Episode 102 transcript:

I'm going to kind of hand you the floor so tell us a little bit about you and you know your where you live and your family, your background kind of how you got into this and what TFMR doula is because I know a lot of people might not know. Alright so the whole story. Oh well,

first of all I'd start just thank you for having me on Nichole I just, I love being a part of this community and being connected with other doulas, and I just want to say thank you for how you always included me, because even pregnancy loss in general sometimes can be sort of not included in the doula world, but it's a reality for probably like one in three of everybody's clients so it's it's good for us to know about, you know when the pregnancy does not end up as a live, baby, and that's where that's where I come in, that's, that's the, those are the people that that I look after that I care for that I guide through their rite of passage into motherhood parenthood, continuing those bonds even beyond the veil with their babies who have died. And even within that my business is specifically for people who have lost a baby through T FMR so that's termination for medical reasons. Very, very tragic cases where, you know the baby his plans, and or maybe a surprise but very very wanted baby unwanted pregnancy, and then something goes horrifically wrong with the either the the mothers that are the caring persons have or the baby's health. And people have to decide, am I going to carry this pregnancy to turn, knowing that I could miscarry or the baby could die, or the baby will will die when they're born, but there will be life limiting conditions and pain that they'll have to be in. So it's really hard and then right now. There's this whole political climate around abortion because technically this is an abortion we fall underneath those laws. And we also fall underneath the stigma and the judgment of society and this very very loud, awful minority who says very awful things about us when we're just making very loving decisions for, for our children. And I got into this work because it happened to me. So that's. So I've I've been there too. I had a TF MRI, I had to terminate a very wanted pregnancy in 2018. And this was our second baby, so. Our older daughter she knew that we were pregnant, she even came with us to the ultrasound where everything was found that the baby was really sick, so that was, you know, really awful to to have her there, but she was in the other room with my, with my sister in law. And, yeah, I mean it's just so much trauma on top of trauma, and then there and that ultrasound. The doctor said, You know what are your views on on terminating, I think he even said like maybe what are your religious views or your spiritual something like that, like, whatever your or your your views, so we knew it was bad, if the doctor was recommending that as an option, not saying that we had to do that, but And he also said, you know, if you, if you decide to carry to term. Now you're a high risk pregnancy and I'll continue to see you. But I do want to also let you know that these are your options.

And, I mean he's a doctor so he doesn't do the doula side he doesn't do like the emotional and spiritual guidance. So there was no one there for me. After that, we were kind of just dropped into this black hole of like, okay, now you need to be medical experts on these terms that you just heard half an hour ago and make a whole entire decision about the entire lifespan of your child, and think about decades and decades into the future, you know, if, if our baby would have survived what would their life have been and how, how would we have gone about that, financially, emotionally, even my relationship with my husband like were we going to survive. You know we didn't, we didn't know that the answers to any of those questions and yet we had to make a decision, pretending to know all the answers. So. So then we went to we had some other room that was some other medical professionals and finally made our decision. And, yeah, I didn't find a doula until afterwards. And I remember sitting in the clinic, because I had to go to an abortion clinic. So if you have a miscarriage you go and if you have to have a DNC, you would just go to the guidance, theological ward or surgery. Surgery ward or, you know it's different depending on what country or state or even your own doctor could do it for you. But what I had was just a DNC, it's not any different. The procedure is exactly the same. But yeah, I had to go to an abortion clinic where everyone around me and all of their stories where I was so permeable, because I was a grieving mother and I had no one by my side, my husband was not allowed to even sit with me in like pre op and recovery, and I know that they I think they still do this to like in some in some hospitals so there's so much work that we have to do around baby loss, and

