Episode 21: Pregnancy & Birth when the Internet was a Baby: Julie’s Story
Episode 21 SN: Pregnancy & Birth when the Internet was a baby: Julie’s story
Today’s guest encountered her own set of surprises in pregnancy and birth. Because she gave birth almost two decades ago, she didn’t have easy access to the overwhelming amount of information that’s available now, we had kids before the iPhone was a thing and before the internet was the endless warehouse of information it is today, but she forged her path to parenthood, without immersing herself in the baby and parenting books that we had access to and learned a lot from the process itself. Another thing to know about Julie: she is a radio personality, which means, among other things, that she’s charismatic, she can talk and she’s got a voice like butter.
You can find Julie’s book, From Conception to Confusion, here
Breech position
https://www.verywellfamily.com/how-to-turn-a-breech-baby-2758443#external-cephalic-version
Breast milk during pregnancy
Audio Transcript
Paulette: Hi, welcome to war stories from the Womb. I’m your host Paulette kamenecka. I’m an economist and a writer, and I took the path of most resistance on my way to becoming a mother of two kids. Like me, today’s guest, Julie encountered her own set of surprises in pregnancy and birth. Julie and I are about the same age. We both have older teenagers, so we didn’t have easy access to the overwhelming amount of information that’s available now, we had kids before the iPhone was a thing and before the internet was the endless warehouse of information it is today, but she forged her path to parenthood, without immersing herself in the baby and parenting books that we had access to and learned a lot from the process itself. Another thing to know about Julie: she is a radio personality, which means, among other things, that she’s charismatic, she can talk and she’s got a voice like butter….Let’s listen to her story.
Hi, thanks so much for coming on the show, can you introduce yourself and tell us where you’re from.
Julie: I’m really excited to be here, Paulette thank you so much. My name is Julie Davidson and I hail from the Midwest, and we’re talking birth stories today, huh?
P: we certainly are. I’m very excited, before you got pregnant, I think he just mentioned he had two kids so before you got pregnant with either of them. You must have had some idea of what pregnancy would be like, what were you imagining,
J: Don’t we all think we know exactly what it’s gonna be like, right, and I don’t know, I think you and I talked about this briefly in our correspondences, I wrote a book and I am telling you that not so people go by the book, but because I was blindsided. I thought this was going to be like. Easy peasy, and I said no, somebody needs to hip people the fact that it’s not textbook, right, and it’s not what you might think, you know I babysat starting when I was 11 years old. I came from a two parent household I went to college,
I checked all the boxes that I thought would maybe help me get a leg up, so to speak, you know, when it comes to parenting again babysitting I came from a family of six, I you know
P: Oh wow
J: I, yeah, I’m the youngest so it’s not like it didn’t need babysitting in my family except maybe for my, my nephews at some point. So I thought, I mean, how hard could it be right I mean there’s books there’s doctors there’s millions, billions of people in the world right, so it just can’t be that bad. I figured it was going to be–it’s not that I thought it’d be easy, I just thought it would be different than it was. And I intentionally also did not read pregnancy books because I didn’t want anyone to spoil it for me. Plus them, I don’t think I’m opinionated, but I wanted to have my own idea of how is this, you know how this is going to go down, but fortunately I actually was pregnant, concurrent with a friend of mine from college. And so she was a couple weeks ahead of me and so she would tell me certain things and I was like okay so I would look for this or look for that but I think it was especially the birth was much different than I had planned, even taking birthing classes was just, you know, I thought it was going to be a riot and it was, I mean, there was like homework I don’t remember exactly what it was but I remember thinking, oh shoot, we didn’t, we didn’t go through this part of that plan, you know, And you know as far as like the education piece, just kind of didn’t even pay attention to the part where they’re talking about, hey, if you have a Cesearan this is how this might go and guess who had a cesarean in the first time around.
P: Yeah. Yeah,
J: it’s me, so that was that was rather interesting for me. I think if anything, I would want people to know, everybody’s experience is different, and if you feel nauseous and I’ve had friends who felt nauseous their entire pregnancy. That’s not necessarily a bad thing because maybe your sister didn’t feel nauseous and you do. It’s okay, you know, but I think you have this being growing inside of you, you feel like no, I’ve got to get it right. What does that mean, you know, what does that really mean. So,
P: I definitely put that to the test. So, I’m with you. So let’s start with the first one did you get pregnant easily.
J: No Yes, yes and no. I think one of the biggest things that I struggled with were people giving unsolicited advice before you get pregnant, you know when you’re dating somebody. It’s when you get to get engaged as soon as you get engaged when you get married when you get married, then it’s, what are you gonna have kids, when when when. And so the moment you start telling people you’re thinking about it I was getting all kinds of advice and I have not had the best gynecological history, meaning I had periods that were really long and then I would not have periods so I was, I just knew this was going to take years and people said, you’re on birth control, you’ll probably need to be off for you know maybe upwards of, 12 months and I thought, you know, this is this is going to be interesting. So, I include them in my book, is that even getting pregnant, like, obviously there’s a science to it, but it’s not just, hey let’s, let’s be intimate. Let’s make love, and, you know, have a baby but I was pretty intent on. Hey, this ovulation thing which no one, by the way, Paulette no one talks about ovulation, until maybe when you’re trying to get pregnant I didn’t, I didn’t find that out in like middle school and high school biology my girlfriends and I weren’t talking about it, maybe I was just in the wrong girlfriend group, right, but no one talks about ovulation. So when I finally realized what it was, I had it, you know down pat, I was like, Okay, it’s time. You know I really, once I was. And I remember it, we got to a point where my husband said, I might regret this. But I don’t think I can have sex for a really long time. You know, we were doing it that often because I really wanted to I was, I was in a hurry I wanted to get pregnant. I think it went off the pill and within three months, I was pregnant.
P: Oh good, good so relatively quick. That was quick.
J: However, we did six weeks in I did have a miscarriage and I was just I was just a deflated and I just thought, What did I do wrong, you know I must have done something wrong, and I knew I didn’t do anything wrong, but I still felt like. But, that being was inside me like how did, how could this have happened. And another thing when I was doing more blogging, that I every time I would write about miscarriage. I would get people messaging me and saying thanks, I had one too. Again, something we’re not talking about I’m not saying we need to go on Facebook Live and say hey I had a miscarriage, did you, but people really feel isolated and they feel bad and you know, maybe some a certain amount of depression. When that happens, and kind of loss, who do you talk to right, get in when you get a puppy. You’ve got a friend to call you know when you graduate from college, you’ve got family there for you, but when you have a miscarriage, it’s kind of like, oh, who can I tell, so you’re part embarrassed part, you know, and then physically you’re also not quite, you know you’re a little bit of a hormonal mess or you can be. So, we were excited, and then we weren’t. And, but we, you know, so to speak, back up on the horse, there’s probably a bad expression to use but
P: Your husband won’t mind.
J: No, he won’t thank you very much. And then we kept at it, and I honestly can’t remember exactly how long but I think within a few more months, I was pregnant again. And then we’re pregnant with our first, our first son who is now 18 years old.
P: That’s awesome. And what was that pregnancy, like,
J: you know, you hear stories from people saying, I’m craving this I’m craving that and that’s a crock Don’t be crazy or anything, you just, You’re just hungry because you’re just because you can be bright or whatever cravings are real, those cravings are so real. Chili Cheese dogs. Those were so good and they’ve never been so good since. Chili Cheese dogs and bacon cheese biscuit. And whatever you call about the cravings were, don’t get me something else like don’t just give me a bagel and cream cheese and tell me it’s bacon egg and cheese biscuit. If I asked for bacon, egg and cheese biscuit, could you please give me a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit, and they weren’t like I didn’t have anything in the middle of night, nothing like that no pickles and ice cream, but my husband was definitely going on some runs and it seemed like that was done after the second trimester. I’m not a huge fan of vegetables. I forced myself to eat broccoli, I was walking I was intentional, you know that this kid was gonna if they’re gonna have bad eating habits. Okay, minus the beginning of cheese biscuit. They weren’t gonna it wasn’t gonna be my fault, so I tried to walk I tried to eat as much broccoli as I possibly could. I stopped, I have ethnic hair, I’m African American and so I was relaxing my hair up until I got pregnant, so I was putting chemicals in my hair and I talked to my doctor after the miscarriage and I said, Do you think that this could cause a miscarriage and he’s like no I don’t think it would cause a miscarriage, but there are other things that it does to your body so I think if you want to stop now may be a good time. So I stopped and I haven’t gone back and never smoked. I mean I smoked previous to being pregnant like casual and socially and I’m pretty social person so that ended up being more smoking than anybody should ever do, but just completely stopped that no, no soda, while I was pregnant,
P: Yeah
J: coffee, you know, none of that so I, I followed some rules or things I thought were, you know, helped me be as healthy, you know, for the baby, and just really, I just remember being really tired. Yeah like so tired, thinking wait a minute, we actually have to legally work when we’re pregnant, like, this is how am I going to, how am I going to, how am I going to do this, and my own physician told me when she was in medical school, my OB GYN she said there was no mercy. She said we had to you know go along with the rest of the group pregnant or not and so I now have much more empathy, you know for for pregnant people I’m I’m holding that door I’m getting your groceries I’m doing whatever I can because I just it was good sleep, it was good tired but you said I still had to go to work so that that’s what I remember most mainly about the first trimester.
I’m a nervous person. And I think through the second trimester, I was, you know, just getting everything in order, and probably on the range of, you know, OCD and I mean that truly, and I wanted everything to match. Cougars are crap with the baby, because when they puke, that you know you. You’re not thinking thank goodness I got a matching swing to the you know the pack in play here
P: but it’s the it’s the only thing you can control.
J: You know what, thank you. Thank you for saying that, you’re absolutely right, is only thing I can control. So I remember we had just gotten some cool furniture and I was like, Oh, we’re having a baby and now this cool furniture is gonna be interspersed with all this kid stuff, grateful. I’m grateful. And these are, when I say this, I also understand, I am coming from a place of like, first world, you know,
P: yeah, yeah,
J: you know, mentality. But nonetheless, everything was kind of a sage green checkered color the swing the pack can play the baby, the infant carrier and the stroller and I just thought this is, this is great, we’re so set, you know, so it’s constantly getting the house ready, and also the car seat, you know we have Children’s Hospital here in Milwaukee, and actually made a really good friend there who was kind of the head of the safety division there had to make sure that well in advance that car seat was in correctly because I remember hearing a lot of very smart people say, car seats are really, really tricky like it’s not just popping in, like, you can,
P: yeah, yeah
J: your kid is rolling around and I know that I rolled around, probably as a kid, but we know that that’s not safe, like that’s not that’s not the way to do it. So you know getting things like that in place the baby’s room, and then you’re gonna have to worry about what if the baby doesn’t like me. What if he comes out. Just
P: Julie all I can say is I’ve known you for 20 seconds and that seems impossible to go let’s forget where we’re going.
J: But I remember thinking, what like what is this child is comes out I was like, like I’m not. No, I don’t. And so there were these, you know these anything people have these a lot like your self sabotage and, yeah, that wasn’t long lasting, but it was, it was definitely there and we did decide to find out as much as I think life has so few surprises. Why would you find out the sex of a baby except that you do like to control some things and you might want to know, and I believe it was when we’re having one of the sonogram,
P: yeah the 20 week ultrasound?
J: Yeah. and I think the tech was just getting annoyed because my husband was like well we should find out and I was like no, I don’t know. And then he said no we probably shut down like but you know we really don’t want to. And my husband said, Oh, it’s better to girl, I bet it’s a girl. And then the tech said well it’s a good thing you’re not a betting man, and it’s fine if you don’t really I mean, honestly, it’s like come on speed it up I’ve got other patients to see and you’re having a boy and, you know for planning purposes. I don’t get caught up in the pink and blue but I didn’t want to start off, you know, necessarily putting our son in a dress if he wants to later I don’t have a problem with that and I mean that sincerely but it was kind of helpful, like,
P: Yeah,
J: who wanted to get things for us. I had some worries and just kind of getting things together and organized through that second trimester third trimester. I don’t know if it’s hormonal what kicks in, but something protects you because I, I’m gonna tell you right now I am a wuss. And I can take care of cuts I can deal with throw up if I absolutely have to like nobody’s around within 20 miles, but I remember, before getting pregnant being really petrified of birth, like this is gonna hurt, I’m going to die, or I’m going to pass out i just i That’s all I could focus on was the pain. Right, and that’s that’s kind of how I am and that’s not good, I realized that come third trimester,and maybe because I was just so physically uncomfortable. Yeah, I was I was okay. Any day now just, just let let this child, you know, so that last trimester, you know, the first trimester, you wonder when you’re going to start showing.
P: Yeah,
J: because you kind of want to tell people we’re praying or pregnant and he and I want to also say when we had the miscarriage I wanted wanted to know should I tell people we’re pregnant the first time should we. And I did I have a big mouth surprise and so I ended up having to tell a lot of people that you know that we had a miscarriage and so this time I don’t I still don’t think we waited any longer to tell people, that’s just, that’s just how I spent the first trimester, wanted to be a little bigger. And, you know, showing off and buying maternity clothes because it was fun, you know, you get to go to your special section.
P: Yeah, yeah
J: get to register for baby stuff, and that cuteness kind of wore off by, you know, I’d say month seven.
P: Yeah, yeah,
J: you know, but what other time of life can you consider being larger than your standard size queue, because right now I’m not my standard size now. I’m also not feeling so cute but still that those last few months, I was just feeling, you know, big, and ready, and not as nervous, just because I think I was more focused on right now, when’s this gonna happen. No, how’s this going down, right at that point I’m adopted. So I don’t have any birth stories to compare like biologically, some people say oh my mom went through this so I’m going to, I didn’t know any of that at that point. So, everything was just kind of like, you know, bring it. And I want to say he was early oh we had some Braxton Hicks, or they like false
P: it’s like contractions but you’re not you’re not progressing toward labor.
J: Yeah, though they need to outlaw those, because when you start getting something in they’re like well yeah they’re kind of contractions that I’m packed, I’m ready, like can you just reach up there, just grab him, you know, so I was having some Braxton Hicks and then they said, No, you’re this is you’re not near it. Another thing people don’t really talk about. Maybe I should have read books but I didn’t want to, is that mucus plug. First of all, it’s that sounds disgusting it kind of sounds like what clogs up your drain right like
P: it definitely needs better marketing for.
J: Right, exactly. And I remember hearing about the mucus plug well i When mucus plug came out, I was, I was never so excited to have some bodily fluid exit my body I don’t think ever. And so when that happened, it was kind of, you know go time, and we went to the hospital. And I was so excited cuz I’m having contractions and I’m thinking this isn’t bad. What are people complaining about like this is nothing. And we got there and the reason it was nothing is two centimeters or something and I got a younger nurse, a less experienced that younger but she was not as experienced so she’s doing a thing with her hands and
P: wait, one second….where are we in your pregnancy…was it 30, did you say is it like 38 weeks?
J: I think it was like two weeks early. Yeah, two weeks or two weeks early, so not super early not not overly concerning, but I was mad because they sent me home. And they said the nurses, you know, she’s a little newer and you’re not dilated enough I’m like, but I’m packed, I’m here I’ve got really good insurance, just you know what, yeah, literally the car seat, all of it. they said, Oh, you need to go home so I’m now mad I’m like, oh, And so now like okay, every I’m hypersensitive to everything can happen now, do I have to wait on you know, immense pain when the I started bleeding. I thought, oh okay this this is definitely this is definitely not good, not, not heavy bleeding but spotting.
P: Yeah,
J: I don’t think this is part of it so this is now I’ve gone in, they’ve sent me home, that next day, responding so I go to my doctor. And I’ve known her now probably for just round up to 30 years, I mean she’s she’s fabulous. I go in and she’s, you know, got me on the table and she says, When did your water break. And I’m literally thinking to myself, I’ve been pissing on myself for three months, how, what do you want to break like what what is, how would I know like nobody there was no alert to say, you know, water breaking water, I didn’t know what I just said I sometime in the last nine months I really didn’t know how to answer that. And I, you know, I said what what do you think, and she said, Well, he’s breech. And he was, butt first, which isn’t that a way to enter the world, you know, look at me folks as out first. Remember I was afraid this kid wasn’t gonna like me. And so she said very little fluid flinch when I even think about her saying this and she said, I don’t feel comfortable reaching up and turning up, like what do you do that with like a plunger, like,
P: a little unclear,
J: you know, like I yeah maybe we shouldn’t be sticking any hands up there right now.
