Full Transcript:

Emily Race 0:12

Welcome to the Founding Mothers Podcast where we're imagining new ways of living with one another and our planet. I'm your host Emily Race. On today's episode, we'll be speaking with Alondra Sanchez. Alondra is a labor and postpartum companion, who devotes herself to whole family wellness.

Alondra Sanchez 0:30

I had a client a couple years ago, and their biggest request was that I take care of their husband. Yeah, he can take care of her. But she said, “It's okay, if he's coming to you to complain about me.” And that was her biggest concern. She was like, “As long as he's taken care of, I don't think I really need you”. I was like, wow, that is a whole new twist of my job.

Emily Race 0:51

She believes in a slow and gentle way of life, by practicing things like urban homesteading, sustainable living, organic nourishment, and deep self and community care. Her Mexican indigenous roots led her to hold a village-centered and method of life that she believes will bring her home to a life of happiness and fulfillment.

I'm so excited to have Alondra with me today for this conversation. And this is the first recording that we're actually doing in person. So this is a bit of an experiment on many levels. But thank you for being here.

Alondra Sanchez 1:24

Yeah, thank you for having me. Thank you for doing it in person.

Emily Race 1:28

Yeah. And one of the special things for our listeners, just so you know, is I'm actually five weeks postpartum right now. So it's a perfect container for this conversation. I'm so excited that Alondra is going to be speaking to us about her experience, the work that she does, and I hope to also bring a bit of my experience into this conversation as well, because just living through this is giving me a lot to think about and share. So with that, I'd love to start by asking you, Alondra, to share about who you are the work you do in the world and, and how that came to be. Big question.

Alondra Sanchez 2:03

It's such a big question. Thank you for having me, and also may I say how special it's been to help you along and be a part of this journey, a very small facet of this journey with you. It's been so nice to get to know you, and see you along the way. Yeah.

Emily Race 2:21

I have to thank you for everyone else to hear, because you've truly been part of my foundational support team. And I know we'll talk about that a lot, but I honestly don't know what this would have looked like without your support; whether it's the food that you've brought, or the conversations you've had with me. It's been crucial, crucial. So thank you.

Alondra Sanchez 2:43

Thank you. It's so special. So, for context, I am a healer, caretaker, doula of many sorts and types. That's the role that I labeled myself as and I feel internally this healer, this caretaker for the world. And for everyone that I meet in my life, I can't help but nourish, and not just food wise, but soul and energetically wise, everyone that I'm with. I really feel them and try to love on them as much as possible because I think that that's really missing in our society. That's who I am in the world. I am a caretaker. I think doula has a very — that's a big part of my identity — but the word doula is very much associated with a specific community… postpartum labor… what's the word I'm looking for?

Emily Race 3:58

Like phase of life or?

Alondra Sanchez 4:01

Community? Population. The doulas are very much associated with the population that's giving birth, right? And having babies and starting families, and so that's a very smart small part of my identity and who I am. But as a whole, I also do it on many levels and another level is taking care of the earth. I'm very passionate about organic farming and sustainable farming integrated farming and right now in my house is starting this little mini urban homestead which I think is hilarious. Oh my gosh, and I just I told Emily, I just got chickens.

Emily Race 4:49

Yup.

Alondra Sanchez 4:49

And I'm collecting chicken poop and making my own fertilizer. That's my first step is I'm going to I'm going to focus on the chickens get to know chickens and how to raise them. And I'm trying to get them to hatch eggs right now too. And they're feeding me and my family and I'm feeding them and my husband raises bugs for them. So we're able to integrate them in our little homestead and hopefully get our garden going again. It's been a couple of years just because hopping back from COVID has been a slow transition.

Emily Race 5:29

Yeah. When you first told me about the chickens, I just feel like I want to follow you around with a camera and document everything you're doing. I guess the podcast is the first step is my secret obsession with taking what Alondra does for her life and sharing it with the world? (Because I think, so many of us aspire or dream about, especially after COVID of playing with homesteading, or maybe we resonate with that caretaker part of our identity, but you are so about it. From our first conversation I felt so cared for. Thank you for sharing that. And I love that you identify that way.

Alondra Sanchez 6:04

Yeah.

