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TVL Holiday Special #2 Eyla Cuenca + Processing the Past and Preparing for Your Upcoming Birth

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Nội dung được cung cấp bởi Meagan Heaton. Tất cả nội dung podcast bao gồm các tập, đồ họa và mô tả podcast đều được Meagan Heaton hoặc đối tác nền tảng podcast của họ tải lên và cung cấp trực tiếp. Nếu bạn cho rằng ai đó đang sử dụng tác phẩm có bản quyền của bạn mà không có sự cho phép của bạn, bạn có thể làm theo quy trình được nêu ở đây https://vi.player.fm/legal.

Meagan is joined today by the amazing Eyla Cuenca! Eyla’s many years of experience as a birth worker have led her to specialize in holistic birth guidance. She helps women process past birth experiences and prepare for the most optimal future birth experiences.

Eyla has so much wisdom and such a beautiful way with words. You will definitely want to take notes and save her advice!

“There is no right way to do things. It’s simply what is in alignment with you. That’s what matters at the end of the day.”

Additional Links

Eyla's Website

Bebo Mia’s Webinar

How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents

Full Transcript under Episode Details

Full Transcript

Meagan: Turn your love of babies and bellies into cash. If you love babies and bellies and want to provide care and support to families, then Bebo Mia’s webinar is the right place for you. Get answers to those burning questions like how to be the voice you wish you had at your birth and how babies and families can be supported by doulas.

Learn all about the different kinds of doulas. You can work in fertility, pregnancy, birth, postpartum, or just enjoy working with those squishy babies. Supporting families by becoming a birth worker, aka doula, is perhaps an option that hasn’t even crossed your mind. That’s why we want you to join this webinar.

You can have great earning potential while doing something you love. Bebo Mia is the one-stop shop for education, community, and mentorship. Reserve your spot today at bebomia.com/freewebinar.

Meagan: Hello, hello. This is Meagan with The VBAC Link and we have an episode today to bring to you all about preparing, processing, and so many other things. This is something that a lot of people will write us about on our Instagram, our email box, “How do I process my previous births? How do I process what I’m going into and how do I prepare for birth when I’ve never even given birth?”

Now, I want to just note on that right there that just because you’ve had a Cesarean does not mean you haven’t given birth. That is just simply not true, so if that is in your headspace, I want you to crinkle it all up and throw it away. You have given birth.

You just haven’t maybe labored because I know for me, I hadn’t labored. I hadn’t progressed. I hadn’t dilated, but that left me questioning, “Could I dilate?” especially when I had a provider telling me that I couldn’t.

So I’m excited today to bring Eyla on. She is going to talk all about the wonderful things that she does. Eyla is a holistic birth guide doula, trainer, childbirth educator, lactation counselor, health freedom advocate, and mother. That is a lot just right there. Her work is dedicated to offering guidance that supports women and men in the process that is a return to the deepest knowing about birth, individual sovereignty, and the body’s innate intelligence.

Wow.

A conscious birth building a conscious world.

Does that just give you chills? Because that just gave me chills. Eyla, thank you so much for being here with all of us today and taking the time out of your very busy life where you do a whole bunch of things. In fact, you even mentioned in the beginning that you homeschool. What do you not do? What do you not do? Seriously, thank you so much.

Normally, we read a review, but we are actually just going to get right into it. I want to know more about what led you into doing what you do today, all of the many things.

Eyla: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I’m super excited to be here. So what led me to this? I actually was a birth photographer for many years before I started holding space as a birth doula and before I became a childbirth educator. I’ve been in the birth space for quite a long time. What I started noticing as a photographer, kind of a fly on the wall, was how different births were unfolding for women in different environments and how her birth team would also influence the energy feel of the birth.

I started taking note of all of these factors. I was a part of a few transfers meaning from a birth center to a hospital. I was a part of a woman’s journey when she would decide not to go to a hospital and just work with a midwife and do a home birth. I started noticing all of these nuances and I really wanted to get more involved and offer guidance.

So I’ve done various trainings for myself and carved out what is now this path that I am on of offering support as a holistic birth guide. Holistic really means all-encompassing. Whatever journey you’re on, whatever part of your journey you’re on, I’m going to meet you there. There is no right way to do things and that’s really what I’ve learned over the last decade is that there is no right or wrong. It’s simply what is in alignment with you. That’s what matters at the end of the day.

Meagan: I love that. I love that. It’s so important to touch on that because I feel like in today’s society, we put so much emphasis on right, wrong, failure, and success.

Eyla: Right.

Meagan: It’s so hard to feel that you failed. It’s so hard to even be labeled, even labeled on a medical record that you failed.

Eyla: Yeah.

Meagan: Or that you didn’t do this. I know that for me, when I was reviewing my previous Cesarean op reports, it triggered me and I knew. I knew. I was a doula at that point. I knew I didn’t fail, but seeing the word fail was so hard. So I love that you’re like, “I meet you wherever you are. You didn’t fail.” Yeah. I just love that. I love that so much.

Eyla: Yeah, the litmus test for a successful birth if we want to look at it, if we want to use the word successful is how you feel postpartum. Even if a woman has had an “ideal birth” and there is a lot of sludge that she is working through postpartum, that’s indicative to me that there was something about the birth that was not resonant.

Meagan: Right.

Elya: You know? That, for me, is like I said, the litmus test. What is happening to you postpartum? Are you having triggers when you are looking at your report? Are you feeling like you are still ruminating about something that occurred or something that someone said? There is always something to process. Even for women who have had an epidural, everything went smoothly, and no bumps in the road, no obvious bumps in the road, she might be having a lot of anxiety postpartum and she’s not really sure why because everything went fine. Baby is alive and healthy. She is alive and healthy.

When you start to dig in, you realize that she maybe didn’t do things a certain way that she thought she wanted to. Maybe there was someone in the room who was not treating her well, but she just ignored it and betrayed herself, and told herself that it went fine.

Meagan: Yes. Right there.

Eyla: Our postpartum state is really indicative of how things shook out during the birth. At face value, it might not seem like anything was wrong, but when we start to dig, there might be things that we just need to unbraid. It’s not right or wrong, but there is an unbraiding process that is an opportunity.

Meagan: Yeah, for sure. I love that you pointed that out because sometimes I will have clients tell me their past birth experience and I’m like, “Oh, it sounds so amazing.” Your “ideal” birth and they are like, “Yeah, but this.” Right? And I’m like, “Okay.” It might not have even been something that happened, but it was something someone said.

