Transcript for An Abortion Journey
Sarah Baker (00:05):
I used to always say I was pro-choice and I don't believe in that anymore. I say I'm pro-abortion. Because abortion is beautiful. Abortion is an act of love and that's why I do this work.
Nelufar v/o (00:19):
Hi, it's Neluar here. I am a journalist and I'm on a mission to find out what spiritual connection looks like when you live in a secular world. And I'm gonna do this by trying out rituals from around the world. Welcome to Ritually. So far this season, you've been on a real journey with me. In each episode, I've used ritual to help explore a personal question or a spiritual need of mine. From wanting to feel more connected to the earth, to reconciling my feelings about feminism and Islam. I've really had to let my guard down. And in our final episode for this season, I'm gonna share an experience that's even more personal, but it's also incredibly common. In the United States, nearly one in four women will have an abortion in their lifetime. In the UK where I live, it's around one in three women. And in the summer of 2022, I became one of them. Making the decision to have an abortion wasn't something I really wrestled with and my partner was on the same page. But that was the only easy part of this whole journey because of a lot of things: the procedure itself was highly traumatic. And in the years since I've struggled with what happened to me. More than any other time I have said this, I mean it. Now it's time for ritual.
Nelufar v/o (01:59):
We'll be discussing what happened to me medically in some detail, but I'll warn you before we get to it. So you can skip ahead if you want to. My guest in this episode is Sarah Bakr. She's a full spectrum doula based in London.
Sarah Bakr (02:18):
I'm a birth doula. I'm a postnatal doula. I'm an abortion doula and I also support with baby loss. When I think of doula, I support you emotionally. I'm just guiding you through a transition.
Nelufar v/o (02:31):
Sarah's going to guide me through two rituals to help me with my trauma around the abortion, one of fire and the other Earth. More on that in a bit. First though, we're going on another ritually road trip. I hopped in my electric car and I hummed my way out of London to the quiet of Kent.
Nelufar (03:06):
One sec. Making sure I don't get killed around this bend. Am I nervous talking? No, you are nervous talking. Okay, calm down. We're here.
Nelufar v/o (03:17):
I was on my way to meet doula Sarah and producer Sarah at my friend Talia Chain's farm. Talia is the founder and chief farming officer of a community of artists, activists and farmers and student growers who live on and nurture seven acres of land. The community is called Sadeh, which means field in Hebrew. They draw on Jewish values to teach how to nourish and grow the land sustainably and offer spiritual sustenance. It seemed like the perfect place to go through a transformation, but as I peeled off the motorway onto a bumpy, windy country road, I got well lost. Sorry. I'm looking for Sadeh farm.
Unknown speaker (04:04):
Um, for the podcast thing.
Nelufar (04:06):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Unknown speaker (04:07):
It might be just over there inside the…
Nelufar v/o (04:10):
Luckily producer Sarah came to collect me on the corner of a single lane road.
Sarah Kenda (04:15):
Hi. Hi. Hi. Found you.
Nelufar v/o (04:18):
Hi! So sorry.
Sarah Kendal:
You wanna follow me?
Nelufar:
Yeah. Hi, Lyra! Is Lyra asleep? Producer Sarah is a working mama. So she met me with a microphone in one hand and her baby daughter Lyra in a sling. We walked through the car park and headed inside a large 17th century brick building. It's beautiful and it's a former manor house, but it's been converted into a retreat center and this is where Sarah Bakr, my doula, was waiting for me.
Nelufar (04:51):
Wow, hi! This is an enchanting place. Hi Sarah. How do you want me to greet you? I do hugs…
Sarah Bakr (05:00):
Nice to meet you.
Nelufar v/o (05:02):
We headed upstairs and producer Sarah left with her daughter Lyra to give me and doula Sarah some space to talk.
Nelufar (05:11):
See you. Bye. Bye Lyra.