Emily Race 6:05

Can you tell us about your journey getting to this point? I know it's an ongoing journey, but what are the things that have shaped you, the metaphorical “doulas” that have shaped you in this work?

Alondra Sanchez 6:17

I mean, life is such a journey. And I think about that a lot. Why am I this healer? Why am I this caretaker? Where did it come from? It comes so naturally to me. Like, even when I was a little, my favorite thing to do was go hang out with the babies, from little child to high school, college, even now. And, of course, I love good old adult time, but I do like hanging out and also hanging out with their moms and being close with them, the family members that I really resonate with, I was there for them postpartum, helped them take care of their babies, and got off a little off track, but the relationships in my life have influenced me to become this caretaker, this healer. And one of those, like I just mentioned, it's been my natural innate ability and desire to want to do that. And another relationship that formed me was my relationship with my mom. And her and I had a really patchy relationship growing up. And, you know, I, she had a really rough postpartum. And now that I've taken a step back and have forgiven her for all the things that happened, I see that the reason that she couldn't be there for me emotionally and to take care of me was because she never was taken care of postpartum and she was never able to catch up.

Emily Race 8:20

You've already told me this, but here I am getting emotional hearing it again.

Alondra Sanchez 8:24

Yeah, it's true. I haven't had an open dialogue with her about it yet. I think it's going to happen when I have my own children. And I get to know her in a different way.

Emily Race 8:39

Yeah.

Alondra Sanchez 8:39

Yeah. So, I think that relationship of not having someone that was supposed to care for me in a certain way. And I found it within myself how to take care of myself, and then learning to take care of her often times, because no one was taking care of her. And she took care of us financially. She worked a lot. She was a hard worker, she provided as much as she possibly could. And that's the role that she was comfortable assuming, but the other, emotional stuff, the mothering relationship, wasn't there with us for our relationship. And oftentimes, it kind of turned around on me, and I was her mom a little bit, right? And I was taking care of her. And oftentimes, it did feel like I was her mom. I would tell her that, in our teenage arguments, like, “I'm your mom, why am I taking care of you? Why do I have to make those decisions? I'm a kid.”

Emily Race 9:38

So confusing.

Alondra Sanchez 9:41

Yeah, but I really think that foundationally it's in my genes to be a healer. And I think that really ripped that part of me out and put it front and center, because I needed to heal myself. I needed to nurture myself and nurture my relationship with my mom because I wanted to have her around. I wanted to have this mother, whatever capacity she could, I wanted to have that relationship with her. It took 15 years, but here we are. And I'm the closest with her that I've ever been. And it was because I sat down and said, “We're doing this work”. I asked her to go to therapy. We couldn't do the work together, because I was too close to it. But she agreed, she went to therapy, and whatever happened in therapy really worked for us, because we're able to now have a pretty good relationship. I don't see her very often. I'm not saying like, we're close where I call her every single day, because I don't, but we have an understanding relationship. And when I need a mom, I'm able to reach out to her. And when she needs a daughter, she's able to reach out to me. And we give each other space because it seems to really work for us. I think that's just Chapter Five in our relationship. I got married in February. I think this is the beginning of the new mother chapter that I have with her. Right? Getting to know her when I'm a wife, and knowing that she has been a wife. And when we start having kids… yeah.

Emily Race 11:27

Another evolution.

Alondra Sanchez 11:28

A whole other evolution of this whole new person. I think that you that you can relate with that.

Emily Race 11:35

1,000%. You're touching on so many things that probably any listener can relate to. We talked about this, when we first were unpacking some of these topics. We all start with a mother, in some form, whether we actually grew up with that mother, she was around, living, present or not. I'm really sending you a lot of love for navigating that relationship and the tricky thorns in it, but also being able to find the path for healing. I can actually connect the dots to how you identify as this healer and a caretaker, growing from the seed of your relationship with your mom, and what you had to do out of survival or what had to work for you at that time.

Alondra Sanchez 12:23

Yeah. And I donated those tools and turn them around for my benefit. I agree, I think that on some level, everyone can relate to that. I think that we can all think back to some memory in childhood, whether it was a mother-like influence, or maybe you just had a dad, or maybe you had grandparents— we had that parental figure or mother figure, and that's somehow shaped you because of that. Or because one didn't have it.