It’s so crazy how we look back like yeah. That totally did happen every what that you would want it to happen, but like you said, there may be something that didn’t happen the exact way they wanted or someone said something. We hold onto those things.

I know for me, I held onto something. No, my second birth didn’t go the way I wanted it. It didn’t, but at the same time, I was getting some things in that birth that I did desire. But something that was said to me held on for a long time. Sometimes, it’s those little things and it’s hard to recognize them. How can we go, especially if we had this “birth”, but how can we go back and realize what it may be that is triggering us or bringing us into this space of confusion of why we are feeling this way?

Eyla: I think it’s first important to recognize that we really can’t do this in a vacuum. If a woman is trying to process her birth on her own, it’s difficult. It’s helpful to have someone that can reflect back on what you are saying, that can just reflect back to you what they are hearing. And also being witnessed by someone is really helpful to express. It helps us in expressing. We feel safe in expressing ourselves, so you want to find someone that you feel safe talking to whether it’s a good friend. Maybe they don’t know anything about birth or it’s someone who assists with birth processing. That’s something that I do. I do one on one sessions.

Even if it’s a birth from 15 years ago, I have clients who birthed 15 years ago and they are like, “I’m just now realizing that things didn’t go down in a way that felt good for me.” So what that can look like is just walking through, “How did the labor begin?” talking about the labor and pregnancy, reflecting on the dynamic between the woman and her partner at the time, and then looking at, “When did we arrive at our birthplace? What happened? Who was there? What were the faces that you were experiencing? What were the things that were being said? What did you plan for? What went differently?”

After looking at the big picture, going back and saying, “Well, let’s look at what purpose and role each of those things played in our growth.” It’s an alchemy process that we go through. It’s like your wounds become your gifts. How do we look at everything that shook out and how do we spin that into gold? It’s not negating that things were painful or that things were deeply wounding on an emotional level. We want to acknowledge that, but we want to say, “How do we alchemize that?” Otherwise, you’re just circling the drain for years and years. I know women in their 60s who still talk about how horrible their birth was and how they would never do it again.

It’s like, “Wow. Do you really want to feel that way for the rest of your life?” That’s why I tell people in preparation for birth, “Really educate yourself. It’s never going to look exactly how you want it to, but you can get pretty close based on how well you prepare and how flexible you become.” Right? Because making a birth plan is not all of it. It’s how flexible are you with change.

Meagan: Yes.

Eyla: So if you have those components, your birth is going to unfold the way that it should and you are going to be in deep acceptance. But if you just walk into it and say, “Well, I’m just going to show up at my birthplace. The midwife is going to take care of it because midwives are into natural things. They’ll just do all of the natural things and I don’t need to think about it,” so we kind of dig our heads in the sand. That’s often when things don’t go as planned and they don’t turn out how you want them to.

I would say that getting into space with someone who can reflect back to you what you experienced and sometimes just speaking it out loud is all you need to do. It’s helpful if you know someone who understands physiological birth, so they can say, “Oh yeah. Sometimes when you get an epidural, it can slow down the baby’s heart rate and that’s probably why you heard a deceleration in the heart rate and that’s often what can lead to a C-section.” Then for the woman, it clicks for her as, “Oh. That’s what it was. There wasn’t something wrong with me or the baby.”

Meagan: Yes.

Eyla: It was the epidural and it’s okay. Now I know. And then that unlocks and she can move on.

Meagan: Yeah. I think sometimes that can be hard because I’ve heard so many people say, “Epidural doesn’t cause C-sections.” I don’t want to say that is true. Epidurals don’t necessarily cause C-sections, but there are things that happen sometimes after an epidural takes place.

Eyla: Yeah. There are symptoms of the epidural that can cause a C-section. It’s not that A + B = C, but sometimes A and B together can go to C. They can go to D. They can go into different things and you have to understand that it’s a possibility always, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it will cause the C-section, but it is possible.

Meagan: It is possible. Yeah. Another thing that stood out to me just now is a lot of things, but another thing that you just said– we were talking about birth plans. So many of my clients and maybe you have seen this through your experience through birth, but so many of my clients want these birth plans. I’m not going to tell you that a birth plan is bad, but sometimes I feel like when we have a birth plan in place, we hold ourselves to these high expectations and we have to check this birth plan off.

But when you were saying, “How flexible are you with change?” I was to encourage all of you listening whether you have had one, two, three, or however many Cesareans or maybe you are a first-time mom listening and you are wanting to learn how to avoid Cesarean and how things can pan out. If we can’t be flexible in childbirth, that can be really hard on us. It can impact us because childbirth doesn’t happen exactly the same way every time.

Even my third kid was totally different. I love that you said, “How flexible are you with change?” Is there anything that you would suggest or any tips that you could give for learning how to be flexible? Because we want what we want. We desire what we desire. We have this vision and we want this vision to pan out exactly how we want it to. That is no shame. We are human beings, right? I go to Target. I see that shirt. I want that shirt. I’m going to do what I want to get that shirt.

We go into birth and we have this birth plan and it’s this path. This is what we want. We are here to get what we want. Sometimes it doesn’t happen, so is there any way that you could give us any ideas of how to learn how to be flexible while also not getting all of your desires and shoving them to the side saying, “Oh, I have to be flexible because birth doesn’t pan out.” does that make sense?

Eyla: Totally. I think the latter like you said, “Oh, I just have to do whatever comes comes.” For me, there’s a level of self-betrayal there because you’re not asserting your needs which you should be.

Meagan: Yes.

Eyla: I don’t necessarily think that polarization is helpful to go to that end of the spectrum, however, I want to say that when we want to look at how to become more flexible, there are two main components for me. One is having faith, which a lot of people don’t. It’s having a lot of trust and faith in this process.

Meagan: It’s hard.

Eyla: It’s really hard, but that is something that is deeply personal when it comes to having faith in every area of our lives that what is laid out is meant for us.

Meagan: Mhmm.

Eyla: Seeing what we call curses and blessings and gifts. That’s how we have to look at things.

Meagan: It’s a change of mind.

Eyla: It’s a perspective shift.

Meagan: Uh-huh. That’s what I was going to say. It’s a whole perspective of, “Let’s look at it this way.”

Elya: And it’s a level of spirituality that a lot of people are resistant to for whatever reason. You know? So there’s that if you’re asking me which you are. The other piece of that for flexibility is looking at where our desire to control comes from. That’s going to require a level of inquiry that a lot of people are uncomfortable with accessing because that does require us to look at our history.