P: Here’s some details about the breech position. It happens when the baby’s feet limbs or butt is basically cervix is further head and breech babies can be delivered vaginally, but it looks like there are risks to the baby associated with this kind of delivery and often a C section is recommended. It’s common for a baby in reach position to flip before delivery, only about three to 4% of babies are in breech position by 37 weeks. Although there are a number of different ways to try to get a baby to flip one that’s been studied is external cephalic version ECV. It involves a doctor trying to manipulate the baby’s position by pressing on the pregnant woman’s abdomen.
J: So she said we need to do a C section and at that point, I just remember her talking and it was kind of like going on I did it in the six o’clock office did it doctor and just, I didn’t, I couldn’t focus. Then I said wait what are we, what’s happening. And she said, you need to do, cesarean. I said, Well, who’s on call. I didn’t want anybody else.
P: Yeah,
J: and the perfect thing and she said I’m on call. And this is wonderful. She later told me that she was concerned for my anxiety level because she the due date, she was planning to be out of town. She knew that, You know, I probably follow her, right, like hey, sorry about your Disney plans,
P: Yeah, knock knock
J: It’s me. So the reason my contractions weren’t the kind where you scream, is because I didn’t get to full on contractions cuz I remember thinking, This is bad. I am really amazing, I am tough I am strong. I could do this all day long, so we spent the better part, I think you the Cesarean was planned for 630. So I think about four o’clock we’re in the hospital and calling people and telling people and, you know, that was really exciting, it really was like I’m gonna have a baby, and you know everybody’s saying I’m gonna pray I’m gonna come up there and just I just feel emotional sorry. Just amazing.
P: That’s all right. That’s awesome.
J: Wow, I don’t know where that came from, but it was just it was more beautiful than I ever thought it just, I mean, on one hand it was kind of, it was very scary, because I’m in a room and you know people have their faces covered up, I can see my doctor, but I remember shivering, quite a bit because it was cold in that room. So I’m on my back and they’re prepping me for the series and then. So my knees are up, legs are spread open, and if I’m not mistaken, and this, this, annoyed me is my arms were down, like they kind of had me restrained, I think that what they would do with everybody but I just remember not being able to like move around and you know they’re sharp instruments, I think that’s a good thing. So, I just remember them, kind of, minute by minute telling me what we’re doing, just saying, you know, we’re almost done. Now we’re at the second layer and I’m like layer like
P: this is getting graphic.
J: Yeah, it was like yeah layer like this like a seven layer like a salad like what how many, and then you just wish I wish I paid attention to biology or in that pregnancy class maybe a little bit, because I didn’t again I didn’t pay attention to the Cesarean part because, I wasn’t gonna have one right yeah, there was no pain I felt really no pain I was pretty much numb. And I just remember, okay you know we have them and I gonna try not to lose it and they, you know, they held them over me and you know most babies because they come out of the vagina or I believe most babies do right, they have kind of that conehead that kind of, you know. Noooo, perfect, perfect shape perfect color. And I just remember looking at them, and they had to hold them over me and I’m like, oh there’s a baby in the air. They just held it because I could not sit up and just said, he looks healthy. And I just remember, you know, I looked at him and he just great, which of course the beautiful month, but it was, I was scared I was like, Well, you’ve just got here do like you really shouldn’t be upset, and then my thoughts turned to, They said, Well now we need to take in for testing, you know, just honestly, I don’t even know what they do, you know, I think they tested for hearing and heart rate, you know, just, yeah, I don’t know but there’s probably a million like a checklist that they have I’m sure there is. And I really wasn’t privy to that but I remember, like, where’s my kid. What are you doing, where you going, and where’s my husband and he said, I’m right here. I said okay, and I said well you go with a baby so I will and I was just I was so afraid that I can’t get up, I now can’t touch my baby. Where’s my baby. Where’s my baby going I mean that wasn’t fantatical about it like I was fairly calm but at least in my head I remember thinking, Where is he so me back up all those layers, and I get wheeled into what I think would be like a recovery room and a waiting room. I still haven’t seen my kid. My husband comes in. My friends come in. And I think, like, what, there’s just so you know there’s nothing wrong to baby, there was nothing wrong, it was just doing whatever they do with babies when they don’t give them back to mom, because they had to run tests. And so, I’m a little loopy, because they have you on something.
And remember saying, so I’m African American adopted by a white family it is important because I said something to one of the nurses about. I was expecting my brother to come see me. And I said, Oh, yeah. My brother’s coming he’s got blond hair, I’m only telling you that and maybe in case you see him and she said well, actually, he’s already held the baby. So I’m like, Okay, folks, is there really a baby, because apparently everybody seen this child. And I want to really make sure there’s a baby, and she said yeah he came in at the right time. I think my husband was with our son, Myles is our son’s name. My husband Charles I believe that the baby and then handed them, handed him to my brother or the nurse to I don’t know if my brother was like, they might need to tighten security you know because he said I got to hold this baby pretty quickly but, you know, and I wish I seen this my brother said, I guess he started crying, immediately we held him he’d never he’d never held such a tiny being his life,
And now if you put the my brother with my son, my brother would have to look up to my son because my son is about six six, you know, six foot one and then I remember being happy that my friends were there but just some of the things that they give you just not filled out completely, they’re one of my friends said you know what, why don’t we leave so the first time you meet your baby you can be alone. And I was like thank you because I didn’t want to tell anybody that yeah, you know, and then I remember there were some antics with one of my friends with her husband whom they’re, they’re now divorced and he was kind of being as normal and it just goes. It’s funny how life still happens, right, like all this other background noise, and I was like, I just want to see the baby.
And then they brought him in, and I don’t even honestly remember my first thought I had already seen him but then I got to hold him. And, you know, you’re just like, wow, I’ve been planning for this and it’s like, wow, you’re here, you’re really here. And after that, It quickly turned to how to breastfeed him and I had that was probably the most difficult thing with him is breastfeeding him, which you think are could this be I’ve had boobs all my life this is what they’re for. Come on, let’s go you know it’s not for ladies night anymore now it’s for the baby right, and it was difficult because he would, he was not latching correctly, it wasn’t his fault. The nurses were always around me, trying to get these nipple shields and just getting it right and I was able to give him milk but it was, it was wrong, the way it was happening was wrong because my head hurt intensely from my neck up to the top of my head. And so they tried, you know as best as they could.
Luckily a few days after I got into the hospital, my sister in law who is a an OB GYN nurse practitioner and lactation consultant.
P: oh my G-d
J: She left her family and permanently. She, she, my brother had three boys, and she left them and came to take care of us I think for the better part of a week or more, I don’t know it might have even been two weeks it was, it was like a godsend because my husband’s mother’s passed away. My mother is not living and so we’re just we’re going to do it on our own she offered and we’re like, oh this is golden. Yeah, but in the hospital I had problems nursing, and I was kind of freaked out. I mean when I was coming out people in the hospital, it seemed like for ages, and now it’s like, treat them in street em… and I think to maybe day three, I want to say with this this area near a little more, I think there’s three days, and I remember feeling kinda weak being kind of like, Oh, what am I going to do, how do I do this, and I said to the doctor, can I stay another day. I said I’m not ready and usually that wouldn’t be like me I would be really tough and I can do this, I got it, I wasn’t feeling tough. I was feeling really freakin scared, and she said, I don’t, I don’t know if you can usually four days is the max but she said let me check your insurance. My husband has a really really good insurance and so I get to stay another day,
Our son was born in Friday the 13th think you know superstitious until you have to have a child on Friday the 13th And I thought, Well, isn’t this interesting, not a lot of people up here in the in the, the baby Ward on Friday the 13th as if they’re all closing their legs just wait until the 14th or push it out and let’s well so I thought, I remember hearing him just the nurses would bring him down, he’d be screaming, you know, it’s feeding time, like we’re all the other moms, so where are the other babies, I’m sure there were some I just didn’t pay attention to that so I got an extra day. And, and it was, it was time for me to go. And I’m sweating. I don’t know how much is hormones and how much is, I don’t know. and getting dressed.
and just feeling that sad, just a little bit scared, yeah you know like, I’m supposed like you’re getting give me this baby like, do I need to I need to sign something. Do I have to get a certification, like, should I take another class,
P: it seems way too easy right when you walk.
J: Yeah, like, I mean this whole time, this is what, you know, women’s bodies in part, are made for, but all of a sudden I was just, oh no about this and so we went down and my husband was going to go get the car and drive it up and I just remember I couldn’t even get him in the car seat I’m like oh my gosh I can’t you know the straps and I’m already like I’m losing it. So I finally got him in there. And then that unsolicited advice starts, I got enough unsolicited crap. When I was pregnant, and so this older woman, she looked at me and she said well how do you think I felt I was like oh no, no, what do you
P: what does that mean, right, and she said,
J: My baby was colicky till he was six months, years, six months old and I was like, Oh, I’m sorry. I just thought, what a nice way to send me off from the hospital,
P: I totally agree. I totally agree…totally wacky…got any good car accident stories? because we’re about to get the car
J: and that’s another thing the whole car right that’s another thing. I just, I just realized how bad of a driver everybody in the entire world was.
P: Yes, totally.
J: And I kept thinking why is this car so close, and should my husband be breaking right now. Are they did you put the blinker on, is it, did you check me just literally and it’s about a 20 minute drive from one side of town to another, and we made it home made it home, and as you’re putting him in his crib and I’m like, good Lord this crib is huge. He just looked like a little peanut in there, and we waited for my sister in law a lot of come a couple days later because we were very nervous that we weren’t feeding him enough, and so I was, I would talk to my brother and he’s like, maybe you can give them, like, just regular like, you know, formula, and she’s like, don’t tell him that. And he’s like, Are you afraid that you’re not good that he’s not going to gain any weight, and I said yeah, and so we went to the doctor said okay if your sister in law is coming that’s fine I mean we were feeding him, it just wasn’t the amount we wanted to but as soon as she came in, I call her the nipple whisperer.
She came in
P: that’s some title.
J: Right. So you went to school and what do you do I’m a nipple whisper,
P: I hope that title comes with a sash,
J: it does it does she just doesn’t do remember that. And so she came in, and dropped her bags you know her husband went to the airport, she came in, and you know you have to understand she’s an oldest child and she’s very, very smart, very caring, very giving and very knowledgeable with this this is her knows what she’s doing and she said okay, like what what’s going on. She’s like, shut up. She’s like, get him on this side. He wasn’t rude and we should, but she was like, Okay, we’re not just here to watch you know HGTV, we did do a lot of that but at first we had to get the baby to latch. And then she said, Excellent. And I was like, what, what, she’s never even seen my boobs like how are you. And she said, Okay, let’s take them off, put them on the left side, you know, do whatever she needed to do and, and that was it. I mean and I just I couldn’t, I could not have done it without her. There was absolutely no way because it wasn’t, we weren’t gonna hire anybody and I wasn’t gonna keep running back to the doctor’s office, I would have caved and I thought this is the one time I can really start them out right, I mean, for all the good things that breastfeeding has and I just I cannot thank her enough.
A few months later, another sister in law came to town and I wanted to be tough, I had to go give the baby, you know, give him his shots. And she said, Do you want me to come with you. No, no I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. Oh my gosh, those baby shots.
You know they’re trying to kill my baby. I mean obviously they’re not, but it was, you know, so people are always, you know, very happy to help and, you know, reach out as they could, but most of my family doesn’t live here in town, I have one brother and sister in law. So that was that was my first was my first birth story.
P: That’s awesome and you know it’s a steep learning curve right is it is, it’s a ton of on job training that you like. Luckily the baby doesn’t hold it against you. You don’t know anything right there’s just, there’s no, I remember the exact thing you’re describing leaving the hospital thinking you’re sending me home with this child and you’re imagining I know what I’m doing or that I’m responsible and who could say, right, you know i There’s no proof of that every plant has died under my care. So it does feel like a giant leap of faith to
J: it’s huge.
P: Yeah, leave the hospital.
P: It’s so huge, and I didn’t think that going into it, it was just really those final hours and then upon arrival at home. And I think there’s just a mixture of it I think there’s a lot to be said for your biology, right, like, your body has just gone through this in hormonal change, and when you left. Leave. Three people you’re returning your I return three people you know and so that was, you know, and then I was probably not too kind to the dogs was afraid the dog would get too close and it just, it was, it was a little, I was a little bit of a hot mess, and I feel like, each time I had a child, I feel like it took me about six months to really fully engage with the world in a fairly normal way, I think some people jump back in more quickly, but I just took me a little while, I was also the person who didn’t want to get a babysitter, like, ever, ever, ever, ever.
And then finally we got a babysitter. I made it. I made it the first I think it was six months old, she was awesome. She went to the University of Marquette University here in Milwaukee, she’s a nursing student and happened to date one of my nephew’s at one time it was awesome, but I was sweating bullets.
P: Yeah, Yeah,
J: everybody, everybody, everybody’s enjoying their dinner, and I’m getting up from the table to make a call to see, you know, the baby, the baby fart, you know, did he is he sleeping what foot what’s he doing, you know, is he going and I probably should have, you know, trusted other people similar to that but I just, I didn’t. So,
P: that is, oh I think an experiential thing, right, it’s hard to know ahead of time and I think it’s probably best to be consistent with your feeling so it sounds like he did have a right
J: I did, for sure, for sure.
P: So the second one comes pretty quickly. What is that planned or
J: yeah you know it’s funny and some people might not appreciate this, people would look at our boys because they’re so close in age and there’s, they would say, Irish twins. And I would say no African American twins and that never really goes over very well because they’re like well what is that.
P: Oh my god. That’s so funny.
J: It just makes people feel really awkward and it wasn’t intended to I was just trying to, you know, I was Irish twins to under 12 months. Yeah, yeah, that’s a, that’s a really special vagina right there’s all I can tell people, I just I can’t even imagine their data how that happens, but I know how it happens. So our boys are 16 and a half months apart. Every month counts, I mean literally like I think 16 and a half would have been easier than 15 and a half would have been easier than 14 and a half. It really was planned. You know, we knew we wanted to expand the family, and I think it was 34, the 3436 34 I don’t, I don’t know how long it was, but we thought why not like we’re already down on sleep.
P: Yeah, yeah
J: we’ve got everything we need. And let’s do it and I remember. We weren’t trying all the time we just knew that we weren’t going to, you know, start up a bet on birth control. One of the signs was our oldest when he was nursing he pulled himself off one day, and he just kind of poked my breast and he was like, oh, like, This doesn’t taste right so I have a feeling that when you get pregnant, you know, something may have made the milk taste a little differently.
P: So, technically speaking, I don’t know how this question has been answered, but according to numerous sites on the Internet, the flavor of breast milk does change when you get pregnant because of hormonal shifts, and it may become less sweet and a bit saltier.
J: We got pregnant very easily I should say, I again kind of had those thoughts. What if, you know now what if our oldest son who now completely bonded with right. What if our oldest son, mad at me. And I like really lady, you live in a lot of what ifs and what about, but I was concerned because he was going everywhere with me, I was hanging out with him during the day, you know my husband would come home and he would you know take over, but during the day he was going with me we owned a rental property he was going over there if I had to clean him out or show a property, do the grocery shopping, I didn’t even my friends had their own kids, so I really didn’t have backup it’s not a boohoo, it’s just you know what, you know, It is what it is. And so I was really concerned about that, which never, it didn’t manifest everything was fine. And that birth was so you know when you have a C section, it’s risky to have a vaginal really know that at that time, I didn’t, and I’m glad I didn’t because I would have freaked out. Yeah, but the one thing that should have, you know, been a nod to that is the doctor said okay we need to have him delivered at a hospital. Your first son because if something happened to I think it’s like your uterus can collapse or something, you know, we have to be somewhere else, like, things can happen with a vaginal after cesarean, and you need to be prepared. It’s weird to go to a different hospital and we knew that in advance, it wasn’t like we switched during, you know, the birth. That was real birth.
