I'm really excited to be teaching this subject because it's something that really excites me and has like really helped me in my life and so I think it's so very important for us to know about it as women and to teach our children and so it's nice to see other people excited about this and so I am a midwifery student right now. I'm studying to be a home birth midwife. I live in Berkeley, I'm married, and I have four children. I had all my children at home and I also have practiced like fertility awareness through my home history of menstruating so for me it's something really practical that I have really experienced and hopefully can share with you guys. What else? I'm also a doula right now so I attend births as a midwifery assistant at home births or births in a births and I'm also working as a doula so for labor support for women in any setting and I'm a childbirth educator so right now actually I'm doing a series for Muslim pregnant women teaching them about childbirth education so this is this is my draft of a book that is that I'm teaching out of right now but it's it's been really fun so I'm doula and something I wish I had when I was seven babies but there's a lot of good information out there yeah I'm just see I'm supposed to be in contact with your biotech so what inspired me so I was born at home and all of my family pretty much just like very very aware of like natural birth and you know we breastfed all our kids and was very very much a part of our upbringing so and I think just in general I was always interested in like like alternative healing methods and just support for women and so then when I had and then I through the years I was living in Syria for like eight years getting my bachelor's in Islamic studies oh that's what I didn't add I'm a teacher as well getting my bachelor's in Islamic studies and I was also help had the opportunity to help several women what they were having home births there so so then after having my own kids I really saw the importance like first hand of like wow like women it really makes a big difference when you have help it really makes a big difference when you like and you know like even thinking of like hospital births it makes a big difference when you have someone who knows the ropes and can kind of like speak the language and you know because it's like a major learning curve having kids and like trying to raise them and and trying to bird them and all that so yeah and then I think at one point I like when I had my fourth child I had the midwife that I had was just someone that I really thought I could be like so it really made me feel like oh I could do that like to me a midwife is like oh she's like the most amazing woman that's like an angel like I'm not an angel so that's a bit above me so yeah so I'm learning and it's been really nice yeah so we have a lot to talk about this is like a really really broad topic so I'm just gonna try to jump right in a lot of the handouts are up here so maybe you guys are gonna have to get up and down and get them but as we go and you'll probably want to be taking notes if you have paper and I don't think I have any to share so I know if you take some of the handouts then you could run back yeah so maybe just take so these are like a group these well there's actually enough people that they yeah why don't you guys just get your handouts and then you'll have something to write on um okay so yeah so these are like two are wait wait it's the whole pile yeah yeah like that and then these are like these and then we'll just hold out on those yeah so it's like the whole it's staggered it's a bit yeah and then you got that and then the first two yeah and then we'll hold out on these yeah yeah if you want to be part of my mailing list and I know there's one handout that I didn't yeah it's like you see how I did it there's three yeah and if anyone wants to sign this the email list I have you know trying to put out like a newsletter whenever I go those are two whenever I do something so to get in my cards over here as well does anyone need a pen I have some extras yeah if it doesn't work I don't know how I would write let's see some of the handouts I don't think I'm gonna have enough but here's so this is a group of handouts and then this is another one for the sister so I'm not gonna have there's some missing so if anyone has missing handouts I'll just email them to you yeah she has two more than you don't that you don't have a three more that you don't have but you guys can share maybe until right so the the first thing I wanted to talk about is like the female hormone cycle in general like what is going on every month right so if you I think you guys have this handout we'll see if we can just go out by the handouts it's kind of high-tech looking so the menstrual the hormonal cycle of women is like broken up into three different phases right so we have the menstrual phase right we start with menstruation on this like right if your doctor says what was the first day of your last cycle you're gonna say the first day you menstruated on right so that's your menstrual phase and right so we menstruate then the next phase is follicular phase and is it okay so it is written on this handout so it's like on the side follicular so that it refers to the follicle so that's when the egg is growing and maturing right getting ready to ovulate right so that's the follicular phase so then after that you ovulate and then after ovulation you have the luteal phase and what's happening when you ovulate is that the the egg has grown inside the ovary right the egg is growing inside the ovary and it's getting more mature and it has like a almost like a sack around the egg so that sack bursts and ovulates lets that egg out into the fallopian tubes and that what's left over of that outer lining that sack is a it's called a lute it's like a luteal it's it's that tissue starts to produce progesterone right and that tissue that's left over from hatching the egg out of it actually takes over the hormone production for the rest of the until you menstruate again so it's called the luteal phase because it's referring to that sack that the egg had come out of right and so after you've ovulated and the egg dies within 12 to 24 hours after ovulation then that then you're no longer fertile into until your ovulation the next month right is there any does that make sense so yeah so you menstruate then you have a period of like of the egg is developing right so you're becoming more closer and closer towards your ovulation right and then and then you ovulate then you have the luteal phase that is that you're no longer fertile is finished yeah yeah you're no longer fertile mm-hmm yeah so what it's saying here in terms of possibility is because you don't what's hard to know when you're trying to figure out when you're ovulating when you're fertile is when you're going to ovulate you know that inshallah like people who ovulate regularly they know they're gonna ovulate sometime in here but they don't necessarily they can't necessarily pinpoint the day because it fluctuates each cycle like so normally women maybe their flux their cycle length changes by a day or two or so each month so you might like oh normally I ovulate on the 12th day but this month I actually ovulated on the 10th day so then your fertility was actually earlier than you had anticipated yeah exactly um so the thing is is that you cannot the egg can't be fertilized the egg only lasts 12 to 24 hours but the sperm can last up to five days so that's really where the extended period of time happens because say if you had intercourse five days earlier and if someone doesn't mind seeing if it's five days earlier then you can still get pregnant if you ovulate five days later so really like if you're really trying not to get pregnant then you're going to be cautious very cautious before your ovulation yeah once you ovulate you're like okay I'm done like there's no way I'm gonna get pregnant yeah once you're sure no no no okay you guys are all courageous to ask right anyways well I actually have the option to turn off the recording so I was gonna do that if we felt like that was needed I mean like I don't mind you guys just asking any question and it's totally fine I mean I think there's sisters online but if you want to ask a personal question then keep it till the end and I'll turn off the recording okay so if this is clear we want to look at this next handout which is talking about what exactly the hormones are doing during ovulation so this one during the whole cycle actually the length of your cycle uh-huh yeah so absolutely so every woman is totally different the I'm not sure like what the normal range is but there's a very large range and it's really interesting why like in Islam like the shortest clean period that you can have is 15 days and most of the meth-haves is 13 days in the hamburgies but when you think of that like okay you had your menses you had one say you ovulate really really early and you had one day that first day you ovulated on then you had the average time most most women have 14 days from the time they ovulate to the time they get their menses and that's mostly that's pretty set with women so normally like that's not gonna change if you have like prolonged stress in your life then you might like change your luteal phase length but for most women that's like set soon as you if you know you ovulated them and then you count 14 days it's almost