Episode 39: A Birth that Requires Stamina: Kristen
Episode 39 SN: A Birth that Requires Stamina: Kristen
Every person has their super power. Yours could be patience or wit or strength. I am guessing that among the things that today’s guest could list as her super power, toughness and or stamina are probably near the top of the list. She contends with a fair amount of uncertainty about elemental issues, like the timing of both pregnancies, and then manages a stack of challenges beginning with birthing a baby who is not situated in the birth canal in a friendly way, tending to said baby, who is getting fed too often to make restorative sleep a viable goal in the early postpartum, and then carefully dissecting her own diet to manage a food allergy …and she does it all with a certain grace and good humor.
Weight gain during pregnancy
https://www.webmd.com/baby/guide/healthy-weight-gain#1
https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/maternalinfanthealth/pregnancy-weight-gain.htm
Sweeping membranes
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/21900-membrane-sweep
Vernix
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2763724/
https://www.nature.com/articles/7211305
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 the mother of two girls.
Every person has their super power. When my kids were little, I’d say my super power was being entertained by almost every mishap. One time the older one was potty training and she got mad at me in the car and peed in her carseat and my initial reaction was to laugh (to myself) and think “well played toddler–use the tools at your disposal”. Message received.
Yours could be patience or wit or strength. I am guessing that among the things that today’s guest could list as her super power, toughness and or stamina are probably near the top of the list. She contends with a fair amount of uncertainty about elemental issues, like the timing of both pregnancies, and then manages a stack of challenges beginning with birthing a baby who is not situated in the birth canal in a friendly way, tending to said baby, who is getting fed too often to make restorative sleep a viable goal in the early postpartum, and then carefully dissecting her own diet to manage a food allergy …and she does it all with a certain grace and good humor.
After our conversation, I went back into the interview to add some details when medical issues came up.
Let’s get to this inspiring story.
Hi, thanks for coming on the show. Can you tell us your name and where you’re from?
Kristen: My name is Kristen and I am from a small town called cooks Creek Manitoba in Canada.
P: Oh, wow. Nice.
K: How many kids do you have?
K: I have two biological children and I have two stepchildren so I have four
P: that sounds like a full house.
K: Always.
P: What’s the age range?
K: Our youngest is seven. He just turns to Oh, he’ll be eight in August and our oldest just turned 12 in October.
P: Oh, so are pretty tight.
K: Yes, my two are oh, he just turned 12 actually on the ninth of January and my daughter will be 11 this coming September. And then my husband’s two are 12 and seven.
P: that’s a band. That’s awesome
K: Yeah, they and they all get along so incredibly. Well. We get so lucky with these four.
P: That’s awesome. What’s the gender mix?
K: We have two girls and two boys.
P: Oh, nice. God it’s really balanced.
K: Yeah, and in fact, it actually made from oldest to youngest. We go girl boy, girl boy.
P: Well done. I don’t know how you did it. But that’s well done. So before you got pregnant, what did you imagine pregnancy would be Like?
K: I was I was relatively young. I was 24 when I got pregnant with my son, so I’m 23 I guess I was 24 when I had them. I really hadn’t given it a lot of thought before getting pregnant. I was probably one of my first friends. My best friend. At the time had a terrible pregnancy and terrible birth experience. She was sick all the time I was there while she had her daughter and it was less than ideal birth experience. So I had worries that my birth might go the same way as first had put on got pregnant, but before then, I’d really give it a lot of thought
P: yeah there’s was probably something to be said about that approach. So the first time did you get pregnant easily?
K: Yeah, I actually I had gone off. I got off birth control for health reasons and told my boyfriend at the time that it was not his responsibility to take care of birth control and I ended up pregnant three months later.
P: Already, then that’s pretty easy. Yes.
K: Yeah. it wasn’t. There was no training involved. There was no planning involved. It was just kind of like, this is my this is why I met I had given him the speech of this is my five year plan. If it’s not yours, that’s okay. But this is mine. You’re in charge and wasn’t in charge.
P: I’m assuming having a baby immediately was not the top of the five year plan.
K: No, no, it wasn’t. My long term plan. My long term five year plan was to buy a house have kids, but apparently my son decided it was time for him anyway.
P: I assume you found out with like a home test?
K: I did. Yeah. And I actually had thought I was pregnant the month before. Yeah, and I was just feeling off. I was working one day and I made a comment to my partner that my boobs are really sore and the the nurse or the assistant healthcare and I think that we had with us that day. She she’s pregnant to sit No, I don’t think so. But it really got me thinking about it. And actually that day after work, I went and picked up a test and went home did it and lo and behold, I actually was pregnant. So the only real thing that kind of tipped me off was like I hadn’t missed my period yet. I was yes, I had maybe a little bit but I wasn’t unusual for me to be late. That’s why I had been on birth control for so long was to regulate my my periods. So the just the the soreness of my boobs was kind of the giveaway that I might be pregnant and I wouldn’t have even thought about it had somebody else not suggested it
P:Oh wow.
