San Antonio Birthkeeper

02/09/2026

🩷

“So we’ll be doing a pap smear today” the nurse said to me at my first trimester OB visit.

I don’t think it was intended to be disrespectful. In fact, she seemed nice.

But it was evident she was just so used to the system and routine way of doing things by the way she stated what would be happening to me rather than offering or asking what I would like to do, (which is the only thing that is appropriate).

It wasn’t the first time something like this had happened to me in a medical setting. So I had no problem speaking up for myself. After enough bad experiences, I’ve learned.

“Oh, no thanks. I won’t be doing that,” I responded.

My most recent was current enough so doing another would be unnecessary. And with my history of bleeding in pregnancy and recurrent miscarriages, I just do not mess with things ESPECIALLY in early pregnancy.

The nurse looked stunned and confused, which told me they were not used to a patient refusing a *routine* procedure.

Based on her reaction, I couldn’t help but think how scarcely she must have patients refuse what they *tell* them they will be doing to THEIR bodies.

And made me wonder how many women even realize they can say, “no” to anything that makes them uncomfortable in a setting like that.

It’s intimidating when a medical professional TELLS you what will be happening to you.

So I just wanted to let women everywhere know that if you find yourself in a medical setting being told that some *routine* thing will be happening to YOUR body, and you have even an ounce of hesitation or discomfort with that, you are allowed to say “no thank you, I won’t be doing that.”

You don’t have to explain yourself to anyone.
You don’t have to answer questions.

You can simply decline, or wait and take your time to research and decide. ♥️

02/04/2026

🩷🙏 this was beautiful

01/16/2026

What a lovely story. Women capabilities are so incredibly powerful.

01/14/2026

This is such a blessing and something I’ve been praying for since 2017!

San Antonio's first Safe Haven Baby Box is scheduled to be installed by the end of February. https://bit.ly/4pHlL6p

01/06/2026

🙏🩷

10/29/2025

🙏🙏🙌🙌🙌🙌💪💪💪

10/29/2025

🥹🥹🥹

10/08/2025

Yes 🩷🥰 Take all the time you need!

10/04/2025

I am RH negative:)

✨ 🩸 Rhesus Incompatibility and Rhesus Disease By 🩸✨

I remember trying to learn this as a student and it took a few sessions to get my head around it 🤯
Hopefully this image helps to make it a bit easier to understand 🎨

10/01/2025

It is estimated that 324,000 pregnant mothers experience domestic violence each year in the USA alone.

Homicide is a leading cause of maternal mortality in the U.S. Being killed by an intimate partner during pregnancy and postpartum is more prevalent than postpartum hemorrhage, or sepsis, or cardiac arrest, preeclampsia, eclampsia..

So why isn’t this talked about as the common dangerous emergency women can experience during their childbearing years? And why aren’t birth professionals being trained on how to handle theses situations with regularly skill drills just like we would with CPR? Change must begin now.

https://www.thehotline.org/
1-800-799-7233 national domestic violence hotline
Text START to 88788
If you are local to San Antonio or its surrounding areas and looking for safe haven, please reach out and we can help you!!

09/29/2025

😭🩷🥹 The bravery and dedication wow.

In 1944, in Warsaw, a midwife named Zofia Kaminska fought occupation not with weapons, but with birth records. Her small practice, tucked in a modest flat, was a place of both beginnings and concealment. To the Germans, she was simply a woman who delivered babies. But behind her careful handwriting and steady hands lay defiance.

Zofia quietly falsified birth certificates, registering Jewish infants under Polish names, giving them identities that could not be erased. In her satchel she carried both swaddling cloths and forged papers, her touch delivering life in more ways than one. Families entrusted her not only with their newborns, but with their very survival.

One night, soldiers pounded on her door, demanding to see her records. Zofia stood firm, her ledger open on the table. Page after page listed births—ordinary, unremarkable names. What the soldiers did not see were the duplicates she kept hidden beneath the floorboards, proof of lives saved. They left, muttering about wasted time, never knowing that within those pages lay dozens of children who would grow up free.

After the war, many of those children—by then grown—spoke of her with reverence: “She gave us life twice. First in the cradle, and again on paper.”

Through ink, cloth, and the steady courage of a healer, Zofia transformed her quiet practice into a sanctuary of survival.

09/09/2025

You would think by now my brain wouldn’t feel so shocked but I still am!