like hot work okay my period just like appears right then so but some women there's a range of ovulation time between 12 days and 16 days so what's normal is between that 12 day and 16 day window most women on the 14 days before their period they would ovulate but some 12 between 12 and 16 days so so it makes sense why 15 days would be the normal time where you would have like a regular break between menses and that would be considered normal and the 13 days in the humblies makes a lot of sense because there are those women that have like a 12 day luteal phase and then they would actually have a 13 day to her like clean phase between menses and it would totally be legit like it would be their normal cycle it wouldn't be something that was abnormal so yeah so the length varies and mostly what varies like I said is the follicular phase so some women maybe they like have a menstruation like every 34 days or something what's longer is usually that wait before they ovulate not after right because the after is usually pretty step right and okay so we're looking at this next paper here and so what it's talking about is the hormones and so really what during menstruation the hormones are pretty much like both estrogen progesterone is all like very low right and that's what makes us bleed because a low progesterone basically progesterone is telling your body to have this like nice comfy blanket inside your womb to hold the baby so your progesterone goes down and your body is like okay we don't need that anymore circulation gets cut off to all this tissue that has built up to feed the baby and then like it turns into blood and comes out so so what's happening in the beginning when you're developing the egg is not the progesterone to keep it it's the estrogen to get the egg to develop and to ovulate so your estrogen is is coming up right and then these other hormones the luteinizing hormone and FSH follicle stimulating hormones those have to do with right at ovulation so those those have to do is right at ovulation and then as soon as you ovulate your progesterone goes up so then in the luteal phase your progesterone production is higher than the estrogen and what did we say produces the progesterone I know I didn't give you a good name for it but this um that tissue that's the luteus luteus yeah I should get the name for that that weird thing in there that anyways so the life cycle of that once it deteriorates all the way it doesn't produce the progesterone your body menstruates yeah okay um so that that is this one and why is this significant to us like what does it matter what our hormones are doing well when it tells us like if things aren't going smoothly and normally in clock like clockwork and then maybe it's because one of these are off-balance right but also a lot of women if they're trying to figure out when they ovulated what they'll do is they'll take their temperature every day and what they do is take their temperature it's called the the basal body temperature which is your temperature at rest so normally you would take it like soon as you wake up with the morning you have to like at least have three hours of sleep to like be in a restful state completely and then you would take your temperature before you moved or anything right and then you would have your resting temperature and so what happens in this picture down here what happens is the when progressed when your hormones switch to progesterone your temperature will rise so you can actually see that on your temperature chart that you're getting higher readings and it's not going to look as nice and smooth as these lines but that gives you a good idea it's going to look more like the next paper that you're getting up and down up and down up and down and then you're like oh higher up and down up and down up and down but it's all on the tenth of the of the degree so you have to get like a very accurate thermometer but also a slow read thermometer so it can't be like oh those thermometers like in 15 seconds you can have your temperature though there's like special basal body temperature thermometers that will read it's like takes one minute or like at least 30 seconds to get like an actual true temperature because the way the other ones work it's just it it gives you the reading after 15 seconds but if it would have waited longer it would have maybe adjusted it a little bit to accurate so it's they're not as accurate right so so that's why women will take their temperature because they want to see that when their temperatures are higher and and then you also can see it does show whether you're pregnant or not because if your temperatures don't go back to your normal when you're menstruating and they just stay higher that means that you're still producing progesterone and what happens if you get pregnant then you're the placenta will take over production of progesterone and you'll have a lot of progesterone in your pregnancy because progesterone keeps the baby in right it keeps your uterus from contracting it keeps everything nice and wonderful for the baby so yeah your temperature won't go back down to like it's non-luteal phase temperature it'll just stay high so yeah so the what are the signs of fertility so we talked about hormones right taking your temperature and to know which hormones you're producing at that time the other sign of which of where you're at I mean obviously we know if we're menstruating or not but whether we're in our freelicular phase or the luteal phase is our cervical mucus so that fun stuff that we all so we have handouts about this okay so cervical mucus is right so we are we have moisture in general in our birth canal right that's not cervical mucus you're gonna have moisture whether all the time right like you just our body cavity has moisture right it's like inside your mouth you have moisture when your cervix is producing mucus and because of fertility it's a special kind of discharge you're going to get it's going to be increasingly like increasingly more in quantity it's going to be like almost like egg whites stretchy right and that mucus is actually a lot a lot made it food for sperm right so if so your body is getting ready to be fertile so it's putting out this food for the sperm and this mucus is is a lot made it so that it actually has like running paths so that the sperm can like penetrate the cervix easily it's like the way that the structure is it has like these paths it didn't like that it has passed this one up so the so that's why it's like raw egg whites it's clear stretchy and it could just be feel wet and it can be it's very lubricative right if you're not having fertile mucus then it's more like paste right or just moisture like if you put your hand in your hair and it's just like oh it's just like wetness but there's not like something there right so that's just your moisture right so the cervical fluid is mucus is something that will build like so you'll become more and more and more fertile so you can maybe notice you might go from your menses right into fertile mucus but some people have a break where it's just like oh there's nothing and then they'll start to have fertile mucus so that means that if they're trying not to get pregnant they should pay attention that oh I'm becoming fertile so it will build up over time over the days and then your most fertile day like where you have this the most mucus is likely the day that you would ovulate and then after that it would decline over a couple of days so and it's not necessarily as accurate in terms of pinpointing the exact time all of these are kind of like you're you're using these multiple signs at one at one time to really try to figure out like when is the ovulation the other sign is on this other page which is the cervix so if you were to feel your cervix then you would during during your fertile time the cervix is softer so normally it's like harder it's more stiff where if it's your fertile it'd be more like your lips then your nose is like more stiff right it would be softer it would be higher up in the vaginal canal and it more centrally located so maybe straight down rather than being tilted and if you're not fertile it's more firm cervix is positioned lower in the birth canal and angled and it's not as open right because your body is trying to get pregnant every month right for people who ovulate regularly it's trying to get pregnant so it's going to open up it's going to make all this mucus and do all this stuff to make it easy for the sperm to get inside and fertilize so those are the major signs of ovulation secondary signs someone get like pain like almost like cramps on maybe only the side that they're ovulating on right because you get like you have two ovaries so on the side that you ovulate on one side one month and the other side the other month so you decide that you're ovulating on you might feel kind of crampy or it might be on both sides simultaneously and usually you're emotionally you have higher libido your moods you might feel like feelings of grief or letting go I don't know but some women have that and then there's rare women three percent of women get some spotting when they're ovulating they might have they might have swelling in their genitalia heightened senses and maybe sensitivity in their nipples yeah so are there any questions about that so far the concept of PMS I mean it definitely has to do with your hormones and as far as I understand like all of the most of the