There’s some common signs you might be pregnant, like this period or tender breasts or fatigue. And according to the Mayo Clinic Another symptom that makes the list is increased urination from the increase in blood volume. Other signs of pregnancy include moodiness, bloating, cramping, food aversions, these are also kind of what you’d expect, but symptoms I’d never heard of before are constipation which may arise thanks to hormone changes and nasal congestion, which could also be related to hormone changes and or increased blood production which can cause nasal passages as well.
P: And what was the pregnancy like?
K: It was was pretty well uneventful with the exception of the fact that I’m a paramedic. That’s I was, I was I’ve been a paramedic now for 15 years and when I got pregnant with my son, I was still working on the truck. I stayed on the truck, but every time I would go and do a heavy lift, I was spotting. So I actually ended up having to come off the truck around 20 weeks I might have been 20 weeks pregnant. My doctors said that’s enough. You’re done because I had at that point gone in probably four or five times with spotting worried that something was going wrong. And all I could think about for months, all those times was like I’m losing my baby. I had had probably around the 10 week mark I had a long conversation with my aunt who’s a nurse about about it and come to terms with the fact that if I was going to lose my beanie, there was a reason for it. And yes, it was gonna suck but that meant that there was something that wasn’t working. And there was a reason why that that was supposed to happen. But lucky for me that didn’t happen.
P: did they link the spotting to the heavy lifting is gonna pay off.
K: later down the road, they discovered that my placenta was fairly low lying, laying near my cervix. So every time I would lift there was too much pressure. And that’s what caused the spotting. The the following 20 Weeks was pretty uneventful. I gained a lot of weight. Please, for me anyway, I gained about 40 pounds in my pregnancy and having been a very active person who was very weight conscious all my life. It was really difficult to get behind the idea that this was weight I needed to gain. When that was really tough to get up on the scale and see more weight, more weight more weight.
P:Yeah.
Okay let’s talk about weight gain during pregnancy. according to webmd and the CDC, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, someone who’s quote unquote average weight and average is defined by BMI, she gained 25 to 35 pounds during the pregnancy. And someone who’s underweight should gained 28 to 40 pounds. For those who are overweight, the window of 15 to 25 pounds. How’s that window determined? Where’s the weight going? Here’s some estimates. Let’s just look at the lower bound. Let’s say the baby’s eight pounds add the placenta that’s another two three pounds so now we’re at 10. At ml fluid. That’s another two three pounds an hour 12 fresh tissue increases that adds to three pounds. Now we’re at 14 and the blood supply that increase that could cause nasal congestion. That’s four pounds so now we’re 18 uterus expanded to a growing baby as two to five pounds. So now we’re already up to 20. And then you’re going to need some stored fat for breastfeeding because that fuels milk production, which has another five to nine pounds, which gets us pretty easily to 25 pounds. And that’s just the lower bound
K: you know, but the rest of that pregnancy was was pretty easy. was about the 32 week mark when my placenta finally moved enough that the doctor decided I could get back in the gym and I could do light working out, which was fantastic because I really needed to get moving after doing nothing for 12 weeks.
P: Yeah, that’s hard. You rest right. You just couldn’t do a lot of stuff.
K: Right? I just couldn’t do any any lifting and anyone didn’t want me working out. Anything strenuous really.
P: it’s interesting that Your placenta just moved.
K: Yeah. And the way they explained it is it’s kind of kind of not that it moved but that it’s you know the uterus gets bigger right so naturally, where it was positioned with move as the uterus is expanding. This way I understood what they were explaining to me so that was interesting, because I didn’t I thought that once it implanted itself where it was it was it was just a stay there.
P: Yeah, yeah, I agree. That’s cool.
K: I guess it wasn’t it wasn’t covering my cervix. It was just low enough that it was causing grief.
P; Tell us about the birth. How did you know you were in labor?
K: I have had my membranes stripped.
P: So your doctor might suggest stripping your membranes aka sweeping membranes to try to induce labor if you’re near or over your duty. And this procedure Doctor separates the amniotic sac from the wall of the uterus. And this separation encourages your body to produce prostaglandins. Chemicals that soften your cervix and repair your body fileserver know that it can only be done if your cervix is a little bit dilated, and it doesn’t always bring on labor.