That was the one that was the one
P: more respect for contractions coming from that experience
J: our oldest was always an early riser, so it was like okay, who’s gonna put five on Saturday morning. Okay, I’m praying that you when he got up, either Saturday morning, you know, five, I think, and he screamed really loudly we both remember he wasn’t feeling great and he screamed. And after that, husband just said, I’m gonna take you mommy’s looking pretty intense here and said, I think he needs to just just go downstairs and watch cartoons, and then all of a sudden, I let out a scream moves on, it was very, it was almost like I couldn’t control it, it wasn’t the pain. It was my water broke. It really breaks.
It’s, it’s, it, it was like, Oh, that’s…I’m glad I was at home because it was you know, a substantial amount amount, and I immediately started having contractions I think they started after the water broke.
And those suckers hurt, and we’re remember I’m the one who couldn’t, you know, people are like no could focus on mountains or an ocean, or listen to your breath. We don’t live by mountains, we don’t have an ocean. Yeah, and I don’t even know if I’m breathing, so like I all I could think of was the pain. And again, it’s the same side of town, we have to go on for this delivery, and my brother lives on that side and was going to come watch our older son, and I just said, Call, call my brother Jack. If he can’t make it here by X amount of time we’re taking our kid with us.
P: Yeah,
J: and Jack is a filmmaker, and so he directs commercials and all kinds of things I don’t even know all the things he does. But I say that because he will be on a shoot. Yeah, to what you know 11-12 At night when when places close and I think he had just gotten home at midnight, and maybe slept, you know, went to sleep at two and here we call him. He made in record time and this is February, you know, it’s to be careful on the roads in Wisconsin in February, and he made it, and I just remember being really relieved and just kind of like here’s the kid stuff just, you know, not my normal like over I’m sure I’ve written like I probably had three notes throughout the house on what to do and where to find stuff but I knew he was capable.
And I remember the pain was so intense kicking a cabinet at home like I was thinking it was like a nightmare, you know, I remember my brother saying to our son. Oh and mommy’s kicking things let’s go over here. I mean, I wasn’t hitting anybody, but I was just like, I was I needed an outlet, and it’s difficult because, as you can tell I’m fairly comfortable talking and these, these nearly stopped me from talking, and I thought well, this can’t be this. This world can’t have me not talking. So, we get to the hospital, and I’m just in so much pain and I’m petrified because I had not been through this before this is birth but this is birth, you know, with pain. And I remember my mouth was dry there’s a bottle of water in the van, and I’m watching it roll from one end to the other and I just wanted to open it but I was so afraid if I, I felt like any movement hurt more so I just tried to be really still and I was like, all the bumps on the road, this is just horrible. You know, fill these potholes already, we roll up to the hospital. It’s kinda like a movie, you actually get to drive up where it says emergency.
P: Yeah.
J: At least, that’s, that’s what we did, and the registration, and I’m like, I need something, I need something for the pain. I’m like, Can I get something like a beer or anything and my husband’s like, Oh my God, he’s like, this is the registration desk for everybody, like this woman can’t give you anything. And I’m like, but she needs to know I need help. And there weren’t a lot of people in the in the waiting room at that hour I think there’s a cleaning person who probably was really like oh my gosh, so we get rolled into a room and I’m basically like in so much pain that I’m just not an ideal patient, and I do recall one of the nurses saying we don’t scratch here, like she was trying to help me get my clothes off and somehow I scratched her. Oh my gosh this is such a mess, so they’re getting more and more intense. I mean these were like we were supposed to be where we were so that’s good.
And then they’re even discussing was there going to be time to give me an epidural, I said oh there’s going to be time. Give me,
P: We’ll make time
J: Give me the time, you can do. Give it to me. Just tell me what just tell me the general vicinity where I gotta poke myself. And as soon as that happened, I was right with the world. I will never pretend to be somebody who can withstand pain or have a natural birth and I really give kudos to people who, It’s possible I know people who did it, I’m not one. And I was, then all of a sudden just almost talking smack with people, it was, it was really it was very comfortable. And then I remember the anesthesiologist was there talking, and He said I’m going to leave. He said so and so was going to finish up and I said, oh, and I was really kidding I just said. So do you guys like split the proceeds then since they’re finishing and you started and he, he literally went into this explanation of how they get paid, I was like no I don’t, I don’t, I don’t really care like I was just being, this is how I am comfortable now, you know, so I’m sure he was happy to be off the job, I just remember hearing as a doctor here the doctors here okay doctors here and then just all of a sudden, boom, it was go time and it was, you know, telling you to push. I remember thinking, but I can’t feel anything like I don’t, I don’t think they’re like push towards your bottom but I’m like I think you took it away because I don’t feel my, my, but, and they’re saying push, and I’m trying to push and get sick once, and then, you know, some other things happen.
And I think he was out literally, like it was a dream like literally I think within a half hour 45 minutes like this was just, and there he was. And you know the phone’s ringing in people are talking and then the doctor had set aside the placenta,
P: yeah
J: and she knows my husband, and she knows he’s a science teacher, directly has taught science, and she said oh good you’re here want to show you the placenta so like they’ve got this field trip already there, and his phone’s ringing and it’s his best friend and I answer and he said Julie I said yeah. He said when you don’t answer the phone is what are you doing calling.
So, it was just much more different than the first one, and he, I nursed him right away.
P: Oh wow
J:like he, he went to different kids though I mean and I also was different mom to an extent now having that experience, and a few hours later that coincidentally my sister in law, she came back with this baby too. She didn’t know what they were going to have the baby, and my husband goes to pick her up and she sees he’s got a hospital band and she said, The baby came in, he said yeah today. So the timing couldn’t have been better. So they go and they pick up our son, or older son and bring him around just petrified that he is going to hate me…he didn’t hate me, even maybe at all. What do you know mom, he was more kind of curious about the you know the things in the hospital room and did anything have wheels can I push it around and that he looked at the baby, you know, is our younger son Max and that was it, you know, but much different birth, and two is more than one I can say that so that was more difficult but I had my self confidence was back and I physically felt better.
Even, you know, even though this is vaginal birth I mean I didn’t have any issues after having, you know, the cesarean, the first time around so, so all was good, and now they’re healthy and thriving. Through the pandemic chaos 17 You know 17 and 18 year olds and it’s funny, our oldest is working on a psychology project for high school for senior project, and he’s ta almost cried when he sent it to me he sent me this picture, it was a professional, you know you get professional shots with this, the first one, the poor second one, he didn’t get any but we’ll work on that. He sent a picture and he said, he said, look at this and I just said oh my goodness, and then he asked how he wanted to know more about like his births and how old he, you know, wasn’t that picture and it was just, it was very you know, it was very, very sweet to see him kind of taking an interest, you know, in that. That was really good about keeping bait photo albums until they were like five and six. And then, I don’t ever reason just nothing. So,
P: I’m impressed that you did that because it sounds like our kids are about the same age and like we didn’t have an iPhone.
J: I know,
P: I don’t know how you got those pictures right i Aren’t my kids don’t have like three pictures of their infancy and then like once the iPhone comes around this is Tuesday, right?.
J: That was supposed to be a project I thought before all this is at will now he’s 18. The struggle is, I literally everyone used to laugh I would have disposable cameras and then I had a digital one, but I would immediately get like two copies. Two or three I would either get like three or two, and one book for him, one book for his baby brother, and then a family album, so there wouldn’t have to be fighting and I just put them together and it was easy and that was sort of easy, but actually it got harder I think with the digital camera to now I’ve got to find out the smart cards or whatever the sims or whatever in there.
And then how many phones do I have I had census I probably had easily six phones. Yeah, there’s I did the photo album so what do I do dig up the phones in the car, like, how do you know, put those together so I’ve got to do some backtracking and I’ve just had to show myself some grace and do the best that I can but I really want each boy to have, you know something through their 18th year, and it’s not looking good at this point, you know,
P: I’ll keep fingers crossed for that for that a resuscitation of the old phones.
That sounds amazing, and, and you so clearly learned a lot from the first one, right, like the second one was different in a lot of way. If you could go back and give advice to your younger self, what do you think you would tell her.
J: Calm the f down….you know, which people would love to people tell me that now, it’s part of my nature is calm down, trust the people in the process.
Think I can trust the people, because you can kind of up who your people are, but the process was like, you know, scary, and maybe enjoy it more. I don’t think I dislike being pregnant I don’t remember thinking, Oh, I hate this and I was why I was mindful that there are people who cannot have cannot bear children.
P: Yeah,
J: right. I am very, I try to be very mindful that there was a point when, before I met my husband I bought real estate thinking, Okay, well I’m going to adopt babies because I’m clearly not meeting someone to have children with. So I It’s okay I will be a single mom, but I want to make sure to adopt. And we kind of joked about that now i i have commented about we’ve had babies everywhere except adoption one through the vagina one through the you know cesarean… adoptions, the only way left. But I think, to also enjoy that time right if I feel like with her first. When I was pregnant I remember thinking, you know, there’s a lot of laughs like it’s not going to be just my husband and I anymore so there was a lot of that but maybe to enjoy it more, I was home, ish. Both boys when they were little, I worked, I was able to work around having them with me at home during the day and then I would do radio at night. So, I appreciate that because there’s just, you don’t get those years back and those are some tough times being with them though too, and maybe ask people for help. Yeah.
You know, I don’t think it’s so much pride is I don’t want to be an inconvenience and I want to be a good friend. And I know if I ask for help. This is kind of horrible somebody else might ask and I might not be able to help them so it’s this weird mindset but don’t be afraid to ask. But I was because most of my friends were in the exact same spot, there are a couple of friends who, who chose not to have children and maybe I could have, you know, involved them a little more ask them for help, but I didn’t know what I didn’t know.
P: Yeah,
J: I know. And now and now I do, but I survived and I just I cannot believe people tell you that the time goes by so quickly. I know yes for one thing, but you’re going to get through it, whatever that moment is because, you know those nights where they’re sick.
And maybe you’re sick at the same time, or, you know, you find out maybe they, they have some special need of some sort, or, you know, you don’t know if you should stay home should you quit your job, all of that stuff. Those are, those are just their moments, their moments in time, and you’re going to get through it, but I just remember thinking, I’m going to be rocking a kid on my chest for the rest of my life and this is, this is really hard, and yeah, not at all. Ask for help, I think,
P: yeah, that’s a good message, and, and tell us about your book since it sounds like it’s about childhood and pregnancy and this, this process
J: from conception to confusion, it came from a succession of blogs I was blogging for my publisher, mimosa publishing, and they had put out books, it was a series called mommy, MD guides. These were books that were written by doctors like Who better to give advice than doctors, And they said, Well, we’ve never had anybody humorous…like you could be our first non US writer and I thought well this be great. That sounds very cool. And I will put a link to your book in the show notes so people can find it. Thank you so much for sharing your story. Perfect, thank you I appreciate that. I appreciate that.
P: thanks Again, Julie for sharing her story, I’ll put a link to her book from conception to confusion in the show notes. If you liked this episode, feel free to like and subscribe, and if you get a chance to leave a review, we totally appreciate reviews because it helps other people find the show. We’ll be back soon with another inspiring story about braving the many challenges this transition can hold.
Episode 20: Take Love and Determination, Add Science: Emily
Episode 20 SN: Take Love and Determination, Add Science: Emily
If you have the slightest bit of doubt about the complex chemistry needed to inspire an embryo to develop into a baby, a casual stroll around the details of IVF will quickly disabuse you of that notion. Today’s guest set out to get pregnant a few years after she’d turned 35 and pretty quickly turned to IVF. Agreeing to IVF is agreeing to become a science project. Because she so deeply wanted children, she willingly gave all the blood samples, took all the shots, attended all the appointments that are required to re create this complicated chemistry… Through it all she had her eye firmly focused on the goal: babies…and was ultimately rewarded with two beautiful children. Listen to her inspiring story
cover art thanks to Pamela Gallegos Find her work on Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/listing/553161813/custom-ivf-embryo-watercolor-8x-10-or-11
You can find more about Emily and her company, MyMomCrew here:
Mom Crewwww.MyMomCrew.comInstagram: @MyMomCrew
Facebook: @MyMomCrewFacebook groups in NYC, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area
History of IVF
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6140213/
ICSI
https://rep.bioscientifica.com/view/journals/rep/154/6/REP-17-0308.xml
IVF and Birth defects
https://rscbayarea.com/blog/birth-defects-ivf
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30189770/
Pre genetic screening and risk of miscarriage
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S088985451730150X
Causes of early miscarriage
https://ada.com/causes-of-miscarriage/
NIPT
https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/understanding/testing/nipt/
Mosaics
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4425/11/9/973/htm
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0015028220327163
Induction at 39 weeks
https://www.ajog.org/action/showPdf?pii=S0002-9378%2819%2931142-1
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6821557/
Audio Transcript:
Paulette: Hi, welcome to war stories from the womb. I’m your host Paulette Kamenecka I’m an economist and a writer and have two kids. When trouble hit my first pregnancy I learned about the complicated chemistry involved in growing another person. Another way to gain this insight it to a casual stroll around the details of IVF. Today’s guests set out to get pregnant a few years after she turned 35, and pretty quickly turned to IVF. Agreeing to IVF is agreeing to become a science project. Because Emily so deeply wanted kids, she willingly gave all the blood samples, took all the shots, attended all the appointments that are required to recreate this complicated chemistry. Through it all, she had her eye firmly focused on the goal, babies, and was ultimately rewarded with two beautiful children. After we spoke, I went back into the conversation to includ some medical details and we also have the fabulous insights of a great OB.
Let’s listen to Emily’s inspiring story.
P: Hi, why don’t you tell us your name and where you’re from.
Emily: I’m Emily Anderson. I currently live in Los Angeles, California, we moved out here in May, after the
P: oh, wow
E: from New York City.
P: G-d, that must have been an adventure.
E: It was yes, especially with my six month old and a three and a half year old at the time so, wow. Yeah.
P: Are you feeling a little more settled now?
E: Definitely, yeah, more fresh air and easier outdoor access during everything that was going on,
P: God, no kidding. That is, in some ways that’s really well timed right to not be.
E: Yeah,I mean it wasn’t planned it was pushed up by a year after the pandemic hit.
P: Yeah, so it sounds like you have two kids.
E: Yes, I do have a daughter who now is almost four and a son who just turned one year.
P: Oh wow, nice.
E: Yeah.
P: So, before you got pregnant, I’m sure you had ideas about what it would be like, what did you think it would be like,
E: I don’t know if I had really clear ideas of what I thought it would be like but I knew it’d be like a very interesting experience. I knew it was something I wanted to do, I didn’t know how it made me feel but I always wanted to have kids so I knew whatever it was that would be worth it.
P: Well, that sounds great. And did you get pregnant easily?
E: No, I was a little bit older at the time I got married 36 I just turned 36 When we got married, we started planning I had a feeling that maybe it was going to take a long time or we would need to get help and my husband was like, Oh, I’m sure it’ll be fine. You’re not old, you’re so young and I’m like well, biologically, can’t really say that, and so I wanted us to just get checked out after a few months just to see if everything was looking normal and if it was, we would keep trying and if not you know we would explore other options and that’s when we realized that there was an issue that was likely going to require IVF.
P: Oh wow, so I had trouble getting pregnant too but it was like hard to identify our problem.
E: So ours was pretty clear as it.
P: Oh, okay. Yeah,
E: I had had, I’m blanking on the name right now but one of those tests to just see what sort of shape my ovaries were in it was a blood draw, so it wasn’t, you know, if you had a good result that didn’t necessarily mean it was going to be easy to get pregnant, but it meant that you know, sort of, everything was looking kind of normal so I had a good result for that, it turned out when my husband just did, you know, a sperm sample that he had low sperm count and low motility. So it seemed like that was probably the problem,
P: and so they tell you right away that the way you approach that is IVF.
E: They said it was, it was probably likely there were a few things they wanted to try in the meantime, and so they started by having my husband. I think it was like first stop a medication had been taking, and then, you know, every time you have to wait 90 days, to see how the sperm regenerates. So
P: Oh, wow,
E: you know, I was definitely feeling a little impatient and Lego I’m just getting older, as this is going on, then they had an, try and taking a medication to see if that helps. So that was another 90 days. At that point we had been living in San Francisco and we knew we were going to be moving to New York, and so it seemed pretty likely that we were going to have to do IVF since nothing really helped, but we couldn’t start until after we got to New York and that was going to be another several months down the road so you know we just kind of put it on hold for the time being.