I’m not one to be stuck living in the past, however, it is helpful to look at certain experiences that we’ve had throughout childhood and growing up that cause us to really need control in order to feel safe. That comes from being in an unstable environment in childhood, right? Did you have a parent that required caretaking and did you have a parent who was emotionally volatile that required you as a child to be like, “Okay. I can’t control how my parents are responding to me. I can’t control the yelling. I can’t control the physical abuse. I can’t control the up and down, and schedule changes all of the time, but what I can control is this tiny little world in front of me. Maybe I organize my toys and my clothes a certain way. Maybe I eat certain foods because this is what I have control over.”

That compounds and becomes a patterning in our adult life of, “Well, if I don’t control the time and the place, who my OB is, the nurse that’s going to be there, and the birth plan, and the this, my hair, my clothes–” we become hyper-controlling of everything because that’s how we feel safe because as a child—

Meagan: That was our safe space.

Eyla: We could access safety. That’s just one example because, for me, holding onto that birth plan so rigidly is that there is a fear that if we lose control, we’re not going to be safe.

Meagan: Yeah. Totally. Sometimes that’s really hard to process. I have to let go of this and I’m going to be safe and create this safe space. This is not necessarily for VBAC in general. This is just preparation. You do a lot. Obviously, I just read off 10,000 caps that you wear and there are caps that you wear that we don’t even know about, right? You have all of these caps, I swear, that you wear, but in addition to processing and stuff like that, preparing.

Physiological birth– we talked about it. How can you prepare for that specifically? What tips would you give to really prepare for that and hone in on that?

Eyla: So, yeah on the physiological level, what I invite people to do is return to what I would call indigenous ways of moving. How we’ve moved before, how we moved as human beings before modern society and modern design. What does that mean? It does not mean doing a specialized pregnancy yoga or pregnancy pilates program.

Meagan: Dance.

Eyla: It means, how did we move before we had these specific things? We were squatting often. We were bending down to garden. We were resting in a squat. We were sitting in tailor pose. We were weaving, sitting in tailor pose for two hours.

Meagan: Hands and knees.

Eyla: We were walking, hands and knees. We were climbing things. So if we integrate all of those natural movements which are very second nature for our body, that’s the best physiological preparation for birth. There is no $5,000 program that is going to make your body. It’s nothing like that. It’s daily movement and resting actively.

I could sit in a chair. I could slump into the couch and rest or I could rest in a squat against a wall. I could check my emails and rest. I could scroll through my phone while I’m in a squat. Resting should be active and that’s going to open the pelvis. It’s going to add elasticity to the perineum. It’s going to make the woman’s legs stronger and ready for being in what is the marathon of labor.

Meagan: Yes.

Eyla: So that’s what I would say. We just don’t move enough as a society. You don’t need to be doing high-level cardio either. You don’t need to go to the gym. You need to walk at least an hour every day and rest actively. That’s what I would say.

The other part of the preparation is a lot of the more psycho/spiritual work that I talk about. It’s owning where we feel fear and say, “Okay. Well, I want to feel safe. This is my birth plan. I need it to feel safe.” Well, if you feel the need for that safety, it’s because there is something about your birth environment or your birth team that doesn’t feel good.

So let’s address that because you shouldn’t have to rely on a birth plan to feel safe. You shouldn’t have to rely on a birth plan. You should be able to communicate the things that you want and if you’re trusting that your birth team is hearing you, then you are not going to feel so attached to that plan like, “Follow it.” Right? You’re not going to be controlling. You’re going to be able to surrender.

So we have to look also at who is supporting us and if is this the right environment for us.

Meagan: You know, that just resonated with me so much because, with my second, I wanted this VBAC. I didn’t have a doula and my husband wasn’t on board. I had this feeling at 36 weeks that I should change providers but then I didn’t because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings or I felt bad that I was leaving his care.

Eyla: Oh, you were caretaking your doctor.

Meagan: Yes. Yeah. I really did. I was like, “I don’t want to leave him. He’s been with me for two babies,” and all of these things. I went to the same place that I knew deep down, but I didn’t want to accept it that it triggered me even just walking into my prenatal visits.

Eyla: You went back to the scene of the crime.

Meagan: Yes. I went back there and I kept going back there. I would feel it when I was there and I would feel angst. I would get more annoyed as I was waiting longer in the waiting room and I never felt like that. I am actually very calm and chill, very lax, probably too lax of a person.

So all of these things were signs and things happening and then obviously, I had a repeat Cesarean and I wasn’t necessarily supported during that birth. It happened and I have worked through it and processed it, but with my third, I had a provider who was super supportive. Super supportive and everyone was like, “Yeah, you are totally going to have this VBAC. Oh my gosh.” And something didn’t sit right.

Something did not sit right. Every time I would go in, I was like, “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.” I ended up leaving his care, a supportive provider at 24 weeks and I changed care. Exactly like what you just explained. I knew I wanted a VBAC. I knew I wanted that. Other than that, there was nothing set in my way during my labor with my third that I was like, “I have to do this. I have to do this.” It was like I was just there and I was in full trust of my entire team in that space.

I felt that that space held me and it held me tight. It held me warm and I felt all of the love and all of the support and all of the tingles along the way because truly, I mean, I don’t want to give myself a cookie, but I nailed it with my birth team.

Eyla: Give yourself the cookie.

Meagan: It took a long time for me to find it, but having that in that space, even when it was taking longer and there was a question of, “What do we do? We’ve been doing this for a really long time.” Even then, it was okay. It was okay.

Eyla: That’s so beautiful.

Meagan: And I loved that. I loved that space and I will cherish it forever. I will say that there were some things postpartum that happened that I was kind of not super loving. That’s more what I hold onto interestingly enough. I hold onto that and I still talk about this. I probably still haven’t processed this and I probably might be that 60-year-old in my sixties talking about–

Eyla: Yeah, we’ll process it one day. Just call me.

Meagan: Yeah, my postpartum. I think that processing is going to come to know more, just answering the questions that I have, right? It wasn’t bad. There were just some things that I was like, “What happened? What was that?” But yeah. I think what you were saying is getting that team, feeling that space where you might still have those desires of those birth preferences, but it’s not even something you’re focused on. You don’t even question it.

Eyla: No, if there is any part of you that is like, “This doesn’t feel good.” If you are sitting in that waiting room and you’re like, “I don’t even like being in this waiting room.” It’s not just because waiting rooms suck. There are some waiting rooms I’ve sat in where I didn’t even notice I was waiting. I felt good. I felt safe. I felt at ease. I want to invite women to stop gaslighting themselves and trust their intuition.

Meagan: That just gave me the chills, literally.