K: at my last appointment I was like 39 weeks three days movie and the opposite like I was already two centimeters dilated so she gave it a good good sweep, which is probably not the most comfortable thing in the world. But she she did that and I went home and I had a lot of back pain over the course of the night and I didn’t really think much of it until about 530 in the morning when my water broke. I actually sent my my boyfriend to work and said you don’t go to work. I have no labor at home. I’ll be fine until I can’t walk or talk through these contractions and they’ll call you and you can come home.
P: and was the water breaking like a Hollywood event or
K: no I was actually in bed and all of a sudden I kind of felt a little bit wet nose like I think that’s my water and I got up to go to the washroom. It wasn’t the big gush or anything it was a little bit of a trickle but he and he went off to work and I hopped in the shower I had some breakfast and then I got in the shower and knowing knowing what I know from my from my job I knew that once I got to work or to the to the hospital, they’re not gonna let me eat. Let me do anything. They’re just gonna let the labor and I wanted to make sure I had food in my system before I went in.
So I had my breakfast say hey, had my shower stood in there for a while. By the time I was getting out of the hot shower, only about an hour after I sent him to work. I was calling him saying you know what? I actually think it’s a good idea. If we go by the time you get there, it should be ready to go. So he came back and he got me we went off to the hospital and they got me triaged but they had no bed so they had me walk the hallway. And when I got there around 11 o’clock in the morning, and I walked and I walked in I walked that they had a room and then
P: how are you? How are you feeling during all this walking?
K: Not overly comfortable but I had to bet I had decided at the beginning of the pregnancy that the as a result of my friends negative experience with an epidural and and medications that I was going to do this all natural. I had many people ask me are you sure that’s what you want to do? Are you like are too afraid it’s gonna hurt tonight I would respond with Well, I know it’s gonna hurt. There’s no, there’s no, there’s no, no two ways about that. It is what it is and I’m expecting that so it was uncomfortable to say the least but not intolerable.
P: okay
K: walking the hallways. I would stop every once in a while have a contraction and keep going. Once they had a space for me, I got to labor in the birthing tub. I should say birthing tub it’s just a tub because they won’t allow you to have your baby in the tub. I labored in there for a while and then I I went into the shower and I stood in the shower for a while they got me a birthing ball and they sat on that. So my water had broken about 530 in the morning and by about 430 In the afternoon I was ready to push the I was 10 centimeters dilated and they had this lovely little rail that they were able to attach to my bed if I wanted to get up and use that as a as an option to bear down and I pushed for so long it was five hours
P: oh my god that’s super long. Wow.
K: enduring that that whole process while I was laboring in my room I actually one of my friends and co workers had popped into the hospital knew I was in labor pop came upstairs and the nurse comes in she’s like your friend is here is wondering and I’m like can I let him in sewing for a while. That was that was before it was pushing but then. So by the time I was ready to push, the nurse was convinced that every time I push she could see his head so she figured this was going to be a short process but an hour and a half later I was still pushing in the resident came in to take a look and see what was going on. And it turns out that my son was situated sideways so he was shoulders instead of being held facedown he was facing sideways. Oh, square peg round hole doesn’t work.
P: Yes. Yeah.
K: So she she tried to turn him and was unsuccessful. He was too far down into that birth canal for him to be successfully turned.
P: That sounds like a not super comfortable procedure.
K: No, no, it’s definitely not I don’t I don’t have a lot of memory about how it went down but I just remember it being kind of an uncomfortable push. But at that point I’d already been pushing for an hour and a half so it didn’t really that much different. So she she tried and she was unsuccessful. And she said you know what? he might still turn on his own so we’re gonna give you to about a three hour mark usually at about three hours that’s when we come in and assist delivery. Okay, and off she left and I continued to push for another hour and a half. My mom was there my my mother in law my other half and my aunt and my sister were all there in the room with us. And obviously, by the time I got to three hours he still hadn’t come out. And the resident and the physician were both in C sections. So there was nobody to come and help me at three hour mark. So at that point, the nurse says to me, she says do you want the nitrous and I said, Well, is it gonna is that going to stop my contractions really because she said at this point she’s saying tried to breathe through your contractions and I’ve been pushing for three hours you want me to breathe through my contractions…that’s not a thing that is going to happen. And slowly we can offer you the nitrous. They said they’re going to do what’s not going to do for me so that might decrease the intensity of the contraction. I said okay, well I’ll give it a try. Because at this point my my eyelids were swollen
P: oh my God
K: and purple because I’ve been pushing so hard for so long. It looked like I was wearing eyeshadow and I could barely you barely keep my eyes open. So I took that first hit of nitrous and it’s subdued my contractions for about four minutes. It was the most brilliant four minutes of my entire life. It was nice to just kind of relax and chill for a couple of minutes after, you know, screaming pushing for so long. But it didn’t obviously stop the contractions and definitely but it did it did make them a little bit less intense. I didn’t think it was doing a lot but the nurse was insistent that yes, absolutely. You’re not squeezing your eyes shut as hard. You’re not pushing as hard. It’s doing something for you. He’s always ready to give it back because like this is useless. I’m not getting anything after that first shot. So by another another hour and a half goes by or whatever and the doc the doc finally comes in at about the five almost five hour mark and then resident at that point suggests taking me to an OR because just in case. Anything goes awry and my nurse was wonderful and she actually advocated for me. She says, Do we really need to take her somewhere else like she’s gotten this far without drugs because of these five people here.