discomforts of menstruation are not actually good signs of health right there's signs that maybe you do have an off balance because it's in an ideal health it shouldn't hurt and it shouldn't cause you extreme mood swings and things like that not that it shouldn't affect you in some way but it shouldn't be like you're in bed and in pain you know so it's something to look at on a I know like probably in the medical in the allopathic approach which is our dominant medical system here it's not considered something wrong with you but like probably in a more holistic approach if you want to someone who specializes in that then they would you know see maybe have some help for those things but one thing and I don't know if a lot of sisters have heard about this is vaginal steaming that actually really can help with a lot of like almost any gynecological symptoms if you have them you should try steaming before you try anything else because it can like dramatically help people's health yeah menstrual cramps like your periods too long your periods too short you have like anything infections endometriosis sensitivities like mm-hmm like I'm like when you're menstruating mm-hmm like your achy and stuff yeah I mean it helps with like everything so basically the steaming is like one it's so you're sitting over a pot of of herbs like a tea that's steaming and the steam is going on your bottom right and what it's doing is one it's like opening up your it's like the steam is penetrating up into your breast canal and into your cervix it's like opening up like if we do a steam bath on our face we like it opens our pores it also will do that down there and so if you have like stagnant blood or like you're not emptying out all the way you have like blood clots you have like really dark blood because period blood should be bright red it should be like flowing it shouldn't be like like kind of hard to get out and painful so sometimes it's just like it's opening up and like helping you to get all the blood circulation down there and to just like be able to like eliminate your period every month and then the other thing that is doing is is your it's like what's it called so the nervous system it's calming your nervous system so your nerves right or like running all the way through your body but you have like really strong nerves like in your vague it's called a vagal nerve so it's the end of it is in your bottom right and the top of it's like in your head right so to to like relax the bottom of it is going to like make you really happy like it just like it's kind of like what is it it's calming your system so it's gonna like affect like a lot of things yeah I mean that people use it for like sexual trauma because it's like actually is like helping to calm your nervous system so it's really and it's the the the thing that really got me interested in it is like it's a world-known traditional method of therapy for women like in all these countries all over like okay the Middle East like South Africa like yeah definitely Africa South America like all of these countries you all through Europe like it's not like oh this is in some little part of Brazil like women have been doing this all over the world um so that really I was like wow like that makes a lot of sense to to like really pay attention to something that like women have just been raving about over history yeah so there's definitely I mean the herbs is like a big like huh that's a that's a question and there's like specific herbs for specific issues you can steam with nothing basically just hot water right but the herbs will enhance the steam and then I mean when I've steamed I've either just gone online and been like oh what's good which you're probably not gonna get like the exact you know like dosage and everything that you need but there's also companies now that are popping up in America that you can actually order like depending on your symptoms like a blend that's specific to that so that's a nice option yeah mm-hmm yeah yeah and there's so if you go to steamy chicks it's a website that is actually really really nice because you can order herbs from them and you can order a stool from them but you can steam even without a stool yeah the stool I mean that would help you can basically just sit over a pop so it's not you don't have to you could do it in a sit well that wouldn't work some people put like a bowl in their toilet and sit over that so you can rig it but like if you got the special stool I'm sure it would be like way easier and stuff yeah I got one a camping toilet it's like $25 on Amazon or something and it was just like the plastic it's like a plastic toilet seat that is meant to put like a plastic bag under for like using it out in the woods but then I just put the pot under and it works so I'm gonna say oh yes steamy chicks they used to and I'm hoping they still have it but you can part of their website you can like put in your symptoms and they'll tell you like oh that means you need to steam on this day and this day of your menstrual cycle so it like actually has help like that all right was there any other questions about this part mmm yeah a lot of women use it for worse but yeah the only thing that it can do is increase bleeding so if you're having issues already you probably don't want to do that like if you're like right in the middle of your heavy period or you know then it can increase bleeding so there are some like and you shouldn't do it while you're pregnant because it does like open up your cervix slightly so it would be definitely postpartum and but it helps with so many things yeah I think it depends on your symptoms yeah but like as a maintenance I've heard of cultures doing it like after their periods that like on the last days of their period they'll do it like every month on the last day of their period or that those days when it's just like brown just as like a maintenance to make sure everything came out yeah mmm yeah so definitely things change it affects so taking our artificial hormones can definitely affect your your cervical mucus and it definitely can affect your moods I mean there's a lot of side effects aside from like how does it affect my cycle but a lot of them are like getting your body to not ovulate so obviously that's gonna change the way that your cervix functions and you know just all of the cycle and your hormones and everything mmm you're talking about the copper IUD yeah so the copper IUD it changes your cervical secretions right because copper is like actually a toxin right it kills the sperm so that copper in the fact that it's something in there irritating you it changes the way that your cervix is functioning and is not going to release the same it's not gonna function exactly the same way as it would without that yeah alright so I wanted to talk about fertility um maybe if you guys just tell me what you're really interested in hearing about then I can talk about that I don't know what you guys what questions you had coming in because there's a lot of there's like right people who want to get pregnant there's people who don't want to get that's two different things PMS would be before your menses start right and preconception what do you mean like pre-ovulation oh like what kind of symptoms would you be having in between like when you ovulate and when you have a missed period yeah so um symptoms yeah hmm well I think you would have symptoms similar to a pregnant person because you're pregnant yeah so like you you might start being nauseous nauseous you might start having tender breasts you know some people get implantation bleeding which is usually on the eighth or ninth day after men's after you ovulate but it could be anywhere from the sixth through the twelfth today so which is spotting right um so that's only like one-third of the women will get implantation bleeding and by the way like if you're henna fee then any bleeding in pregnancy is not considered menstruation so you wouldn't consider even if you did get spotting like even when your menstruation was due some people it's very rare but some people will still like menstruate when they're they're pregnant so that doesn't count um whereas the and I'm not sure about the malachi opinion but I know that the shaffi opinion is that you can menstruate when you are pregnant so you would still be charting your cycles as cycles yeah um what was the other part of that so you're saying before mm-hmm yeah I mean probably the breast tenderness might be similar but probably I mean some people get really teary when they're pregnant so yeah we're kind of just all mixed up in there yeah to chart um so the one that I heard about and I don't use an app um so right there's two different ways of charting right you can do paper charting or you can do an app um so I wrote it somewhere and I'm trying to find it oh here it is um candara um and the reason I believe why this one is a specifically good is because it gives you the option to like put in more information than today was my period you know what I mean like you can put in like oh cervical signs mood changes bloody blah right so it's a little better in terms of adding things up and so let me actually give you these before we move on to talking about other things um if anyone's interested you guys can come up and get charts so like actually let me talk about charting so there's three different kinds sorry I'm kind of like a really happy about these charts this is a Muslim sister put together