P: So let’s talk a little bit about IVF tell us about like what do you have to do for IVF and my only powerful impression is that it’s expensive.
E: Very. So, different people can do it in different ways depending on your age, your history, you know what your doctor recommends and it is still a relatively new practice,
P: The first live birth of a “test tube baby” was in 1978 in England. The mother had a normal cycle, physicians grabbed one egg, fertilized it in a petri dish, and implanted the eight cell embryo in her womb. 3 yrs later, in 1981, after 41 failed attempts this experiment was successfully repeated for a couple in Massachusettes . Now, IVF accounts for between 1 and 3 percent of all births in the US and europe. The doctor who pioneered this approach almost 40 years ago won the nobel in 2010 for
E: As far as things go so kind of amazing they’re learning new things, each time so even between my first and my second, There were some really big differences. So for my first I had to do the actual egg retrieval, so for that you have to take medication, usually in the form of injection or maybe only in the form of injection I had to inject myself with a needle with a medication for I think it was for two weeks, I had to go in frequently to the doctor’s office between seven and 9am I think, and if you got there too late, there was usually a very long wait so I tried to get there, you know, set my alarm for 530 and get there early, I also started a new job and I wanted to make sure I was there, you know by 9am It was an hour commute.
P: good lord
E: I had to end, and ever react to the medication in different ways and I had actually I was fortunate that very healthy looking ovaries, but it meant I was having big production so I was actually reacting too strongly to the medication and then they give you one to slow things down so you don’t ovulate prematurely. So that was another injection I had to start doing a few days in, I had to go in for very frequent monitoring. So then, what they’re doing is trying to figure out how follicles are growing, how many you have one year going to ovulate so they start tracking very closely, and then they have you do a trigger shot, they call it that forces you to ovulate within a certain number of hours and it’s very specific, I had to stay up or set my alarm for midnight, so that I could give myself a shot with within a 30 minute period or even shorter a 10 minute period and that was a big shot. Even bigger than the other needle I was a little nervous for all of it. I also just felt terrible doing IVF because I’m a pretty like thin person and I just, it made me like so bloated and I just didn’t have a lot of room to expand and so yeah it the whole thing was very uncomfortable physically, and I had a really hard time with it, so that was a couple weeks worth of my life you know I knew there was going to be and ending. They then you go in and they also give you a very specific time to come in for the egg retrieval, and they go in they put you under it was actually the first time I had ever been put under in my life. I started crying right beforehand I got so nervous and you’re all alone in there, your partner isn’t allowed to come in and say I got a hug from a nurse and then passed out, and then woke up something like 45 minutes later, and then you know it’s pretty painful. It is kind of like a minor surgery, I guess, so you can take some pain meds and recover but then I have something called hyperstimulation where, because I had a very large egg production. I actually started feeling worse and worse for a few days afterwards, and sometimes it can get so bad that people have to go to the hospital. Fortunately for me, it stopped just short of that, but a little rough. I couldn’t go into work and I was making up excuses like I had the flu. I just started this new job.
P: What does it feel like?
E: I was very sore, like in my lower region, you know, I think I was using either ice packs or heat packs, I can’t remember now taking Tylenol or Advil, the hyperstimulation though it feels like. It felt like I was so incredibly bloated like it was just it was less painful more uncomfortable, but like, extremely uncomfortable I could barely walk, I mean I was basically lying on the couch I could barely eat, but you’re supposed to eat and there’s certain things to eat or avoid and you’re not supposed to drink too much liquid and they get worse and so it was just feelings like that I think I had some shortness of breath, I mean, it was pretty miserable, but I was happy that you know, had a lot of eggs. So that was the upside, but then, you know, it continues to just be a very stressful process emotionally so even after the physical side is over, and you’re feeling better, you know there are a lot of phone calls that come in from the doctor to let you know how many eggs you got and how many fertilized and how many grew over the course of four to five days and then we had decided to do PGS testing, pre genetic screening. So neither my husband nor I showed up for any genetic disorders but because of my age, the doctor said, the average would be about one in three would be a normal, normal embryo so a healthy embryo without any potential birth defects or, you know, major illnesses, so we decided to go ahead and do that as it turned out I had something like 35 eggs with a lot of eggs, so probably three times as many at least for a woman of my age normally would have had
P: I brought some IVF questions to Dr. Patricia Robertson, a perinatologist at UCSF who specializes in high risk pregnancy. Hi Dr. Robertson, thanks so much for being on the show. Here’s a basic question. The surgery to harvest eggs how exactly does that work, and why is it painful?
Dr. Robertson: well they take it, they usually stimulate the ovaries, there’s something called natural cycle but usually patients take medications ahead of time, and have lots of follicles and little cysts so they can harvest as many eggs as possible because then they have to fertilize them and not all will fertilize, and then some patients will get them tested ahead of time before implantation so each step of the process you can decrease the number of potential embryos. So they either do it through the vagina, and you know that’s painful having a needle go in to the vagina into your ovaries under ultrasound guidance, or if it’s done it, let’s say a laparoscopy because they’re looking for other things at the same time, they’ll harvest them through a needle through the abdomen,
E: the doctor thought, ixsi which is when they forced the sperm into the egg, would be the best way to go about it since the sperm did have low motility, we had extremely low results from that that batch of eggs I was really disappointing, but then the eggs that were left to fertilize naturally actually did better than the doctor expected so we still ended up with, I think 15 fertilized embryos and then 12 grew over the course of five days to what looks like a good size and shape and so then we did the PGS testing where they take some cells samples, and then they test to see if it’s you know for normal or not it’s not 100% accuracy but, you know, based on what we learned from our doctor it definitely seemed like it would be worth it instead of just blindly trying 12 embryos with the risk that two thirds or more could be non viable.
P: right
E: So as it turned out we did get exactly 1/3 back that were considered normal for, which at the time felt very disappointing, we thought we would have more than that and we weren’t sure if we should go ahead and do another round or not but all in because of the whole round of egg retrieval and the embryo fertilization the PGS testing and then the fact that when you do PGS testing you actually have to do a frozen transfer, they have to freeze your eggs while they’re testing everything and then you have to wait until your next cycle, and then you have to pay for the frozen transfer it costs almost $30,000
P: wow
E: and it’s not covered by insurance,
P: this was my feeling when we had trouble getting pregnant was, I was instantly a science project.
E: Yeah,
P: which was weird to me because I guess I hadn’t anticipated it would feel like that.
E: Yeah, you’re both kind of amazed about all the information they can gather and everything that you can do and at the same time, there’s a lot of gray area right where you just don’t know
E: Yeah, yeah,
P: the limit is hard on in terms of what they know.
E: Yeah, it’s really hard and we had a doctor who was very experienced, he had been doing this for many years very smart knowledgeable but not, not the warmest bedside manner which it was okay for me I didn’t feel like I really needed hand holding I just wanted you know I wanted the results I wanted the numbers but he just said everything like very matter of factly you know like, there’s no guaranteed like you. You could have zero embryos, the guy was very straight with us. Yeah, it is hard since there are no guarantees and I think I felt very, very nervous about the whole process very stressed because I knew, you know I had always wanted kids for my whole life I knew this was something I would have had kids in any way possible, you know, even if it meant adoption in the end, but my husband didn’t necessarily feel that way and you know I’m a planner and I always think of contingency plans and here I am: I’m like five steps ahead like what if this doesn’t work. What if he’s not willing to give a sperm donor whether he’s not willing to consider adoption, what would I leave him, I mean literally this is where my mind is going during this whole process. It was very stressful for sure and very emotionally taxing,
P: it’s also like basically being evaluated on your stats and so I definitely felt like my fitness was being examined and potentially challenged, which is a weird feeling also
E: that it’s hard, yeah I know so many women who have gone through IVF and so hard because if I’m friends who barely produce any eggs and I really feel like there’s something wrong with them like why is their body just doing what, what their body should do and why are they only producing a few or why are all their embryos bad, and, you know, they said like I was very fortunate to have a lot of eggs and to produce pretty good embryos but I even felt that way at times like, Oh, two thirds of mine are bad, it’s probably because of my age you know and that definitely was hard.
P: yeah
E: I think it was certainly the hardest on my husband, you know, because it more frequently is an issue with the woman and my husband’s not like even a macho kind of guy, but it really does take an emotional toll on them too, especially when you just assume you won’t have a problem and this is something that you’re supposed to be able to do with a man, you know, as you always think just going to go the natural way and that’s not like is how we made babies in this petri dish.
P: Yeah yeah
E: and it definitely feels a bit impersonal at times, which is hard, I think, but yeah but I knew we were so fussy, we did the PGS testing had four good embryos we decided we should go ahead and try them instead of thinking up more. And the only reason we consider doing more is we knew we wanted to have two children, and I didn’t want to have to go through IVF again, I couldn’t imagine doing it with a young child since I was like, off my feet for basically for three weeks. And so but we decided, you know, given the cost the time the, you know, physical toll, for me, we would try implanting an embryo, and we thought we probably could implant to up to two if two don’t work, we’ll go back to the drawing board and try to bank up some more embryos, but if it works first try, we have three left that’s pretty good odds. And so, as it turned out it did work, the first try, and that was amazing
P: That’s amazing.
E: Yeah, and we actually another unusual thing is we knew the genders because we had done this pre genetic screening, you can choose not to find out if you don’t want to but we’re like, find out you’re kind of like to know if I’m definitely not going to have a girl you know or what the options are, and it is a turned out we have to have two of each gender.
P: Oh wow!
E: Yeah, so for the first one, I didn’t want it I really wanted to girl, but I didn’t, I didn’t want to try to plan it in case it didn’t work out so we just told the doctor put the best looking one in, and we’ll find out, you know, a 20 week ultrasound of everything’s been looking good up till that point and so that is what we did, but yes, that you know it’s so exciting to find out that you’re pregnant, but from a call from the nurse but it also is just so scary. I think there’s so much more at stake when you go through IVF and you’ve had trouble. And so, you know, many, many women go through miscarriages and it’s always hard I’m sure in every single case for the woman, you know, I felt like it was that was even so much more heightened of the possibility when you go through IVF and, you know, have done so much to try to get to that point it’s not as easy as being like, Oh, that was terrible, but we’ll try again, it’s like, oh my god, now we’re down one embryo and, you know,
P: yeah, yeah
E: $30,000
P: as of today, the most common cause of early miscarriage seems to be chromosomal abnormalities of the embryo, given that you think that pre implementation genetic screening with Dr galery of miscarriage for women who undergo IVF, but it seems that a lot depends on the ability of the pre genetic screen to accurately assess the quality of the embryo. This process is complicated as you can imagine, but more recent research from 2017 and beyond, suggests that in fact, pre genetic screening can dramatically reduce the rate of miscarriage,
E: until really I made it. The 20 week ultrasound I was, I was really nervous about a lot of things and every appointment going in, hoping there was still a heartbeat, you know, very nerve wracking
P: if you do IVF Are you high risk or you just go to regular OB practice
E: different consider it in different ways, I think, I think the default is to consider it high risk, but I didn’t have to go to a special high risk practice, although I also was over 35 already so you know it’s probably considered high risk anyway, You know I’ve heard some things that with IVF there could be an increased risk of birth defects but I don’t know the numbers behind that my doctor did not mention it to us.
P: So are there more cases of birth defects, among couples who use IVF. It looks like the answer to this is yes, the rate is slightly higher, but Is this because of something about the IVF process that’s unclear, people using IVF have fertility issues and tend to be older, and both of those factors fertility and age also lead to higher rates of birth defects, but with the constant improvement of PGS testing, potentially the difference between IVF and natural conception may be eliminated in the future.
P: So given all that you had to do to get to 20 weeks after that, did you get to enjoy the pregnancy or what was it like,
E: I enjoyed it a little bit I think I always joke that I felt really awful during the first trimester, you know, nauseous, pretty much like all day morning sickness and tired and everyone would say oh wait till you get to the second trimester, you’re gonna feel so great and I got there and I was like well, I feel less bad, but I don’t feel great.
P: Yeah,
E: like I was not like going to spin classes during my pregnancy I mean I don’t know how anyone was doing that but I think some people feel amazing. Some people feel very feminine and they look amazing and they’re glowing, I did not really feel like that during any point of my pregnancy. I think probably during the second trimester, I was the least worried about anything. Oh, and one other hiccup that had happened in the first trimester was with the, the nuchal ultrasound, which we had, I think around 12 weeks that looked good, but there was a blood draw, they did this fingerprint right at the end of the test, and the Oh what’s this for, and I was so confused on like is it just like identification or something and they didn’t really tell me and then later my doctor called and said that they weren’t supposed to give me that blood draw, it had been discontinued but out of habit they did it by mistake, and now she’s obligated to tell me the results which showed there was an increased risk of downs, and she said she wasn’t worried at all since we had done PGS testing and she thought it was just my age skewing it but I of course was very worried and suddenly can do and an amnio if you want to I don’t think you need to but you can think about it, you can talk to a genetic counselor, and that was so stressful because I mean I know the risk is very small, during an amnio that you could lose the baby but after going through so much, I mean I didn’t want to take the risk if it was just me being nervous about it. So, that was tough. We did meet with a genetic counselor and once she went through all the numbers. Oh, because also we had done that DNA blood draw. The nipt, NIPT test.
P: Real quickly, the nips are non invasive prenatal screening is a blood test that looks up placental DNA fragments placental DNA is usually identical to the baby’s and effort to determine the risk of the fetus will be born with certain genetic abnormalities like downs and Trisomy 13 and Trisomy 18 Because it’s a screening test it can only tell whether the risk of a certain condition is increased or decreased,
E: and that had shown good results with nothing concerning and that also had a much higher accuracy rate than the new goal, blood draw. So that’s why the doctor and the genetic counselor said they really weren’t worried went through all the numbers we decided not to the amnio tightening during the second trimester, I kind of enjoy the pregnancy like I wasn’t feeling great physically but emotionally I was fine in the third trimester that and I think not only does it get more uncomfortable physically, but I started getting very nervous about, you know, the possibility that the baby wouldn’t be healthy when she was born and I should have done the amnio, but it’s too late now and they’re a little bit stressful. And then, other than that I mean it’s, it was a fine pregnancy, I did get some really bad SI joint pain and I couldn’t really walk for about a week, and that was tough was my last week of work an hour away, commuting and my husband had to drive me a couple days and I had to take Uber shares a couple of days because I just couldn’t manage commuting, but then it, it went away, so that was good.
P: So take us through the birth, you know, what were you doing did your water break like how did you know, it was time,
E: so I for some reason was convinced I was going to be late and have to get induced a week after my due date my thing my mom had been a week late, and I wasn’t showing any signs of, you know, being a face or dilated or anything. And then one day before my due date, I woke up at 4am felt this little rush of water and thought oh my god who knows my water breaking, and I called the doctor and they said, come in when their office open so I kind of paced around for a couple hours woke my husband up at 6am and said okay we have to go in. And at first they couldn’t confirm it and then they, they did confirm that it should. The nurse kept saying are you sure you didn’t pee your pants? you’re like I’m on 100% Sure, I actually haven’t done that at all during pregnancy and I know it did not feel like that. So they finally confirmed it and then they sent us straight to the hospital, and that don’t even stop to get your bags just go check in his New York City and it can get really crazy so they said it can take a few hours and since I still wasn’t dilated at all they wanted to start me on induction medications, since they do have goals of trying to get the baby out within 24 hours once your water breaks. So we went straight to the hospital they got a room they started me on induction meds, I got the epidural, very early, like at one centimeter so I was already in so much pain, and then it just turned out my epidural didn’t work that well, which I did not even know was possibility. But I guess with some people, it just doesn’t work that well for some reason,
P: what’s that mean? You could feel below your waist?