P: Yeah
K: These people have been helping her through this. She’s only here because of that. We need to take her somewhere else and then the OB she says you know what? You’re right. We’ll get the NICU called the NICU team bring them here because our room was nice and big.
P: Yeah.
K: So they brought them in and they ended up having to do an episiotomy. And then vacuum deliver him which
P: you’re not anesthetized for the episiotomy?
K: No, not at all she said that the pressure from the head will cause enough to have you not feel really the episiotomy and I don’t remember feeling the episiotomy So,
P: okay, good.
K: It wasn’t it wasn’t an overly traumatic experience there. But when the the suction delivered him there was actually a pop as he came out, because of the just the pressure from him being there and he was his head was very bruised afterwards just from being and cone like from being stuck in the birth, birth now for long. My My first thought after he came out was oh my god, thank goodness that’s over.
P: Yeah.
K: But at the same time they I was I was thankful that it was over but I also the first things out of my mouth. Were that wasn’t so bad. And the nurse and the doctors are looking at me and I really just pushed for five hours that you’re saying that wasn’t that bad. Really, it wasn’t too over. They put them only on my chest for about 30 seconds. And I knew I remember saying to him like you I’m sure you’re beautiful but mommy can’t even see you because I couldn’t open my eyes.
P: Oh my god. Wow.
K: And he was crying very quietly and I said if this is all I have to deal with, I can deal with this. The doctor was like, That’s not normal. We’re actually going to take him Now, he wasn’t trying very loudly. He was very, very quiet. So the NICU team ended up taking him and suctioning him and taking him off to the NICU for a while. What had happened was because he was stuck for so long in the birth canal he was full of mucus
P: Oh Wow.
K: They had to take took him away to make sure that the other they got all of that out. They kept him on his stomach for a little while he was making. I didn’t see him for that entire time that he was in the NICU. His dad went in and walked down the hallway but they really didn’t give him a much opportunity to see him. While they were dealing with it. He ended up having his first bath without me and being all cleaned up and he came back to me all wrapped up wearing a diaper.And it was probably a couple hours from the time that I had until the time he came back to my room.
P: When they returned them to you. He was fine.
K: he was fine. Yeah. But in that in that hour and a half I remember saying to my mom Mom I want I need something to eat go and get me a big extra which she’s all I wanted after having that experience was she what she’s from?
P: I mean, you basically just run like two marathons right? That makes sense. Yeah.
K: When he when he came back, it took him a little bit of time to learn how to latch and I actually ended up in the hospital for four days postpartum because he lost 11% of his body weight his birth weight and the they were really kind of reluctant to send us home until he gains back some of that. He ended up on phototherapy because he was jaundice. So they had him in an incubator with phototherapy going but he was not having any of that he didn’t want to be that far away from mom so he ended up with a phototherapy blanket. And this is just basically like a UV light that they put inside his his blanket. He doesn’t keep on clothes. He just kept through this diaper and wrapped up in a blanket with that UV light behind him. And he hadn’t quite gained back his birth weight by the time we left but he was he was significantly better but I had to nurse him and then supplement him and then pump and I did that for every hour every couple hours or the first couple of days. And I remember it being about 60 hours that I hadn’t slept from the time when my water broke until the time I finally got a good nap in. And that was me saying to the nurses please take my baby so that I can sleep.
P: yeah, no kidding, Good Lord,
K: can you do something because this is this has been over two two and a half days here and I I need a good rest because every time I would just fall asleep they would come in to be doing vitals on me or the baby.
P: Yeah.
K: And then just they finally they took him for a couple hours so that I could get a solid sleep in the in the night. They’ve just brought it back to me when it was time to feed him. Yeah, by the end by the time he took me home I had to I had to keep doing that. The nurse supplement pump every three hours and that process took about I don’t know an hour an hour and a half. So I would do that every every three hours for the whole day for 10 days. So those first 10 days of his life are pretty much a blur of sleepless everything
P: that just seems like an unbelievable task. I mean, I don’t know how you slept or ate.