there's so much work that we still have to do around baby loss and advocating for people who are going through pregnancy loss, and, you know, giving them that support having someone next to them and I know this is still happening in live births still so doulas are not allowed to be there with their client in person. So just, all of that. I was feeling, as I was you know about to lose my baby as my baby was about to die and I was thinking what the hell like where's my doula and just and right right then I kind of knew, Oh, I had already. I had always had an inkling that I wanted to be a doula. But I thought, well, I'll do it when my kids are a little bit older, you know, when I can be away and go to births and have this crazy schedule or whatever. But when this happened. I knew it was time. I just knew no this this this it's time for me to be a doula and now I think I know what type of doula I want to be I want to help people who are in this specific situation, so it's sort of a cross between being an abortion doula and a pregnancy loss doula bereavement doula. Because I specifically work with people who, who have had this experience, because there's very little support for us, and I get messages all the time like thank you for doing this, it's, it's so hard to find support, it's so hard to find a place where I can talk about my grief and talk about the trauma and talk about how the political laws are affecting my grieving heart and and you know, thank you for being a safe place to land for us. So, so I know that, that what I'm doing I have to keep doing. But I didn't do it right away, because I had to go through my own grief and trauma healing process. You know therapy and my husband, he had a spa with with sweat lodge at the time so we would go in there periodically he would he would give me treatments to, and just, you know, I had to have the container of time. Not that time heals all wounds I don't believe that, but I had to have like the space and the time to do all the healing work that, that I knew I had to do before I could then go into the space and and hold this space where other people who are going through their process and and be clear in how I need to continue my own grief work and still like trauma clearing in a way so that, because there are moments where you know it's totally re triggering for me like right now in the political climate. It's it's totally re triggering and so I have to make sure that that I'm doing lots and lots of self care. And I think lots of doulas in general you know we might see other birth trauma and might bring up our other you know our own birth trauma or secondary trauma, so we need to schedule in whatever works for you, bodywork, massage, going out and walking in the forest, all of that is so necessary and. And then, and then I and then I found, Nicole. So, like she said it was like a, like a year ago and a couple months and and I was ready to, to go into this work to figure out how to do it, and I've had coaches, before, but not in the way that I worked with, with Nicola for this really intense like six months mastermind period and then we continued on in the, I think you have a different name for your membership or it's going to be changing names but, but then I continued on as well in, in her in her membership. The coaching with more coaching, and I was drawn to work with Nicole because everything just changed. So no daycare, no, going to school, I was I was I had been assuming, okay. My kids will be in school maybe summers will be hard, this and that, but then the wrench was thrown in the works, you know, for like for all of us, and I had to figure out how to make, how to make this work. And then I realized I didn't want to do it. Mostly virtual people were finding me postpartum. And I just started to grow my community and like really talk to them like get in, get into the DMS or do like lots and lots of stories and polls and questions and finding out what they wanted and they said that they wanted,

like to be together, to, to have a place to talk about it, because there are very few safe places where we can truly talk about it without people butting in and saying, Why, I would have carried my baby to term that very might well be true, but when at what but when I'm talking about my experience, I'm not saying that the way that you did it is wrong. I'm just talking about my experience and so him, which I call my grief circles so it's ascend TFM our grief circle, because I wanted to bring them together, and we could call it a flop. We could call it a failure. I got one person who applied after the date that it was supposed to start the first time. And the first time I watched it. And then I looked at him and this was November, so November 2020 I spent a day just sort of like doing the sitting in bed eating ice cream in bed watching Netflix thinking my life is dead. Sorry, you need to bleep that out. I mean, we say, Should we say shit here, it's okay. Thinking like nobody loves me what why am I even doing this all of the, the, the, you know, entrepreneur, roller coaster right. And then, and then the day after that I was like no, they need this. I know they need this and it's just that not enough people know about me yet or it's just, it just wasn't quite the time yet or who knows what the reasons are, who knows. So I started a Facebook group, and people were throwing their information at me and saying I want to join and so started with like seven or eight people and now I have over 200 people in my Facebook group, and since then I've run various circles, they start every three months. Now I get groups of like five to six people in those groups and groups so now that now I I'm running two at a time, because some people want, like, am time and a pm time, so that way people from Europe sort of those timelines can that timezone can can join in. And I also got one on one clients, Through, through all of this. So, that was, that was really helpful because,

let me put this up. Totally okay.