Emily Race 13:14

Yeah. Whatever the caretaking influence was or wasn't. I want to go back to what you said about how you've now reflected on the postpartum care that your mom did or didn't have, and how that shaped her and then by ripple effect shaped you. I'd love to break down, what is your vision for what postpartum care could look like?

Alondra Sanchez 13:42

I think it could be village-centered to some capacity. We live in such a fast paced society. Where I grew up in Mexico, right? I was born in a small town, and there was this village center, my grandma raised me for the first few years of my life. And that was my mom's support, but she had to go off and make money to support us. But in that I have beautiful memories of hanging out with my great grandma and my aunts. My aunt had a store front in Mexico, a little mini market in your front yard. And going over to there and like stealing chips, or whatever it was; I have all these memories of this village that raised me, that helped me. Right now in our Western society, I think that that's really hard to come by. Because families in the US, they move. And maybe they're refugees from somewhere and they started a family here and they only have maybe one or two generations of family. And maybe they're not close or you lose touch, or there's fights, and there's no community. There's so many reasons why that village-centered care doesn't exist here.

But what I see postpartum being, is when someone is creating a family, to find a way to create that village for you, and whether that means hiring somebody that you really connect with, or it means finding some really wonderful friends that are there to support you, people part of whatever social groups or church — or whatever it is for that person, everyone has their own flair to it, their own method — but finding that village that's there to support you, and you can reach out and say “Will you make me some soup?”, “Will you come over and just sit and hold my hand?” When the mother — and really when the parents— are being taken care of, the baby feels that. The baby feels that. And that slow, slow healing at the beginning; you connect to your baby in such a different way than if you had to go to work immediately. We live in that society. Right? And that does happen. But how do we own it and use it to our benefit?

Emily Race 16:34

Just pausing there, and I wanna even go deeper, but a couple things that I've been noticing from my own experience is that looks like having to ask for help, which can be really difficult for a lot of people. Maybe, historically, women especially; I don't know, if that's a fair characterization. But yeah, it looks like asking for help. And sometimes thinking ahead. You know, I was new to this area, so months ahead of time, I had to start thinking about who would be our community here. I also think about access and privilege and all of that, and how expensive it can be to even hire the support if your family and friends aren't local. So there's this interesting tension, I feel, around creating that village. I don't know if you have thoughts on that. Or if you feel like there is a path that's easy for people to build that village.

Alondra Sanchez 17:30

I don't think that any of it easy, necessarily. I think everyone, and like you said, depending on their access to money and what their privileges are, where their family is, if they're new to town; everyone has so many factors in creating this village. I think what you did: sitting down, “how do we create this village” and for you, it looked like X, Y and Z. I think that the hardest part is the determination to find it. And to surrender to asking for help. When we had this conversation of having kids, my husband and I, I thought “Do I really need to hire a postpartum doula? I'm a postpartum doula. I'm a birth doula.I'm a postpartum cook chef. I can do it.” But I have never been postpartum before. I have taken care of people. And I know what it looks like, I know what it can look like. And I mean, it was just a quick thought in my mind and immediately, I shut it down. I'm like, “No, you need to start saving. And you need to find the doulas that you want to work with and midwives.” And that's just my personal route. Because everyone deserves the support, including myself, even if somehow miraculously, I'm fine, and I got nothing going on with me, and it was “easy”, no complications; even in that scenario, I want someone to bring me soup. I want someone to come and rub my feet. Whether it's a friend or a doula that I hire, I would love that. I want them to come to me and to clean up and walk the dog so I don't have to think about it. I think about what my needs are when I'm sick, when I have a flu. My husband does all these things for me. Postpartum, it's very physical and emotional for the birth parent. It's also very emotional and physical for the partners. Partners get … What is it called? Pseudo pains, sympathy pain!

Emily Race 19:50

Yeah, Charlie was saying he was having cramping and I'm like, Oh, wow.

I'm so glad you bring that up. Because one thing I found is the partners are often missing in the conversation for some reason, and that would really be the next step to the evolution around this is not just to look at what does the birthing parent need, but to include their partner, if they have one in, because I think without doing that, then you have another fragmentation or separation point.