K: I guess they just I can’t even remember at this point. It was it was it’s just a blur. He slept in my bed. I co slept with him because it was impossible. I had I had a bassinet beside my bed but it was so much easier to just, you know he would sleep there for the first block of sleep and he didn’t sleep my son did not sleep very well. He only ever really slept for two or three hours at a time. And he didn’t nap during the day if he nap during the day. It was short. Unless I was holding him if I was holding him he would sleep.
P: Yeah,
K: so at nighttime it was just, you know do what I needed to do to get some sleep which meant he usually slept with me that worked out alright because his dad he wasn’t homeless. He was he worked out of town. So a lot of the time he he wasn’t there. It was just me and my son in bed. It worked out alright.
P: wow.. Oh, that’s some initiation into parenthood.
K: Yeah, my second one was so much easier than that. But thank goodness.
P: So he required all that feeding. Was it because of the latch issue or was it something
K: just because he lost so much weight they wanted him to catch up but by the by the time he hit that 10 day mark and the public health nurse had come to check on him. She’s like, you don’t have to do this anymore. my milk head had come in in abundance.
P: I imagine everything else seemed easy after that introduction.
K: Yes, yeah, it was not. Although he the first four months maybe before I figured out what was causing him grief is every night around the same time he would. He would just start crying and crying crying and I remember having to call my mom My mom lives. I lived in a duplex. My mom lived downstairs and I remember getting her to come upstairs and take him and walk with him because I just I needed a break from the crying. I tried so many different things and we were you stopped eating spicy foods. I stopped eating anything with spices. I couldn’t figure out what was the issue until I realized that every morning for breakfast. I was eating yogurt. I stopped eating the yogurt for breakfast and my son stopped being colicky.
P: oh Wow. So it was a food sensitivity on his part
K: And I had tried that when I tried probiotics and I had tried all sorts of thing eliminating everything tasty under my diet try to find out what the problem was. And it was the yogurt and as soon as I ended that he started sleeping a little bit better and he stopped crying in at night. There was always an evening who was okay all day in the evening. It was awful to this day. He still he’s 12 now and he still has a dairy sensitivity, but that knowledge that I had from that experience carried through to my daughter and she had a similar problem when she was first born and she would projectile vomit and shortly after I would nurse her and at least at that point I knew to eliminate the dairy in my diet in that solve the problem for her as well.
P: That’s super interesting. Do you or your husband have a dairy sensitivity?
K: I have always had a dairy sensitivity and it was kind of like an upset stomach. I don’t generally digest animal proteins very well. And I find that dairy products actually caused me to have an asthma attack. So
P: oh Wow.
K: It wasn’t a surprise that my kids would both be have adverse reactions to to dairy. Their dad also was a heel heel he would he would tell you he wasn’t lactose intolerant until he met me but he didn’t he didn’t recognize the gastrointestinal upsets that he was having were as a result of dairy he was eating because once I went sparse done once I realized he was not he was not able to have dairy. I stopped buying it. And we started using alternatives and their dad’s problems also stopped. So he didn’t know until I suggested that this was potentially a problem for
P: Wow, that’s amazing. And so your kids are close together in age. Did you guys play in the second one?
K: Nope. I had one one menstrual cycle in between my kids. I didn’t have any cycles up until I started. Nighttime weaning my son so when I started taking him and he was about 10 months old when I started getting getting him into a routine of not nursing at night because I was going to go back to work at the one year mark. And so I had a cycle at the beginning of this. He was born in January 9th. I had my typical post partum bleeding for about six weeks. And then I had nothing until the beginning of December of that same year, and I ended up pregnant December 23.
P: oh Wow.
K: I knew I knew the day it happened.
P: That sounds like you’re pretty in tune with your body. So my guess is you were you were on it. And were you surprised?
K: again it was one of these situations where I had said to to my ex that you know, like we have to be careful because this is where we’re at like and so I was I wasn’t necessarily surprised that had happened. I was I had a hard time with the idea that I was pregnant again. Right away. I actually was in denial until a new year until I’ve got to a point where I was gonna miss my next period.
P: Yeah, it sounds like your body is still recovering. And so that is kind of a surprise.
K: Yeah, it wasn’t it wasn’t there wasn’t ready for it. I wouldn’t I wouldn’t change it for the world my kids are as his best friends as they could possibly be being multi for the boy and girl. But I definitely remember thinking the day the day after the day I got pregnant like the next day when I was spotting and I was certain it was implantation bleeding. Yeah. I was like, Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me. We had planned for a New Year’s Eve party at our house and I sipped on the same beer the whole entire night because I was sure that I was pregnant. Yeah. And lo and behold, I did my test in January, and I picked him up one day, and I said to him, like, yeah, when I was talking on the phone the other day, and I told you, you have children. Yes, yeah. pregnant again. This is well it’s too soon. This time. I will agree with you. Yeah. But here we are. So we’re gonna have another one. And it took me about 16 weeks 16 weeks to be okay with the idea that I was having another baby, because I was so excited that my son would finally sit and play with a bucket of toys. By himself that he will do things he would see was crawling and he was mobile, and I didn’t have to be with him 100% of the time to keep him entertained. And at that point, I’d also discovered that he was allergic to dairy and eggs. So I already had this like worry that now I’m going to have you know, two kids with allergies and I don’t want to have ya I’m just learning how to deal with one I don’t want to have to deal with 2am I gonna do this. I’m gonna have two toddlers in my house. Yeah, but it’s actually a lot easier than I thought it was gonna be.
