From silence to empowerment, Jasha's journey as a doula began with her own interest in her body. Taught to hide her menstrual cycles, to keep her pain private, Jasha grew curious—yearning to understand the female form. Now, as a birth worker, she guides others toward self-knowledge and authority. In a medical system that often strips control, Jasha helps birthing people anchor themselves—through birth plans, through affirmations of identity. "This is who you are," she reminds them, "This is why you're doing this. You are powerful." Reclaiming the narrative of reproduction, Jasha challenges patriarchal misconceptions; celebrates the egg's agency in attracting sperm. Postpartum, she holds space for mothers' metamorphosis—ensuring they, too, are seen and nurtured. In Jasha's care, birth becomes a homecoming to oneself—embodied liberation. She turns to sea kelp: as materiality, as metaphor, as anchor for the birthing body.
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Jasha Buckery Jasha Buckery, founder of Saye Birth Doula LLC, is a Philly native and birth and postpartum doula, yoga teacher, lactation consultant, and herbalist in the making. She set out to become a doula after witnessing her sisters’ traumatic birth experiences and wanted to redefine the birth space in a new way for others. As a black woman, Jasha's activism does not dance around the strong need to make sure the abilities of women and birthing people’s bodies are not rejected—in an urgency to elect medical forms of intervention during their pregnancies.
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Mae Nagel is a Philly native and aspiring women’s health nurse, studying Nursing and Gender Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.
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English Translated Script
Mae: [00:00:00]
Welcome to Reckoning and Repair, Black Reproduction and Justice in Philadelphia, a multimedia storytelling project centering respect and care, which predominantly explores black experiences of reproduction and justice in Philly.
I'm Mae, a Philly native and aspiring women's health nurse. I'm talking with Jayshia Buckery, also known as the SayBirth doula, who helps anchor women through their self identity and body empowerment during their birth journeys.
We are going to hear about the immense power and strength, the innate wisdom and fortitude that all birthing people hold.
How can women, particularly black women, lift up this potential in a violent and neglectful medical system that aims to reduce it?
Jasha:
I'm Jasha. I'm the founder of SeyBirthDoola LLC here in Philadelphia.
I'm a birth and postpartum doula, but I'm also a yoga teacher, a lactation consultant, and, um, a herbalist in the making. [00:01:00] As a doula, what I do is I support parents during their pregnancy journeys, their postpartums, um, and also their labors.
I think, like, for a lot of women, our stories start with our mothers and, uh, the women can, in our lives, and what they tell us about birth and what they don't tell us about birth.
Like when I first started menstruating, lived with my father at the time and my grandmother was watching me and the very first thing she said when I'm in shock is that you're a woman now you take baths every day now, um, That you see, you know, when you see your menstrual cycle, you're going to take a bath every day now, and you're not going tell anyone about this.
And so, uh, it was really like your body is, your body is a place of silence. You're not supposed to share. You're not supposed to. you know, tell everybody and show [00:02:00] everybody, show it off. And so I grew up very modest and very, um, like someone that wanted to hide her body
menstrual cramps, that wasn't something that I would just run around like, Hey, I'm having cramps and it hurts. I think that, uh, all of that. contributed to me just wanted to know more. So by the time I went into college, I was really interested in the female body
Mae:
I read a little bit of the book, When Survivors Give Birth, that you recommended by Penny Simkin and Phyllis Klaus.
They said the bodily process of labor is outside one's conscious control, yet a crisis often comes when a woman in labor realizes that she is truly helpless to control this inevitable process. Ideally, the woman recognizes that she does not need to try to control the process and finds it possible to let go and place her trust in the [00:03:00] process.
Some women fight hard against this feeling, struggling against its relentless power and pain. A lot of people like kind of unconsciously keep the labor from going out of their control. Um, and like these unconscious mechanisms can really like prevent the progress in labor.
The book is about like, being a survivor of assault, but I think it also is really, um, relevant too for like, black women giving birth in this medical system where there's so much neglect and so much violence. How do you or how do doulas in general help women who are like, fighting for this control in labor.