Eyla: And just because all of your friends birthed with that doctor or that midwife and they have great Yelp reviews, it does not mean that it works for you. There is nothing wrong with you if you switch providers four times in your pregnancy until you find the right one.

People spend more time shopping around for cars and test-driving cars than they do the person who is going to hold space for their birth.

Meagan: Yes.

Eyla: It’s kind of wild, right? So I really want to invite women to do that. Spend more time noticing how your body feels when you are in certain environments and with certain people who are going to be there for your birth. It might be the most amazing doula that everyone loves and you meet her and you’re like, “I am not vibing. Is there something wrong with me that I am not vibing with the best doula that everyone recommends?” No. You just don’t vibe and that’s fine.

Meagan: Yes.

Eyla: You might vibe with the doula who’s only done one birth and doesn’t have any reviews, but you just feel really safe with her. That’s where you need to walk toward. So yeah. The birth plan is helpful only because it’s an exercise in learning about what goes down at birth, but it’s not because it’s going to keep you safe from the unknowns, right? You need to feel safe with your team.

Meagan: Absolutely.

Eyla: The birth plan is not a contract. Just because you have one does not mean that everyone has to abide by the contract. It’s just an opportunity for you and your partner to be like, “Oh, what’s PKU? What’s an epidural? What’s Pitocin?” That’s where you can learn about this process. But I would just invite everyone to shop around with who’s going to be at your birth.

Do not caretake like, “Oh, my mom really wants to be there.” It’s like, “That’s okay that she wants to be there, but if you have a really charged relationship with your mother and it would actually stress you out for her to be there because she’s an anxious woman, she’s not supposed to be there because the woman birthing is supposed to surrender and how can we surrender to birth when we are taking care of everyone’s feelings?

Meagan: Yes. I mean, I can relate to that so much. My mom, to this day, I don’t know if she will ever forgive me. Seriously, she holds this grudge against me that I didn’t love her unconditionally enough to invite her into that space, but right there just goes to show right? My mom, I love her. I love my mom. I do. She’s not the person I want in my birth space. I would have been that person. I would have been that person worrying about what she would have been thinking and her worries along the way and hosting my mom.

So yeah. Sometimes those things are really, really hard. Those choices are really hard to make, but creating that birth space is going to be so powerful and like you said, you can change many times. You can change. You can change during your labor. If someone comes in and they are not resonating with you and you are not feeling it and you are feeling contention, excuse them from the birth space. Ask your husband or your partner or your doula, or someone else to play the bad guy and let them go. That is okay.

When I went in to go get my op reports for my second, he looked at me, laughed, and he said, “Good luck. No one’s going to want you out there.” Right there. Why did I stay with a provider that treated me that way? Why didn’t I follow my heart? Why didn’t I follow that heart? I was feeling good about my provider with my third. I was, but something didn’t feel right. I couldn’t put a pointer on it, but it was. It was more like, “I think my provider is going to be restrictive in the end,” and he would have. He would have been restrictive in the end.

Eyla: Wow, yeah. Isn’t it amazing? That’s what the classic narcissist says when you try to leave them. It’s like, “Good luck out there. No one else is going to want you.” It’s literally what a narcissist says to their– I don’t want to say victim because no one is a victim. No one is a victim. Everyone has a choice. Even in a narcissistic relationship, the one who is “being abused” is choosing to be there. They are the ones who are choosing not to leave.

It’s interesting that we get into these dynamics with our medical providers. It’s not just OBs. It’s midwives as well. I want everyone to get very clear on the reality that just because you are working with a midwife does not mean that it’s not going to be a highly controlled, potentially conventional relationship and birth.

Meagan: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there are providers out there that are going to be right for you and not right for you. I do too. I encourage you to follow your heart. Like you said, check into it. If you’re in that waiting room and your heart is racing and you’re feeling anxious, I don’t know. You’ve got to tune into it. This is where I speak a lot about intuition and when Julie was with me, I swear, we preach intuition. It is hard sometimes to really dive in and figure that out, but it’s important. It’s really important. It’s going to tell you something. It’s going to tell you something.

Same thing with processing birth. Tune into what’s hanging there. What is hanging there and what are you talking about? For some, that’s probably something. That’s probably something that’s triggering you.

Eyla: Of course. Of course. Yeah. This is also something that I do. I lead doula training and mentorships. This is a lot of what we talk about in this mentorship is how to hold that space. It’s not necessarily– some of the women that do this training, it’s not even to become a birth doula, it’s just learning how to hold space for a woman and offer reflection when they are going through their process or if they want to process something postpartum.

In this training, I also require that the trainees do their own amount of share of processing because we can’t really be holding space for a woman unless we are also in a self-actualization process. So yeah. It’s just learning to tune into the body and again, not gaslight yourself, right?

Meagan: Yeah. I love that. Oh, so many things. You have so many amazing things. Tell everybody where– let’s see. We’ve talked about the course and your training. Tell everybody where they can find you and find more information about everything that you offer.

Eyla: Yeah, so my website is obviously the best place to get in touch with me. It’s eylacuenca.com. There’s also uncoveringbirth.com and that’s where you could go through the master class even if you’re not pregnant, if you’re a practitioner of any kind, you’re a chiropractor, or a friend of yours is giving birth and you just want to understand the arc of birth. How were we birthing? How have we arrived here? I really feel that everyone should understand their own birth even if they don’t plan to have kids.

Understand how you came in because the way that we are born and what we experienced in our mother’s womb when she was pregnant with us influences and creates the blueprint for our life. So a lot of unanswered questions that you might have about your health, about your mental/spiritual state, those are things that you can uncover in understanding birth more clearly.

I also have an Instagram, so I do a lot of interaction there. I like to answer questions on Instagram. I do a lot of health advocacy on Instagram. I provide different types of forms for people who are going into hospital settings and want to make sure that they can keep their placenta, for example, and want to understand their rights to the placenta. So yeah. I offer a lot of those resources through Instagram and through my website.

Meagan: I love it. Awesome and we’ll make sure to have all of your information in the show notes in case you don’t know how to spell Eyla Cuenca. Don’t worry. It’s right down there and it is not Ayla, it’s Eyla if you’re looking on Instagram as well. So thank you so much Eyla. It’s been a pleasure. You are amazing. I can just feel, I can feel the passion coming through this Zoom. I really can. I feel like I need to come be your friend.

Eyla: Please, please.

Meagan: You are amazing and I’m so grateful for you and I know so many people will take so many nuggets out of this episode and they are going to apply it in their journey.

