. Once you're in labor. You have to have an IV in your system, which means you can't move around freely. Yes, sure, you most of the time have to deliver on your back or in the bed, which let's just think about this for one moment. This completely changed my outlook on birth. When one of my girlfriends was like, she had a home birth,
and she said, think about how gravity works. Right, if you had to push a bowling ball outside out of your body.
You'd stand up a squat.
Right, does it make sense to lay on your back to push a bowling one? Out of your body, or does it make sense to be upright to use gravity. When somebody said that, I was like, Yo, that is the most basic thing. And how come we why have we been trained to think that this is the only way birth should happen on your back with a doctor seated at the that's for the doctor's convenience. And I'm not saying this in all cases. For some cases you must be on your back.
It's the safest thing.
In some cases you need medical interventions. In some cases you need a see section Like, I am not anti doctor and I'm not anti hospital, but what I am is pro woman and pro baby, and what makes that and I think that are our needs and our desires and our wishes should be honored, you know. And I've had a doctor literally in the middle of asking questions, stand up and walk out of the room and say, you have exceeded your two to three question Max. I am, and I've given you some grace, but I need to.
Go two to three question Max.
I'm like, I am in.
My most vulnerable state and I am coming to you with legitimate questions with a polite attitude. I'm friendly, and you are just shutting me down. And walking out on me, and it just made me feel so small and even as some And I think it's important for someone like me to talk openly about this because I think that people would assume that someone this couldn't happen to someone like me, Like, no way. You know, I'm outspoken, I'm a journalist, I'm informed, I'm confident. But the experiences that
I had with these doctors, you guys broke me down. Wow, it made me question myself. It silenced it silenced me.
It made me. I cried after every appointment.
I started thinking something's maybe wrong with me, Like do I need to smile more? What can I do to make myself seem worthy of good care in the presence of these doctors? That is not the way it should be. I'm paying for the service I'm paying into.
So the whole.
Medical industrial complex is poisoned, and there's so much change that needs to happen. There's so much reform that we need on every level level within the hospital system, with the insurance system, you know, at the legislative level, we need to figure out how to create pipelines for more midwives, more doulas. We have to figure out how to create more access so that underserved communities can have access to
midwives and doulas if that's what they need. And by the way, the other thing that I learned which made me feel energized around this topic because this topic is depressing to a lot of people and they.
Kind of like lean back.
They're like, Ooh, I don't really want to talk about that. That's I'm just going to hope for the best with my with my birth. But I think we have to lean in to this conversation. What helped me lean in was understanding that this is solvable, Like there are solutions, and there's a stat that was really staggering.
To me.
That basically, if if you have a midwife or a doula, seventy percent of these deaths could be prevented. Seventy percent of these materi ternal health, black maternal health that could be prevented with the intervention of a midwife and a doula.
That gives me hope.
That's like, Okay, well, if that's the way to solve this, let's figure out how we can create a pipeline of more midwives, more doulas. Let's figure out how we can create a system that's more of a hybrid model where doctors, doulas, and midwives can all coexist peacefully, can work well together.
And so that's as you can see. I'm just very fired up about this particular issue because I just think there's nothing more important than keeping mothers alive to raise these children that we are bringing into the world, especially at a time like this where more women are being
forced into motherhood before they're ready. If we have the audacity as a country, if our government has the audacity to force women into parenthood before they are ready, we need to create systems that will keep them alive to raise those children. It is as simple as that. So I hope next season I don't bring it back to the show.
I hope next season this is something we can talk about and unpack.
Definitely a conversation.
Can I just tell you this is the first time I had this conversation with two men.
Oh listen, I swear by duelers.
You know, chills right now just.
Because of the experiences that me and my wife have had in the hospital, you know, whether it was emergency se sections. She had to be rushed for our second child, and when Latham came in for our third childh My wife was dreading having another sea section. Lath was like, you don't have to have one, but the doctor was telling her they had to have one. And what you realize is it's easy for the doctor, and it's more
money because it's a surgery. So the doctor can schedule with day to come in, cut her open, take the baby out, thaw her back up.
It's more money.
But think about how much pain that calls us for the women. But they're not thinking about that. They're thinking about them.
And surgeries go left, can go wrong.
And I also feel like I need to say, you know, things can go wrong in a home birth, absolutely, but but I think the problem is we've inflated, like there's an inflated sense that home births are more dangerous than hospital births, and if you actually look at the stats.
That's not true.
And I feel like I need to also share that, like, while I had this beautiful birth that truly changed my life and my perspective on literally everything, I did have a complication after I delivered my baby, and I won't get into the details about it, but what I will say is that I had.
The most competent.
Medical professionals in my home, who took the best care of me, and they were so Not only did they take the best care of me and solve the problem in a speedy manner, but they protected my mental and my spiritual and my emotional state such that I did not even know I was having an emergency. I did not until the next day. They So when I think about my birth, I don't have birth trauma. I don't think about birth trauma. I don't think about this complication.
I think about the incredible experience that I had. And that's because they prioritized my mental health and my peace and my sanity and my well being in a.
Three sixty way.
