E 16 | Welcoming Whatever Being Came

08/08/19 • 51 min

Our final episode is an interview with new Papa, yoga and Buddhism teacher Jacoby Ballard. We talk about the Germination Proclamation he and their partner put out to friends and family, gender and parenting, and preparing to welcome whatever being emerged during birth.

"I really learned from putting out our Germination Proclamation that really it was like an instruction manual for our families and communities for how to love us in this moment. That was really helpful to everyone from uncles to comrades to see. I think that would be helpful for any parent despite your gender or sexual orientation/identity. It was putting forth a manifesto of how we wanted to be in the germination period and how we wanted to be parents and how we want to ask our communities to rally around us. Since then, people really have shown up in the ways we asked them to. I think even if we hadn't given them clear directions even our most beloved and closest friends might have had some missteps."

https://www.facebook.com/jacoby.ballard

http://jacobyballard.net/

https://www.facebook.com/jacoby.ballard

http://jacobyballard.net/

Previous Episode

E 15 | Ask Those Questions

In this interview, Rachel L. Kaplan and I talk about their experience with preterm birth. A friend of Rachel's recently pointed out that there aren't a lot of queer voices being heard about the neo-natal intensive care unit (NICU), and even fewer from masculine of center folx -- so she suggested Rachel check out Masculine Birth Ritual. Rachel is an Assistant Professor at the University of California, San Francisco and takes off the professor hat to describe some of the personal challenges of a traumatic preterm birth followed by three weeks in the San Francisco Kaiser NICU.