Nelufar v/o (05:15):
Doula Sarah and I settled side-by-side on the soft sofa. I watched as she set down some paper. Now, the trigger warning for medical trauma. We are going to speak in detail about my abortion procedure and how it went wrong. Please skip forward seven minutes if you need to. Even knowing Sarah listens to abortion stories all the time, finding the right words was a struggle.
Nelufar (05:46):
So about a year ago, I had an abortion. I found out I was five weeks pregnant and there was nothing in me that wanted to be a mother. My partner said, It's entirely up to you. I'll support you in whatever decision you make. And then I explained that I don't want to have a baby right now, so I'm already struggling to express myself maybe a little bit. Because I keep saying baby, but it wasn't a baby. It was a fetus, but it wasn't quite a fetus. It's just really a minefield all this.
Sarah Bakr (06:18):
It's whatever it is to you really. But I often will notice and pick up what a client says and I try to mirror their language. So you've used the word baby, so then I won't hesitate to use the word baby, but sometimes you could say a cluster of cells and then the person could be offended. This is your experience, your abortion, your story.
Nelufar v/o (06:46):
Even though I live in a country where abortion is legal and healthcare is free, terminating, my pregnancy was shockingly difficult. See, it took 10 days to get an appointment with the English National Health Service, which might not sound like all that long. But on every morning of every day of those 10 days, it felt like I was waking up in a harmful place. But that place was my body. My energy was drained, my mind was foggy, and I was constantly gagging, feeling sick.
Nelufar (07:23):
I can only describe it as having something in you that you don't want. So I managed to tolerate the 10 days, and then I went in for an abortion.
Nelufar v/o (07:31):
At this point, I was about seven weeks pregnant. A consultant gave me a pill with Mifepristone, which blocks the hormone the pregnancy needs to keep growing. Then she gave me another pill to take at home the next day called my misoprostol. This one is supposed to cause the lining of my uterus to break down and be expelled through contractions, completing the abortion. And that should have been the end of the story. But after I took the medicine, something didn't feel right.
Nelufar (08:08):
Days went by and I wasn't bleeding enough. It was less than one period pad. They told me it would be several an hour.
Nelufar v/o (08:16):
Around 10 days later, I texted the helpline number they had given me.
Nelufar (08:22):
And they were like, just hold on, hold on. It's gonna be fine. You've gotta just hold tight.
Nelufar v/o (08:27):
So I waited another five days, 15 days total since I'd taken the pills.
Nelufar (08:35):
I know something is wrong in my body and no one believes me.
Nelufar v/o (08:42):
I had to really push them to get another appointment for an ultrasound scan.
Nelufar (08:48):
So I went in again. The lady who scanned me was like, are you sure you need a scan? You could be taking someone else's scanning place. And I was like, you told me to come in for a scan. I'm telling you I'm still pregnant. You told me that I'm not. They told me to take the pill again. They said, listen, it fails one in 1000 times. Take it again. I looked at my partner who came with me to all the appointments. The consultant wasn't, she wasn't talking to me. She was talking to him the whole time. Even he found it a bit creepy when we got back into the car, he was like, It was a bit weird. I was like, welcome to what it's like to be a person of color, a woman in this space.
Nelufar v/o (09:33):
So I took the pills.
Nelufar (09:35):
Oh, Sarah, it hurt. It hurt, it hurt. I've been stung by jellyfish. I've been attacked by police. I've been butt with the end of a rifle in my stomach. Nothing compared to the pain of what I was feeling.
Nelufar v/o (09:49):
But even after I took the second dose of pills, something still wasn't right. Weeks were passing and the signs of pregnancy were still there. My tummy was getting bigger and my constant nausea hadn't let up.
Nelufar (10:04):
But by this time I have been so gaslit that I don't trust myself anymore. I called them and they were like, there's no way. There's just no way. You pass blood. Yes. Did you pass a clock? Yes. Did you hear the drop when you went to the bathroom? Yes, I did. You are not pregnant.