Stop right there. It's a gas truck that goes beyond me. I can hardly hear it.

Oh, they're gonna get loud if they're right here. I think he's okay. So working one on one with people, was really helpful because I could hear. I mean they would tell me, You know what they were going through what they were needing. And so then it just helps me know how to structure my support for other people in the future what types of offerings, I can create for them. And I started making videos and journaling prompts for the, for those one on one clients, and just like slowly uploading them into a portal on my, on my website, and soon I'm going to be launching this as like a standalone sort of DIY. Grief Support Center. I'm going to call that the TF Mr support sanctuary because I'm also going to have another safe Facebook group for, for those members so you know I want to create different, different levels of support different ways that people can can work with me. You know because people may not have the time to meet one on one, like three times a month or however I have my one on one package structured, and then the grief circles are at a specific time, so it's one group of people. And then and then we go through the process together and we all meet at the same time on, you know, every, every other Wednesday, because I've had like some nurses who want to join in, but you know their schedule is going to be all over the place. So they would only be able to make like two or three of the seven sessions. So, I, you know I'm trying to create another another way for us to come together and just talk about just talk about how we're feeling and what we're going through. Because as Nichole likes to say, to say you know it's just people who just start listened to. We're just we're just not listened to and then when it's the sort of stigmatized taboo. Just baby loss in general, it makes a lot of people really uncomfortable like to talk about a dead baby, right, like it makes them feel uncomfortable and so they'd rather not hear it. And so this is the reality that a lot of people are dealing with even with their partner or their best friend or their mom this oh like let's, let's not, you know, they're so uncomfortable that they won't even talk about it with that person who's going through this, and what we need to do we need to we need to talk about it, we need to process it. I'm trying to come up with, with a framework, so I have three three C's that I help people with so the big one is community, so we can come together in community and and and in all that there's like the communication part of community and the sharing and the and the holding and supporting. We do love each other. Even when you're going through something really tough. If you can help someone else who's going through something similarly tough like a situation similar situation, it helps you to. So, so this sort of give and take of community, and then another C, that I help people with is compassionate self care. Because self care now it's like this huge catchphrase and it could be like, get up at 5am and do the miracle morning and do this and that and have perfect routine and and prep all your food and blah blah blah. It's like super health and wellness and Canada and, and do your like, I have a lot of spiritual practice, but when you're grieving, so exhausted. So we it has to be like a different kind of self care, your self care could be I'm going to take a long nap when I get home from work, and I'm gonna watch the same reruns of Sex in the City that I've watched 20 times before in the past, because I know the storyline and nothing's gonna jump out at me and trigger me. Yeah so compassionate we're working on being compassionate with our, with ourselves with our own self care, with the changing. You know the changing self care, and. And the third see that I work with people is creative expression. So creativity,

which could mean anything. You know it's any any type of way to work with grief, so my creativity. I know that this is, you know, not going to be on video, but here behind me I have an altar, so you could, you know, keep a framed ultrasound of of your baby or if you're a doula helping someone through this grief, you could you could help them have like a physical representation, or even writing, so I have, you know, lots of journaling prompts that I help people with or in the grief circles we do that live. So we write together and then talk about how it feels to write about this or what we're writing about art as well. So I keep an art journal and in the TMR sport sanctuary, but I'm going to be opening, I have art tutorials. A very simple. So even that can overlap with the, with the compassionate self care, we're going to be compassionate with our creativity, and then community to it can overlap like we can do this creativity together and community and share our writing. So I think when all of those come together we can cut through this, the shame, the secrecy. The stigma, all those, I hear those talked about is like the big three S's. Baby loss and like anything that's, that's taboo like mental health too. Which comes into play too with, with my community.

I can imagine. Thank you for telling for sharing all of that I know it takes a lot of bravery, and I feel really honored that you feel safe sharing with us, it's public, I know you've already shared your story publicly, and that takes me back to when we first met, I feel like if I remember correctly, was your Instagram, a private profile back then.