Jasha:
When a birthing person goes into labor, we want them to let go like the quote said want them to let go of things We want them so tune with their body that that that read them that they're not they're not used using their minds They're not thinking of things that are Scaring them they're not thinking about the Intense sensations that they're feeling in their bodies.
They're, they're really just flowing. For some [00:04:00] people just letting go is also very hard. It's very hard because if they do come from, um, abuse then, you know, they probably didn't have a choice of letting go of something or saying no to something.
Um, one time had a mom that she, she was laboring and everything her gut was telling her She should not have had came in for this induction. She should have left. We, we kind tried to leave a couple times, and she was talked back into staying.
And so we're getting into labor, and her body is stalling. And, you really just coming over to her to ask, like, hey, I see that you're tightening your fist. You're making these faces and you're saying you're okay, but I really feel [00:05:00] like you're not. You're in a lot of pain. And I want you to put words to what you're feeling and how you're feeling and do you, do you feel like you're able to do this?
Are are you feeling like you're capable of giving birth? And her answer was sadly like, no, not in this space, not with these doctors, not with, in this hospital. Um, and of course she's she's a black mom she has a whole, um, health care team of white nurses and doctors.
sometimes you do feel like, even as a doula, like that there's no way to change this.
Mae:
Sounds like there's almost two layers of control, because there's the control, of course, it's your own birth, and you should have control over that process, and some [00:06:00] people are kind of awarded that, and some people aren't, and then if you have that, then you're able to let go of the control in your body
Jasha:
it's probably multiple layers of control, authority over things, because when you go into the birth and space, especially in hospitals, of course, the labor in person should have full control over their labor, but we know that also the hospital and their policies also control the way the labor goes. The doctors control the knowledge and of your birth. And so if you don't have that knowledge of your body and how to let things go and the medical knowledge that you need to accommodate, accommodate you and that labor. You know, control is in anybody's, uh, uh, you know, like it's in anybody's hand is at that moment. I want my moms to advocate for themselves, I also want you [00:07:00] to know that you have the authority to negotiate what you want, the things that you want to have in your labor.
I also do many exercises with my parents. Uh, one of them is an exercise that came to me, um, through training, um, from another doula, um, named Savannah Brown, is a who am I exercise. So it asks them to write in little cute little things and it becomes a poem, um, about who they are. And I feel like. It's such a good exercise to do with moms and in that prenatal period because it gives me information as their doula of what makes them dumb. And I can reassure you of at every part, this is you. This is who you came from. This is what you stand for. Um, this is the ways that you are powerful. And when they're forgetting that in labor is a tool that I can pull out and remind them, like, this is [00:08:00] who you are. This is why you're doing this. You are powerful.
Mae:
Bull kelp is a seaweed that's vital to the health of marine ecosystems, as it provides various animals with nutrients and habitats, kind of like the uterus, as it anchors itself to the rocks of the ocean floor while it grows upward to the rays of sunlight
Jasha:
I think the, the best thing that anchors a, um, Or just give them a foundation, something to stand on, is building a birth plan with my parents.
And so the birth plan is really a list of preferences that you would like to happen in your labor. if they don't want a certain medication or if they want, um, a certain thing to happen with their baby, but also we make statements about how they want their attitudes [00:09:00] or their emotions to be interpreted in the rooms. And this is something that I think anchors them during their pregnancy because once you get off all the worry of like, I'm so scared of a c section because we planned and we talked about what would happen
Once you get all of that out the way they, they can let go. They can get let go of worry. And so now they're, they're more in tune with their self and their bodies and when things come up, you don't have to do much thinking it's like the birth plan is the anchor that allows you to kind of just float on the surface.
Mae:
The seaweed that is a metaphor for fertility is the rockweed kelp. So that's a seaweed that contains air filled vesicles, which create buoyancy to lift the rockweed up. All branches grow from a central thallus in about one vesicle forms per year.
how do you help women understand their tides and like their cycles and their body during their fertility [00:10:00] journey?