um this one has like you can chart like every single thing that's happening in your life at that moment there's like a place for everything your temperature whether you had intercourse or not like all kinds of stuff um and then and then that one I really like because it's there's like enough room on there to put details but there's also the whole year on one paper so um yeah so whatever works for you is really um just the whole bottom line and this is like really really really important for women and it's like actually our Islamic obligation to chart our menses so and even when you're trying to get pregnant or not trying to get pregnant it's so important to know what your cycle is so depending on the meth hub you might need different information like you're definitely gonna want to chart like the the time that your menses start every month say you got some spotting and then you got some time that it stopped like you want to chart that not just like this is all menses whatever it stopped for a few for a day I'm not gonna worry you know like chart what's going on um when did it end you know so also like say you're like oh do I pray or not did I this is like really a short cycle for me and when you want to take it to a scholar and ask them a question like you really need to know all that information and for the Shafi school it's important to chart the colors of the blood as they change you're like oh now it's right bright red now it's dark red now it's yellow and the colors of the blood rate are all colors that are not clean you know what I mean like they're not they are in the blood colors right so even though the doctor will tell you the brown spotting in the yellow and the pink at the end is not actually period that is period for Muslims yeah so it's important and then what's considered your clean period is going to be what you see all month so some people are a little more on the yellowish side some people are a little more on the white side obviously ovulation secretions are going to usually be just clear but in diet has a lot to do with that in terms of like color of discharge and stuff like that but there is a range of natural whites that happen for different women so the whole point is like really really it's important to chart and also we need to write down how long we bled after we had a baby so have those things like in a really important place like with your passport after your birth I'm not sure what the normal the range of normal is I know that you're you have up to 40 days on the Hanafi school and up to 60 days on the Shafi and I believe the Maliki so but really if you're resting your blood is not usually not going to last as long as if you're running around doing things like it's a sign because like the placenta you're bleeding from the place where the placenta had separated from your uterus so it's like a raw cut there right and so if you're not resting then it's harder to heal right so and it's harder for your uterus to go all the way back down and that place to heal up completely and stuff so I'm really if you're getting like kind of like a renewed blood after you have the baby after it kind of settled down from the first part then it's probably because you're doing too much and you need to rest it's really important to rest mm-hmm hmm more than one egg in one cycle okay mm-hmm I don't believe it changes I believe you would release all the eggs at the same around the same time but it might be like yeah so you know between periods you mean oh like you have a short cycle okay how many clean days do you have in between okay so you're probably ovulating like right after your period ends yeah and you may be having more than one egg that's probably I mean the hormones are all like building up to come to ovulation but so once you ovulate whatever eggs you're gonna most people are gonna have one egg right you might have other people might have more than one which is more rare but they're all going to ovulate around the same time yeah because that's when the hormones are releasing eggs after that there's no hormones to release any eggs yeah so yeah mm-hmm I mean it's definitely a lot harder to get pregnant so when you're talking about like you really your best chances is to not delay past your early 30s once you're getting past that it becomes a lot harder not that you aren't fertile but it just becomes a lot harder I'm not sure about the exact numbers of like what what the percentages are I mean for a young healthy couple it's some of us are more fertile than others but in general it's like a 20% chance that you would get pregnant every month so that would you know as you get older be reduced from that so yeah but I mean no matter how old you are you're going to charting and knowing when you're ovulating is like gonna give you the best chance because you're gonna have intercourse at the time that you're fertile right um yeah but it's and it's it's becoming more and more of a problem not problem but like a situation that a lot of women are in having children trying to get pregnant at an older age because a lot of sisters are getting married older they're like starting their careers first like Muslims and non-Muslims you know so and that's a lot of the fertility problems sometimes come in because of that it's like compound with like older age and then and then you know maybe some health problems and yeah yeah and it's really amazing like I mean it's hard to fit it into this modern like configuration of life that we're kind of in here but like Allah swt made women to like really give birth like when they're young like everything is much easier at that time like childbirth is easier you know your body's like you have your strengths to like run after kids you're like and then to Hanala like once you're older and wiser and your kids are older if you like wanted to do something with your career you like it's not the end of the world to do that later right because you're like you're like in your wisest way in your life right you have like all this life experience to draw on right so and then you have your kids who can they can feed hubby and you can leave sorry so I don't know it's it I think a lot of times we're really really encouraging young women to get their studies done which is it makes a lot of sense for them to be studying if they're not married but I think that we have to remember that there is a balance that Allah swt like we can't get away from our the way Allah created us to have children young and so that's like their prime time is to have them young if we can you know not everything is ideal homebirds it I mean I think it depends on risk factors so like if that woman is older and oh she has like this thing going on with her health so when you're older you're more likely to be in that situation because as you age you have more health people have more health problems so it's probably more likely that she wouldn't be able to have a home worth but that doesn't mean that she couldn't and I think that anyone who thinks that they might be high-risk should talk to a midlife because not everything that is considered high-risk in like in the hospital is necessary considered high risk at home because sometimes the reasons why you had an issue in your past pregnancy or birth is because like you weren't being taken care of like you you didn't know about nutrition you didn't know or like the way that your labor was managed maybe you had a hemorrhage because they were like pulling on your placenta and like basically caused you to hemorrhage or like maybe they even charted in your chart that like oh the baby couldn't come out so we had to like do this procedure but it was all because like you weren't allowed to be in a natural position when you were giving birth that was like so like it's a lot harder to push a baby out if you're laying on your back right so there's there's things that like maybe that home birth midwife who like basically specializes in natural birth would know about like your story from like how it would have like different insight than what like a gynecologist would have from that story based on like her knowledge of natural birth where if the gynecologist is like a specialist in surgical birth right they're not specialists in natural birth yeah yeah um how old was I I think it was 24 when I had my first and I had I was 35 or just about to turn 35 when I had my last and I mean it's a good question you're asking because I don't think the labor itself was affected but the pregnancy like my first few pregnancies like I was like fine and then that the second two pregnancies I started to like I got I developed migraines after my third baby I started I had like bleeding gums issues which I never had with the first two and so I think those were like signs that like I probably wasn't nourished enough and like and it was something that like I wasn't getting that advice of like hey like you're on your third kid you need to really pay attention to your nutrition more than you did with the other ones like you're at higher risk for malnutrition because like you've been like nursing for like four years of your life and pregnant for two and like that takes so much out of you and so as women have more children and are older for sure like at any time like dude just eat really good food because like in the in the end like birth complications anything that complications with your body period your health is going to be way better if you are eating really good