I cannot remember it wasn't it wasn't it wasn't set to private. And I never had like a personal Instagram, but it was it was it was like it was personal. So like if you scroll all the way back, I was just kind of writing about my, my process through spirituality and grief and losing my baby, but it was more personal, it wasn't it wasn't really businessy yet.

Right, and I watched your and it really, you know, I should say to you, meeting you talking to you last July of 2020 I remember now because you came in, right, like the day that we were starting I think or like the day before I can't remember but you came in like, and I, we hadn't met before and I, you told me some of your story on Zoom, and you know I had to go and sit and like, okay I had never met anybody that I was aware of that had experienced that type of loss I think that's an important point is that that I was aware of right, and nobody had ever talked to me about it before and so I had to go and sit and do a little research and I was like, Well, how do you feel about this Nicole and I'm like, well, the same way I'd feel about many other things when it comes to women and people who are able to give birth, and our sovereignty and our choices that we are allowed to make, and our bodies and all of the things and so I feel the same way about it and that is what I'm available for in my spaces, and that's the energy that I think is really important to bring into the containers that, that I hold space for is this non judgmental, open space and it was really important to see that transpiring. And so I learned a lot from you and I also, I remember specifically one day I was driving home from the beach with the kids, and we were boxing about some things. And I remember just getting really emotional and, you know, Olivia was in the car and she kind of was at the age that she would understand when when like mommy's crying Why have you cried, you know she would get it. Amani was still too little, but I remember getting really emotional, listening to a Vox and thinking before I was responding because I was thinking about. And it was earlier on in your business like you were describing you were building and you're approaching that first launch and it felt like it didn't work and it may have been a failure or whatever and I just remembered feeling, and I don't remember specifically where it was in terms of your launch but like any entrepreneur we have those roller coaster days, and on the down days, I go back to for myself and for my clients, I go back to like why is this really important. And I remember doing that processing that before I replied to you and I remember thinking how important it is to heal pained parents, because you haven't you had another child. When your T FMR occurred, so even if you did not go on to have additional children after you are still have this living child and so for her to grow up with a pain parent, you know, many of us who have grown up with a pain to parent can speak to how hard that can be for whatever the reason, and so I felt like what a gift that you're healing yourself and your healing, all of these other people who have experienced this, their partners. And what a gift that is for their other children if they have other children for themselves but for their other children and it just, it was really, it was intense, it was an intense feeling because it, it was like we have access to people like you that our parents didn't have access like this, there may have been somebody but like what are the chances that there was somebody like you in their local area that they knew that they could go to their office and set right that wasn't possible. And you didn't mention but Sabrina lives. Do you want me to say or should I not say, like, where,

oh, yeah, no, No, I live in Mexico but I'm originally from, from California. And right like I think Nicole once say you know I work all virtually, and my clients are in Canada, the US also Mexico, the UK, Europe, Asia,

everywhere. It's It's incredible what we have access to like the the healing the resources like I go I have a lot of feelings about technology sometimes and you can look at technology through a critical lens and I have moments where I do, but also I look at the gifts that technology allows us and allows it allows us to connect and it allows us to receive support and to receive healing from the people that we really need. And now here you are, you know, helping people. And it just, it's really, it's really incredible, Because, you know you've, you've continued to do brave things you've continued to do hard things and show up and speak about it when it wasn't easy.

Well, especially now with the Texas thing you know I don't know am I gonna get sued. I mean, I don't know no one really knows what's going on with this. But the day that that happened. I'm like, I need to show up for my community I need to come out and say, I will continue to support all of you I have no idea what's going on with these laws but I am still here for you, but it's like drawing a line, you know, it's like taking a stance. Yeah, it's big. But I'm going to do it for them and I'm doing it for me and I'm doing it for all of their families or babies that may come or, you know their other children.