Nelufar v/o (10:22):
So I went back to the hospital and this time I insisted on having a scan again to figure out what was going on. The staff were clearly annoyed at this point, but they agreed
Nelufar (10:33):
They are just downright rude. And I lie on the bed and I never told anyone this. She just put the device on my belly for two seconds. She was like, yep, you've got a fully viable pregnancy.
Nelufar (10:57):
So then I started to scream and shout at the top of my lungs. I had an emotional outburst and I felt like I was convulsing. Like I couldn't control my own body. I wanted to die. And she physically held me down on the bed and other nurses ran in and they were just like, what's going on here? And the young lady, like a 19-20 [year-old] young black girl, just leaned down really close to me and was just like, You need to calm down, please. It's gonna be alright. I think her voice was the only thing that brought me back.
Nelufar v/o (11:33):
Then the consultant I'd seen before told me,
Nelufar (11:36):
Oh my goodness, in my 13 years of experience, I've never had anything like this happen before.
Nelufar v/o (11:42):
By that point, I was 15 and a half weeks pregnant and I wasn't gonna take it anymore. In the end, they did agree to perform the abortion the next day. My partner, Matt, took me to hospital at 6:00am. I ended up in hospital for eight hours on top of surgery because I couldn't come to after the procedure to top it off. The doctor who operated was the same, one who had been gaslighting me.
Nelufar (12:15):
The medical trauma alone is tough, but I never really got over it. So that's why I'm here with you today because there's the medical side of what happened to me and then there's a spiritual side of what happened to me and I never dealt with it. Sorry, I feel like I talk forever.
Sarah Bakr (12:36):
No, this is your story.
Nelufar v/o (12:50):
Sharing the story with Sarah brought all of the feelings I'd had during my pregnancy and abortion back into my body. But this time I was ready to talk about it.
Sarah Bakr (13:15):
It is important to share stories. Unfortunately, I've heard many stories like this and I don't know, maybe it's because of the work I do that I'm seeing a pattern. We forget that medication doesn't always work. You know, a pill works. Yes, most of the time. But what about those times that it doesn't? And I think it's just really important to, you said you felt gaslit. We know that NHS is overworked and they're underpaid and they're exhausted. But this is not fair on the people receiving the care. You are trusting in these healthcare professionals. They're telling you that they're the expert. And they're telling you, No, don't listen to your body. You're not right. And it's not fair. It's not okay. Everyone knows their body best. And that's the issue.
Nelufar (14:11):
This idea of having a doula for abortion. How did you know that women like me needed that kind of healing?
Sarah Bakr (14:20):
I initially had a calling to do birth work, support at births. And this is why I looked into becoming a doula. And then I had an abortion. My abortion was a very happy one, a very great one, a very beautiful one. However, I hemorrhaged afterwards and I went into the hospital twice and I was gaslit. So I think back to that day, hemorrhaging after my abortion, and I was like, I needed a doula that day. I needed someone because that day I was on a third Tinder date. And the guy was with me in the hospital. It was the most awkward, weirdest…
Nelufar (15:08):
If there's anything that could make an abortion weirder it’s having a Tinder date with you.
Sarah Bakr (15:15):
The guy didn't know my surname. I went to the toilet to clean up the blood. And when the nurse called my name, he was like, I think it's her. And then they gave him the form and they were also addressing him. And I'm happy you're laughing because it was almost like this tragic comedy. You could sell this story to Netflix.
Nelufar v/o (15:37):
After Sarah started working as a doula, she realized there's a broad range of pregnancy experiences the people don't often talk about, from miscarriage to stillbirth, to abortion. Even pregnancies that are very much wanted don't always end up with a baby.
Sarah Bakr (15:53):
There's so many things outside what is seen as the norm. And I hate this word ‘norm’ because as a fat mixed race woman, you know, growing up between different cultures, I've never fit the norms. And I was like, who's here to listen to these people? And abortions? It's such a taboo thing. I just, I hate that. I used to always say I was pro-choice. And I don't believe in that anymore. I say I'm pro-abortion. Because abortion is beautiful. Abortion is an act of love. And that's why I do this work.