Eyla: Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

Closing

Would you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan’s bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.


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Nội dung được cung cấp bởi Meagan Heaton. Tất cả nội dung podcast bao gồm các tập, đồ họa và mô tả podcast đều được Meagan Heaton hoặc đối tác nền tảng podcast của họ tải lên và cung cấp trực tiếp. Nếu bạn cho rằng ai đó đang sử dụng tác phẩm có bản quyền của bạn mà không có sự cho phép của bạn, bạn có thể làm theo quy trình được nêu ở đây https://vi.player.fm/legal.

Meagan is joined today by the amazing Eyla Cuenca! Eyla’s many years of experience as a birth worker have led her to specialize in holistic birth guidance. She helps women process past birth experiences and prepare for the most optimal future birth experiences.

Eyla has so much wisdom and such a beautiful way with words. You will definitely want to take notes and save her advice!

“There is no right way to do things. It’s simply what is in alignment with you. That’s what matters at the end of the day.”

Additional Links

Eyla's Website

Bebo Mia’s Webinar

How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents

Full Transcript under Episode Details

Full Transcript

Meagan: Turn your love of babies and bellies into cash. If you love babies and bellies and want to provide care and support to families, then Bebo Mia’s webinar is the right place for you. Get answers to those burning questions like how to be the voice you wish you had at your birth and how babies and families can be supported by doulas.

Learn all about the different kinds of doulas. You can work in fertility, pregnancy, birth, postpartum, or just enjoy working with those squishy babies. Supporting families by becoming a birth worker, aka doula, is perhaps an option that hasn’t even crossed your mind. That’s why we want you to join this webinar.

You can have great earning potential while doing something you love. Bebo Mia is the one-stop shop for education, community, and mentorship. Reserve your spot today at bebomia.com/freewebinar.

Meagan: Hello, hello. This is Meagan with The VBAC Link and we have an episode today to bring to you all about preparing, processing, and so many other things. This is something that a lot of people will write us about on our Instagram, our email box, “How do I process my previous births? How do I process what I’m going into and how do I prepare for birth when I’ve never even given birth?”

Now, I want to just note on that right there that just because you’ve had a Cesarean does not mean you haven’t given birth. That is just simply not true, so if that is in your headspace, I want you to crinkle it all up and throw it away. You have given birth.

You just haven’t maybe labored because I know for me, I hadn’t labored. I hadn’t progressed. I hadn’t dilated, but that left me questioning, “Could I dilate?” especially when I had a provider telling me that I couldn’t.

So I’m excited today to bring Eyla on. She is going to talk all about the wonderful things that she does. Eyla is a holistic birth guide doula, trainer, childbirth educator, lactation counselor, health freedom advocate, and mother. That is a lot just right there. Her work is dedicated to offering guidance that supports women and men in the process that is a return to the deepest knowing about birth, individual sovereignty, and the body’s innate intelligence.

Wow.

A conscious birth building a conscious world.

Does that just give you chills? Because that just gave me chills. Eyla, thank you so much for being here with all of us today and taking the time out of your very busy life where you do a whole bunch of things. In fact, you even mentioned in the beginning that you homeschool. What do you not do? What do you not do? Seriously, thank you so much.

Normally, we read a review, but we are actually just going to get right into it. I want to know more about what led you into doing what you do today, all of the many things.

Eyla: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I’m super excited to be here. So what led me to this? I actually was a birth photographer for many years before I started holding space as a birth doula and before I became a childbirth educator. I’ve been in the birth space for quite a long time. What I started noticing as a photographer, kind of a fly on the wall, was how different births were unfolding for women in different environments and how her birth team would also influence the energy feel of the birth.

I started taking note of all of these factors. I was a part of a few transfers meaning from a birth center to a hospital. I was a part of a woman’s journey when she would decide not to go to a hospital and just work with a midwife and do a home birth. I started noticing all of these nuances and I really wanted to get more involved and offer guidance.

So I’ve done various trainings for myself and carved out what is now this path that I am on of offering support as a holistic birth guide. Holistic really means all-encompassing. Whatever journey you’re on, whatever part of your journey you’re on, I’m going to meet you there. There is no right way to do things and that’s really what I’ve learned over the last decade is that there is no right or wrong. It’s simply what is in alignment with you. That’s what matters at the end of the day.

Meagan: I love that. I love that. It’s so important to touch on that because I feel like in today’s society, we put so much emphasis on right, wrong, failure, and success.

Eyla: Right.

Meagan: It’s so hard to feel that you failed. It’s so hard to even be labeled, even labeled on a medical record that you failed.

Eyla: Yeah.

Meagan: Or that you didn’t do this. I know that for me, when I was reviewing my previous Cesarean op reports, it triggered me and I knew. I knew. I was a doula at that point. I knew I didn’t fail, but seeing the word fail was so hard. So I love that you’re like, “I meet you wherever you are. You didn’t fail.” Yeah. I just love that. I love that so much.

Eyla: Yeah, the litmus test for a successful birth if we want to look at it, if we want to use the word successful is how you feel postpartum. Even if a woman has had an “ideal birth” and there is a lot of sludge that she is working through postpartum, that’s indicative to me that there was something about the birth that was not resonant.

Meagan: Right.

Elya: You know? That, for me, is like I said, the litmus test. What is happening to you postpartum? Are you having triggers when you are looking at your report? Are you feeling like you are still ruminating about something that occurred or something that someone said? There is always something to process. Even for women who have had an epidural, everything went smoothly, and no bumps in the road, no obvious bumps in the road, she might be having a lot of anxiety postpartum and she’s not really sure why because everything went fine. Baby is alive and healthy. She is alive and healthy.

When you start to dig in, you realize that she maybe didn’t do things a certain way that she thought she wanted to. Maybe there was someone in the room who was not treating her well, but she just ignored it and betrayed herself, and told herself that it went fine.

Meagan: Yes. Right there.

Eyla: Our postpartum state is really indicative of how things shook out during the birth. At face value, it might not seem like anything was wrong, but when we start to dig, there might be things that we just need to unbraid. It’s not right or wrong, but there is an unbraiding process that is an opportunity.

Meagan: Yeah, for sure. I love that you pointed that out because sometimes I will have clients tell me their past birth experience and I’m like, “Oh, it sounds so amazing.” Your “ideal” birth and they are like, “Yeah, but this.” Right? And I’m like, “Okay.” It might not have even been something that happened, but it was something someone said.

It’s so crazy how we look back like yeah. That totally did happen every what that you would want it to happen, but like you said, there may be something that didn’t happen the exact way they wanted or someone said something. We hold onto those things.