E: I was in a lot of pain, so I was still feeling really terrible contractions. At one point it was just on half my body so they said, Turn, turn this way and let them in, kind of drain it and I was like, is that how this unscientific and they’re like yeah pretty much so I did that and it helped a little bit, I still could feel like contractions, they weren’t pleasant, some of them were getting pretty painful and then I started to tell the nurses I was in a lot of pain like down there and they’re just like, really are you sure, what’s the feeling and I was like, just so much pain like I you know we’re trying to play a card game and I really couldn’t even focus on it, and they try not to check you that much after your water breaks because they don’t want to introduce the possibility of infection but they had the doctor come in and check me and they were like, oh you’re eight centimeters dilated already and,
P: wow,
E: this had gone much faster than I expected. They had said, you’re gonna have this baby till tomorrow and so then they were like, you’re gonna be ready to push in the next half an hour and I was like oh my god, and so the doctor when it felt like I was ready to push the doctor came in and then I don’t know, I thought I was pushing. Like, are you even pushing, like I don’t feel anything happening and I was like, Excuse me, are you kidding I don’t know what I’m doing. and I kind of realized that that point the birth class we had taken through the hospital didn’t really cover pushing in much detail and I thought well that was kind of a big oversight. So I was trying my best not really knowing what I was doing, and it was hard because they had tried to increase it, but they’re a little bit of a, you know, it sounds like kind of numb but also still feeling a lot of pain and at this point I mean it was like nine or 10pm I had been up since four I’d barely eaten anything all day I was so exhausted and I think I just started like begging for a C section at some point, it seemed like I was not making a lot of progress so it turned out I ended up pushing for two hours, and the baby had made its way down the canal and everything goes as a matter of getting her out and then at one point I heard that a doctor nursing at the heartbeat, you know, kind of in hushed tones and I was like, oh my god they’re talking about the heartbeat and they’re like frantically pushing. Finally she came out, she had had the thing, when the meconium where the baby poops in during labor and so on and so they had to have a pediatrician there and whisked her away immediately and and you’re crying right away right just like she helped me because I’ve been very nervous at that point that maybe, you know there’s going to be something wrong and the doctor said yes she looks great. So they sucked her lungs she cried, everything was good, but then my placenta wouldn’t come out. So, it had to be manually extracted, which, since my epidural still wasn’t working that well I really could feel a lot more than I was supposed to and it was, it was unpleasant so the doctor basically says like reach up and, you know, pull it out in pieces,
P: wow
E: was it like it was still stuck to your uterus?
E: or like, yeah, it was like stuck to the wall of the uterus.
P: In Emily’s case the baby is born, but the placenta seems like it’s stuck to the wall of the uterus, it will not come out what’s going on there,
Dr. Robertson: so we call that a retained placenta and it’s actually more common than people could imagine the usual style with birth are to wait until the placenta sells itself or gentle traction on the umbilical cord that depends on the provider and, but everybody does agree that once said he hasn’t delivered after 20 to 30 minutes, it’s probably a good idea to get that placenta out even if you have to go up and actually with your hand, create a plain grab the placenta and pull it out, because mom’s that’s a big risk factor for hemorrhage, if you ever retained placenta. It’s painful so there isn’t any anesthesia, usually, unless the mom is a hero and has a huge pain tolerance you wouldn’t do this with a little bit of anesthesia in the operating room, and once you
have retained placenta you’re at risk for it happening again with the next birth so you just need to educate your provider, and know that you may need to have extra care.
E: I was reading this article in People at one point later or Kim Kardashian was talking about how traumatic her birth was because her center wouldn’t come out and the doctor believes there are mouth and pull it out and she was crying her mother was crying and that’s why she decided to use a surrogate for the next birth and I was like, that’s funny. That’s what happened to me. I was like I want to describe you that’s so dramatic. I mean it was very unpleasant, but yeah so basically that’s it, pull it out and afterwards and I said you want to see and I was like, I guess so. And you know She held it up, it was like roadkill and I was like, put it back, get rid of it I don’t see it anymore. Yeah, it was pretty terrible and then one of the risks with that is they don’t get it all out, because they’re they’re trying their best, but a piece could still be stuck there which could cause problems, then you have to go back to the hospital and sometimes surgically removed. It’s also too late, no production, the doctor thought she got it all out, and we were just hoping for the best at that point I didn’t have any hemorrhaging or anything that was fortunate to, I did tear in four places, the doctor said, Good news, you only have minor tearing, but it’s in four places. How is that considered minor. So then I could feel like every stitch going in and out which are worse because you know I still wasn’t none down there like your supposed to be, I mean while my husband was doing skin to skin with the baby since I still couldn’t hold her yet. He kept telling me to be still and I was like, writhing in pain, but finally it was over and I just, like, kept looking at the baby and being happy she was healthy and happy that I had a partner there with the skin the skin with her and then eventually got to hold her which was wonderful and she latched straight on to breastfeed and so it’s great. And then I really didn’t dwell on the bad birth experience at all, just, you know, very happy at that point that everything went well and I have a healthy baby.
P: yeah, I think, to some degree, your entrance into pregnancy gives you a lot of perspective.
E: Yeah, maybe it’s like, I’ll get through whatever I have to do like, yeah, this alternate child.
P: Yeah, it just sounds also like it was a little bit faster for a first time mom
E: yeah I leave that the labor was a bit fast, so that that was probably the one outside. And how was it when you brought her home. It was great. We ended up leaving the hospital for about 36 hours which was very quick, but because you only stay two nights in New York, and I had her at 1030 in the evening, we didn’t get our room till 130 in the morning but that counted as our first night. It’s kind of weird, they’re just like good luck. My parents were coming to visit a week after my due date. We really thought I was gonna be late. And so we had no help for the first week, which I actually really liked, and I think I might have thought about getting some help, but my husband was like, oddly confident about caring for a baby, I think I had never changed a diaper before and really had no experience with, with new babies but was like, We can do this and make our one big hiccup was the first night we had our home, that there was an emergency heat shut off, And it was late January in New York City, and I had lent, our space heater out to someone because our apartment was usually very warm, so you know I realized this at like 930 in the evening that was freezing cold and I start freaking out and like, this tiny baby that’s less than two days old, like, you know, we need some heat in his apartment and so I like sent my husband out in the middle of the night to find a space heater. So, that was fine. And then, yeah, she was like a really amazing easy baby especially for the first couple weeks my parents came to visit, which was nice for an extra pair of hands and eyes, and yeah it was it was great.
P: That sounds like a very good ending to uncertainty.
E: Very very good. Yes.
P: And what is she into now. Well, she’s almost four, she’s into, let’s see unicorns and princesses and dresses very girly things that I was not into as a child and I don’t know where this came from but she’s a very girly girl that’s very sweet. She loves to dance. She loves gymnastics, she goes to preschool and, you know she’s, she’s in a really good kid, I mean she has a strong personality so there are some, some lows with the highs and highs with the lows, there’s definitely strong opinions and tantrums, but she’s also I think it means very independent very confident. She’s so so so funny like she makes us laugh out loud and has been the time she was, she was a baby, pretty much, it’s really wonderful to see her personality develop.
P:Sounds adorable for is a very funny age, like you, my friends were going to get me like black onesies for my newborn because I only wore black and I’m not girly at all, and my daughter is super primo girly, it is fun to see some aspect that that does not come from you and this little individual that you have created
E: definitely…it’s a lot of fun.
P: So let’s talk about your son, was that process smoother because you had been through before
E: It was a lot smoother. At the time I, I was getting pregnant with my daughter to do a frozen embryo transfer, they had to take progesterone shots for weeks and weeks and weeks so it was something more shots and this time in your butt and I made my husband do every single one because I couldn’t even see back there I was like, you’re going to be involved with and posing, so they have you started can’t remember but maybe a week or a few days before doing the transfer and then if the transfer is successful, to continue for several weeks I think I did it maybe for nine or 10 more weeks. By the time I was trying to get back on my son, the doctor said, Well, we’ve learned in this time, that it actually doesn’t make much of a difference. So, he said well it worked for you the first time if you feel more comfortable doing it again you can but we haven’t seen numbers wise to change and I was like well I’m, I’m a numbers person I believe in the science and if I don’t have to inject myself with shots for weeks on end I will definitely skip that part, they just have you do a progesterone suppository for a few days I think or maybe a week which was a piece of cake, you know, compared to the shots, and, and then the transfer was successful again. So first try, and this time we did actually choose the gender, which was a little weird, you know, I think, the doctor said your three remaining embryos are all the same quality. Seems like you should just pick, you know, and just pick what you want, and we had always talked about how nice it would be to have a boy and a girl, and we had the girl first thing I would have been happy they’re having two girls or a boy and a girl but and I probably would have just said to the doctor just put in whatever looks like the best one and we’ll find out again at 20 weeks but my husband thought we should try for the boy and so we did say, you know, put in the best looking male embryo and that turned into our son. So, yeah,
P: that’s kind of amazing, and that there was that there was so much learning between your first and your second which aren’t that far apart.
E: Yeah, I mean that’s that’s talking about earlier, just being still a relatively new science and technology it’s amazing that they’re still learning. Another major thing is mosaic embryos when they do the PGS testing, there are some embryos that look like they have clear birth defects but there are some that are called Mosaic or some cells look okay and some don’t. And they don’t know what that means. And that’s actually a really crazy thing which I think, you know, in the next few years, they’re probably going to learn a lot more about it.
P: So it looks like previously in IVF pre genetic screens. Doctors identified either totally normal embryos, and those with chromosomal abnormalities, but new technologies make it possible to make this into a spectrum, which includes mosaics embryos that include both normal and abnormal cells, looking only at research from 2020 and beyond. It looks like some of these mosaics can be used as embryos, but mosaic embryo transfers have a higher rate of miscarriage and a lower rate of live births a fraction of cells that are normal relative to those that are abnormal may be an issue in the viability of mosaics.
E: Typically they recommend you don’t use a mosaic embryo just because they don’t know what’s going to happen with it, but some people don’t have a lot of embryos and they’ve had a very hard time and that’s all they have, and I do have two friends who ended up using it and their kids are perfect, and out of our eight that tested not normal three or four were mosaic so you know it may it may be that those were perfectly fine
P: so with your second pregnancy, what do you get to enjoy that one or were you equally nervous
E: I’m so lucky. I don’t need more than one child, and the second one is I actually, you know, when we were talking about trying for the second I started having some reservations, I’m an only child and I always wanted a sibling and that’s why I always wanted that more than one, And whenever I asked my parents why they didn’t have more than one so we had the perfect child we didn’t, we didn’t run any more out of it, like, whatever, that’s not a reason to do, and then I, like, actually I get it now like I you know I felt very close with my daughter and I was a little worried about adding a second you never know how it’s gonna go if they’re gonna get along or not, and I was a little worried about, you know, ruining our relationship and also we could feel life starting to get a little bit easier and I was like oh my god, are we going to do this again and go back to the drawing. And you know, I was 40 I was already I think, you know from like, I’m getting older. This is more challenging than if I were 10 years younger, but you know we did decide to go for it, but I think, you know, because probably in both those things I was just much, much, my anxiety was not there the second time, which is great, physically I think it was harder, you know, just having a toddler at home I was so, so tired, and you know get to the end of the day and just have like no energy left by bedtime, so that part was difficult. I also got bigger, faster and just bigger overall and it just like I have a very small frame so it just felt pretty uncomfortable for most of the time, I felt like I had like a lot of pulling like I was certainly not going to any spin classes. So like all I can do the walk around normally, at least in New York. Did you get a lot of blockings, but yeah, then by the end I mean, it’s just so uncomfortable all the time, so that was, that was pretty much what second pregnancy was for me.
P: And was that birth, fast also, like the first one,
E: yeah, it was much better, I had made it very clear that the epidural did not work the first time and I really wanted to try to get it to work the second time it worked better I think. Toward the end I was having really painful contractions so it still didn’t work quite to its full extent but that was hard but the whole thing was much faster so I think I had been asking to get induced at 39 weeks, partly because of my age, I thought, well there’s, you know, a study had just come out saying it was really no different than 40 weeks.
P: So Emily’s talking about the ARRIVE trial that tested the consequences of induction at 39 ish weeks when they only looked at births with one baby for a first time mother who had no risk of fetus was in the right position for vaginal delivery the study found that there were fewer complications and a lower frequency of respiratory support and these newborns at lower rate of C section, it’s not clear if this generalizes to all births,
E: and a lot of doctors were inducing women over 40 at 39 weeks. Also I was due on October 30 And I didn’t really want to have a baby on Halloween. So I thought, well I can do this one week earlier was just being so uncomfortable I thought, you know, I’d rather just not be pregnant one extra week if I don’t have to be at my practice they weren’t doing that and so I really had to try to fight to get that request in and finally one doctor, you know who strongly believes that it should happen helped make it happen so we had an induction time set up, we’re supposed to go in at 9pm one evening, my parents had flown in to help watch our daughter, and then my water, coincidentally broke a couple hours before that. So it was very unusual but it was, It was getting we were going in anyway I still needed the induction medications since I wasn’t very dilated, it was kind of the same as last time but you know since we went in, in the evening, the New York hospitals can get so crowded sometimes so we were in this triage area for a while and you know that took a few hours to even get our room I think we didn’t get a room till after midnight and then it was another hour or two before they could even get there with the induction medication so you know it happened pretty late, but then labor moved along quickly enough and so I ended up having the baby at 10am that morning. Yeah, other than the painful contractions, I only pushed for for 30 minutes or something, and that was much easier, and it was it all felt much more calm, like I don’t know it was morning not evening like that just felt kind of better as a doctor, it was supposed to be the doctor for my practice that I liked a lot. I was at a good practice, you never know who you’re gonna get and I was very happy it was gonna be this one doctor, and then the reason she wasn’t available so there was supposed to be this other doctor and I was like, Okay, well, like her, that’s fine. And then if she wasn’t available I prefer like being a second time mom was good because I was like, whatever whose delivering me I don’t care. And so it was like this other doctor from like a sister practice who I’d never even heard of before but she, she was great and she was very calm and it wasn’t that busy at that time so she kind of just stayed in there with me the whole time and she gave me more tips about pushing than my original doctor had so that was actually helpful. It was weird, it felt like I was making no progress and then all of a sudden the baby was out so I had no tearing the second time which was miraculous. The babies is a little bit bigger than my first, they immediately put him on my chest, and that was a weird experience, my husband was much more calm and present the second time and, and he started taking a video and I’m like paid through this like naked purple crying baby on my chest and I was like, like sounds kind of funny, my face in the videos like bewilder and I’m like was avatar, but it was really nice and I think you know both of us were just a lot more kind of calm and present too, and then the baby looked great,
Both my kids I think from the start were like, oddly calm and also making eye contact from like minute one which was amazing, you know, and so they, they were both cool just like hanging out. My husband went to get breakfast and I had like a truck drivers breakfast and it was amazing and a giant latte from Starbucks and, and I felt like I was fine and you know send the baby with the nurses to the nursery overnight, I get a little bit of sleep and yeah it was it like weirdly felt like a little bit of a vacation because I had actually never spent a night away from our daughter, before that, and at one point in the hospital I was like, eating ice cream, they had brought me and reading a magazine and watching a TV show on my iPad and the baby’s peacefully sleeping in the bassinet and I was like, This is amazing. Relaxing was nothing to do right.
P: That sounds like a great experience.
E: Yeah it was. And our daughter was great when we brought the baby home, we had done a lot of prep around that and we had her come to the hospital to meet him it was really wonderful and we were able to time it with the hospital photographer so she got like the first look, you know my daughter seeing her little baby brother for the first time and holding him for the first time, kissing him is really really sweet.
P: That’s cute.
E: Yeah.
P: What is he doing these days,
E: he started walking. It took his first steps on his first birthday. Oh, it was really about yeah it was about a month until he really started walking. He’s being very cautious for a little boy, which I was not unhappy about and so yeah now he’s like walking everywhere and starting to try to run a little bit. He loves to climb. He’ll do things that he thinks are funny and then look at us for a reaction and like really good natured. Yeah, yeah, although like my daughter is extremely chill until one year and then it’s almost like a switch flip for both of them where they just started developing much stronger personalities, so it’ll be interesting to see how that emerges,
P: yeah that sounds fun. Yeah, yeah it is the well that’s a completely triumphant story after you know an uncertain start right where yeah, you have no idea how it’s gonna work or if it’s gonna work and all the waiting and, yeah, testing and so that’s an amazing story to share and very hopeful so thank you.
E: Yeah, thank you.
P: If you could go back and give advice to your younger self, what do you think you would tell her.