Nelufar (16:37):
It's such a powerful thing to say. I've heard all those words before. Love, abortion, self-care, self-love. Never heard it put together like that. Bear with me. Jesus. This is a first, crying through an interview. Get hold of yourself girl. Why would you say that abortion is love?
Sarah Bakr (16:57):
Because if you fall pregnant and you don't want the child, then having the child isn't fair on anyone. It's not fair on you. And it's not fair on that child. You're a human being. You should be able to decide over your own body if it's not your time. If you never want children, that's okay. We're so stuck in this whole, this is what women are here for and this is what we're supposed to do. And if we don't reproduce, we're worthless. And it's like, No, I'm worth so much. You're worth so much.
Nelufar v/o (17:38):
Sarah's words affirmed everything I've been feeling about mine and Matt's abortion. I told her how lonely it had been trying to process the experience on my own, especially as I hadn't had one abortion, but three or at least three attempts to end the same pregnancy. I'd looked for resources online, but,
Nelufar (17:58):
I could find damn near nothing. There's no support group. And if they are, they're few and far between. And that's why Sarah called you because after my abortion, I thought I got over it. I cannot believe I'm sat in front of you here today because I thought I dealt with it. I really did. I'm smart, I'm ambitious, I'm beautiful. I am a high achiever. I met the love of my life. He treats me like a princess. I got a dog. I, you know, moved in with my boyfriend. I felt like because I could leapfrog from moment to moment, from happiness to happiness and joy to joy, I was like, Well this other thing that's underneath all of that, it felt like I was mentally, intellectually. I had moved on. I was over that silly little moment in my life. But my body did not. It didn't.
Nelufar v/o (18:52):
I quickly dismissed any memory of the ordeal, pushing it away. But over many months I found myself crying and distressed.
Nelufar (19:03):
And that's what I'm hoping to deal with with you today. Yeah.
Sarah Bakr (19:10):
We can heal physically, we can heal mentally, but then sometimes our soul still hurts.
Nelufar v/o (19:30):
With the first stage of Sarah's plan done and all cried out, we moved on to our first ritual.
Sarah Bakr (19:40):
So the first one is writing a letter. You can write a letter to yourself, to your body, to your baby. You can write an angry letter to the medical system, to those women that treated you badly. It can be a sweary letter, it can be a letter of love, it could be a little bit of everything. No one has to read it. And then when you are ready, we'll burn it.
Nelufar (20:08):
We'll burn it. Why?
Sarah Bakr (20:10):
Because it's an act of release, getting rid of it. It's this act of anger and rebellion. But it's also this act of release and letting it go up in flames. And then you can either keep those ashes or you can scatter them.
Nelufar (20:27):
And what is the second ritual?
Sarah Bakr (20:29):
The second ritual is planting a seed. In a lot of cultures, people bury the dead, bury their loved ones. Sometimes we bury treasure. And when you bury a seed, something grows. So I'm hoping that what we bury today, we'll bury the hurt. We'll bury all these horrible things that happened to you and then we'll watch the seed grow and we'll watch you grow. Do you want a pen?
Nelufar (21:00):
I've got a pen. I think I'm finished. It's two pages, is that long?
Sarah Bakr (21:25):
That’s perfect.
Nelufar (21:26):
It didn't go as I thought it would go.
Nelufar v/o (21:35):
The letter I wrote is extremely personal and sometimes you've gotta take care of yourself and hold certain things back. So I will. But what I do want to share with you is how powerful it felt to see my own words in ink pouring out the deepest, the sorest parts of my experience. I did read the letter to Sarah, though. It felt liberating to know that this person who was the carrier of so many people's trauma was listening to mine and was helping me heal.