Alondra Sanchez 20:19

You know, you're triggering a memory.I had a client a couple years ago, and their biggest request was that I take care of their husband. He can take care of her. But she said, “Take care of making sure he's got food, and we'll make sure that the fridge is stocked for him so that he can do whatever he needs to do to, and it's okay if he's coming to you to complain about me", and that was her biggest concern. She needed a doula to basically doula her husband. “I don't think I really need you as I'm taken care of.” And I was like, “Wow, that is a whole new twist of my job.” I had never done that before. And I actually didn't really even get to know her very well. I got to know him well, but I didn't really get to know her all that well. We knew each other and I checked in with her, right? But really, I got to know him a lot better. And I thought that was so tender of her request and considerate and then incorporating him in this postpartum experience. What I've taken that from that is to be more intentional with my time with the partners.

Emily Race 21:47

Yep, just bring them into the fold. One thing that came to mind as you're saying that is for some birthing parents, I know for myself, even, when I was giving birth, I was worried about the other people. I was like, “Are they okay, do they need anything” and so it could relieve that feeling of “I need to take care of my husband, even emotionally, make sure he's okay”, by knowing that someone else is helping with that role.

Okay, so I totally am on board with this village mentality. I would love to see that brought more into our culture here in the United States. I'm wondering, what does that care look like? We're talking about soup and food and rubbing your feet. Can you expand on the vision for the types of care involved in that village mentality?

Alondra Sanchez 22:34

A doula is going to do very specific things. They come into your home and they take care of you physically and emotionally. Another mode is, again, having somebody bring food to your home so that's one less thing that the parents have to think about. Another way is body support; someone that the parents trust to come into their home and they're not going out to their office to go get a massage, because I've experienced that depending on how far away they are from my home, once I get a massage and they hop in the car I'm like, “This doesn't feel right. I should be napping.”

Emily Race 23:24

(Laughing) Yeah.

Alondra Sanchez 23:26

Why am I driving? It ruins this whole $200 massage. You're not able to get that full body release that the massage was beginning, you know? So, bodywork that comes into your home, lactation support. And really, friendships, whether that looks in the form of like that come to visit or best friends or someone comes to fly out and having a guest either stay out of your home or in their home, but they know that they're going to be independent and they're not going to ask you for anything; they're coming and they're ready, prepared.

Emily Race 24:13

“Where's the washer and dryer?”

Alondra Sanchez 24:15

Mind their own business, chime in when they need to. “I'm right down the hall”. Call them in the middle of the night because you need someone to hold the baby. Now that you've been through this, do you have any ideas?

Emily Race 24:33

You're hitting the head on everything. What's coming to mind more so, for people who either have experienced birth and this whole phase, and for those who haven't: can we talk about why this is important? I know that when I was pregnant, I was challenged with ideas of “Oh, is that just a nice to have” or “Is that just a luxury,, I can afford to do it so I might as well try?” Why is this important, both for the birthing parent and the whole family unit?

Alondra Sanchez 25:05

Yeah. It's a really good question. There's so many reasons why it's important, but the foundation is because this beautiful little baby tenters this world and the parents should not be thinking about anything else. You know, they say that the birthing person shouldn't even be using their brain, they should just be instinctually bonding with their baby. If they’re chest feeding or bottle feeding, however, feeding their baby instinctually.

Humans have such powerful, powerful minds and so many thought process going on in there that it takes away from our instincts. Because we're thinking about, you're thinking about your instincts. How are your instincts gonna kick in if you're thinking about the instincts? There's so many books, and so much information, so many doctors with different opinions and experience. I've noticed folks check in and they're confused, they don't know what to do for their baby. Because these three doctors or these three books, or “my mom said this”, and they can't make a decision on what to do. And they're trying to weigh out their options. Some people are good at that, right? Some people need that thought process. But a lot of us, like me, if I'm making a decision, I just need to make the decision. I can change my decision later with more facts or trial and error. But I like to make my own decisions and trust my instincts and my intuition. The reason all of this village is so important is so that the parents can do that.

And they can learn their baby's cues. We've talked about it before. Babies different cries, learning if you’re chest feeding, knowing your body cues. That flicker in your left breast is not just a flicker, it's telling you that you're full or that you have a letdown. It's so easy to get stuck in our brains and not notice what our bodies are doing, and what our instincts are telling us to do.