E: You know, it’s funny, one thing I think I would tell her is to just freeze your eggs when you’re like 20 years old. You know, 25 or something like that i A friend had asked me when we were 30 If I was thinking about freezing eggs. I was like no, are you crazy we’re so young, you know, but I think knowing what I know now you just you never know how it’s going to work. Worked out and you know when you’ll meet somebody when you’ll be trying to have kids how that will go how your body will react at that point, so that’s probably one thing I would have done, and other than that I mean I don’t know like I think, you know I always say it would be nicer. It would be nice to be a little bit younger at times just to maybe have a little more energy, but that’s just how my life went, you know,
P: yeah,
E: I wouldn’t have chosen to be, you know, 40 years old, having a baby but I’m, you know, that there were no other options and also when I look back on, you know, when I was 30 I mean I was nowhere near ready to have kids yet I was having the time of my life I just moved to San Francisco I was making tons of new friends it was like, I mean I can’t imagine already being settled, I would have I would have missed out on such a big chunk of my life. So, you know, I think you just kind of go with it and, and that’s how it works out.
P: Yeah, it kind of all comes in its own time right you can’t
E: Yeah, yeah.
P: Do you want to tell us a little bit about it sounds like your business is related to your experience with pregnancy.
E: Yeah,
P: tell us a little bit about that.
E: Sure. Basically I, we had just moved back to New York, not long before we were trying to do IVF and get pregnant and I had lived in New York twice before so I did still have a few friends but a lot of people had moved out of the city and the friends that remained were all scattered so we literally all lived in different quadrants of, you know the city or the boroughs, I just wanted to meet some new people that, that were having babies around the same time and live near me, I figured once I had the baby I probably wasn’t really traveling very far to see people. So I started a Facebook group and I called it winter babies 2017 and I posted it in a couple of the local moms groups I was in on Facebook and said Oh If anyone’s having a baby around this time, I just started this new group you want to join us. It was started slowly and then it kind of started snowballing. I planned. I think one meetup for coffee for those of us who were pregnant, and there were probably like, maybe eight or 10 people who came so that was really nice just to meet a few people and then once the babies were born more and more people are joining and telling their friends and I started planning weekly lunches and we would all be chatting on this Facebook group all the time and at all hours of the day, you know, post a question at 3am and like 10 Do I answer, usually, you know, and I started planning some mom baby happy hours and after the baby’s got to mobile I started planning mom’s night out at night and I planned a Halloween party for our first Halloween and I sold tickets so that I could help purchase them, you know, share food and, and everything and it’s sold out and I you know it’s like trying to get more space with the restaurant, it was really crazy and so then people started asking if there were any other groups like this because they had friends having babies and I wanted them to have the same experience, they felt like it has really transformed new motherhood for them, and, you know, that kind of gave me the idea for this business,
And I thought well you know a lot of expectant moms and new moms, it’s a lot of people feel very isolated, they don’t know how to make new friends as adults or are nervous about it and they don’t, maybe don’t have a lot of friends that have kids or at least who live near them, and so I based the business around the idea of just providing opportunities for social connection among expectant and new moms, so I run Facebook group for moms do every six months in New York and then I just recently changed it to be by year, and then I just launched groups in a few new cities as well, and in New York where I launched it I was planning monthly mom to be meet up weekly new moms happy hours in different neighborhoods. So, you know, people could connect to the Facebook group, they could connect in person they could make their own friends set up their own playdates, you know it’s really what you want to get out of it but the happy hours, and they were amazing, I, I would get a 40 to 60 moms coming to these things with their little babies and I mean this was obvious help pre COVID Yeah and it was so much fun, and people, you know a lot of people made like real genuine friends from these experiences, and it’s, it’s unique because there are other mom groups that happen, new mom groups but they’re usually a much smaller group they’re more like a support group, you know, there’s, there’s maybe eight or 10 other women with you and if you happen to connect with someone in that group that’s great if you don’t, you know, you know, they’re also usually very expensive so it’s like okay well I spent a lot of money into this for six weeks and that and then people move on, whereas, you know what I was trying to do is provide like a little bit of like a 360 experience with like even come to the happy hour you can meet people in person, you can keep chatting on Facebook or vice versa, start chatting on Facebook, then put a face to a name, you know, and it was, it was really great they were unstructured, they were free for the moms of getting sponsored by businesses, and so it’s kind of low pressure too because I think you know I found it is hard to commit to a certain date and time with a newborn when you just don’t know how your day is going to go and I was reluctant to sign up for anything that wasn’t drop in because I didn’t want to waste my money and I didn’t want to feel pressured if it was a bad day, you know, And so, so these were low pressure fun, it was every three weeks in the same neighborhoods that would rotate neighborhoods, and they were really great usually people would would come and just start chatting because I’d have name tags and you have a baby, which is almost like your little wing man and kind of a natural icebreaker, but I think you know I’m someone who will pretty much just talk to people will talk to anyone and I’m not shy if I connect with someone I don’t know I’m not shy about saying they should hang out sometime here, let’s exchange numbers, you know, but most people won’t do that. So I think, setting up an environment where it’s very friendly and supportive and everyone’s just coming in their own works really well. and, you know anyone who did look a little bit shy or was hanging back I’ll usually try to talk to and make some introductions. But, yeah, they’re really nice events, and a lot of people made their, their closest mom friends,
P: that’s awesome and it is. I was surprised by how isolating it is in the beginning but you are exhausted and running round and you sort of don’t have control of your day at all, and that sounds like an awesome opportunity
E: yeah, yeah, they were a lot of fun. Everyone looked forward to them so hopefully I’ll be able to log them again at some point. So how do people find it what’s the name. It’s called mom crew, my mom crew, com. and yeah so people some people go find it just by searching for mom groups in their area. I do post on local Facebook groups and other moms like neighborhood mom groups just to let them know if there’s an event coming up, and then some people it’s spread through word of mouth so people tell their friends and invite their friends to join, and a lot of people have been asking for a while if it’ll be in other cities because they’ve moved or they have friends there and they’re interested so I decided, you know, just to, since this is the time I can’t plan any in person events I would just see if I can start new social communities in other cities.
P: That’s very cool. Thanks so much for sharing your story.
E: Yeah, It was so nice to talk with you.
P: If you didn’t catch that, it’s mymomcrew.com. Thanks to Emily for sharing her story and thanks also to Dr. Robertson for her insights. If you liked this show, feel free to like and subscribe. We’ll be back soon with another inspiring story of overcoming.
Episode 19 SN: Expect the Unexpected, Sarah’s story
Today’s guest went into pregnancy without many expectations about what the process would be like. This openness likely helped her and her partner negotiate the challenging things she had to manage in delivery and the postpartum period. After her first birth, the baby encountered an issue that landed her in the NICU, and a few days after her second delivery, my guest wrestled with some scary postpartum issues, sending her to the ICU. Now a few years out from those experiences, everyone is thriving. Listen to her inspiring story.
Cover Art comes from Hailee Wilburn-Ervin, see it at https://www.etsy.com/listing/947825013/birth-abcs-placenta-sticker (note: this is an illustration from a birth book called Birth ABCs, also available on Hailee’s Etsy site)
Spotting in the first trimester
https://americanpregnancy.org/healthy-pregnancy/pregnancy-concerns/spotting-during-pregnancy-5374/
Round ligament pain
https://www.webmd.com/baby/guide/pregnancy-round-ligament-pain#1
CPAP
Meconium aspiration
https://www.stanfordchildrens.org/en/topic/default?id=meconium-aspiration-90-P02384
Kick counts
Statistics about maternal mortality and race
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2019/p0905-racial-ethnic-disparities-pregnancy-deaths.html
https://www.kff.org/report-section/racial-disparities-in-maternal-and-infant-health-an-overview-issue-brief/
Audio Transcript
Paulette: Hi, welcome to war stories from the womb. I’m your host Paulette kamenecka. I’m an economist, a writer and mother of two who had trouble with almost every aspect of the process of growing a family. Before I had kids, I didn’t necessarily understand that pregnancy and birth could be a daring adventure. The same was true for today’s guest. Sarah went into pregnancy without many expectations about what the process would be like. And she and her husband got a fast education in the many challenges that can come along with birth and the postpartum period. After her first birth, the baby encountered an issue that landed her in the NICU. And a few days after her second delivery, Sara wrestled with some scary postpartum issues, sending her to the ICU. Now a few years out from those experiences, everyone is thriving. After our conversation, I went back and included some medical details and also have the insights of a fantastic OB, who specializes in high risk pregnancy.
Let’s get to the story.
Hi, thanks so much for coming on the show, can you tell us your name and where you’re from.
Sarah: Thank you for having me. My name is Sarah and I’m from Connecticut.
P: Cool. And how many kids do you have?
S: I have two daughters, my eldest is four and a half, and my second will be two in April.
P: Wow, that’s a lot of work, that’s a busy time.
S: Yeah I mean it’s definitely been different this year given everything that’s happened, but it’s been fun having two girls close together and watching their relationship grow and it’s been special.
P: Yeah that’s awesome…. so I have two girls also two years apart.
S: Okay.
P: And they’re besties now.
S: Yeah, that’s what I’m, fingers crossed, that’s what I’m hoping for down the road, you know, we had, they have their moments.
P: And what did you think pregnancy would be like before you became pregnant?
S: I don’t know if I ever really thought specifically about what the pregnancy would be like I kind of just took what I had seen from movies and TV, but I always knew that it was something that I wanted to do, even as a young girl I always love to pretend that I was having a baby or that I had a baby, you know, so it was definitely something I’ve thought about a lot, but I don’t think I actually thought about the actual pregnancy or delivery or any, any of that stuff really.
P: So the first time was it easy to get pregnant?
S: So yeah, so my husband and I got married, September of 2015. And we, we weren’t trying, but we weren’t not trying, and in January 2016 I was about 10 days late, which I’m never late, I’m one of those people who is annoyingly regular, but I kind of just attributed it to like the holidays and you know I was a teacher, and maybe just the stress of kind of getting back into the groove of break and everything. And then one day it kind of like slapped me on the head You need to take a pregnancy test. And sure enough, it was positive so yeah we found out in January that we were expecting.
P: Well that sounds like a pretty gentle entrance. That’s nice.
S: Yeah, yeah, I mean it definitely, it was a little bit of a adjustment for me mentally and I had so I suffer from anxiety and panic attacks and so it just took me a little bit of time to wrap my head around it, but then once I was there, you know, I was very excited and happy but I was also the first in my friend group to get pregnant and to, to have a baby, and you know we weren’t wildly young I was, I was 28 when I got pregnant with my daughter, and I felt a little isolated and alone just because I didn’t really have anyone to talk to you about it except my mom and her standard answer to things I don’t know this along I don’t really remember, I guess I felt isolated and a little scared and just kind of anxious about it in those first few weeks.
P: Yeah, all that seems like spot on, right, that seems like the appropriate reaction. And I always think nine months is a nice long time to get used to the idea.
S: Yeah, actually my mom did say that I remember being like it’s not like you’re gonna have this baby tomorrow like you have a lot of time to kind of, wrap your head around things. And, and she was right.
P: nd how was the pregnancy,
S: it was interesting, I guess to say I was working I was teaching I had spotting my whole first trimester, I didn’t know that it happened, I would go into my OB, quite a few times to kind of check it because it just kept happening and they would do ultrasounds and every time they kind of reassured me that everything was fine and that it was probably just my uterus, you know, shedding the old blood or whatever it was they couldn’t find a cause for it and the baby was growing and developing fine so they were just kind of like, take it easy and there’s nothing we can do.
P: Spotting can definitely be stressful, especially if you don’t expect it. According to the American pregnancy Association spotting in the first trimester is pretty common, about 20% of women report this happening, and other sources say it’s one and four many things can cause spotting like implantation sex hormone changes and changes in your cervix.
S: But that kind of, it just set me up for being even more anxious because every time I would see the blood, I’d be like, well what’s happening but then I got out of my second trimester and it stopped literally right when I hit my second trimester the spotting stopped and then I started having really bad round ligament pain I had heard about rounding a bit pain but I did not expect it to hurt this month.
P: I file this underneath the heading, it’s hard to throw another human being inside you were going to have mid round ligament pain is one of the most common issues in pregnancy. Where does it come from. There are several thick ligaments that surround and support your uterus, one of them the round ligament connects the front part of the uterus to your groin. As the baby grows ligament stretches and can become strained certain movements can cause the ligament to tighten quickly like a rubber band snapping.
S: One time I even actually ended up in the emergency room because it was just so painful. I was worried something else was going on but they said everything was fine,
P: so did it feel like cramping or it felt different?
S: no it felt different, it was like, sharp pains, and it just didn’t feel right to me and I felt like I didn’t really hit my stride until the end of my second trimester, and then I started feeling really good. I had my energy back and I just, I felt that pain was gone and I was enjoying my pregnancy more and I just felt like I was in a good place, from about 26 weeks to like 35/36 weeks I felt really great, and then I went in at 36 weeks, for my checkup and my blood pressure was starting to go up. And because my blood pressure, I’ve been in the low pretty low, The whole pregnancy, they kind of reacted strongly to an elevated, reading, and they were like, alright, we’ll try it again in a few minutes it was still up so they sent me over to the hospital because they wanted to do some monitoring and more tests, and, you know, all the standard things because they were concerned about preeclampsia, even though I had no other symptoms of it except for elevated blood pressure, it was also the middle of August and I was 36 weeks pregnant and you know I anxious person to begin with. So I think there was a combination of things, but they wanted to be safe, so they sent me over.
P: It feels like every day we get updated information about the short and long term effects of preeclampsia and gestational hypertension. So I asked Dr. Patricia Robertson, a perinatologist who specializes in high risk pregnancy at UCSF, about what the current criteria are for diagnosing preeclampsia,
Dr. Robertson: you can have gestational hypertension, diagnosed, no proteinuria usually not severe range pressures, and a third of those women will turn into patients with preeclampsia. So, if you do get diagnosed, and the definition is to elevated blood pressure’s four hours apart. We’re still using 140 over 90 or greater, then that puts you into a high risk category and then you usually to get labs once a week for preeclampsia, you go to antenatal testing, twice a week to check the function of the placenta and the fact that baby is doing well. I also want to emphasize that we have several readmissions for patients with gestational hypertension and preeclampsia, so they have to be really careful for the first 12 weeks after birth and take their blood pressure at home, sometimes they’re discharged on oral anti hypertensive medication, trying to avoid severe maternal morbidity and mortality is one of our goals because you look at the leading causes of maternal deaths in the United States, it’s hemorrhage. It’s hypertension. It’s embolism, whether it’s pulmonary embolism or amniotic fluid embolism, and infection. So anything we can do to avoid those is good.
S: They did blood work they monitored the baby monitored my blood pressure, my blood pressure, then was normal, at every reading when I was in the hospital there, they did blood work it all came back fine but they sent me home with a 24 hour test for preeclampsia, so it was a 24 hour urine collection where literally every time, you pee you have to collect it in this job, and then you have to bring it in to the hospital for them to test it, and
P: that sounds glamorous,
S: yes it was so glamorous, one of our favorite stories from the whole pregnancy is that they gave… it was one jug, I mean it was pretty large, but it was summer and I was supposed to be hydrating a lot so I was starting to run out of room and I started panicking, so my husband had to run the labor and delivery, because my OB was luckily on call and she gave him another one because they were like, usually people don’t feel too and I was like, well I need an l came back negative, so they just said it was kind of, you know, pregnancy hypertension, but that they since I only had a few weeks left and I felt like I was working and it was… end of the summer they just thought I should be on modified bed rest till the end just to be safe. again a little isolating but you know friends visited and my mom was with me every day, thank God and I just kind of waited it out.
I woke up the morning of the six, my due date and I don’t know if it was like a mental thing because it was my due date, but I was definitely having like some cramping and they were getting more close together. A little more intense so my husband said, Well, you know, I’ll stay home today and let’s call and see what they say and they said come in and get checked. So I was like, Is this really happening,is she really coming on her duty and you know we just were like wow, so naive right. So we went in and they said you’re only two centimeters, go home, and we’ll probably see you within the week I went home and just kind of like went about life for the next two days.
P: How did you feel, were you having more contractions?