Jasha:
When I work with, um, parents before they even conceive, I think the main thing that I, want them to learn is definitely about their bodies, about their, their menstrual cycle, about their ovulation, um, what it looks like. Are they, um, having a period every month? Um, how long is it,
I think one of the things that I really want people to know and I really work on teaching them is how to unlearn things about what fertility is supposed to look like, what the inner working of fertility is. And so that's the, the, the, the, the sperm, that turns that the sperm implants the egg versus the egg attracts the
Mae:
Yeah, mm hmm.
Jasha:
And so, um, those are the things that I really want women to know. I think when you know that about your body is more empowering, you have it [00:11:00] more in your hands. to say like, I, I can have a little control in this. I know when I ovulate, I know what ovulation looks like. So I can have control.
During our visits, yes, we, we, we focused a lot on learning about the body, but we also focused on learning, the perspective, the male, the masculine, the patriarch, the, the misogyny perspective of our reproductive organs.
Mae:
I love the, it's not the sperm, like, implanting into the egg, it's the egg attracting the sperm.
Jasha:
sperm. Um
Mae:
Giant kelp is a seabee that grows rapidly and it reaches the sea surface, kind of like life after birth. It continues to grow horizontally on the sea surface, with a gas filled pod that allows it to float.
this was kind of a good image for the postpartum period. And I was wondering how you [00:12:00] help postpartum mothers float after birth. And, like, how do you promote peace in the family and help new moms from feeling too overwhelmed or feeling drowned in all the new and all the responsibility.
Jasha:
Really just listen to them, um, and assess like what they're saying, how they're feeling, and then Offer what I feel like they're saying and communicating that they need.
It doesn't sound like I need to jump in the shower and can you hold the baby? It seems like I haven't been able to shower in a few days. I haven't been able to eat. And you know, that's where I can step in and say. I can hold the baby, I can watch after the baby. I can do this and this for you so that you can have a moment for yourself.
And one of the exercises is to take a picture of yourself for seven days straight. And the idea behind that [00:13:00] is that we pay so much attention to the baby. And we're always like taking pictures of the baby and trying to figure out who the baby looks like. And Oh, how, how big did the baby grow in seven days that we don't really see how the mother is changing.
And so my hope of having them do that exercise is that they get to see how they're changing, how they are showing up as their best selves, even if they, you know, don't look like how they want to look and they're not like all glammed up, they still get to see like how parenthood looks for them
oh, I was in this outfit for two days and maybe I just need a moment to beautify myself and feel like myself again. And so I think that's what Uh, postpartum care looks like to me, like, helping that mom get back to herself.
Mae:
Growing up in [00:14:00] Philadelphia, Jasha knows what it's like to be pressured into silence and modesty as a young girl. As a doula, she knows how important it is to have comfort and knowledge about your body as a young woman. Through supporting birthing people in their identity and empowerment, she creates safer, reproductive experiences for her clients.
Black Reproduction and Justice in Philly is a project of the Center for Experimental Ethnography and the Roots Lab.
Find more stories and content online at rnrphilly. com.
Welcome to Reckoning and Repair, Black Reproduction and Justice in Philadelphia, a multimedia storytelling project centering respect and care, which predominantly explores black experiences of reproduction and justice in Philly.
I'm Mae, a Philly native and aspiring women's health nurse. I'm talking with Jayshia Buckery, also known as the SayBirth doula, who helps anchor women through their self identity and body empowerment during their birth journeys.
We are going to hear about the immense power and strength, the innate wisdom and fortitude that all birthing people hold.
How can women, particularly black women, lift up this potential in a violent and neglectful medical system that aims to reduce it?
Jasha:
I'm Jasha. I'm the founder of SeyBirthDoola LLC here in Philadelphia.
I'm a birth and postpartum doula, but I'm also a yoga teacher, a lactation consultant, and, um, a herbalist in the making. [00:01:00] As a doula, what I do is I support parents during their pregnancy journeys, their postpartums, um, and also their labors.
I think, like, for a lot of women, our stories start with our mothers and, uh, the women can, in our lives, and what they tell us about birth and what they don't tell us about birth.
Like when I first started menstruating, lived with my father at the time and my grandmother was watching me and the very first thing she said when I'm in shock is that you're a woman now you take baths every day now, um, That you see, you know, when you see your menstrual cycle, you're going to take a bath every day now, and you're not going tell anyone about this.