food and you're you know doing all the things that you need to do for your health for sure so like that's really important well the major thing in pregnancy is getting enough protein right so like your protein intake should be like number one right like good quality protein like so I'm definitely not talking like about like hot dogs or like you know like you want to like be in the kitchen cooking food right like you want to be eating eggs you want to be eating meat I mean if you're a vegetarian like vegetarians have a hard time keeping up with their intake so it's like a lot of times they need to be supplementing and just like eating tons and tons of like dairy and eggs to like really maintain because you're you're like basically that baby is meat so you need to be eating protein as like the top priority and you need to be eating enough so definitely like not skipping meals if you're gonna have a snack it should be like very meaningful so like always having like a really healthy snack with you and not skipping meals for sure certain things that are like very damaging to your health are like vegetable oils so like the kind of oils you eat because the fat the fat is another like really key nutrient in your diet because like the baby's brain is mostly fat so the so like in if you're not getting good quality fat then you're just it's gonna be it's gonna be affect you and so like the vegetable oils what I mean is like corn oil so and soy oil usually like this everything that we use like in the supermarkets right whatever you like any package you read unless it's like from the health food store or something or like you know it's gonna have like you know sunflower oil canola oil corn oil all of those are actually really like damaging to our bodies so what we want to eat is like what our ancestors ate for like thousands and thousands of years until this modern mass started happening and like what because like these oils they actually are not very easily extracted you need like a whole like factory to do that right so like what would a mom in like you know living in some rural place like just eating off the land like what would what oil would she have access to any ideas animals exactly like so the fat that's in the so you you need to be eating the skin you need to be having like the fat with the with the meat right butter exactly and butter is like a superfood basically so you want to get like really good quality butter like if you're gonna get anything organic like get organic oils you're so really good butter like it can be like organic grass that would be perfect and just like eat it with everything right and having fish fish oils are like fish in general is really important because of the iodine and and the oils so like so many of people it throughout history live near the sea right it's the easiest place you have like the water for transport you have like fish you know it's like right and so like our bodies are really meant to eat fish and the oils that are in the fish are especially important so if we're not eating all of the damaging oils then you know we have to be I mean we need to be eating the healthy oils no matter what but the damaging oils makes it even more important for us to be eating the healthy oils to like offset that the what you had offset like to bring the balance back in and that's why people take like cod liver oil and whatever fish oils because they're like we have like a really the general American has a really offset and balance yeah but you know so get those out of your diet and try to get eat like safe fish and seaweed if you can yeah yeah I mean I mean it's especially because like your breastfeeding and it actually takes more calories to breastfeed than it does to be pregnant so yeah like the my brain a lot of that is the fact that you're just like you really need to be nourished right and so yeah and part of that is like being able to assimilate your nutrients so it's like there's so many pieces to it like I can't just like say it all you know but it's like we have to have enough acid in our stomach in order to digest and so like having like pickles and things like that and having enough salt in your diet fermented foods like our ancestors I don't know like when I was in Syria I feel like that's the only time I've really seen people that are like eating really close to what they ancestrally ate and like they have pickles with every meal right and they eat yogurt like all these probiotic foods right they eat yogurt with pretty much every meal too so it's like these things need to be like on our table every meal like you need to have some sort of protein you need to have some sort of carb you need to have salted food salt is like a very important nutrient for pregnant people and in general for anyone right you need you need to have salt to have the balance of liquids in your body be correct and also to digest meat you need salt so and you know having vegetables like generally native peoples didn't eat a lot of salad they ate cooked vegetables right and if they had raw vegetables they were fermented because vegetables are actually really hard to digest so and that's why we put salad dressing on our salads because it's it the acids and the oil help us to assimilate those nutrients in there so it's actually not the best practice to like put like a handful of kale and like a smoothie because it's like is it does it have all the fat and does it have the things that are going to help me to digest this if it's just like a lot of raw right because our digestive system is like more closely related to like a like a carnivore than an herbivore right so so like cows and stuff they have like four stomachs so they can digest like tons of vegetables right so i'm not saying don't eat vegetables and i'm saying like like think think fermented right think like don't think like i can survive on like just big salads right because like you're trying to grow a baby and have like really healthy hormones like you really need to focus on your proteins and focus on you know olive oil i mean olive oil is excellent but we shouldn't be like doing frying in it or something like that it's like the best places to put it on your salad yeah so about cooking you do like either in animal fats or in ghee like butter you can't do high heat cooking either but ghee is like really really healthy um and then coconut oil also works yeah oh i know well i do have my website but hmm i wish well um well i would recommend the nourishing traditions it's a it's a cookbook um but it has all kinds of nutritional information in this so it's almost like a book in nutrition and then a cookbook and um so it's based on um on traditional eating and which oh no but she this the lady who wrote it um sally fallon she has like that's like her main book but then she has like oh feeding kids and broths and she has like all these different books now yeah so i think she might have some specialty books in there but i know and it's so much conflicting information and i think a lot of it like too is because we're not well like a lot of these diets out there are like to treat our illnesses where like if we were healthy we should be able to eat bread we should be able to like you know just eat like all kinds of things and have like a healthy weight and stuff like that but because we're not well it's like we're using all these things to treat ourselves which might be really help like really help us but they're not like a long-term solution you know and so like the reason why it makes so much sense to me to eat like traditional ways is because like that is tried and true over history you know i mean technically we don't need them if we're eating well right and if you're going to take supplements you should always take like whole food supplements like don't don't like buy the cheapest supplements like it's really important for it to be in a food form because otherwise your body doesn't recognize it and so most of it you will not absorb yeah because it's like it doesn't know that's food right yeah like whole food versions yeah exactly yeah i have my card here if you want to take that yeah inshallah yeah but it's called um soulful passage soulful passage dot com and um i think there's a link also on the facebook yeah yeah so midwives um are trained to do well woman checkups so they'll do like a past mirror and like breast exam and like um all the stuff that like the regular routine stuff that your gynecologist would do um and also like because it's it's like an alternate it's like a natural health practitioner who's dealing with like um trying to get you through the pregnancy as healthy as possible she's definitely going to be like let's see your you know like what are you eating and like because a lot of whatever you're going through is because of deficiencies in your diet so that's like a big part of what they do no i mean there's a lot of different like um uh alternative medical methods that will treat female issues and i mean it's just like really um like when you're saying that i'm just remembering like the statistics that i've heard on like women's health in particular like we've gotten like a really hard rap in terms of like how well we're being treated by the medical industry um like women have like really high rates of like these these surgeries like you know hysterectomy and like you know like uh gynecological surgeries like there's women's statistics are not looking good and it doesn't i don't think it's