Sarah Bakr (22:17):
It's perfect and it's beautiful and it's wonderful. I felt the love that you have for yourself and your past self and you deserve it. And you're smiling now.
Nelufar (22:29):
I am. That's freaky.,
Sarah Bakr (22:32):
You know, emotions go in waves and I don't know when we go out on the farm how you're gonna feel and the tears can come back. But we're smiling right now. And let's just sit with that moment, sit with that feeling for a little bit.
Nelufar (22:46):
It feels very different sitting with you and doing it. 'cause I feel like in a way I feel like everyone else judges me, but you are somebody who brings people into life and you don't judge me and that means something.
Sarah Bakr (23:02):
Yeah. I see you. I hear you. And I feel you. And I'm so proud of you for talking about this and sharing your story.
Nelufar v/o (23:16):
Now it was time Sarah and I headed outside to the fire pit.
Sarah Bakr (23:34):
You can say a prayer.
Nelufar v/o (23:36):
Chin up queen. There's no shame in this. Hold your head up, sis. There's so much more coming to you. I give myself permission to let this go. To not feel as though I am bound by rules other people have written for me. By burning this piece of paper that carries my truth right now I surrender to a future of possibility and openness and I accept that I can be broken and beautiful and grow and blossom around that.
Sarah Bakr (24:21):
Yes, I love it.
Nelufar v/o (24:23):
I set the letter a light and watched it burn.
Sarah Bakr (24:34):
How are you feeling?
Nelufar (24:37):
It's just nice to see words that meant so much to me just disappear back into the earth. That was quite beautiful actually. It sounds cheesy, but when you actually do it, it feels good. It's definitely therapeutic. Listen, I'm not a pyromaniac. I don't go around burning stuff all the time. But there is something really soothing about seeing, seeing something that you wanna let go of be destroyed.
Unknown speaker (25:18):
One minute.
Nelufar v/o (25:21):
After all of that, we needed a break. So we headed to the dining area to have lunch with the community who live and work at the farm. I walked past a medieval looking fireplace and sat down at a big table laden with vegan pizzas for focaccia bread, hummus, salads. Everything looked delicious
Sarah Bakr (25:47):
When I arrived today and we walked down by the fields, something in me wanted to start running in the grass and do cartwheels. I don't know how to do cartwheels. I've never been able to.
Unknown Speaker (26:00):
We've been known to do that.
Sarah Bakr (26:02):
But I just felt like I wanted to run and just enjoy and get my hands and feet muddy and dirty. And I feel like if I stayed here I would heal my inner child. So definitely I love that we're doing our rituals here. That's
Unknown speaker (26:17):
So lovely. That's all we wanna hear.
Nelufar v/o (26:21):
I asked my friend Talia, who founded the farm, why it was so important to create this space.
Talia Chain (26:28):
Sadeh came into existence 'cause I needed to be in Jewish community that was focused and based in being on the land, growing food. This thing about providing space for people to like have like a moment of freedom to run around in a field, I didn't realize actually how transformative that part of it was. But for myself…
Nelufar v/o (26:54):
Also, it was time to share a little bit more about why I was here today and hope that people were up for sharing back. We'd given the farm community a heads up in advance that I wanted to talk about healing spiritually from medical trauma and the role of ritual in all of our lives and got everyone's consent who wanted to participate in a discussion. Arriving at the farm early that day, I felt nervous about opening up to strangers and worried that they'd judge me. But with doula Sarah by my side, I felt safe. Oh, and producer Sarah's daughter is gurgling away at the table and it made me feel more at home too.
Nelufar (27:41):
My own body felt like a prisoner. I couldn't get out of it. So I just wanted to kind of create the space for us all to talk about what that feels like. The difference when your body and your spiritual self are not aligned.