I know for me, I held onto something. No, my second birth didn’t go the way I wanted it. It didn’t, but at the same time, I was getting some things in that birth that I did desire. But something that was said to me held on for a long time. Sometimes, it’s those little things and it’s hard to recognize them. How can we go, especially if we had this “birth”, but how can we go back and realize what it may be that is triggering us or bringing us into this space of confusion of why we are feeling this way?

Eyla: I think it’s first important to recognize that we really can’t do this in a vacuum. If a woman is trying to process her birth on her own, it’s difficult. It’s helpful to have someone that can reflect back on what you are saying, that can just reflect back to you what they are hearing. And also being witnessed by someone is really helpful to express. It helps us in expressing. We feel safe in expressing ourselves, so you want to find someone that you feel safe talking to whether it’s a good friend. Maybe they don’t know anything about birth or it’s someone who assists with birth processing. That’s something that I do. I do one on one sessions.

Even if it’s a birth from 15 years ago, I have clients who birthed 15 years ago and they are like, “I’m just now realizing that things didn’t go down in a way that felt good for me.” So what that can look like is just walking through, “How did the labor begin?” talking about the labor and pregnancy, reflecting on the dynamic between the woman and her partner at the time, and then looking at, “When did we arrive at our birthplace? What happened? Who was there? What were the faces that you were experiencing? What were the things that were being said? What did you plan for? What went differently?”

After looking at the big picture, going back and saying, “Well, let’s look at what purpose and role each of those things played in our growth.” It’s an alchemy process that we go through. It’s like your wounds become your gifts. How do we look at everything that shook out and how do we spin that into gold? It’s not negating that things were painful or that things were deeply wounding on an emotional level. We want to acknowledge that, but we want to say, “How do we alchemize that?” Otherwise, you’re just circling the drain for years and years. I know women in their 60s who still talk about how horrible their birth was and how they would never do it again.

It’s like, “Wow. Do you really want to feel that way for the rest of your life?” That’s why I tell people in preparation for birth, “Really educate yourself. It’s never going to look exactly how you want it to, but you can get pretty close based on how well you prepare and how flexible you become.” Right? Because making a birth plan is not all of it. It’s how flexible are you with change.

Meagan: Yes.

Eyla: So if you have those components, your birth is going to unfold the way that it should and you are going to be in deep acceptance. But if you just walk into it and say, “Well, I’m just going to show up at my birthplace. The midwife is going to take care of it because midwives are into natural things. They’ll just do all of the natural things and I don’t need to think about it,” so we kind of dig our heads in the sand. That’s often when things don’t go as planned and they don’t turn out how you want them to.

I would say that getting into space with someone who can reflect back to you what you experienced and sometimes just speaking it out loud is all you need to do. It’s helpful if you know someone who understands physiological birth, so they can say, “Oh yeah. Sometimes when you get an epidural, it can slow down the baby’s heart rate and that’s probably why you heard a deceleration in the heart rate and that’s often what can lead to a C-section.” Then for the woman, it clicks for her as, “Oh. That’s what it was. There wasn’t something wrong with me or the baby.”

Meagan: Yes.

Eyla: It was the epidural and it’s okay. Now I know. And then that unlocks and she can move on.

Meagan: Yeah. I think sometimes that can be hard because I’ve heard so many people say, “Epidural doesn’t cause C-sections.” I don’t want to say that is true. Epidurals don’t necessarily cause C-sections, but there are things that happen sometimes after an epidural takes place.

Eyla: Yeah. There are symptoms of the epidural that can cause a C-section. It’s not that A + B = C, but sometimes A and B together can go to C. They can go to D. They can go into different things and you have to understand that it’s a possibility always, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it will cause the C-section, but it is possible.

Meagan: It is possible. Yeah. Another thing that stood out to me just now is a lot of things, but another thing that you just said– we were talking about birth plans. So many of my clients and maybe you have seen this through your experience through birth, but so many of my clients want these birth plans. I’m not going to tell you that a birth plan is bad, but sometimes I feel like when we have a birth plan in place, we hold ourselves to these high expectations and we have to check this birth plan off.

But when you were saying, “How flexible are you with change?” I was to encourage all of you listening whether you have had one, two, three, or however many Cesareans or maybe you are a first-time mom listening and you are wanting to learn how to avoid Cesarean and how things can pan out. If we can’t be flexible in childbirth, that can be really hard on us. It can impact us because childbirth doesn’t happen exactly the same way every time.

Even my third kid was totally different. I love that you said, “How flexible are you with change?” Is there anything that you would suggest or any tips that you could give for learning how to be flexible? Because we want what we want. We desire what we desire. We have this vision and we want this vision to pan out exactly how we want it to. That is no shame. We are human beings, right? I go to Target. I see that shirt. I want that shirt. I’m going to do what I want to get that shirt.

We go into birth and we have this birth plan and it’s this path. This is what we want. We are here to get what we want. Sometimes it doesn’t happen, so is there any way that you could give us any ideas of how to learn how to be flexible while also not getting all of your desires and shoving them to the side saying, “Oh, I have to be flexible because birth doesn’t pan out.” does that make sense?

Eyla: Totally. I think the latter like you said, “Oh, I just have to do whatever comes comes.” For me, there’s a level of self-betrayal there because you’re not asserting your needs which you should be.

Meagan: Yes.

Eyla: I don’t necessarily think that polarization is helpful to go to that end of the spectrum, however, I want to say that when we want to look at how to become more flexible, there are two main components for me. One is having faith, which a lot of people don’t. It’s having a lot of trust and faith in this process.

Meagan: It’s hard.

Eyla: It’s really hard, but that is something that is deeply personal when it comes to having faith in every area of our lives that what is laid out is meant for us.

Meagan: Mhmm.

Eyla: Seeing what we call curses and blessings and gifts. That’s how we have to look at things.

Meagan: It’s a change of mind.

Eyla: It’s a perspective shift.

Meagan: Uh-huh. That’s what I was going to say. It’s a whole perspective of, “Let’s look at it this way.”

Elya: And it’s a level of spirituality that a lot of people are resistant to for whatever reason. You know? So there’s that if you’re asking me which you are. The other piece of that for flexibility is looking at where our desire to control comes from. That’s going to require a level of inquiry that a lot of people are uncomfortable with accessing because that does require us to look at our history.