S: has definitely having them on and off. I remember the on call OB, he told me that you’ll know it’s like a real, it’s really time when you have a contraction and it takes your breath away and you can’t talk through it, so I was like, All right, and I was definitely disappointed, I think I was done, you know I was just ready I was 40 weeks, I was a personally a month early so I thought maybe I. This baby will come early since that happened to my mom and you know so on the eighth at about 130 In the morning I woke up and I was having definitely having contractions and kind of just tried to move around our bedroom, before waking up my husband and then they started getting more and more intense, and we called, and they were like, come in. I went in and I got there at about 4am, and I was four and a half centimeters so they were like, you’re, you’re staying and I remember being like, yay, I get to stay, and the doctor was like Yeah. Yay. I was positive for Group B strep and they took blood and then they hooked me up for fluids and antibiotics, and then once they did that and did some monitoring on the baby, they basically told me I could take my IV bag and walk around the halls,
P: let me ask you, are you hoping for a natural birth or what are you hoping for?
S: well yeah I guess I should say you know people always say they have a birth plan and I said my birth plan was just showing up, we took a one day class at the hospital, it was a full day Crash Course, so I didn’t really think I retained much of that but I was open to like, whatever, you know, I was kind of like if I need the epidural look at it if I don’t, great, I won’t. I’ll do what I have to do now, looking back, I wish I had been a little bit more of an advocate for myself and maybe understood a little bit more but I was again a little bit naive and just our first baby and kind of had a lot of trust in the system and just was kind of like they know what they’re doing, and then the contractions were getting stronger the contractions but again I wasn’t in terrible pain, but they came in and they told me that the anesthesiologists had five scheduled C sections that morning.
P:Wow,
S: if I wanted an epidural now was the time, because he was going to be really busy all day. And if I change my mind at some point they were going to have to find someone else to come up and do it, which was kind of a weird thing to say, in my mind because it made me feel like, okay, they’re kind of telling me it’s now or never. And if I change my mind in two hours they’re gonna find someone from, from where, like, you know, the way they presented it was like, we’re just trying to find someone
P: exactly….we’re going to go out on the street and see who we can rustle up…..
S: Exactly, they were like, think about it for a few minutes, you know, up literally like a few minutes, and so my husband and my mom and I talked about it and my mom was like, I mean, you seem to be doing well but you know what if you do end up wanting it, my husband kind of had the same thought and I was like, I guess I should get it. I told them Yeah, let’s do it. They came in to get started, it felt like forever. When they have you hunched over holding a pillow and the nurse was holding me, because I also have slight scoliosis so he had a harder time getting it in the right spot, and you have to save so still and that was the hardest part because the contractions were definitely ramping up at this point, and just trying to be still, I’m an anxious person, especially in medical situations so I kept being like, is it in is it in and he kept like No, he didn’t have the best bedside manner, but whatever. No, it’s not a no and then finally he was like it’s in wow you’re, you know you’re like made a comment about how I’m a terrible stick or something like that so I was like, okay, like thank you. And he left, and I instantly had a panic attack, I did not like the feeling of being numb it sent me into a tailspin, I started freaking out my heart rate started going up, I was asking them if they could take it out, or turn it down, and they were like, um, we don’t really do that and the nurses, I could tell were getting a little nervous because my heart rate was spiking. I could hear them calling the anesthesiologist and explaining to him what was going on and I guess he said, just watch her. And then I explained that I also had panic attacks and I could see this like sense of relief come over the nurses face that they were like, Okay, this is probably not anything to do with the epidural it’s probably just her having a moment.
P: Yeah,
S:so my OB came in and she was actually very like kind of sat with me and put a cold washcloth on my head and talked to me for a few minutes and then I just calmed down and kind of leaned into the epidural and was honestly feeling pretty groovy. At that point,
P: I also freaked out I didn’t have a physiological response but i grabbed the anesthesiologist as he’s leading by the shirt, I was like, What have you done to me. Yeah, feel my legs. It’s so he was like trying to pry my hand off his shirt, I was like, This is what we want, you know, supposed to be or whatever. It’s such a weird feeling. I didn’t expect that either. It’s not like a numb tooth…it feels very different right
S: yeah and I think it’s also like you have this fear like well what if I know, like, never regain the sensation. So, but then once I kind of realized that this was fine and, and okay, I just was like, Alright, it’s time to relax now and we just kind of hung out for a while, you know, I wasn’t really feeling any contractions i They told me to try to rest Scrum, you know, 830 to 334, I had only progress one centimeter. So, she was like, let’s break your water. And I was like all right, again, just kind of like sure, do whatever you want to me. So,
P: does that feel like anything?
S: It feels like a little bit of a sense of relief, it’s just kind of like a Gush, it’s like a little pop. So when she broke my water I kind of heard her whisper to the nurse, there’s meconium you know and I didn’t retain half of the things from the lesson at the hospital but I remembered hearing about Meconium, she was like it’s, don’t be concerned it’s very common, especially in babies that go past 40 weeks. The only thing that’s it’s going to change for you is that we’re going to have a nurse from the NICU in when you deliver.
I was a little concerned but they kept reassuring me everything looked great, and to not really think about it, and again as a first time mom I was just kind of like, okay I guess it is what it is… they kind of left me alone after they broke my water but they came in to check a few hours later and I was, I was stuck at a seven I was not progressing and so they decided to start Pitocin slowly making progress, I guess, at 10pm they checked me, and I was eight centimeters, I was starting to get pretty frustrated I was tired I was hungry. I was emotional, why am I not further along in the morning, they were kind of joking that I would have a baby by dinnertime and and you know it was 10 o’clock and I still hadn’t had her so they were just like there’s really nothing we can do because I had had the epidural so it wasn’t like I could move around. Finally, around midnight I was fully dilated, and it was time to push and I was a little nervous but I was also kind of excited because they said, a lot of people find there’s relief in the pushing. Unfortunately though, I pushed for three hours. So,
P: Wow
S: yeah, yeah, so it was not like this kind of immediate release for me
P: was it tricky because you couldn’t feel your legs ?
S: I don’t know because they, they said I was a good pusher, you know, they, they can tell and they were pushing great I don’t know if she just hadn’t descend like she wasn’t down enough and just had to come down I had she looks great on the monitor and like I was doing okay so they just kind of let me keep going at around the two hour mark, they brought in a I’ll never forget this woman she was amazing, a seasoned very seasoned nurse, and she basically was stern but compassionate and got in my face, and he gave me the pep talk I needed she was just like you need to do this now, because at this point I was like, I want to go home. I was like, I don’t want to do this let me out of here and they were like, all right, she’s freaking out, and so she came in and she was like helping me through multiple pushes and contractions and she was great… 3:47 in the morning. Our daughter was born, I didn’t feel anything, but it was this relief and just like everything and, and they had mentioned to me that they weren’t going to let her cry because of the meconium. They wanted to immediately suction her and not let her cry. So when she came out I kept being like why isn’t she crying Why isn’t she crying, and they were like, we told you we need to suction her, we’re not letting her cry than they are, they’re
P: so they are worried that she’ll aspirate the meconium, that’s the issue?
S: Yeah. So then they pulled her out and they held her up and they showed her to me and like I briefly saw her like I don’t even really remember. My husband got to go over and see or my mom latched over and sear and they were you know weighing her and doing all the things so I kind of thought things were okay, I had a secondary chair. So they were stitching me up and I was trying to look over, they wrapped her up very quickly, and she was crying at this point but they said, she’s having some trouble breathing, so we want to take her to the NICU for supervision, and that was it I mean they like wrapped her up. They took her. I told my mom husband to go with her because I just wanted people I knew with eyes on her. I was kind of like, I’ll be fine. Go which in hindsight is so funny cuz it’s like I literally was left alone almost in there but I told them to go, so I got stitched up the nurse gave me a hug and she, you know, was encouraging and she brought me some snacks because it was for morning there was an open, you know they make you stand up and take your first pay, which I didn’t know could be so horrifying, I never thought that having to pee would be this horrific experience but standing up, I remember thinking, oh my god are my legs gonna work and they did. Once I peed and was able to walk around, they were like okay we can reel you into the Nick you so you can see her. And so I went in, and she had a C pap in her nose.
P: According to the March of Dimes, with C pap, or continuous positive airway pressure. Air is delivered to the baby’s lungs, either through small tubes in the baby’s nose, or through a tube that has been inserted into her windpipe… the tubes or attached to a machine which helps the baby breathe, but does not breathe for her, which is unlike a ventilator which does breathe for the baby. The C pap the baby breathes on her own, but the steady flow of air coming in through the tubes keeps enough pressure in the lungs to prevent the air sacs from collapsing after each breath.
S: And she had an IV in her arm and she had a little like heart monitors on, and I just remember thinking this is not what I signed up for this is not what it was supposed to be but she was so beautiful and I just couldn’t, like it was just a such a weird feeling of, she’s so perfect and beautiful and I can’t believe she’s mine but also, I’m so scared because she has all these machines and we’re in the neonatal intensive care unit and just never had I thought that that’s what would have happened, and then the neonatologist came in and he basically explained that she had aspirated the meconium. It was common. Most times this, they see this in babies and they’re able to come to the back to the parents room into the regular nursery later that day. The next morning you know it’s, it happens and do not worry, she would be fine.
P: Dr. Robertson, can you tell us why Meconium aspiration is such a big issue for a newborn,
Dr. Robertson: because it’s very irritating to the baby’s lungs, and it can cause a pneumonia is very rare meconium aspiration syndrome, it’s very common to have, like, greenish or yellowish fluid at UCSF, we have a pediatrician present when there is meconium. So the pediatricians are there so the baby comes out vigorous and it’s processing the meconium coughing and all that stuff. We leave it alone, and do the bonding skin to skin. If the baby comes out blobby and blue, then we hand it out to the pediatricians and they suction meconium out first, hopefully to help it might go into the lungs and then they vigorously resuscitate which sometimes means putting a C pap mask on the baby and pushing them sometimes the meconium as well as the oxygen and that’s not ideal. So they’re sick meconium. They’ll do a lamb and gossipy and go down the baby’s lungs suck that out the baby’s really quiet during this time it’s really hard and the parents with the babies that crying. They don’t want the baby to cry, so they want to get out as much meconium amount as possible before they start the resuscitation. I’m in a very tiny proportion of those babies do get meconium aspiration syndrome, sometimes they end up on a ventilator in the NICU it’s very upsetting.
S: He left and my husband and I were just sitting there and it was this moment of this is just not how I pictured it. I pictured my baby being next to us, and then I just wanted to be in the NICU at all times. I didn’t even get to hold her until she was about 12 hours old, my best friend did come, and I just remember kind oflaying in the bed trying to hold a conversation but also just kind of being catatonic we laugh about it now and she was like yeah I just like to tell you it really gone through and so I was just there to be a support person, I didn’t sleep much. I just would rest a bit. Go back. Watch her….
P: and they’re, they’re feeding her intravenously at this point,
S:yes. And then the next day, they put a feeding tube in her nose, and I was able to give her my collostrum through the feeding tube, and any milk I was producing and also they were giving her formula, and the neonatologist was like, you know she’s doing well, they were able to start weaning her off the C pap she was on room air at this point. she was turning a corner but he was concerned because her white blood cell count was elevated, and he said it could happen from stress, but usually at this point, it would have been down. So he basically told me that he want to do chest X ray, they diagnosed it as neonatal pneumonia, from the aspiration and the decision was that she needed to be in there for seven days for full IV antibiotics, and they were also going to do blood cultures and if those came back positive, it will be longer, which, when I heard that I just internally flipped out but yeah,
P: this is a really hard thing to hear right it’s really hard to be in your room without a baby,
S: yeah
P: in the maternity ward….Now it sounds like they’re gonna let you leave but keep her.
S: Yeah, because I think in the beginning, I held on to the hope that alright maybe the first night, she’ll be in the NICU and then she’ll she’ll come in with us, or maybe she’ll have to be there the whole two days and then we’ll get to take her home, but this was a pretty concrete she needs to be here for seven days for the full round of antibiotics, I had taken a shower I put on real pajamas I was starting to like feel like a little bit more of a human but it still was like this weird pays and emotional feeling. Our hospital does a celebration dinner the night before you’re discharged, they bring you this big, beautiful meal, it’s something I’d heard about my whole life, I delivered to the town I grew up in so I knew all about this and I had envisioned a sitting at this table eating this dinner with my baby next to me and I just cried through the whole dinner, and My poor husband was just trying to do everything he could to make it somewhat enjoyable. Yeah, and I just couldn’t I was just not there with it yeah I couldn’t
So I was discharged that Sunday morning, we had our bands on, I went home, I tried to get settled. But I just wanted to go right back, it was just this kind of back and forth from the hospital. Home hospital home hospital home until it was time for the last feeding which was around 930 And then I would stay home. So at this point she was off the C pack the feeding tube was out, we tried nursing, it was a little iffy, but she took bottles well, and she was really turning a corner, but I should also know when I was discharged, kind of talking about your when you asked about expectations, again, you know, in the movies and TV and whatever you always see people being wheeled out with their baby and I was being wheeled out with all these beautiful pink flowers and it’s a girl balloons and, No baby and I just felt like everyone was probably staring at me. What was her baby, it was just such a weird experience and pulling away it just felt like my heart was still in that building.
P: Yeah,
S: I did wake up every night for the whole seven days around 4a.m. and called the nurses, and to check in and I mean I just have to say. The NICU nurses, they are the most some of the most amazing people I’ve ever met in my life, they were just angels and above and beyond, never made me feel like I was annoying them or bothering them loved on her so much. It was so hard but knowing that she was in good hands.
P: Those people clearly have a fast pass to heaven. Right,
S: Oh yeah, yes, I think all nurses in general but NICU nurses… we had this week, every time we go they would teach, teach us how to give her a bath. Teach us how to do certain things, you know, they were just wonderful and like I just thank God for them every day, and the seven days and her blood was great, her she was feeding she was gaining weight. She was wonderful and they send us home. I often feel guilty because I felt like it was so hard this week in the NICU and if you and I know that there are some families that it’s like, not a week it’s months, and it just, we were very fortunate, but it did set me up for some, I think some postpartum depression. And just because I think everything was so out of my control and unexpected that I struggled with postpartum for that, that, that first year of her life, and looking back I think it was a culmination of the birth and then leaving her as in the NICU experience and it always envisioned, giving my child a sibling just because I was an only child and I wanted her to have that but I was like I don’t, I don’t know,
P: so two things: it’s interesting because on your way in you are the first person I talked to who doesn’t have this very intricate birth plan. So while you’re telling the story I’m thinking oh she might be fine with whatever happens because she doesn’t have, but it seems like buried in there and you did have some expectation, and it wasn’t, you know, part of this disconnect is holy crap, it’s not what it was supposed to look like,
S: yeah, right, because I just think anytime I’d heard of someone having, you know, someone I knew we’d get a check saying I’m going in and then the next morning, there’d be a picture of the baby and it was just kind of like this, everything was fine, so I was just, holy shit, what was this whirlwind experience that I had like what happened, You know, and it just took me a really long time to wrap my head around at all, and I was just really anxious and depressed and I isolated myself a lot from friends, it wasn’t until, I think she was about till her first birthday that I felt like I really turned a corner.
P: So your next meeting with the OB do you say I’m not feeling right, or
S: No, I mean because it might so the next meeting with Toby was what six weeks and I think I was kind of just still in the haze of it all, and then I just didn’t really tell anyone I mean, like, I, my husband and my mom I don’t even think realized it until I was out of it when I told them that I think this is what happened, because I was just internalizing it all and just like doing what I had to do to kind of get by,
P: I think it’s a giant transition that’s really hard to manage and harder if you’re anxious, and
S: yeah,
P: harder if it, you know goes off the rails and
S: yeah,
P: so all that sounds like, I mean it makes sense,
S: right. Yeah, definitely. And when my daughter was about a year and a half, I guess, I found a therapist and I kind of talked through my birth and we went up you know my anxiety and I felt like I had gotten to a better place with, with the idea of, of doing it again because in that first year and even a little after I was kind of like, I don’t know if I ever want to do this again, or two months before she turned two my husband and I were kind of like, let’s like try and see what happens. And again, I know this is not everyone’s story so I feel so fortunate, but I got pregnant that first time.
P: take the easy ones where you can get them.