Felix (27:57):
Um, I just felt so moved by you sharing that story and uh, it just felt so real what you're saying about when there's something inside of you that's wrong, I sometimes say about that voice inside, you can shout over it, but you can never make it go away. And it's actually for a little while…
Nelufar v/o (28:14):
That's Felix. I never met them before. They live at Sadeh working on disabled and queer community building. And I realized that we had both tried to sign into the inner voice telling us who we were and what we wanted for our bodies.
Felix (28:30):
I'm trans and I didn't realize for ages, like, if you'd have asked me, I would've been like, I'm happy living as a woman. Like this is great. I have such a fun life. I dance and I climb and I, and I would've listed all of my many activities and how happy I was. And then I got sick with chronic fatigue and I was just sick in bed with quiet. And it was just like, I couldn't not feel that thing anymore. You've got to make that thing right in yourself. And I just really connected. Like when the thing you have to do is something that the world has loads of feelings around and it's so political. It's your body and it's your only home. So I just really respect you for doing the thing that you needed to do to live in your body. And I'm like, that's the, that's the stuff of life. It says in Talmud, there is no home apart from the body, which I just, I'm, yeah.
Nelufar v/o (29:19):
Listening to Felix, I realized both of us have had to battle the medical system to gain that control over our bodies, to access forms of healthcare that are highly stigmatized. They told me they also used ritual to help with their gender transition.
Felix (29:35):
I had songs that I could sing and I was singing the songs to myself in the waiting room that are about what I know, which is that transformation is part of life
Nelufar v/o (29:45):
Transformation. Okay. The second that Felix said that word, it all fell into place for me. What happened to me medically was traumatic and nothing I could run away from or think myself out of or ignore to all oblivion. The rituals I was doing and the people helping me to do them, and by fuck, I count Felix Talia, Juli, producer Sarah, and baby Lara in it too, they were helping me transform the relevance of my trauma because I get to decide my relationship to these events and what role they'll play in my life. It was time for the second ritual of the day. Producer Sarah and Baby Lyra grabbed Talia, Sarah, and me and the five of us left the farmhouse and made our way past the large vegetable patch and down the meadow,
Nelufar (30:52):
There's beautiful space, with trees on all sides with gorgeous white fluffy clouds. And I can see rose bushes that in a couple of months time are gonna be blooming.
Nelufar v/o (31:04):
As an added bonus, there was a greyhound cross trotting along with us.
Nelufar:
Hey doggy. Hi boy. Come on.
Nelufar v/o (31:14):
What is this? An archway of willow, what is it?
Sarah Bakr (31:16):
Yeah. It's an archway of willow.
Nelufar v/o (31:19):
We walk through a long willow arch all the way to the back of the farm to a sacred spot. The community used for rituals. There, standing in the middle of a meadow, standing inside a series of circles of flowers and herbs, it was time for rebirth. I'd asked doula Sarah for another ritual that would help me move forward. She suggested we plant some seeds to symbolize the growth I was experiencing that day at the farm. And as the resident green thumb among us, Talia was ready to help.
Nelufar (31:54):
So tell me about the seeds that you picked for me.
Talia Chain:
These are dwarf sunflowers, which are like short sunflowers.
Nelufar v/o (32:01):
Whoa, worm, big fat worm. Oh my God. Look at it. Go. Oh my God, I'm wearing no gloves.
Sarah Bakr (32:17):
Yeah, we're just gonna make a small hole that big. See how small it is? Not too shallow. Shallow, shallow. Exactly. And then put this all over it and press it down so that it has,
Nelufar v/o (32:27):
I've never seen a farmer with manicured fingernails.
Nelufar v/o (32:33):
I feel like I don't need much guidance here. I know what I'm doing. Producer Sarah handed me the prayer that we'd written together in our sacred text episode, a compilation of quotes from books that speak to us.
Nelufar (32:52):
Turning back amongst the many leaves, which the past has folded in him, pressing into the heart of the forest where light and change so checker each other. I pressed my seeds into the ground and spread some dirt over them
Nelufar(33:14):
Here you go little seed, I’ll see you in a few months.
Nelufar (33:18):
Thanks Talia.