P: Oh, good. Yeah, that sounds pretty busy. And one benefit of having nine months of pregnancy is it gives you time to adjust the idea.
K: Yes.
P: So how was the second pregnancy
K: uneventful. Oh, I was I was able to maintain my my my gym routines. Maintain my work. I stayed on the on truck until I was I think 28 or 29 weeks and I only came off because my belly was starting to get in the way I didn’t gain as much weight with her. I had like his basketball belly. If he looked at me from behind, you would never know that I was pregnant.
P: and he didn’t have a placenta issue again.
K: No, no problem with the placenta. I had a lot of back pain with my son and I and as a result I had a lot of back leg was back labor. The thing they thought that was big because my placenta or my uterus was tipped backwards to towards my back as opposed towards the front. Whereas if my daughter had after that first pregnancy had put itself in a good position. I didn’t really have much for pregnancy symptoms with her like I had with my son. I had no real knowledge that I was pregnant other than you know that other than that spotting Other than that, like if I wouldn’t have known that just go on about my life like there was nothing Yeah. Blowing up saying he’ll, you know, here’s alarm saying you’re pregnant. I did have a little bit of morning sickness with her which I never had with my son but like very minimal link to the point where like, Oh, I haven’t eaten enough today. So I better eat something and that’s how I felt. That nausea that you get when you have an empty stomach.
P: Yeah, good. Well, that doesn’t sound too bad. And then what was the birth like for her?
K: Oh, that was so good. I was in comparison Lee again. My daughter had gone into my my appointment on the 10th of September. She was she was due on the 15th Avenue and we went in probably on the 10th and she stripped my membranes because again, I was dilated, and I knew from my previous pregnancy that that meant I was probably going to end up having a baby within the next 24 hours. So I went and I did my grocery shopping after that, and I started laboring probably around two o’clock in the afternoon. While I was at superstore actually, and I just picked up all of my groceries, I went home, my ex got home from work and I told him the city. We’re gonna we’re gonna have a baby tonight. So be mindful of what it is you’re choosing to do tonight. Little bit of background as he he was a heavy drinker. And so he actually came home from work and he hit the beer pretty hard. And I kept telling him like, I’m gonna have this baby tonight. And he kept choosing to drink and going to bed around midnight and as about 130 When I said Okay, it’s time to go, but there was no way he could drive me actually to call my mom. My mom was coming to watch my my son so that I could go to the hospital and yeah, I was convinced I was just going to take a taxi to the hospital because there was no way he was going to be able to drive me and my mom actually called my sister and my sister came and picked me up after she woke my my apps up multiple times and told him to get his butt out of bed so that he could come with me in the hospital to have this baby because I was fully prepared to have him have her all by myself.
P: Yeah,
K: you know, he decided he needed to have a shower first and then my sister’s like, hurrying wrong I lucked out that I waited so long to go to the hospital because they actually had no beds that night. They had their just their emergency labor beds and I was five centimeters dilated. By the time I got to the hospital.
P: Wow.
K: And they said well, it’s a good thing. You find that you’re in active labor because if you wouldn’t we would be sending you home or sending you off to another facility to have your baby basically because we don’t have anyone. But because I was an active labor they couldn’t send me anywhere so they put me in a room. That was about 330 in the morning. probably about 630 My nurse said she was going to go for a break and she said to the relief nurse, when I get back she’s going to be ready to push. I was quiet at this this this particular pregnancy was so sick even the labor was so easy. There was no loud pushes there was no screaming there was no anything. I was just calm. I was breathing through the contractions. And her relief nurse was convinced that I had had an epidural or some kind of medication she refused to let me get up and go to the bathroom when I had to pee. The only I guess the only real complication with my daughter there was like she her heart rate got really high. So they ended up giving me an IV they wanted to try to hydrate me to see if that would decrease her heart rate. But I because I had this IV I had to pee in the source was like no way you can’t get up I
P: was like you were she thought you were anesthetized.