I’m not one to be stuck living in the past, however, it is helpful to look at certain experiences that we’ve had throughout childhood and growing up that cause us to really need control in order to feel safe. That comes from being in an unstable environment in childhood, right? Did you have a parent that required caretaking and did you have a parent who was emotionally volatile that required you as a child to be like, “Okay. I can’t control how my parents are responding to me. I can’t control the yelling. I can’t control the physical abuse. I can’t control the up and down, and schedule changes all of the time, but what I can control is this tiny little world in front of me. Maybe I organize my toys and my clothes a certain way. Maybe I eat certain foods because this is what I have control over.”

That compounds and becomes a patterning in our adult life of, “Well, if I don’t control the time and the place, who my OB is, the nurse that’s going to be there, and the birth plan, and the this, my hair, my clothes–” we become hyper-controlling of everything because that’s how we feel safe because as a child—

Meagan: That was our safe space.

Eyla: We could access safety. That’s just one example because, for me, holding onto that birth plan so rigidly is that there is a fear that if we lose control, we’re not going to be safe.

Meagan: Yeah. Totally. Sometimes that’s really hard to process. I have to let go of this and I’m going to be safe and create this safe space. This is not necessarily for VBAC in general. This is just preparation. You do a lot. Obviously, I just read off 10,000 caps that you wear and there are caps that you wear that we don’t even know about, right? You have all of these caps, I swear, that you wear, but in addition to processing and stuff like that, preparing.

Physiological birth– we talked about it. How can you prepare for that specifically? What tips would you give to really prepare for that and hone in on that?

Eyla: So, yeah on the physiological level, what I invite people to do is return to what I would call indigenous ways of moving. How we’ve moved before, how we moved as human beings before modern society and modern design. What does that mean? It does not mean doing a specialized pregnancy yoga or pregnancy pilates program.

Meagan: Dance.

Eyla: It means, how did we move before we had these specific things? We were squatting often. We were bending down to garden. We were resting in a squat. We were sitting in tailor pose. We were weaving, sitting in tailor pose for two hours.

Meagan: Hands and knees.

Eyla: We were walking, hands and knees. We were climbing things. So if we integrate all of those natural movements which are very second nature for our body, that’s the best physiological preparation for birth. There is no $5,000 program that is going to make your body. It’s nothing like that. It’s daily movement and resting actively.

I could sit in a chair. I could slump into the couch and rest or I could rest in a squat against a wall. I could check my emails and rest. I could scroll through my phone while I’m in a squat. Resting should be active and that’s going to open the pelvis. It’s going to add elasticity to the perineum. It’s going to make the woman’s legs stronger and ready for being in what is the marathon of labor.

Meagan: Yes.

Eyla: So that’s what I would say. We just don’t move enough as a society. You don’t need to be doing high-level cardio either. You don’t need to go to the gym. You need to walk at least an hour every day and rest actively. That’s what I would say.

The other part of the preparation is a lot of the more psycho/spiritual work that I talk about. It’s owning where we feel fear and say, “Okay. Well, I want to feel safe. This is my birth plan. I need it to feel safe.” Well, if you feel the need for that safety, it’s because there is something about your birth environment or your birth team that doesn’t feel good.

So let’s address that because you shouldn’t have to rely on a birth plan to feel safe. You shouldn’t have to rely on a birth plan. You should be able to communicate the things that you want and if you’re trusting that your birth team is hearing you, then you are not going to feel so attached to that plan like, “Follow it.” Right? You’re not going to be controlling. You’re going to be able to surrender.

So we have to look also at who is supporting us and if is this the right environment for us.

Meagan: You know, that just resonated with me so much because, with my second, I wanted this VBAC. I didn’t have a doula and my husband wasn’t on board. I had this feeling at 36 weeks that I should change providers but then I didn’t because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings or I felt bad that I was leaving his care.

Eyla: Oh, you were caretaking your doctor.

Meagan: Yes. Yeah. I really did. I was like, “I don’t want to leave him. He’s been with me for two babies,” and all of these things. I went to the same place that I knew deep down, but I didn’t want to accept it that it triggered me even just walking into my prenatal visits.

Eyla: You went back to the scene of the crime.

Meagan: Yes. I went back there and I kept going back there. I would feel it when I was there and I would feel angst. I would get more annoyed as I was waiting longer in the waiting room and I never felt like that. I am actually very calm and chill, very lax, probably too lax of a person.

So all of these things were signs and things happening and then obviously, I had a repeat Cesarean and I wasn’t necessarily supported during that birth. It happened and I have worked through it and processed it, but with my third, I had a provider who was super supportive. Super supportive and everyone was like, “Yeah, you are totally going to have this VBAC. Oh my gosh.” And something didn’t sit right.

Something did not sit right. Every time I would go in, I was like, “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.” I ended up leaving his care, a supportive provider at 24 weeks and I changed care. Exactly like what you just explained. I knew I wanted a VBAC. I knew I wanted that. Other than that, there was nothing set in my way during my labor with my third that I was like, “I have to do this. I have to do this.” It was like I was just there and I was in full trust of my entire team in that space.

I felt that that space held me and it held me tight. It held me warm and I felt all of the love and all of the support and all of the tingles along the way because truly, I mean, I don’t want to give myself a cookie, but I nailed it with my birth team.

Eyla: Give yourself the cookie.

Meagan: It took a long time for me to find it, but having that in that space, even when it was taking longer and there was a question of, “What do we do? We’ve been doing this for a really long time.” Even then, it was okay. It was okay.

Eyla: That’s so beautiful.

Meagan: And I loved that. I loved that space and I will cherish it forever. I will say that there were some things postpartum that happened that I was kind of not super loving. That’s more what I hold onto interestingly enough. I hold onto that and I still talk about this. I probably still haven’t processed this and I probably might be that 60-year-old in my sixties talking about–

Eyla: Yeah, we’ll process it one day. Just call me.

Meagan: Yeah, my postpartum. I think that processing is going to come to know more, just answering the questions that I have, right? It wasn’t bad. There were just some things that I was like, “What happened? What was that?” But yeah. I think what you were saying is getting that team, feeling that space where you might still have those desires of those birth preferences, but it’s not even something you’re focused on. You don’t even question it.

Eyla: No, if there is any part of you that is like, “This doesn’t feel good.” If you are sitting in that waiting room and you’re like, “I don’t even like being in this waiting room.” It’s not just because waiting rooms suck. There are some waiting rooms I’ve sat in where I didn’t even notice I was waiting. I felt good. I felt safe. I felt at ease. I want to invite women to stop gaslighting themselves and trust their intuition.

Meagan: That just gave me the chills, literally.

