Today we’d like to introduce you to Shayla Brown.
Shayla, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I first founded Genesis Birthing and Living in 2014 while I was still living back home in the Mississippi Delta where I was a high school teacher at the time. I had completed my doula certification training under the Shafia Monroe Full Circle Doula Framework [formerly named the International Center for Traditional Childbearing (ICTC); now named the National Association to Advance Black Birth (NAAB)].
The training was held in Opelousas, Louisiana in the home of Devine Nicolas; certified doula, lactation consultant, herbalist, and founder of Divine Birth Wisdom and Community Birth Companion. The training was facilitated by New Orleans Native Nicole Deggins; Certified Nurse Midwife, outspoken birth justice advocate, doula trainer, and founder of Sista Midwife Productions. So, my induction into formal birth work was incubated in, and cultivated by the wisdom of African American traditional teaching, the culture of southern hospitality, and the warmth of black sisterhood.
All these training factors were critical in establishing my place in the field of birth work and in establishing and solidifying my personal beliefs surrounding pregnancy and birth experiences.
After experiencing a miscarriage and having trouble conceiving after the miscarriage, my mental and physical health declined. Unwilling to heal from the trauma of losing a pregnancy and unwilling to accept infertility, I created my own reality by I telling myself I was pregnant when in fact, I was not.
Despite several negative pregnancy tests and an ultrasound revealing that not only was I not pregnant, but that I instead had polyps on my ovaries, I declared, in the face of science and technology:
“I don’t care what you say, I am pregnant—right now.”
My body obeyed my mind and I started to “look pregnant. I even had a baby shower.
Long story short—after months of juggling a dueling my mind and my body, I reluctantly accepted that I was not pregnant. However, I refused to accept that I could not become pregnant, and so I directed my efforts toward identifying what could be wrong and what could be done to correct it.
I was raised by a single mother in an extremely rural community where time and resources were limited, so out of necessity, instead of taking us to hospitals and clinics, my mother took us to our grandmother who healed our childhood ailments with home remedies. When we did utilize local clinics and hospitals, we always left with too many pills and too few answers. I didn’t know much about my problem, but I knew it was something that I would have to figure out by my own efforts.
My research revealed that my health issues were a direct result of my diet. I cut white sugar, white starches, processed foods, meat, white flour, all drinks but water and 100% fruit juice, and adopted a vegan diet. I exercised and drank a variety of teas. I read about my health, I journaled, I cried, and I prayed.
I never visited a specialist.
Not even once.
The idea literally never even crossed my mind. I was confident that God’s natural physiological processes could heal my body….and they did just that!
Exactly a year after my miscarriage, I was pregnant.
Because I had been so successful with getting pregnant, I decided I’d take the same success factors into my pregnancy and into my labor experience. I wanted to do everything completely natural. No drugs, no interventions… and no hospitals because I didn’t want to yield to any policies outside my desires and my goals. I researched and hired a homebirth student midwife.
Looking back, I was so consumed with preparing for labor, and my husband and my midwife were so supportive that I never once doubted I could give birth naturally and at home. My family thought I was crazy and most women I ran into flooded me with horror stories about the trauma of their labors. None of it shook me, and honestly, I found myself feeling incredible sorrow for them. They deserved better experiences and I was certain that better was possible.
February 27, 2015, I gave birth to my first son in my mother-in-law’s house, in a historic winter storm, after five days of labor. I was exhausted after, and though my husband and midwife were a great support, I understand now that the thing I was missing was physical presence and support from my own family and the support of a trained labor doula. I had trained and gained knowledge about labor, but I had no experience to accompany that knowledge. A doula would have greatly made up for what I lacked.
Despite the adversity of a long and somewhat lonely labor, my labor experience was still so much less traumatic than the labor experiences of my peers. I attribute this largely to my husband’s presence, the presence and support of my in-laws, the foundation laid by the African American birth workers who trained me, and to laboring and delivering at home with an African American Midwife.
Experiencing, evaluating, and understanding all of this is what has grown my passion to serve women, particularly African American women, in the field of birth work.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
The road had not been a smooth one. To quote Langston Hughes:
“It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards were torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.”
The biggest struggles have been staying motivated. Having a birth at home breastfeeding, pursuing the doula profession, moving to the other side of the country while pregnant, trying to find an African American Midwife in the Memphis, Tennessee or in a new city on the opposite side of the country… I have literally blazed several trails in my personal community and support to do so is STARTING to trickle in, but it has not always been available.
To other women blazing trails, I advise that you focus and stay focused. Ground yourself in your beliefs, seek out mental, material, and social resources that reinforce your beliefs, create a plan and a team, and succeed. Focus on succeeding and you won’t fail.
We’d love to hear more about Genesis Birthing and Living.
I am the small business owner of Genesis Birthing and Living; a labor and delivery coaching service for families who are pregnant or who intend to become pregnant. I equip families with the tools necessary to achieve a natural, non-medicated, vaginal labor and delivery.
I am most proud of my focus in non-medicated labor and delivery, and in my goal to provide African American families with information and hands-on support to help them avoid traumatic birth experiences and unplanned and unnecessary cesarean sections. I am proud to be a piece in the puzzle of helping African American families shift the depressing and devastating narratives surrounding our birth experiences.
Birth is about life and it is simply unfair that as we go into the arena of birth, instead of the charge of life, the threat of death looms over us. My goal is to change that.
What’s the most important piece of advice you could give to a young woman just starting her career?
The most important advice I could give a young woman just starting her career would be to keep going. You will get stuck, you will be confused, you will get discouraged, you will be placed inside of boxes and inside other peoples’ ideas of who you are and what you should or shouldn’t do with your talents and your gifts, but you do have gifts. You have gifts that are specific to you and to your contribution to this earth. Not only is it permissible that you cultivate and to share those gifts, but it is a disservice to the world if you don’t.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.genesisbirthingandliving.com/#/
- Phone: 6233321445
- Email: evefromgenesis@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/genesisbirthingandliving/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GenesisBirthingandLiving/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/BirthBlog
- Other: https://genesisbirthing.wordpress.com/
Image Credit:
The Beat and Shoot, Lakisa Muhammad
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