K: Right Yeah, and she’s like I’m just gonna catheterized you like I don’t care just empty my bladder like don’t get let me get up. That’s fine. Have to pee somehow, and so she ended up St. Catheter me and my nurse came back from her break and she’s like, oh like catheter I string catheter and emptier blah. She’s like why was that epidural? Like no she hasn’t She’s nothing like she was fine. She couldn’t go she’s been getting up to go to the bathroom all morning. Such as like, really? She’s quiet. Like yes, she’s she’s fine. But the bonus I had here was that she my water never broke. He actually had to I was 10 centimeters dilated. My waters were still intact. And the OB actually had to break the water in order to for me to push.
P: does that feel like anything?
K: it actually it’s more scary to look at because it looks like this big one crochet hook that they’re going to use to break the water and she sticks this up in there and puts a hole in it. And I don’t remember it really feeling like much other than all of a sudden I could feel gosh, oh yeah. And then I actually only pushed four times with her and she was out as a forefront anyway. I don’t even know if it was four to four pushes but every every every push was solid push and she came
P: that is awesome. Some awesome and averaging out over the two to make it reasonable.
K: Yeah, absolutely.
P: And so she didn’t have any mucus issues or anything.
K: She’s totally fine. He was fine. They thought maybe she was a that maybe we got the due date wrong just because the amount of vernix that she was covered in they figured she was more than 30 week baby than the 39 week baby.
P: It’s a quick note here about vernix versus that white pasty material that covers a newborn. It developed from a third trimester and has all kinds of functions during the pregnancy and right after delivery. In Utero it protects fetal skin from amniotic fluid at the same time the fetus swallows vernix in amniotic fluid, and the Fornix is believed to aid in innate immunity and intestinal development. In the first hours after delivery. Researchers think vernix helps with temperature regulation and also acts as a skin moisturizer.
K: But she was super teeny tiny she measured tiny through the whole pregnancy and now she’s 10 years old and she’s like my seven year old and 10 year old rolls and things like that. She’s a tiny little petite thing. And she always has been she she was born like seven pounds 18 and a quarter inches like she was just
P: the year about seven pounds isn’t that tiny? That’s that feels average,
K: seven pounds, definitely average but her her length was very short. Like in comparison, my son was 76 and 19 and a half inches long. So you know, comparatively she was bigger, you know per inch. Yeah, yeah. Then my son was
P: well good. I’m glad that wasn’t easier birth.
K: Oh, yeah.
P: Did you get to leave the next day or how did that work?
K: Yeah, you she they were slightly concerned that her Billy Rubin was a little bit high when we were leaving, but it was still borderline because they had no rooms they could put me actually on a warm and I was sharing a room with four other women.
P: Oh, wow.
K: And and their babies. Yeah. So I actually said to them the next day, so I’d had her at 730 by noon. It was like 900 Yeah, I don’t have to be like No, I have to keep you will keep you today. We’re just to monitor and then you know, everything’s good. You can go home tomorrow. And thank God I got to go home tomorrow because it was it was in the night with four babies other than my own in the bedroom was actually more stressful than being at home with my toddler and infant. Myself.
P: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I shared the room too. And that’s that’s a recipe for no sleep at all.
K: No. And they were giving me a hard time the nurses at that point is I have my daughter had my daughter and my bed and they had her sleeping with me and their policy at the hospital is no co sleeping in the hospital.
P: Yeah,
K: and they kept coming in tell you she can’t sleep with you. I was like, yes, she can. This is my baby. It’s your policy like, I don’t care if it’s your policy that she has to sleep in that bed unless you’re gonna sit here and take care of her every time she wakes up. All these other babies are I’m keeping her in my bed because she’s sleeping and she’s quiet.
P: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s worth a lot. And when you got home with her, how was that?
K: It was it was an easy, relatively easy transition to having two kids. My son was really good with her. He was very excited to have a new sister. He was very helpful and willing to to give me whatever it was I needed. And I learned very quickly how to do everything with one hand because I always had a baby attached to me. She She was my warp speed child though. Like she did everything faster than the speed of light. And as a result, like by the time she was four months old, I didn’t really have to do a ton for she was rolling already. She was sitting already. My son would hang out with her and I could do a lot more than I could when my son was the same age.
P: Yeah.
K: Which was which was wonderful and made for a much easier time having two small kids then I thought it was going to be when she was crawling away by six months and walking by nine months and
P: wow.
K: And learning that she she basically taught herself how to potty train like I was potty training my son and she decided that that was what she wanted to do also so before she I think she might have been 18 months old. 20 months old been potty trained and getting up like she would get up in the middle of the night. Go to the potty in her room and go back to sleep.
P: I hope you all the money you saved on diapers you have given to her for her new car
K: it was it was a dream and she she slept like my son didn’t sleep and my daughter slept I put I ended up putting her crib in my room because I was anticipating her being much like my son.