Yeah. And I also want to speak to the, you know how, with this isn't something we talk about a lot on the podcast, but it's something I had been thinking about lately as as business owners, earning, trust, and sometimes when you start doing business online, it's hard for people to just trust people that show up online offering things and asking for money, you know, because anybody could be behind that Instagram account, we've seen fake Instagram accounts fake selling and I've even fallen into like buying things from people that are not of high integrity and so building an earning trust is a really big deal and I like you, you know specifically for your groups and your community. You have been very intentional with how you build your groups because you're not looking for, you know, are your goals are different than many other people's and your goals have never been to have the biggest community out in the world right that's not your goal. Your goal is to have very specific aligned, people that are here for you to help. And I think that's really powerful because you've built your community with that intention and because of that they trust you because you don't just let people into your Facebook group, you have a very detailed process I remembered you know how you were your screening process for screening people to make sure this is a safe space and because of those kinds of things you're willing to do the extra work, your community trusts you.

Yeah, yeah, it does take extra work, but it's for all of our safety, no there's a reason behind it. And because I know that I have these certain things that I do have to put like extra time and care and love into. I made all the rest of the stuff running in the background on on autopilot as much as possible, to free up so that I can make those like heart base decisions that that may take some time, but everything else needs to be like so automated and that was also another thing that you know that I really enjoyed being, you know, learning from you and going through your courses, is how to automate as much as possible, because it just it just has to, or else, it just has to,

well the sustainability right I think a lot of new business owners don't really understand maybe what I mean when I say building a sustainable business but you know those automations and having some of those that whatever possible to run on autopilot is critical for sustainability because you're going to have days you're going to have days where life hits you and days where, like you said, you know, last you joined my program in the middle of the pandemic and you guys were on total lockdown. And, you know, life really hits you so like when life does for whatever reason and when life is happening like you have to have things in place so that your business can keep running. And you can I mean there's still going to be things that you have to do in your real time and you want to do because you do want to be working with your client you do want to be in the on Zoom or whatever it is or inbox are insane for me right like last week that episode was how I took August off like I'm putting quotes I wasn't exactly off like I wasn't doing a lot of front, outwardly things on social media but I was really working with my people. That's what I wanted to do and you need to be able, for you to be able to show up like that, you have to have these systems running in the background, it's just, I think it can be overwhelming for some people when they're starting out, especially if you've never done. It is, yeah it definitely is. But you know, I think you can maybe attest to this, but when you start. When you start it at the, at level one and just make it as easy as possible and just start with one little piece and keeping the Envision in Insight but like moving and taking one aligned action, maybe every day. Sometimes you miss days but that's okay but now you look back, it's been 14 months. And look at what you have you have this circle, you have to, that you have to run all that like at the same time because the time zones and people, and you have private clients, and you're building your sanctuary, and you have incredible opt in experiences, I'm not going to just say these are like freebies because that's not what it is, this is an experience that people get to have. And the first thing that you sent me for your OPT in experience, I was like, my jaw dropped. And I've talked about it on the podcast a little bit before, but I was like, oh my god Sabrina like this is I look at it and my, my grid worker brain is like this is like 10 different courses and all of these things. It was so comprehensive it was so energy worker, and then a very in depth experience important experience so I admire very much what you're doing. Oh you know what I was going to ask you to. What's up, so we haven't talked about this, but is there anything coming on the horizon, I'm just going to plant the seed maybe but is there anything coming on the horizon, to train other doulas, how to support TFM our clients,

