You're listening to Chapter 8, The Arrival.

Then the seed opened.

I bore you one morning, just before spring.

My head rang like a fiery piston.

My legs were towers between which a new world was passing.

An excerpt from Audrey Lord's 1968 poem,

Now That I Am Forever with Child.

On Instagram, you can find just about anything you're looking for, and that includes labor and childbirth

resources and a community of doctors, specialists, and birth workers like Shayla.

The platform has given Shayla a meaningful way to connect with other birth workers, yeah,

but also other parents, hopeful parents, and loved ones too.

On the gram, Shayla's open, sharing her experiences as a four-time home birther.

She's generous, oftentimes giving her followers a front seat to what's happening with her body and her health.

Hello, you guys. Guess what? That right there is what we call a bloody show.

So this means I'm officially in laboring. I am freaking out just a little bit.

In late September 2020, Shailo went live on Instagram to share her fifth labor.

Fully independent and in control of her birth plan this time around.

Filming this birth was just one of the many new things Shaila wanted to try with this baby.

I wanted to try to progress labor with, you know, like with intercourse and like I had

never done it before, but that was on my list.

I was like, I want to do that this time, you know, and we did.

I wanted to have a labor that didn't hurt.

...