And so, uh, it was really like your body is, your body is a place of silence. You're not supposed to share. You're not supposed to. you know, tell everybody and show [00:02:00] everybody, show it off. And so I grew up very modest and very, um, like someone that wanted to hide her body
menstrual cramps, that wasn't something that I would just run around like, Hey, I'm having cramps and it hurts. I think that, uh, all of that. contributed to me just wanted to know more. So by the time I went into college, I was really interested in the female body
Mae:
I read a little bit of the book, When Survivors Give Birth, that you recommended by Penny Simkin and Phyllis Klaus.
They said the bodily process of labor is outside one's conscious control, yet a crisis often comes when a woman in labor realizes that she is truly helpless to control this inevitable process. Ideally, the woman recognizes that she does not need to try to control the process and finds it possible to let go and place her trust in the [00:03:00] process.
Some women fight hard against this feeling, struggling against its relentless power and pain. A lot of people like kind of unconsciously keep the labor from going out of their control. Um, and like these unconscious mechanisms can really like prevent the progress in labor.
The book is about like, being a survivor of assault, but I think it also is really, um, relevant too for like, black women giving birth in this medical system where there's so much neglect and so much violence. How do you or how do doulas in general help women who are like, fighting for this control in labor.
Jasha:
When a birthing person goes into labor, we want them to let go like the quote said want them to let go of things We want them so tune with their body that that that read them that they're not they're not used using their minds They're not thinking of things that are Scaring them they're not thinking about the Intense sensations that they're feeling in their bodies.
They're, they're really just flowing. For some [00:04:00] people just letting go is also very hard. It's very hard because if they do come from, um, abuse then, you know, they probably didn't have a choice of letting go of something or saying no to something.
Um, one time had a mom that she, she was laboring and everything her gut was telling her She should not have had came in for this induction. She should have left. We, we kind tried to leave a couple times, and she was talked back into staying.
And so we're getting into labor, and her body is stalling. And, you really just coming over to her to ask, like, hey, I see that you're tightening your fist. You're making these faces and you're saying you're okay, but I really feel [00:05:00] like you're not. You're in a lot of pain. And I want you to put words to what you're feeling and how you're feeling and do you, do you feel like you're able to do this?
Are are you feeling like you're capable of giving birth? And her answer was sadly like, no, not in this space, not with these doctors, not with, in this hospital. Um, and of course she's she's a black mom she has a whole, um, health care team of white nurses and doctors.
sometimes you do feel like, even as a doula, like that there's no way to change this.
Mae:
Sounds like there's almost two layers of control, because there's the control, of course, it's your own birth, and you should have control over that process, and some [00:06:00] people are kind of awarded that, and some people aren't, and then if you have that, then you're able to let go of the control in your body
Jasha:
it's probably multiple layers of control, authority over things, because when you go into the birth and space, especially in hospitals, of course, the labor in person should have full control over their labor, but we know that also the hospital and their policies also control the way the labor goes. The doctors control the knowledge and of your birth. And so if you don't have that knowledge of your body and how to let things go and the medical knowledge that you need to accommodate, accommodate you and that labor. You know, control is in anybody's, uh, uh, you know, like it's in anybody's hand is at that moment. I want my moms to advocate for themselves, I also want you [00:07:00] to know that you have the authority to negotiate what you want, the things that you want to have in your labor.
I also do many exercises with my parents. Uh, one of them is an exercise that came to me, um, through training, um, from another doula, um, named Savannah Brown, is a who am I exercise. So it asks them to write in little cute little things and it becomes a poem, um, about who they are. And I feel like. It's such a good exercise to do with moms and in that prenatal period because it gives me information as their doula of what makes them dumb. And I can reassure you of at every part, this is you. This is who you came from. This is what you stand for. Um, this is the ways that you are powerful. And when they're forgetting that in labor is a tool that I can pull out and remind them, like, this is [00:08:00] who you are. This is why you're doing this. You are powerful.
Mae:
Bull kelp is a seaweed that's vital to the health of marine ecosystems, as it provides various animals with nutrients and habitats, kind of like the uterus, as it anchors itself to the rocks of the ocean floor while it grows upward to the rays of sunlight
Jasha:
I think the, the best thing that anchors a, um, Or just give them a foundation, something to stand on, is building a birth plan with my parents.