Talia (33:18):
I feel like you've blessed my land.
Nelufar (33:22):
I feel like your land's blessed my life.
Nelufar v/o (33:28):
Back at the house, the community at Sadeh began to sing to me. It's a Hebrew song called Ana El Na. The tune is by Ali Halpert and it means, please divine heal her.
Nelufar (33:59):
That was stunning.
Nelufar (34:03):
How beautiful. I'm exhausted.
Nelufar v/o (34:20):
Felix handed me a cup of tea with green leaves in it. It was lemon balm tea and it felt soothing. I've never had it before. In that moment, I felt so completely looked after and taken care of. Sarah noticed, and she came over to ask what it was, lemon balm tea I said. She said, oh, it's said to heal the ‘mother wound’ to one's culture, to one's relationship with the mother and one's own motherhood. I swear to you, I'm not making any of this up. Did it feel serendipitous? Yes, it did. I was always secure in knowing that this pregnancy had to end. And now through ritual, I became at peace with it. Thanks to a whole community of people who made me feel loved, cherished, and cared back to health, spiritually. Abortion is not an inherently traumatic procedure, but the way that you experience it and how it's handled can indeed be traumatic. For everyone who's gone through a similar experience, you are not alone. And if you've connected with this episode and have a story of your own to share, I wanna hear it.
Nelufar v/o (35:48):
That's it. Not just from this episode, but from this series. Thank you for coming on this journey with me, with producer Sarah, with every lovely human being on this earth that's made it possible. This project, this entire podcast, has been a dream of mine and Sarah's for the longest time. To see you come true and be out there in the world for you to receive, well, there's nothing more we could ask for except maybe to see you in the next one.
Nelufar v/o (36:17):
Thank you for listening. If you'd like to share your experience of the ritual or have a ritual you think I should explore, please let me know. Tweet me or TikTok me @Nelufar and follow us on Instagram @therituallypod. And we have a bonus listener episode coming up and I wanna hear from you. What do you think of the series so far? Are there any rituals you've been doing or that you think I should look into? You can record a voice memo and send that over for us to listen to or just write down your thoughts and I'll read them. Our email address is ritually@projectbrazen.com. You can also record a voicemail on our website, ritually.fm.. If you've enjoyed this series, please rate review and subscribe or just do one, whichever one you fancy so we can make a second season, of course. They won't let us do it all over again otherwise. And look out for some very special bonus episodes dropping in your feed in the next few weeks. And sign up for our newsletter while you're at it to get the latest Ritually updates. We've got the link in our show notes. You can also become a Brazen plus subscriber on Apple Podcasts. You'll get exclusive access to extended interviews and other bonus material from the show.
Nelufar v/o (37:36):
I'd like to say a massive, gigantic big, huge thank you doula Sarah Bakr, and everyone at Sadeh Farm for holding space for us.
Nelufar v/o (37:48):
This has been Ritually with me, Nelufar Hedayat. This podcast is written and co-created by me and Sarah Kendal who is also our Series Producer. We produce the show in partnership with Brazen. Susie Armitage is our Story Editor. Troy Holmes is our Audio Editor. Mixing and Sound Design by Clair Urbahn. Our theme tune is by Amaroun and our original music is by Jay Brown. Executive Producers for Brazen are Bradley Hope and Tom Wright. At Brazen, Mariangel Gonzales is our Project Manager, and Lucy Woods is our Fact Checker and Head of Research. Charlotte Cooper is our Marketing Consultant. Francesca Gilardi Quadrio Curzio and Nour Abdel Latif are our Podcast Strategists. Megan Dean is Programming Manager and Ryan Ho is the series Creative Director. Cover art designed by Julien Pradier. For more from Ritually, head to the Brazen channel on Apple Podcasts. There, you can subscribe to Brazen Plus for ad-free listening and exclusive access to bonus episodes. If you’d like to learn more about this series check out our website Ritually.fm.