from the fact that we have more issues it's from the fact that like we're not being treated properly you know and a lot of times women aren't listened to and um you know like it's just normal symptoms but it's like we like i went to um this kind of college is for um for like and i was asking her about like irregular periods and she was like oh well the only thing we really can do for you is put you on the pill that's not gonna solve anything that would like cover up the symptoms like this is saying something about my body like what that's it so i was like okay i will not bother with you but i mean it's not their fault but it's like the system that they're teaching right um and i wanted to it's like after time if i don't know if you guys can stay a little bit longer um i definitely wanted to mention some things about contraception in terms of halal and haram because i think that's a really big question out there um so um obviously like i'm sure we all know that in islam it's encouraged to have kids so the origin of it is that we have children right so using contraception is something that is a decision that you need to make between between the husband and wife right so this decision because it is your right as a married person to have children so if you are not on board with contraception then or your husband isn't then like that is not a decision that either of you can make on your own to be like well i'm getting my tooth tied and i don't care what you say that's not halal right both of you have the have the right to have children and have a say in that decision that's a family decision and it's you know so women can't do things secretly and not tell their husband that's not okay um um i don't know how to solve those disputes sure it would be a case guy case situation i know like get me a maid and then it's all good okay um so but according to the majority of scholars um contraception in general the idea of it is halal and um they were the sahabi were doing coitus interruptus which is withdrawal um during the time of the prophecy some and there was nothing that that forbid it but the prophecy son said you know you can do that but um it's in the law's hands what if you're gonna get pregnant or not so um it's always in the law's hands right um and there's a minority opinion that says it is disliked to use contraception but that is um when there's a reason for the contraception then that dislikedness goes away and poverty is not an excuse for not having children so um a law promises us in the crime that he will provide for each child and so many people really know that to be the case um just because you know you can always they've been able to sustain their families even though their families are growing and um the um the statistics are for large families children are more stable the the family like they're not as spoiled they're more resilient because like we want to raise a child that's like ready for the world right not like pampered and they can't do anything right you want them to get up and leave right they want it you want this robust like teenager that's like okay see you later i got all the tools i need you did a great job i'm ready you know and you're like oh right um so like people who don't have a lot they have to be creative they have to learn how to like make things out of something out of nothing and those skills like are best taught when they have to be learned right you feel like you get up and clean your room like that's different than like um you're gonna sleep in grandma's room so grandma's gonna you know what i mean like there's a necessity here and you got to make it work and you got to like hold your own and be like be mature and like whatever i just a scenario but you know what i mean like when you're like okay we're poor and you gotta like make some money do something you know like then this child's can be like oh wow i gotta figure it out i gotta take the bus i gotta do this and they're gonna be like this amazing adult that can like do so much so like when you have a lot of kids that happens organically and like so your kids end up stronger and so it's like you know it's tough but it's actually a really big benefit and it's a big benefit for um for the mom too like we grow so so much spiritually having children but we also um it's good for our bodies actually like less breast cancer less osteoporosis um and you know like we're doing something that our bodies are meant to do and we're like in our natural state actually um and i got off the topic of why we should look at contraception um um there's also an opinion i'm not sure if this is the major opinion i i guess i would if i was interested in getting an iud i would maybe ask more but it's saying that if there because there if there's another alternative to it then you should avoid that because that kind of birth control involves you uncovering your nakedness in front of the doctor so they can place the iud and then it's not permissible to uncover your nakedness for no good reason like if you can avoid that right so i mean but it's like all about like whether you think you can avoid that or not um i know a lot of people are using the copper iud because they want to avoid um having um hormones and that's a very legitimate fear i mean the hormones can cause all kinds of things to be changed in your body so um you know it's something to consider um not that the copper iud is completely free of risk there are things that you need to consider about that as well um where's other this right now yeah and um whenever you're using contraception like the first and foremost rule in islam is no harm so if you're going to cause harm to your body then um it is not something that is advisable right and the um uh definitely any forms of birth control that are permanent are not allowed unless there is like a very serious issue like say the mom has like mental issues to the point where she's like you know seriously depressed if she had another child they're like really worried about her mental stability then she could possibly like you go to a muslim doctor that is you know fears a lot and like ask their opinion right but there are reasons for maybe like you know their health is so bad that it just would really harm them um to have more kids whatever it is that it's a very big need then that is like a highest doctor has said like this is what really should happen um then then a permanent um kind of birth control like tying your tubes or the husband getting a vasectomy would then become well no it doesn't have to do the husband then if it's the wife's health because he might want to help didn't he already have other kids all right but you know he doesn't it's not lawful to do permanent forms of birth control yeah all right any last questions do you want me to turn off the recording okay


Okay thank you for reminding me really completely forgot the microphone. Okay so let me then repeat. Here I just summarized the bits from the previous lecture which I will be using and what is written here so suppose we know and we discussed its shape the joint probability density of n eigenvalues of matrix from real Geneva ensemble some of these eigenvalues can be real and others come in complex conjugate pairs and we are interested in calculating in particular one of the most important object in random matrix theories just calculating the marginal densities or frequently called also eigenvalue correlation functions so we just integrate out part of these variables so all but n so this index n means how many remain upon integrating out and okay here should be a small n capital n is size of the matrix small n is the number of arguments remaining after integrating out and I discussed that it's given in general this ensemble shows nice integrability properties and the result is always given as a pattern of the matrix which is made of blocks two by two and as many as n square blocks n by n matrix made of blocks two by two each block two by two entries here have some particular symmetries namely to make necessarily profane is defined for skew symmetric or antisymmetric matrix and these entries satisfy corresponding properties making the whole matrix antisymmetric and entries of these two by two matrix they are made or obtained by integrating the kernel which I did not specify so far one of the first goals of this lecture will be to give you hints how one can get this or recover this kernel but suppose we know it then we integrate it with respect against the function which is written here which possess the property that it's antisymmetric with respect to change of z1 to z2 and other entries k and w are also obtained by some similar different by similar expressions I will need only g for my present goals so I do not give this expression that can be found in in the lecture notes so this is what we discussed last time and I mentioned that of course if we know this k then this k encapsulates all important properties but how to get it in the original papers by Bardin Sinclair by Forrester Nagao they were computed explicitly using a method of skewer orthogonal polynomials computation is quite technically involved ingenious computation but I I'd like to give you a bypass suggested by zomers based on some observation due to Edelman which allows to really to to get this kernel relatively cheap so what is this namely suppose and in fact this will be the main information that I need for my for my modest goals I'm only interested in the mean