And so the birth plan is really a list of preferences that you would like to happen in your labor. if they don't want a certain medication or if they want, um, a certain thing to happen with their baby, but also we make statements about how they want their attitudes [00:09:00] or their emotions to be interpreted in the rooms. And this is something that I think anchors them during their pregnancy because once you get off all the worry of like, I'm so scared of a c section because we planned and we talked about what would happen
Once you get all of that out the way they, they can let go. They can get let go of worry. And so now they're, they're more in tune with their self and their bodies and when things come up, you don't have to do much thinking it's like the birth plan is the anchor that allows you to kind of just float on the surface.
Mae:
The seaweed that is a metaphor for fertility is the rockweed kelp. So that's a seaweed that contains air filled vesicles, which create buoyancy to lift the rockweed up. All branches grow from a central thallus in about one vesicle forms per year.
how do you help women understand their tides and like their cycles and their body during their fertility [00:10:00] journey?
Jasha:
When I work with, um, parents before they even conceive, I think the main thing that I, want them to learn is definitely about their bodies, about their, their menstrual cycle, about their ovulation, um, what it looks like. Are they, um, having a period every month? Um, how long is it,
I think one of the things that I really want people to know and I really work on teaching them is how to unlearn things about what fertility is supposed to look like, what the inner working of fertility is. And so that's the, the, the, the, the sperm, that turns that the sperm implants the egg versus the egg attracts the
Mae:
Yeah, mm hmm.
Jasha:
And so, um, those are the things that I really want women to know. I think when you know that about your body is more empowering, you have it [00:11:00] more in your hands. to say like, I, I can have a little control in this. I know when I ovulate, I know what ovulation looks like. So I can have control.
During our visits, yes, we, we, we focused a lot on learning about the body, but we also focused on learning, the perspective, the male, the masculine, the patriarch, the, the misogyny perspective of our reproductive organs.
Mae:
I love the, it's not the sperm, like, implanting into the egg, it's the egg attracting the sperm.
Jasha:
sperm. Um
Mae:
Giant kelp is a seabee that grows rapidly and it reaches the sea surface, kind of like life after birth. It continues to grow horizontally on the sea surface, with a gas filled pod that allows it to float.
this was kind of a good image for the postpartum period. And I was wondering how you [00:12:00] help postpartum mothers float after birth. And, like, how do you promote peace in the family and help new moms from feeling too overwhelmed or feeling drowned in all the new and all the responsibility.
Jasha:
Really just listen to them, um, and assess like what they're saying, how they're feeling, and then Offer what I feel like they're saying and communicating that they need.
It doesn't sound like I need to jump in the shower and can you hold the baby? It seems like I haven't been able to shower in a few days. I haven't been able to eat. And you know, that's where I can step in and say. I can hold the baby, I can watch after the baby. I can do this and this for you so that you can have a moment for yourself.
And one of the exercises is to take a picture of yourself for seven days straight. And the idea behind that [00:13:00] is that we pay so much attention to the baby. And we're always like taking pictures of the baby and trying to figure out who the baby looks like. And Oh, how, how big did the baby grow in seven days that we don't really see how the mother is changing.
And so my hope of having them do that exercise is that they get to see how they're changing, how they are showing up as their best selves, even if they, you know, don't look like how they want to look and they're not like all glammed up, they still get to see like how parenthood looks for them
oh, I was in this outfit for two days and maybe I just need a moment to beautify myself and feel like myself again. And so I think that's what Uh, postpartum care looks like to me, like, helping that mom get back to herself.
Mae:
Growing up in [00:14:00] Philadelphia, Jasha knows what it's like to be pressured into silence and modesty as a young girl. As a doula, she knows how important it is to have comfort and knowledge about your body as a young woman. Through supporting birthing people in their identity and empowerment, she creates safer, reproductive experiences for her clients.
Black Reproduction and Justice in Philly is a project of the Center for Experimental Ethnography and the Roots Lab.
Find more stories and content online at rnrphilly. com.