Emily Race 28:02

Yeah, or being in the brain, being in survival mode, having to manage all these things. I feel like if we're moving so quickly, which the United States society really perpetuates this idea of productivity and busyness. and if you're trying to keep up with that, especially in this phase of life, you're missing those cues in your body and your baby. And the healing that has to happen.

Alondra Sanchez 28:24

Healing that has to happen, right? And that's why the village is so important because, yeah, all the parents have to do is ask and it just magically appears.

Emily Race 28:35

On the healing note, I'm being reminded of something beautiful you shared with me about the ceremony that you do with new mothers to close out this part of the chapter. Can you talk at all about that and and the role that plays?

Alondra Sanchez 28:51

Yeah. It's not that I do it, it just naturally happens. A pregnancy closing ceremony. In my indigenous roots, parteras, midwives, and their assistants take care of their moms or their birthing people from start to finish, from pregnancy during labor and then finish postpartum. And sometimes it trickles on to more than just six weeks … always more than six weeks, right? That six weeks is so hard. “It stops here. Don't come back.” “This is your six week visit. Don't come back.”

Traditionally, there is a closing ceremony for the pregnancy. What I do is different from what they do on so I'm just gonna speak about what I do. What I do is I invite both parents to be a part of it if they want to be, invite the baby and anybody, really, that the parents want to be there. We process the pregnancy together, and the labor. Ideally, it would be three, four months into postpartum to close that chapter, right.

Folks are pregnant. They have the biggest release of their life, physically and emotionally, the biggest release you're ever going to feel. And then you have this thing to take care of, and keep alive and feed and tend to every single need. Without an intentional closing, it's easy for — especially the birthing parent — it's really easy for them to still be cracked open, emotionally and physically. So this closing ceremony that I do with the families that I work with, we have those conversations and the highlights and the low points of conception, even, if they want to go that that far, and pregnancy and then labor and then early postpartum, and how it's evolved, and how they're feeling in that moment. We journal a little bit if if they're feeling called to that. There's lots of smudging involved in their home, especially if they had a home birth.

Emily Race 32:06

On that point, you talked about openness and then the home birth piece; I had a home birth and I left my bedroom a little too soon after the home birth, and just stepping out into the hallway towards the living room, it was too much. I was too open and too sensitive and started crying. I felt like I need to go back to my little cave on my bed. Especially if you're present to your body, like you're talking about, these are real experiences that deserve to be witnessed, honored and listened to.

Alondra Sanchez 32:41

And I didn't know that that happened. Thank you for sharing.

Emily Race 32:45

Yeah. It surprised me.

Alondra Sanchez 32:47

I hope that we that we end up doing a pregnancy closing together so that we can process that.

So, all these things come up, in this closing ceremony, and we set several different types of intentions. The first one is thanking the pregnancy, thanking our body. I say “our” body — I really step into their energy. Sometimes I feel like physically, I can feel what's going on in them. So that's why I say “we” — and they close that chapter with their body. And then we set intentions postpartum, what that's gonna look like, because postpartum is really the rest of your life, right? Prenatally simply means before baby comes, and postpartum has this negative connotation. Why? You hear the word postpartum and automatically — now I don't, but maybe five years ago, I would think “postpartum depression.” Because that word is so tied to the word depression. But really, all it means is that your baby's here. And your body is always going to be postpartum. Right?

Emily Race 34:13

There's no going back.

Alondra Sanchez 34:17

Yeah. And that's so normal. And I hate that our society's turned that word into something… almost scary.

Emily Race 34:27

For sure. I was gonna say fear.

So now I'm thinking about all of this, and again, how people may come from different minds. One, “This is a necessity. I need to invest in this and take the time for it.” And then others maybe who don't have that ability, and others don't think it's important. So if we imagine a world where this type of care was was provided to every new parent, I'm like, Oh my gosh, what would that do for the children, right, to build on your thought? What types of children would be stepping into the world? For me, I'm seeing a world where care is valued and central versus productivity is valued and central, but what do you see as being possible?

Alondra Sanchez 35:14

I see a really great balance of productivity, and slowness and healing. I see our children creating that world for their children. I don't think they're fully going to see it, our direct children. But a couple generations from us, I think they're gonna be in this really beautiful space of — because I talk about this western society but, yeah, it's benefited me in a lot of ways, also. I tend to focus on the negative way that its affected me. But there's some goodness that came into this, in one shape or another, we all need to make means to survive.