Eyla: And just because all of your friends birthed with that doctor or that midwife and they have great Yelp reviews, it does not mean that it works for you. There is nothing wrong with you if you switch providers four times in your pregnancy until you find the right one.

People spend more time shopping around for cars and test-driving cars than they do the person who is going to hold space for their birth.

Meagan: Yes.

Eyla: It’s kind of wild, right? So I really want to invite women to do that. Spend more time noticing how your body feels when you are in certain environments and with certain people who are going to be there for your birth. It might be the most amazing doula that everyone loves and you meet her and you’re like, “I am not vibing. Is there something wrong with me that I am not vibing with the best doula that everyone recommends?” No. You just don’t vibe and that’s fine.

Meagan: Yes.

Eyla: You might vibe with the doula who’s only done one birth and doesn’t have any reviews, but you just feel really safe with her. That’s where you need to walk toward. So yeah. The birth plan is helpful only because it’s an exercise in learning about what goes down at birth, but it’s not because it’s going to keep you safe from the unknowns, right? You need to feel safe with your team.

Meagan: Absolutely.

Eyla: The birth plan is not a contract. Just because you have one does not mean that everyone has to abide by the contract. It’s just an opportunity for you and your partner to be like, “Oh, what’s PKU? What’s an epidural? What’s Pitocin?” That’s where you can learn about this process. But I would just invite everyone to shop around with who’s going to be at your birth.

Do not caretake like, “Oh, my mom really wants to be there.” It’s like, “That’s okay that she wants to be there, but if you have a really charged relationship with your mother and it would actually stress you out for her to be there because she’s an anxious woman, she’s not supposed to be there because the woman birthing is supposed to surrender and how can we surrender to birth when we are taking care of everyone’s feelings?

Meagan: Yes. I mean, I can relate to that so much. My mom, to this day, I don’t know if she will ever forgive me. Seriously, she holds this grudge against me that I didn’t love her unconditionally enough to invite her into that space, but right there just goes to show right? My mom, I love her. I love my mom. I do. She’s not the person I want in my birth space. I would have been that person. I would have been that person worrying about what she would have been thinking and her worries along the way and hosting my mom.

So yeah. Sometimes those things are really, really hard. Those choices are really hard to make, but creating that birth space is going to be so powerful and like you said, you can change many times. You can change. You can change during your labor. If someone comes in and they are not resonating with you and you are not feeling it and you are feeling contention, excuse them from the birth space. Ask your husband or your partner or your doula, or someone else to play the bad guy and let them go. That is okay.

When I went in to go get my op reports for my second, he looked at me, laughed, and he said, “Good luck. No one’s going to want you out there.” Right there. Why did I stay with a provider that treated me that way? Why didn’t I follow my heart? Why didn’t I follow that heart? I was feeling good about my provider with my third. I was, but something didn’t feel right. I couldn’t put a pointer on it, but it was. It was more like, “I think my provider is going to be restrictive in the end,” and he would have. He would have been restrictive in the end.

Eyla: Wow, yeah. Isn’t it amazing? That’s what the classic narcissist says when you try to leave them. It’s like, “Good luck out there. No one else is going to want you.” It’s literally what a narcissist says to their– I don’t want to say victim because no one is a victim. No one is a victim. Everyone has a choice. Even in a narcissistic relationship, the one who is “being abused” is choosing to be there. They are the ones who are choosing not to leave.

It’s interesting that we get into these dynamics with our medical providers. It’s not just OBs. It’s midwives as well. I want everyone to get very clear on the reality that just because you are working with a midwife does not mean that it’s not going to be a highly controlled, potentially conventional relationship and birth.

Meagan: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there are providers out there that are going to be right for you and not right for you. I do too. I encourage you to follow your heart. Like you said, check into it. If you’re in that waiting room and your heart is racing and you’re feeling anxious, I don’t know. You’ve got to tune into it. This is where I speak a lot about intuition and when Julie was with me, I swear, we preach intuition. It is hard sometimes to really dive in and figure that out, but it’s important. It’s really important. It’s going to tell you something. It’s going to tell you something.

Same thing with processing birth. Tune into what’s hanging there. What is hanging there and what are you talking about? For some, that’s probably something. That’s probably something that’s triggering you.

Eyla: Of course. Of course. Yeah. This is also something that I do. I lead doula training and mentorships. This is a lot of what we talk about in this mentorship is how to hold that space. It’s not necessarily– some of the women that do this training, it’s not even to become a birth doula, it’s just learning how to hold space for a woman and offer reflection when they are going through their process or if they want to process something postpartum.

In this training, I also require that the trainees do their own amount of share of processing because we can’t really be holding space for a woman unless we are also in a self-actualization process. So yeah. It’s just learning to tune into the body and again, not gaslight yourself, right?

Meagan: Yeah. I love that. Oh, so many things. You have so many amazing things. Tell everybody where– let’s see. We’ve talked about the course and your training. Tell everybody where they can find you and find more information about everything that you offer.

Eyla: Yeah, so my website is obviously the best place to get in touch with me. It’s eylacuenca.com. There’s also uncoveringbirth.com and that’s where you could go through the master class even if you’re not pregnant, if you’re a practitioner of any kind, you’re a chiropractor, or a friend of yours is giving birth and you just want to understand the arc of birth. How were we birthing? How have we arrived here? I really feel that everyone should understand their own birth even if they don’t plan to have kids.

Understand how you came in because the way that we are born and what we experienced in our mother’s womb when she was pregnant with us influences and creates the blueprint for our life. So a lot of unanswered questions that you might have about your health, about your mental/spiritual state, those are things that you can uncover in understanding birth more clearly.

I also have an Instagram, so I do a lot of interaction there. I like to answer questions on Instagram. I do a lot of health advocacy on Instagram. I provide different types of forms for people who are going into hospital settings and want to make sure that they can keep their placenta, for example, and want to understand their rights to the placenta. So yeah. I offer a lot of those resources through Instagram and through my website.

Meagan: I love it. Awesome and we’ll make sure to have all of your information in the show notes in case you don’t know how to spell Eyla Cuenca. Don’t worry. It’s right down there and it is not Ayla, it’s Eyla if you’re looking on Instagram as well. So thank you so much Eyla. It’s been a pleasure. You are amazing. I can just feel, I can feel the passion coming through this Zoom. I really can. I feel like I need to come be your friend.

Eyla: Please, please.

Meagan: You are amazing and I’m so grateful for you and I know so many people will take so many nuggets out of this episode and they are going to apply it in their journey.

Eyla: Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

Closing

Would you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan’s bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.


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