density which is just r1 so n equal 1 r1 is a function of z1 then obviously this will be equal to fafian of just a single block one one block in one one block by anti-symmetry these two entries are zero because they satisfy this problem so one one they are zero and so we have just g11 minus g11 so we know that pafian is just g11 so what is g11 g11 is just integral of this k still mysterious kn of z1 z then this f which is written above f of z z1 and we integrate over z so we just take this f substitute here integrate and we get over these two parts will generate two parts which I will write in the following way r1 c plus okay depending on with argument z that what is z1 plus delta of y1 okay not much space maybe better in order to make it readable to use next line so it's again I'm repeating r1 c where c stands for complex divided on z1 plus delta of y1 or r1 are are standard for real depending only on x1 where where these are r1c in particular just by straightforward substitution and integration is equal to kn of z1 z1 bar complex conjugate times two exponential of minus z1 squared plus z1 bar squared divided by two error function error function of the argument square root of two times modulus of y1 where x and y just remind you is a real and imaginary part of of z always with corresponding indices times times uh signum of y1 okay this is r1c and one can get also related expression for r1 r just by integrating this in in terms of kn which is still unknown and now um so what is the meaning of this the clear meaning of this we know that r1 is just the density of eigenvalues around point z or z1 in the complex plane so these two terms have very clear meaning this is the density of complex eigenvalues around point z1 and this delta term which pins imaginary part to zero just tells us that r1 is the density of purely real eigenvalues situated on on on the real axis so the trick that zomer suggested which i will very briefly describe just um uh how it how it's done it goes to the following uh basically the idea is that one can provide completely or relatively independent method of um evaluating explicitly this function r1 and then comparing with this expression recover the kernel so what is uh the idea idea goes to the following uh observation of edelman so let us uh come back to our genieber matrix g is a matrix uh of real um real entries n by n and then suppose suppose that we know that it has a particular eigenvalue of eigenvalue pair pair of complex conjugate um there is a pair of eigenvalues x plus and minus i y then it's very well known fact of linear algebra that in this case one can represent matrix g in the form which is known as incomplete sure decomposition namely i will write it in the following form i will write it oh explain what is me and then i will write this metric in block in blocks so here will be two by two block in the following form x b minus c x so x on the diagonal and this is x is exactly this real part of the corresponding complex eigenvalue b and minus c are some parameters naturally related to y i have explained it's it's easy just one needs to solve uh these two by two eigenvalue problem and one will find how it's related then here we have some matrix w here we have all zeros just two columns of zeros and here we have a matrix which i denote as g n minus two and finally oh transposed so oh uh is a matrix which is orthogonal equal to identity matrix but it's not general orthogonal matrix it made of two uh of pair of orthogonal eigenvectors in fact and uh can be written in terms of so called of for for those who heard about this uh so called uh household reflections but important they're just a particular case of orthogonal matrix in fact matrices of this form they leave uh they are particular uh some manifold of of all orthogonal matrices it's called stiefel manifold uh and uh why this decomposition is uh is a convenient one okay let me just specify how b and c is related to uh to y first of all we should ensure uh one always can ensure that bc is positive and b is larger than c and finally um y y is just square root of bc and we uh we assume y is positive okay uh so this always there is such a decomposition now how one uses this um this decomposition is basically change of variables from variables n square real variables in g we come to uh two variables just arranged in a different way so with this change of variables uh associated a change in uh integration volume in in in in a in a in a in a measure dg which was element wise measure measure for genie brand sample but now uh with some due effort uh edelman uh demonstrated that it uh one can recalculate it in new variables and it's okay i will write it probably just uh suppress uh various uh constant factors and write only relevant part b minus c then determinant uh determinant of g n minus two this block um this block um minus x uh identity matrix of size n minus two um squared plus y squared identity matrix uh now and now differentials of of of all db dc dx um and now further uh just element wise measure over dg n minus two uh element wise measure product of all independent entries of dw and then measure on this stifle manifold uh spanned by uh by by all so uh now basically if we are interested in um in the distribution or in the density of probability density of x and y we should just basically um make another change of variables from b c to uh to y and one one extra variable delta and then integrate out everything apart from x and y so in this way we will see that basically um um well but of course we should remember that there is uh the measure uh the weight uh the genieber weight minus one half trace of g gt and we should express everything uh this uh weight in terms of uh new variables it's very simple exercise and then since everything is Gaussian and it's possible to integrate out uh explicitly with uh very uh modest effort uh everything apart from x and y uh this could be also useful exercise and then one ends ends up with showing that basically what we called um uh r one r one c one obtains uh as now function of x and y which are a real dimension part of that is proportional with known uh proportionality constant to uh modulus of y exponential y squared minus x squared uh error function of square root of 2 y and then most importantly I write it in the following way determinant uh this basically bit uh g uh minus x identity matrix squared plus y squared identity matrix and and the bracket stand for averaging over measure of okay let me call it g n minus two where g n minus two is basically again uh genieber measure but just for the matrices of size uh n by two uh by n by two rather than n by n so uh you may ask what we uh what we gain but we we gained a lot because because now we can compare this expression with this expression and provided the right efficient ways of evaluating square determinant which is written performing this averaging or uh distribution of uh genieber matrices of size uh of arbitrary size we can read off just what is this what is this k n which more you may see that it's more or less equal to this expectation now the last bit all this uh was known um from uh edelman's paper and zoomers just added very nice observation that uh this determinant uh can be very efficiently uh okay this is basically one can write further this average of the term it's a product of determinant of g uh minus z times determinant of g uh minus z bar this is basically product of two determinants and there is very efficient way of averaging uh products of determinants uh over uh gauss and distributed uh matrices with gauss and distributed entries uh i hope that michel poplowski at least mentioned the method of integration over anticommutant variables or grassman variables uh one can represent each of the determinants as gauss and integral uh using uh vectors with and anticommuting uh variables and then uh in in half a page to get really this average to calculate this average this is uh relatively simple exercise and in this way one obtains uh really uh this kernel so let me now um write explicit expression for this kernel okay so in this way one recovers the kernel and this is uh this formula for it so k n of z one z two equal to z one minus z two divided by two square root of two pi uh exponential of z one z two and now the main uh part of it or at least the most important part it's a function which i will define in the moment it's incomplete gamma function divided by n minus two factorial where factorial um where the function uh incomplete gamma function n a uh divided by n minus one factorial is okay there are several definitions uh one definition is uh just exponential times uh incomplete Taylor series for this exponential or truncated better to say truncated after uh n minus one terms so this is just definition of this function it has uh convenient um convenient uh integral representation which uh can be used to extract various uh useful properties especially asymptotic behavior of this yes this uh so this is explicit expression so not after all this work not that was that difficult not that complicated expression manageable expression and having this in mind having this at our disposal one can then write explicitly formulas for finally for r one and r one density of complex eigenvalues and density of um uh real eigenvalues i just get rid of this part here now we this was auxiliary part just showing how one can get access to this uh kernel yeah no uh just comparing comparing these