In my perfect world, it's sustainable farming, and we're all together, we all live together and close. We know our neighbors. In my crazy perfect world, that's it.

Emily Race 36:16

Yeah, I'm with you in that world.

Alondra Sanchez 36:18

Oh, my gosh, I have fantasies of my friends living on the same space, like, 100 acres. We don't see each other if we don't want to, but when we want to, we're right there, and we're ready to help and we're ready to work together. That's my perfect world. But I think realistically, I need to settle into the fact that I need to work and make money to survive, right. I don't know what it's gonna look like in a couple generations, or how they're going to make their own means for living, but what I do see is whatever they're doing to make those means to survive, they spend an equal amount of time resting and getting to know themselves, living and being intentional with the world around them, not just hopping in their car and going from point A to point B, then after work, point, C, and then back to point A, and you're in the whole busy, busy, busy thing. Because that's the world we live in, right? Half the time, I'm like, “What! The whole day was wasted. I know I did a bunch of stuff, but I didn't do anything for myself. I know that I was productive. But was I productive for myself? In some ways, yes. But self care was not prioritized.”

Emily Race 37:42

Yeah, that's one of my biggest question marks. I'd love to get your opinion on this, as we wrap this section. There's this archetype I see of being a “boss babe”, or whatever it's called, and you gotta be the mom that does it all. You work and you care for your child. There's a part of me — I mean, I have this podcast, right? My child is being watched by my mother in the other room. I didn't want to give up this form of creativity, even though I just experienced the ultimate form of creation with giving birth. But I also feel like I've had to step away from the desire to only focus on my career and be productive because there's something new in my life that feels more important, which is nurturing this new person and making sure that she gets what she needs. So yeah, I have questions around, what is the ideal balance of work and family life for mothers and for all people? And you said something to me once when we had coffee that was so inspiring around imagining what would it look like to incorporate our children into our lives versus having it being separate. That's one thought I've had, of dreaming about that a bit. Do you have any dreams around like that balance? The work piece?

Alondra Sanchez 39:02

Yeah. What that looks like for me — and I think it's gonna look like differently for you and for anybody — what that looks like, for me is evolving in my work. When I have children, bringing my children to “work scenarios”, because my work is very personal. It's much more emotional than logging in, if that makes sense. Bringing my children when it's appropriate. Some people might bring a baby to the birth room, but I don't want to, right? But bringing my babies to prenatal appointments, why not? And that's my work, that's what I do. Bringing my babies to prenatal appointments and being able to breastfeed and not have to rely on somebody else. But also relying on somebody else, at the same time, when it’s inappropriate, when I have a birth to go to. This is a good time to have some milk ready, have my mom come in, have somebody come in, my partner, a friend, to take care of the baby while I'm gone.

And that “boss girl” or boss person archetype; I think everyone could achieve their own form of that. I think that some folks don't want to bring those two things together, and they want to separate it. But if they're feeling like they're rocking it at parenting, rocking it at work, that's all that really matters. And the kids are happy, your happy relationships are happy, you're able to nurture the things in your life without forgetting about yourself, and you're also nurturing yourself, then I think that's great.

Emily Race 40:55

Part of me wants to challenge the separation piece that you just mentioned. Having previously worked in the corporate space, I’ve watched a lot of moms especially come back after their maternity leaves, some that were too short of a maternity leave, and they're really struggling with that sharp adjustment. I was actually, in a way, praying for — what COVID, unfortunately, was the way of doing that — but I was praying that there would be an adjustment in society where we could bring our families more into our work lives. Because otherwise, you put on this work face of, “Oh, I don't have [kids, a life], I'm this identity.” So there's an integration piece that I'm feeling for.

Alondra Sanchez 41:47

Thank you for trying to do that. My intention with that comment was, if that's what they really, really want to do, and some people do, but I think that having the option is what's important. Having the option to integrate your family into whatever you want to do.

Emily Race 42:03

This is my opinion, right, where everyone doesn't have to agree with that. But I challenge, what kind of society are we in where it's been normalized to separate from your child, in the same way that we separate from our bodies, right? And we check out and we're like, “Okay, I'm just gonna do this thing.”