If I asked them if I was in a hospital and this exact same thing happened, like, what would that have What would have happened? They were like, well, they would have rushed in a number of nurses and doctors probably would have come in. You probably would have been you would have been separated from your child, You would have been rushed into a different room. You might have been given blood transfusion. You like, it would have been like, I mean, alarms would have been going off. In the
safety of my home, I was taken care of. I didn't know anything was going wrong. They swiftly handled me, and they were very prepared to call the ambulance if they needed to. And I think that's really important for people to know. People think that, like there aren't mechanisms in place to navigate when something goes wrong, and they're
they're midwives. Their actual job is to identify the point when and if you need medical intervention, if you need to call the ambulance, you need to get to someone, to a hospital, there's already a plan in place. I had four backup hospitals. I spoke to doctors that every single one of them, spoke to nurses at every single one of them, because as a black woman, I did
not want the first time. I didn't want them to meet me for the first time, and in my most vulnerable state, in an emergency state, I wanted them to know my name.
I wanted them to see my face.
And honestly, who has time to go to from hospital to hospital to do that kind of thing. I made the time because I knew it was a matter of life or death. And so I share that with whoever is listening, Like, you know, there's so much fear mongering around motherhood and childbirth in this country, and you know it's for a good reason. These stats are really staggering.
They're real there. It's very scary.
But at the same time, there are pathways to beautiful, safe birthing experiences, and there are things we can do to empower ourselves and to advocate for ourselves. And I think a big part of that is empowering our partners and informing our partners on how they can be advocates for us and how they can be allies. So I just really want to I really want to hold space for this just to say, like, thank you guys for even taking this much time in this interview to talk
about this. And as fathers, you guys, I can tell you care, I can tell you're leaning in and literally this is the kind of conversation we're having on the Conversations project.
Well, I just to come full circle. I just want to say thank you so much.
For we to respond.
I would say that, you know the best thing about these conversations. You know, Charlemagne has for daughters with his wife. I have six kids with mom, but more men want to know what's going on. Before it was one of those things you go to the hospital tell us when we need to be there, but we want to be a part of it. We want to know what's what affects you, what makes you cry, what hurts, what your concerns are, because now situation, we can do it together.
It's not just you on your own and same thing with us with the stuff that we go through. It's not just that's on our own. And we appreciate you for sharing your what.
Dudes are important too when you in those hospitals and have to communicate with those doctors and those nurses.
As a father, as a husband, when you see your.
Wife of one of our kids, they didn't have any epidurals.
The hospital had no epidemi.
The hospital had told me what the hospital and that's where my wife delivered, which is where.
The hospital had no epidoros. So my wife had to deliver the baby. Like you know, they could have went and got one from another hospital, but she was already right there, so she ended up having a baby with no epidural.
Like you mean, you know what I mean? Like that's how I'm talking to.
The people, you know, But when you have a doula, a doula communicates in a different ways.
Them always love layah, and I will say my husband was like my due by the way, like my husband, I call him my dad doulah. We were in the bathroom, we were in the shower for the majority of my labor. He sat there with me and and labored with me. It was the most it was the most beautiful experience for us as a couple. And I there was this one like triumphant, amazing moment where I got into this
like deep meditative state. I was like in a trans I was literally on another planet and I was just breathing, breathing, breathing, and I got this like download where I thought, Okay, what happens if I don't react to the pain I feel the wave coming? What if I just breathe and just don't even react.
Is that possible? Let's try.
So I sat there and like every time I felt like like tensing up or like my my my eyebrows furrowing, or my hands, I just breathed into those areas and I just tried to just smile and stay calm. And I was a to do that through three or four contractions, and my husband sitting right in front of me in the shower, which, by the way, the shower is liquid epidural. Ladies, listen up. The shower is liquid epidural.
He takes your pain.
Yes, I was in the shower with the water on. It took my pain from a seven to a two. It Why don't we tell women this? Why don't we talk about this? Why do we act like epidura is the only pain relief available to us.
It's not water is. It's the most natural thing.
So I sat there and I'm having my water I'm having my like divine goddess, feminine, you know, divine, feminine moment.
I'm sitting there feeling so powerful, so strong.
And my husband's sitting at like literally kneeling in front of me, looking at me, and he's and my eyes were closed, and he taps me, and he's like, babe, do you think you're gonna have another one soon?
Is everything okay? And I just went I just had three? And he was like, damn.
Like I never felt like more of a bad bitch of my life, I'm telling you right now. Or if I was like, yo, I could do anything, if I can do this, and I swear to you, guys, that lesson that just was deposited to me in labor is something I think about every single day. When something happens that makes me uncomfortable, that pisses me off, something a challenge arises, I breathe into it, and I'm like, how can I not react to this? How can I rise above this? How can I ride this wave versus letting
this wave take me down? These are things that these are like just gems that would not have been unlocked to me if I didn't allow myself, trust myself enough to go through this process and allow my body to do what it was meant to do. And I wish more people talked about the spiritual side of birth, of unmedicated birth.
And it's not easy. I don't want to paint like an unrealistic picture. It's not easy.
But we were.
Built to do hard things. And by the way, my baby was nine pounds Okay, so this is a nine pounds baby, big baby, unmedicated and I live to.
Tell the story. And I didn't just survive, but I thrive through it.
Well.
Thank you so much for joining us and sharing your story.
Watch the Conversation project on Hulu right now.
Elaine Walterorth, thank you so much.
Thank you guys.
It's the Breakfast Club, good morning, wake that ass up Earth in the morning.
The Breakfast Club