two expressions you see that it's basically up to some factors it's just just it because it's these are two independent calculations okay so let me write down then explicit formulas for for density of complex and real eigenvalues um it's easier so it's two modulus of y um divided by square root of two pi exponential of two y squared uh error function of this square root of two times or times modulus of y modulus of y and times this incomplete gamma function n minus one okay i will write it x squared plus y squared divided by n minus two factorial okay this is uh the density of complex eigenvalues around the point in complex plane with coordinates x and y or x plus i y if it's in complex plane and uh with some effort uh knowing the kernel and knowing really i mean using this integration that i that um i showed one also recovers density of real eigenvalues depending on x so this the first term is just again given in terms of incomplete gamma function square root of two pi n minus two factorial but also there is another term which most of the time uh at at least for main part is immaterial but i i need to write it down explicitly um integral from zero to x exponential minus u squared over two u to n minus one du something ah exponential of okay uh exponential minus x squared over two okay so some also explicit formula for the density of real eigenvalues and these formulas are valid just remind you for even for any even size of the matrix um honestly i do not remember if if there are some essential modifications i think for for density of real eigenvalues there is some slight modification for for odd uh for odd n uh but uh effectively they are uh not very important okay now we have everything for finite size matrix that we need and uh let us analyze uh the most interesting limit when n n is big and much larger than one here uh we immediately the first fact that we will use is well known uh property of this incomplete gamma function namely that uh limiting value of the incomplete gamma function when it's second argument when it's argument this is a parameter when it's argument scaled with n so i will write it n times a divided by n minus two factorial it has a well defined limit in this case and tending to infinity and limit is one if a is smaller than one uh and uh zero if a is larger than one useful exercise to see uh to see it but most easily for me it's most easily seen by performing by rescaling t with n and performing uh Laplace method of evaluation of this integral and then you will see that for a smaller or larger than one basically uh corresponding stationary point will belong or not belong to the domain of integration and which basically controls its behavior so one or zero okay um in fact uh in fact um or maybe later on i will need also more precise more precise asymptotics in fact what happens uh not when n tends to infinity but when when n is large what replaces this zero really how i need explicit uh evaluation of the order of this term but this when i need it i will just uh recall it it's obtained exactly by the same procedure but just uh not performing n to infinity uh but keeping and find it but large okay so what else we need we also need um okay so this shows that it's meaningful to consider values of x and y or generically value of z rescaled with square root of n in order to have argument of the function um to be of order of n and then if we do such rescaling we also need asymptotic behavior of error function and i will write it for you uh explicit expression for error or definition for this function error it was given last time i won't give it it's just given in terms of some uh integral with gaussian integrant in some limits but using it it's straightforward to get uh that asymptotically when y is much larger than one this is one over square root of two pi one divided by model so y okay y and exponential minus two y squared so now uh we see let us start with uh density of complex eigenvalues uh we see that if we substitute these asymptotics and this expression basically all terms cancel apart from the constant so if you substitute in and calculate this constant you um you will get you will get the following that uh r one uh so density of complex eigenvalues and z when uh n is large it's one over pi where modulus of z is smaller than square root of n and zero otherwise so we see uh we recovered what we expected uh this juniper circle of radius square root of n if you remember my first lecture so uh complex eigenvalues of uh real juniper ensemble of big size they are more or less uniformly filling in okay it's more elliptic than circle but it meant to be a circle of radius square root of n uh and it's just uniformly fill the interior of the circle uh for large enough n uh with the density one over pi so uh what what about what about real eigenvalues um simple study shows that if one scales uh as one uh expected uh to do x with square root of n then this term is sub leading and then we use this and uh relation asymptotic relation and get that r one uh density of real eigenvalues equal to uh one over square root of pi one one over square root of pi if modulus of x smaller than square root of n and zero otherwise so how many then we immediately can conclude how many uh eigenvalues typically we have real we just have them in this interval with constant density one over square root of pi so we have square root of order of square root of n eigenvalues so we see that majority of eigenvalues of real juniper ensemble of order of n they are complex uh but still the reason uh of order of square root of n exactly on the real axis with uniform density this is uh uh precisely inside i mean on this diameter uh inside the circle um when i said that it's uniformly filling in this uh this um uh circle i cheated a little bit i mean or rather it depends how you look at the problem if you take a magnifying glass and look at small vicinity um of order one


People of color are always posed with this question of being asked where we are from. I'm born and raised in Los Angeles, California. I currently reside in Jersey City, New Jersey, and I'm originally from Boston, Massachusetts. I'm from Sacramento, California. I am a first-generation Asian-American. I was born in New York City and I grew up in New Jersey. The inspiration for the I Am From Here series came from brainstorming ideas for AAPI Month. I thought about the ongoing issues the AAPI community faces and the same messages that I shared every year and really thought about how we could do it differently. I had saved this TikTok creative tutorial because it was so dramatic. Who is this person? Why is there a city placed on top of his silhouette? And that's when I really thought, oh, maybe this is where he's from. And it was just something that kind of clicked inside my head about the perpetual stereotype that Asians have to go through of constantly explaining where they are from and how this idea could solve for that. I really wanted to be a part of this because it's important that we share this, not just for the AAPI community, but for every other diverse community out there, because if it's a problem or a challenge within our community, it's a challenge for many other communities. It felt like a really safe space to go into to tell my story and also show up alongside the other amazing members of the community. I thought it was really important to shed light on the topic and that everyday aggression that so many of us face. That question is such a powerful question. My own personal experience with the question, where are you from? Is this constant debate and question about my identity? It is the entry point into someone's identity, into someone's background, someone's culture. Growing up as a mixed-race kid, the idea of passing, passing for white, passing for Asian has always been tied to this notion of, are you enough?   It feels as if the other person is undermining your identity, that the other person is questioning. No, like where are you really from? But where are you really from? Do you really believe that's where you're from? Is that really where you're from? And then I would tilt my head and say, I am from here. I was born and raised in Michigan until I moved to Boston when I was two years old and I am just as American as anyone else. What I hope people would take away from the, I am from here series, is when they interact with other people and they ask that forwarded question, that they understand what the impact is on the other person. It's a really important campaign for allies to be paying attention to because those of us who have been featured in the campaign and those of us from the community, we all understand what that experience is like. It's an opportunity for us to educate allies to understand what can be so hurtful about that question. The other thing I hope that people take away from the I am from here series is the vibrancy of our community, the fact that there are so many amazing cultures and ethnicities and stories. Like any heritage month and any month that's celebratory, it's not a check the box exercise. It's not the only time to support and lift up the community. It's an important time to listen and to acknowledge and to lift up the community but it's important to be doing that all year round and not just in the month of May. This is an issue that's very uncomfortable for everyone but the more of us that come together and stand up for what we believe in, the better things will turn out.