Alondra Sanchez 42:34

That's a really great way to put it because when you have a child, they become part of your body and you're literally leaving a piece of your body at home, when somebody leaves and goes to work too early. More to my point if someone's chest feeding, you physically need your child to come drain your breasts. You're literally bleeding, “Help me, Help me.” You're leaving your pump at home, right? And we live in a society where we have pumps— I think that's wonderful if that's people want to use— but you're right, how do we bring those children in our families into our workspace? How do we be that boss person for our companies and businesses and for our children?

Emily Race 43:30

Right. You talk about the utopia of living in this communal sense with your your friends and family; that's my Utopia, this radical reorganization of the hierarchy that currently has work and being the boss at the top and other things are less of a priority.

But anyway, I'd love to wrap up this part of the conversation around the vision and the dream; is there anything else that you want to share with listeners around what you're out to create?

Alondra Sanchez 44:03

I'm out to create a life that I want to live in a way that I want to live it, and my outlet to share that vision with people is postpartum. I want for our kids to be able to do whatever they want to do and live in a really wonderful way, where they know themselves and they can communicate and process their emotions. I want a world where people can talk to each other and it doesn't break out into a crazy fight. I want people to be able to communicate with each other and coexist in a happy way. And for it to be really genuine, not the cookie cutter, fake smiles on our faces kind, but a real genuine life.

Emily Race 45:10

And to tie that up, you're saying your channel for that is through postpartum, or one of the ways, and I totally see how if that's what the parents are receiving; they're getting the communication, the ceremony, the pieces of honoring all of those parts of themselves, then it's modeled for their children. And it automatically becomes the background for that child to be raised in.

Alondra Sanchez 45:41

You know, you just triggered something in me. Something that we've talked about is how do we heal ourselves so that we can teach that healing to our kids, and then their kids, by default? So in this small, village-centered community that I was talking about earlier, each person is healing another villager in a different way. There's just this big circle of healing. At one point in human existence, that was intuitive, that was instinctual, when you think about native tribes — and not just American Native, but anywhere— think of that lifestyle of taking care of your family unit, taking care of the people around you. Being connected to the earth and being connected to the energy.

What I'm trying to say is, I'm finding ways to bring that back into our lives. And not just my life, but everyone that I'm with; how do I, how do we, teach others to heal themselves and accept help to be healed, so that they can give that to their children. And then in a few generations, there's just beautiful... you might not need doulas because your mom has the ability, has learned through generations to take care of her daughter postpartum. And doulas, that's where it originated from, were from these small villages, in other countries, indigenous countries, that's where this career that I'm working came from, is from observing these small villages taking care of one another. And at one point, it was taken and brought over. I'm really trying to implement that style of healing and community care.

Emily Race 48:10

Oh, my gosh, I have chills. I also read a quote, and I really wish I knew where I read it or who said it, but this idea that let's challenge that it's about self care; why should you care for yourself only. It’s about communal care. Like, As you're describing this beautiful image of a community, where each person plays a role in the healing of, but just in the caring of one another.

I often get this fantasy of back to intergenerational living, intergenerational education, what does that look like to bridge what has been separated?

Thank you. And thank you for the work you're doing, just by living the life that you're living. You're that model for so many people. And by actively committing to being a caregiver for so many people, including myself, in times of need — it's a beautiful template for for others to be inspired by.

On that note, what are the ways that people could work with you if they're interested in doing that or partnering with you?

Alondra Sanchez 49:30

Yeah. That's a really fun question. Because I'm recently figuring out ways to make that happen. I recently started working with this group here in town, and the three of us have created this model of a village-centered care. I think it’s the best way to do it right now. I'm also very small scale, right? I can only do so much within my community, I'm really good at focusing on a small scale. I'm not an influencer, I'm not this internet person. I've been redoing my website forever and ever and ever.

Emily Race 50:20

(Laughing) You're not alone in that experience.

Alondra Sanchez 50:21

Because, yeah, I'm not a social media person at all. If folks want to reach out and collaborate in any way or resonate with what I'm saying and want to see more of me or hear more of me, I have an Instagram, and Emily will link it

Emily Race 50:52

I'll link it.

Alondra Sanchez 50:55

And if anyone has ideas or suggestions or whatever, I'm always open to it.

Emily Race 51:13

And people can hire you for postpartum care?