S: Exactly like thank you yeah I’ll take that one because the other end sometimes wasn’t easy but I got pregnant with our second, I found out in August of 2018…felt pretty similar to my first pregnancy except I was just way more tired because I had a toddler, there will be time to go out on the Forgot I was pregnant, I think because I just had other things going on because you’re caring for another child and it was a pretty easy pregnancy, we found out we were having another girl. So I was so excited, just, you know, for sisters, everything was pretty easy and straightforward and then around 32 weeks I went in for an ultrasound. And I could tell something was up. Because of my blood pressure, kind of like jumped around a bit. Throughout both pregnancies, I was also seeing a maternal fetal medicine doctor who was amazing and she came in and she was so great and she just said everything’s great, the baby’s measuring fine your fluid is on the low side of normal, the plan going forward now would be weekly non stress tests weekly ultrasounds and I would have to do daily kick counting, which I never even heard of was, I know like they tell you to make sure you’re feeling the baby move but I’ve never done kick counting during my first pregnancy or anything like that.
P: Counting kicks is exactly what it sounds like you’re tracking the movement of the baby in utero, and it is actually an evidence based practice to prevent stillbirth, you can check out countthekicks.org to get more information.
S: When I heard that I was kind of like, Is this serious, and they but they weren’t like overly concerned, they just wanted to keep a tab on it and so I did that every week, and my fluid continued to be on the low side of normal, but never to the point where they were like, We need to induce you forgot to 36 weeks, and I went for my weekly checkup and my doctor was like, You’re not dilated at all. I think it’s gonna be like with your other daughter the whole time, the whole 40 weeks. And I was kind of like okay so I like scheduled on my appointments for the next week, so the next day, I was feeling uncomfortable, but it almost felt like I had kind of a UTI like maybe the baby was just sitting on my bladder in a weird way or I didn’t really think much of it because I had a two and a half year old and I was just going through the days and trying to get her to school and home and you know being with her and I felt like that for that whole day and then Friday I woke up it was still kind of there, it would come and go, but I like took my daughter to school didn’t my errands still was feeling kind of weird, I had dinner plans that night with, with my girlfriends and I actually canceled it. So my husband got home from work, he picked up dinner and I didn’t have much of an appetite, and I had a contraction and then my body started shaking which I didn’t experience my first time around, maybe because of the epidural, but now I know that’s common. Luckily we only live about five seven minutes from the hospital but we were I will never forget we were at this red light stopped in front of the high school, and which is like kind of the halfway point, I had a contraction, and I was, I couldn’t see through it, and I remembered from way back. And my husband was, are you okay and then I just started banging on the window like I don’t know what came over me but like I needed to like find a release of it, in some way and he was like, should I speed up and I was like yes, so we got there and they come down to greet you and walk you out to labor and delivery. And I had another one and this nurse looked at me and looked at my husband and she was like, your labor and but I was still not sure like I didn’t know when I was just, I don’t want to be sent home like I get in the room they, the nurse comes in. She was so wonderful, and she just, you know, get changed we’ll see what’s going on, let’s check it out. I had also again, tested positive for the group B strep so, so she checked me, and she looked up at me with this face and was like you’re eight centimeters dilated.
P: Oh My G-d
S: Yeah. And I was like, what, like, I was shocked like I, the way they started moving to get the IV and to get like they really started hustling, and then she was like, Do you want an epidural. And I, this time, did not want an epidural, that was really my only part of the plan like I knew that I didn’t like the way it made me feel the first time I really wanted to try to do it without it and the fact that I was already eight centimeters, I was kind of like, I think I can do this, and she looked at me and she said, Okay, well, I used to be a midwife, before I was an RN and let’s do this.
She was fully on board, and I guess it was it’s pretty rare in our hospital where I live for people to forgo the epidural, but she was excited about it and I was excited about it so it really kind of gave me the confidence I think to do it,
I was admitted at 10pm and I labored for a bit, it was really painful like I mean you know like I was still able to obviously got through it but it definitely hurt, much more than the first time, And then all of a sudden around 11:30 I was like I need to push, and they were like okay don’t like hold on, and they checked me and I was fully dilated, I started pushing and in two pushes, she came out and she was born at 11:54pm. And she was perfect, she was six pounds 10 ounces, so she was great and it was just night and day, to what had happened the first time, and I had another second degree tear, but it was so different because she was on my chest this time while they were switching it up, I was weirdly aware though I was like, Did, my placenta come out and they were like, because I felt something come out and she said no, that was just to large clots. But she said but that’s normal, and then a few months later she like okay your placenta is out, and I was like okay, I didn’t really think anything of it. I went to my postpartum room with the baby which was exciting for me and we were just in shock that she was here, and just a really nice two days.
As a second time parent, and I think because my daughter had been in the NICU. The first time I was a little more comfortable letting her sleep in the nursery and bring her back in the morning and I was also, I guess I should have mentioned this before but I think breastfeeding also contributed to my postpartum, the first time around because it was really hard for me, she didn’t latch very well and I felt like I was like failing. So this time around I was way more of an advocate for myself and like when they were like, do you want us to do breastfeeding or formula, I was like, both, but you can give her a formula in the night, it’s okay, like I was just a way more open to whatever like I didn’t feel the pressure anymore I took that off myself. And then Saturday, my mom and my 94 year old grandmother got to come and meet her. And then my mom came back with our daughter and it was just such a special moment to see your first baby, meet your new baby, and then we had our celebration dinner and she was there and it was like, all these things that like I felt like I had lost out on last time I got them, and it just felt very healing, and wonderful and we went home, and that Sunday and things were really great and she was a very, very easy baby and I just felt really blessed, it was like felt like it was the birth I needed. Don’t speak too soon right Monday, so this was now the day after discharge, you know things were fine. That night I kind of started feeling a little weird, but I was, you know, it’s like you never know what after your baby like it was just normal postpartum What’s something else, and I was really emotional really feeling anxious, but again like my hormones could have just been leveling out, and I was also having a lot of digestive issues and I was just kind of like well, I have IBS, to begin with, my body’s probably regulating, I was just playing it down.
So Tuesday morning I woke up, I was having without TMI, a lot more digestive issues, pretty crummy, not just normal postpartum so our hospital they have a standard kind of thing where you have to follow up with a lactation consultant you bring the baby in. They weigh them they check the bilirubin and they check how you’re doing and I actually called and tried to cancel it so that I’m not feeling great. And they were like, well, because your baby was 36 weeks and five days, she really needs to be seen to be weighed. So, if you’re not going to come here to the pediatrician and I was like, Fine, whatever. We’ll, we’ll, we’ll come in there, they also check you so she did my temperature my blood pressure, my heart rate, my temperature was normal, but my heart rate was high and so with my blood pressure, and I just instantly felt annoyed because I felt like it was this back to this whole blood pressure thing where like anytime I love her was up they would freak out and do all these tests and she kept checking it and it kept was still elevated and I was like, I have been having stomach issues I feel like I’m very dehydrated like that probably when my heart rates up, but she gave me a lot of water, she tried calling my OB she couldn’t reach her. She called the on call OB for my practice, and they, she her answer was, basically, she should come to a triage room, in labor and delivery and we should do bloodwork, and rule out postpartum preeclampsia. I was just, and this is not like me, I don’t like confrontation I’m very calm go with the flow person but I was so aggravated at this point, like I was tired. I didn’t feel good I was just like I don’t have postpartum preeclampsia, like, I just want to go home. I want to be with my baby I want to be with my toddler please like you guys have tested me so many times through this, I know the symptoms of it I don’t have any other symptoms of it, I want to go home. And I kind of threw this fit in the middle of the nursing station, and they were like, silent, and they were like, Okay, you can go. They didn’t know like what they were like, just, if you feel weird come back and I was like, Okay, thank you. So I stormed out I was like, I advocated for myself go me kind of thing, you know, but I still didn’t feel well and when I got home, it started to get worse. I was really tired. Again, some things were happening, and then I got really really cold and I could not get warm. I went upstairs, I changed into really cozy warm clothes I got into the bed and put lots of blankets on me and I was uncontrollably shivering, and I called my husband, he came in and I was like, I think something’s wrong, and so he got my mom. And immediately she was like, we need to go to the emergency room, it was one of the scariest moments because I knew something was very wrong.
And my daughter had just woken up from her nap my two and a half year old when I was, my mom was like rushing me out the door, and I like saw her from the stairs and I was like I love you I’m okay I’ll be back. She didn’t know what was going on but it was really just so scary and surreal,
we got to the hospital. They took me right into triage my heart rate was really high and they said I had a temperature of 104.5
P:Wow,
S: yeah, I was shocked. They put me in a room and there were tons of people in there, and they did an EKG. They wanted to do an EKG first because my heart rate was so fast and like I just remember they like you have to lay still and I was so hot all the sudden, I was like I can’t. So then it was just, every test, they could kind of think of the EKG chest X ray of flu test, blood work, urine, they ordered an ultrasound like the doctor was asking me tons of questions about my symptoms, he looked at my stitches he like examined everywhere to see if there were any signs of infection anywhere, those first 30 to 40 minutes of being there, I honestly thought that I was gonna die. I never experienced something like this I was honestly like this is it and I’m a
ER/ Grey’s Anatomy medical drama junkie and I was like, in my head I was like, This is the story, this is how it goes. A mother died four days after giving birth. This is it. I can’t believe this is how my story is going to end. And I was saying to my mom, I was like this is it like please take care of girls she was, she was amazing, you know my husband decided to stay with the baby because he knew girls routines and she came with me and I can’t imagine what it was like for her to watch your daughter being like this but she was so calm and rational and like I was so now looking back delirious. Yeah, theater, but I was like, get a priest, I was really like thinking this was it pretty quickly once they give you the IV of acetaminophen and my fever started to go down and I was drenched and I and my vitals, started to stabilize and they were like, now we can really try to get a diagnosis, and let’s also give her something to help her relax so they gave me, you know advant or something in an IV and I was okay maybe I’m not dying like I was kind of, whoa, like, and they brought in the ultrasound tech, and he was just this amazingly sweet man, I was very high at this point on whatever they had given me so I felt like I was just like running my mouth, and he saw it right away. He said that he saw something. And the doctor came in and they said that there was placenta, still attached my uterus basically and what they think was happening was that it was essentially rotting inside of me and, you know, causing early sepsis
P: Oh Wow.
S: Yeah, things moved pretty fast like I felt better because they had lowered the fever and I was on ativan and I had a diagnosis but the OB on call for my practice came down and she was like we’re taking you in for an emergency D&C, the anesthesiologist came in, he was like, I think because of your stress your body has been under today, it’s just best that we put you under general anesthesia, I think I was admitted to the emergency room at around 4:30 and by 6:30 I was in the operating room, and I remember like picking up and seeing my mom, and I was being wheeled to a room and I was like Is it over like Have they started and she was like it’s, it’s over like it’s finished. And they found a piece of placenta they, you know, scraped everything else out, and they made the decision that I should spend the night in the ICU for monitoring just because my vitals had been so wild when I was brought in. So, yeah, they, it was just so bizarre because to go in so sick.
P: Yeah,
S: and then to get better so quickly, kind of like you know like once I was out of surgery, my and I know I was on medication but my fever was gone, they were already seeing improvement in my blood work, I felt better. My mom and I were like in this room, watching Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, we were just what just have like it just felt like such a surreal moment.
P: Dr. Robertson, let’s talk about retained placenta. I definitely heard of it, causing hemorrhage, but it can cause other issues too. Right,
Dr. Robertson: right, right, it can cause most likely it’s bleeding but it can also cause an infection and when someone’s admitted with endometriosis, which is what we call an effective uterus after the baby’s been out enemy treatise, we want to make sure that the uterus is empty so we do a formal ultrasound, as well as give IV antibiotics but moms can get very sick, and so having a high heart rate can be a sign of that it can also be a sign of preeclampsia, with something called cardiomyopathy. You just have to remember that maternal deaths, half of them happen postpartum. And, yes, it’s really a drag to be readmitted to the hospital, but these are life threatening conditions and early sepsis sometimes women end up needing to go to the ICU for fluid resuscitation and their care that’s more frequent than nurses on the front end for can provide. So even though and often they won’t let you bring your baby back in and then you have to pump in someone’s got to feed the baby at home it’s very disruptive. I can understand the reluctance of acknowledging something might be wrong, but that lactation appointment may have saved her life
S: It was just like, I went from truly believing I was going to die to like watching housewives with my mom in the ICU, like it was just like what is happening. And I didn’t need a blood transfusion I should mention that when I was in the O R. They just gave me blood because, you know, I had just given birth and I was losing blood from the D&C and so I was on IV antibiotics. The next morning they came in and they also told me that I tested positive for norovirus, which was such a weird. They think it was like a weird perfect storm like no one knows where I got it. No one knows how I got it, and they think that my immune system was, you know, suppressed from being pregnant delivery and the placenta than the Noro and it was just this perfect storm so then I had an infectious disease doctor come in I had my OB I had my general practitioner, like so many people but they just kept being like, we’re just kind of shocked at how quickly you’ve turned this corner, and they decided to move me to the regular floor for for another day. Everything continued to improve. I remember walking out with my husband to his car and like sitting in his car and just being like, I never thought I’d sit in this car again, just these little things, it ended as quickly as it began, I don’t even I don’t even know what else to say about it, I didn’t have postpartum. This time around, but I definitely had some PTSD, not from the birth, but from the after math, and that experience, I just tried to not let it bring me down because I was almost not here.
P: Yeah, that sounds like a whirlwind, that sounds like so lucky to be in the right place at the right time that you went in that they figured it out quickly and could respond
S: right and and that’s what kind of has sparked a lot of my recent interest in maternal health in this country because I just think about it like I live seven minutes from the hospital, I have good insurance, you know my hospitals affiliated with Yale, it’s a good hospital, I think about women who don’t have that, and I, it just could have been so different, and unfortunately for a lot of women it is, it kind of sparked this passion in me, so I’m actually going back to school for a Master’s in Public Health at George Washington University, because I just want to understand this more and I want to understand why there’s all these racial disparities when it comes to healthcare, especially in maternal health care and why black women are dying at such an alarming rate when they’re giving birth and I just kind of want to know why it’s like this.
P: that’s awesome that you took that experience and I’m using it in this way because we definitely need help right there. Those statistics for black women are dire, and it feels like a five alarm fire so I’m glad that you’re on it.
S:Yeah, I actually, I think, like, I just looked at it the other day and it was something like, black women are three times more likely than their white counterparts to die from pregnancy related complications or childbirth and it’s just, yeah, it’s, it’s not good.
P: Yeah…if you are unfamiliar with these statistics, I’ll put some links in the show notes so you can see what Sarah is talking about…
if you could give advice to your younger self, what do you think you would tell her about the birth experience.
S: I think I would tell her to expect the unexpected to trust yourself to be confident in your choices, and to also know that it’ll be okay, you know, It’s just, it takes unexpected turns and I really think it’s expect the unexpected. Because if you didn’t talk like, you know, my birth, birth was one thing but then if you had told me that I would have had this like wonderful delivery. And then I would be end up in the ICU, and never in a million years would have believed it, I didn’t even no I mean I knew your placenta had to be delivered within 30 minutes of giving birth, but that’s like the big, the whole placenta, I never even thought that a piece of placenta could attach to my uterus and cause this reaction within my body.
P: amazing, amazing. Thank you so much for sharing your story I totally appreciate it.
S: Thank you. Thank you for having me if I can help anyone not ignore their symptoms or anything just kind of,
P: yeah, that’s good advice.
S” Yeah, cuz like I said, I think as moms and as women we’re, it’s easy for us to kind of brush things off and to worry about everyone else when, especially when you’re postpartum you need to take care of yourself.
P: I’m going to end the conversation here because it’s such an important point, and regrettably true. In the postpartum period, as it stands right now, you really do have to take care of yourself…in most places in the US you won’t see your doctor again for six weeks. And, as sarah said, we can’t ignore what may be troubling symptoms. Half of all pregnancy deaths occur after birth so it really is a time that you or your partner needs to pay attention to how you are doing after growing another person in your body for ten months and then releasing them…
Thanks again to Dr. Robertson for her insights, and thanks to Sarah for sharing her story, and thank you for listening. If you like the show, feel free to like and subscribe, and if you have a minute or a view is really helpful because it helps other people find the show. We’ll be back soon with another story of overcoming.
Episode 19: Expect the Unexpected, Sarah’s Story