#486: Holding Hope After Miscarriage with Kenzie Covarrubias

Dr. Stuart Fischbein (0:03)

Welcome to the Birthing Instincts podcast. I'm Dr. Stuart Fischbein, a hospital and home birth obstetrician for over 40 years, and a long time advocate for birth choices.

Blyss Young (0:11)

And I'm Blyss Young, a traditional midwife. Join us in our conversational style podcast where we talk about everything birth.

Dr. Stuart Fischbein (0:19)

Sometimes we laugh, sometimes we cry, but we're happy that you're here. So here we go.

I'm in the right place for the show, so let's go on because you know where I am right now, right?

Blyss Young (0:31)

No.

Dr. Stuart Fischbein (0:33)

If you look out my window, I tried to get the scenery in the background, there's World Trade Center 1

Blyss Young (0:38)

Oh, you were in New York, that's right. Yes, of course.

Dr. Stuart Fischbein (0:40)

I'm in New York City.

Yeah, last night, Maddie and I went to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on Broadway. It's really great.

Blyss Young (0:49)

Fun. And with your daughter, so it's the best.

Dr. Stuart Fischbein (0:53)

Yeah, it's the only thing better than going to a Broadway play and just going with your own kid. So yeah, it was fantastic. So here I am in New York. What am I doing in New York? I came to visit my daughter. And then in a couple of days, I'm going to Lancaster, Pennsylvania to sit on a panel.

I'm not quite sure exactly the purpose of the day, but I've been asked by somebody that I respect to come and make a statement in front of a legislative panel or something like that regarding Midwifery in Pennsylvania, which is in flux right now. So I'm doing that. So this is my week.

Blyss Young (1:33)

Awesome. Wonderful. Well, I am waiting on a baby. I just went back on call. I got to meet her doula yesterday when we did the little home visit. And I'm excited. It's going to be a beautiful birth. It's a client that I supported in Santa Barbara. And she just happened. We both happened to move to Southern Oregon. So I get to support her again. So it's always fun to be on call and to be waiting on a baby and all of the mystery that that brings. And yeah, doing my mentorship, which I really am enjoying. I'll have another one in the spring.

Living life, living the Southern Oregon life.

Okay.

Dr. Stuart Fischbein (2:17)

Well, that's good. Yeah. I had a very quiet week last week. And I've just got one or two things to talk about before we bring on our guest today, who is Kenzie Covarrubias. Covarrubias. Thank you. Kenzie Covarrubias from Held in Hope, an organization that helps women and families deal with the loss that people suffer through miscarriage.

Kenzie Covarrubias (2:43)

Yeah.

Blyss Young (2:43)

They send this amazing package, and you can buy them as a midwife or even a friend. It's a non-profit organization, and they reached out to us, and I got the box recently and opened it, and it meets my standards, and I have very high standards. So I thought it would be beautiful to bring them on and introduce you guys to the wonderful work that they're doing. So we'll get to that in just a few minutes.

Dr. Stuart Fischbein (3:08)

Yeah. So the one follow-up thing that I have was from our podcast with Gina Mundy, a lawyer, and Brianna sent this letter to you and me. I don't know if you saw it or not. I never know if you read the same things that I read, but it's addressed to both of us, and you're just Blyss in this one. So it's there, Dr. Stu and Blyss. I want to thank you for all the time you put into your podcast. You're welcome. We do. I've learned so much valuable information. I am a nurse, but not a labor and delivery nurse, but I've seen both the positive and unfortunately, the negatives of our modern hospital care system. Your perspectives are invaluable, especially when at times, I feel like I am the only one seeing harms in what we do.

Thank you for the reminder that I am not the only one. It is nice, by the way, to have a community. Yep. That's our Patreon community. That's the Reclaiming Birth Community.

These things, you're reminded daily that you're not the only one. Yeah. And that you're not crazy.

Blyss Young (4:11)

Right.

Dr. Stuart Fischbein (4:12)

Very important.

I want to thank you both for your dedication to transforming care in the birth world. I enjoyed the podcast you just released with Gina Mundy and began listening to her book. Unfortunately, the book makes it seem like invasive fetal heart monitoring and C-sections are the safest option for women. I'm glad she shared about Pitocin and emphasized how often it comes up in cases where you can't read it and that having a doula tends to limit the need for a childbirth attorney. I would be interested in hearing your opinions on the book when you have ability to read it. Well, of course, at this point, you and I have not read it, which I like to try to read things before people come on, but that wasn't why I brought her on. But I have to say that when she came on, I think that she learned a lot from us because I don't think that she heard people talk about birth like we do generally. So she's in the mainstream.