Alondra Sanchez 51:16

Yeah. People can hire me for postpartum care or, there's so many things that I do that, I can't touch on. Prenatal care, labor support, portpartum support, meal support.

Emily Race 51:37

She's an amazing cook, chef. She needs a cookbook, a cooking show.

Alondra Sanchez 51:47

I know. That's what I need actually. Help me write a cookbook. Actually, that would be so fabulous,

I also do private steam sessions. Lymphatic massage is really important postpartum. So that's a way to connect too.

One way that folks that are listening can really support the work that I do, if someone has the means, financially, one of my partners has a 501 C, and the three of us work really closely together. We are working on ways to be accessible for everybody. I think that as a caregiver, and as a doula, there's a lot of pro bono things that we do. And it's amazing, and I do it as often as I can; I also do sliding scale on purpose, the reason being so that I can be accessible to more than just people that can pay for it. And, I also need to value myself in the sense of, I need to make a living. I would work for everyone for free pro bono if I could, but, it's impossible, I need to sustain mysf. So one way that someone can collaborate on that simple level is going on to my partner's website, earthmilkmoon.com, and contacting us through there and donating whatever little or a lot amount that you want to donate, so that we can use that scholarship to be more accessible to someone that wants to work with us financially can’t and also allow us to work for them in that way by supporting us financially to do so and there's still that energy exchange so that we can sustain ourselves and continue to do this work.

Emily Race 54:11

Thank you for sharing that and that was gonna be my next question, how can we support you in the work you're doing, so it sounds like that is one way. Another way is if anyone has experienced publishing a cookbook, to support you with that very important project (laughing). Is there anything else for you in terms of how listeners can support the work you're doing?

Alondra Sanchez 54:32

Earth Milk Moon provides in-home postpartum wellness care focused on nurturing the mother / birthing person after baby is born. Our foundation is a nonprofit called Solar Road, and it was created to provide funding for families who experienced financial barriers to in home wellness care. We believe that every family deserves the care and support of a village after birth.

And another way to not necessarily support me, but to support ourselves is, if any of this resonated with you to really look into why it resonated, to map out why it made sense to because if it triggered anything in you, there's a reason. I think it's valuable to investigate what and why and where and when to get to know yourselves and start that healing, in the smallest way possible. And reach out if it did and why. I would love to know,

Emily Race 55:52

Start that conversation.

Alondra Sanchez 55:54

Start that conversation.

Emily Race 55:55

Yeah, thank you for that. I always love to leave listeners with some sort of inquiry or something to tangibly take away from this. It sounds like leaving with that self investigation around, what resonated and why? Yeah. Thank you so much.

Alondra Sanchez 56:11

Thank you so much.

Emily Race 56:12

This was, for me, always an enriching conversation. And I hope that, regardless of whether you are pregnant, are navigating postpartum or will be or if you aren't someone who's ever planning to give birth, but has been thinking about your own forms of care and in the care that your mother may or may not have received, there's something for everybody in here. I personally am hoping to normalize the conversation around postpartum wellbeing for all of us. So I thank you again, for the work you're doing around that.

Alondra Sanchez 56:49

Sort of random thought: Babies are postpartum.

Emily Race 56:54

Yes.

Alondra Sanchez 56:55 We're all postpartum, even if you haven't had a child.

Emily Race 56:58

Yeah.

Alondra Sanchez 56:59

Yeah.

Emily Race 56:59

That's radical. Yeah. That’s not an exclusive experience.

Alondra Sanchez 57:04

No, it's not. There's different ways to experience it. But we are all postpartum. We all came from the same place.

Emily Race 57:11

Yeah, for sure. Thank you. Well, I will link all of the ways that people can stay in touch with you or support the work that you’re doing. And again, it was a pleasure to be in conversation with you today.

Alondra Sanchez 57:22

Thank you for having me. And thanks for listening.

Emily Race 57:25

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you for listening to this episode of The Founding Mothers Podcast. This podcast is produced and hosted by me, Emily Race, and edited by Eric Weisberg. If you want to support the show, please leave us a rating or share this episode with the important people in your life. We'd also love to hear from you if you or someone you know would be a great guest to share about their vision for the world. You can email emily@founding-mothers.com or visit www.founding-mothers.com/podcast