yeah okay so I have lots of different ideas about this, but I really have to have my stuff really built out for my community first very much in the same way that you that you did it, you know, you, first you have the courses for pregnant people, and, and you built that community, and then now all of that is sort of running in the background. And then you started teaching people how to do that for their own clientele and, and, and they're pregnant people and their people going through whatever they're going through. But yes I have other people following me who they're like how can I be a TF Mr doula. And, and I say, keep following me, you know, watch what I'm doing. Just watch, you know, just watch what watch what I'm doing, see what I put out, you know like opt in to all of my things come and be part of the community, almost all of them have also gone through a termination as well, so they are a part of my community to come in, come into my Facebook group like be part of the community, give support to other people. And we'll be in contact and eventually I do want to have some sort of certification for. Well not necessarily sort of training, I guess, for birth workers, even doctors, nurses, anybody who has to give this type of news to somebody or help somebody in the process, you know as their, as their as this, as they're finding out that that their, their child may not survive more that their baby is going to be very very sick or, you know, fair so so many diagnoses but what we can do is we can help them through the emotional side, we can listen to them, we can acknowledge all of the seemingly conflicting feelings that they're having about all of it and say, Yeah, I hear you. I hear you and that's really, really hard. So, I do, I do eventually want to have sort of like a holding space, holding space for TFM are parents how to do that for birth professionals.

I think that would be really really important and maybe even continuing education credits through various organizations, opportunities for, you know, certified doulas who want to continuing Yeah, that could be a cool way to do it as well. And I agree, so that would be my advice to everybody listening is go hang out with Sabrina on social media. Follow all tat I'll include her Instagram handle I think it's just that TMR for dads e m f our doula right, if I remember.

The third TF Mr doula on Instagram and it's the same on Facebook. So I have a facebook page, too, and I post this very similar things in both places, almost Facebook pages. You don't ever see like anything that anybody posts there once you follow the Facebook page, but I think there's a way that you can, you know put follow, like, please send me this information I'm following this page, please let me see what they post.

Yeah, and she's on YouTube as well. You do, you have interviews and such on YouTube, so that would be hanging out with her on social media wherever you know you hang out where you can find her and also as a resource. If you are not competent in this specific area and you have clients who are facing this kind of decision and you just, you know, don't have the competency, you know, refer, refer you know. So, that also. Side note, when we were speaking earlier and you said that there's a lot of people that aren't comfortable talking about this with their family members or their friends or doctor anybody I think, and you probably can, you know, speak on this as well I think I think part of it is people are. They can imagine how painful it would be and they don't want to go there and imagine that, and so they probably rather just not, not, not saying, you know it's not okay. And I think that's what it when people say things like, I can imagine, or I can't imagine. I can't imagine I really are. I think they can imagine and that's why they won't.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we've just. We've never been taught how to, like, be around grief, even sit with it ourselves. So if we don't even know how to go through like grief or anger or big trauma or any of these big emotions or, or any really really tough situation. How are we supposed to then know how to sit with someone else who's going through it we were never, we were never taught how to how to sit with the uncomfortable, how to listen to another person, because it can even be hard to see even listen to yourself when you're going through these things like we have all these negative thoughts and we don't even want to hear them and then we just numb out and it's it's it's so hard great grief in general, there's been no training in society on how to go through the grief process. And then on top of that, then it's also, you know baby loss, which has its own stigma and people really don't want to think about losing their child or losing their own children or they just don't want to think about it, you know, nobody wants to think about it, I don't want to think about it, but I don't have the luxury to not think about how to hit. And so anybody who's going through this, we can just block it out as much as we may want to thank you. Thank you for sharing and thank you for doing that and guiding people and helping parents and families heal and doing the hard things. And coming here, of course, so I appreciate you. Thank you. Yeah, and if you want to put in the shownotes. The link for somebody to to join my Facebook group, so there's the application process, it's just at my website, the TFM our doula.com slash Facebook group, all one word,

Facebook group. Okay. Um,

so, if they do need that safe space or like you said, you know, if you're doing you need to refer, I would start there, you know like refer them to my Facebook group, because then from there, they can get a sense of the other people who are in the community. If this is the space that, that they like being in if they feel safe there, they feel safe with me, because they do, I do other videos and posts in there that are nowhere else, because we're going we're going deeper, and we can talk about the things there that I mean I'm pretty open on social media, but there are certain things that I know if I post, I may not even get any comments because people don't want to like publicly say I feel that too. But when we're in the Facebook group.