P: Yeah,
K: and she preferred to sleep in her crib than she did to sleep with me. So once her once she outgrew her bassinet, that’s when the crib made it to our room and that way I still didn’t have to go in and wake up my son every time I wanted. She was waking up. Yeah, but she would she would just get up she would nurse and go back to her bed and she would sleep for six hours stretches at night.
P: wow. Oh my god. That’s awesome.
K: It was a dream. It was a dream after having a child who didn’t sleep.
P: Yeah, it’s also it’s also your kids who’ve done it in the right order as if it had been the reverse. He wouldn’t seem so much more difficult. Yes, absolutely. Well, that’s awesome. So what are they into now?
K: My son plays hockey. And of course with COVID This year we have missed hockey desperately.
P: Yeah,
K: we don’t do any any summertime sports but he plays ice hockey in the winter and ball hockey in the summer. My daughter is curls in the wintertime that she was when she was about six when she decided she wanted to curl and she’s really enjoyed it. She decided a couple years ago that she wanted to play ball hockey in the springtime as well and she used to play soccer and baseball hockey in the spring. They go to school and we have a farm and they help take care of animals occasionally.
P: That sounds awesome. That’s very cool. So if you could give advice to your younger self about pregnancy, what do you think you would tell her?
K: It’s never going to go the way you expect it to go. Or the the everything that you will be thrown curveballs just roll with it.
P: Yeah, that’s good advice. That seems to be a pretty common experience. Right? People come in with a plan and it’s hard to really stick to that.
K: Yeah, I was lucky in the sense of you. Well, maybe my my birth didn’t necessarily make my first birth didn’t necessarily go as I had at home, I was still able to do it without deviating too far off what I was hoping to do, I still had chosen to maintain a natural birth in the sense that I didn’t need any anesthesia or pain control, which I always was thankful for. Because it doesn’t work that way for everybody. My hand and my sister had gone into her first pregnancy with hoping to follow in my footsteps. She’s a I’m not going to do I’m going to do this naturally. I’m not going to do this with any drugs and she got there and she was laboring and she said looked at me and she says I hope you don’t think less of me but I need to take something because I can’t do this. And I said this is your story not mine. Yeah. Well, you you do what works for you. And if it’s not the same as what works for me, that’s okay.
P: For sure everybody’s different right? So yeah, that makes sense. Well, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your stories today.
K; No problem. I really appreciate it. I enjoy I enjoy telling me no problem. Thank you. So much for having me.
Episode 38: Many Challenges can Visit a Pregnancy and Birth (including Covid): Erin’s story
Episode 38 SN: Many Challenges can Visit a Pregnancy and Birth (including Covid): Erin’s story
Having spoken with a lot of women about their experiences with reproduction, many of them report having one or possibly two issues that visit their pregnancy or birth that alert them to the fact that they have very little control over the momentous task of creating another person in the confines of their body. Today’s guest was visited by many, many issues, including miscarriage, hyperemesis, gestational diabetes and the coup de gras, issues with breastfeeding, all of which happened (drumroll please) during Covid….so yeah, it was a lot. But now that she and her partner are on the other side of that experience, and getting to enjoy their beautiful six month old, she can appreciate how many of these challenges taught her valuable things about herself.
Japanese Art of Grieving a Misscarriage
http://deathtalkproject.com/on-the-japanese-art-of-grieving-a-miscarriage/
https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/mizuko-kuyo
Engagement
https://www.healthline.com/health/pregnancy/baby-engaged#engagement-explained
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 the mother of two girls. Having spoken with a lot of women about their experiences with reproduction, many of them report having one or possibly two issues that visit their pregnancy or birth that alert them to the fact that they have very little control over the momentous task of creating another person in the confines of their body. Today’s guest was visited by many, many issues, including miscarriage, hyperemesis, gestational diabetes and the coup de gras, issues with breastfeeding, all of which happened (drumroll please) during Covid….so yeah, it was a lot. But now that she and her partner are on the other side of that experience, and getting to enjoy their beautiful six month old, she can appreciate how many of these challenges taught her valuable things about herself.
After we spoke I went back into our conversation and included some details about medical issues that came up, and also had the opportunity to speak to a fantastic midwife and listening to her empathic and intelligent answers to my questions, I can see that she also teaches all of us what we should all be looking for in a midwife.
Let’s get to this inspiring story.
Thanks so much for coming on the show. Can you tell us your name and where you’re from?
Erin: My name is Erin Donaghy, and I’m from Melbourne in Australia.
P: Oh, wow. Cool. I’m jealous. It’s beautiful right?
E: It is very beautiful. We were just in fall at the moment. So it’s gotten very cold all of a sudden but it is a wonderful place in the world. Yeah,
P: I don’t think I realized it ever got that cold…
E: Everyone thinks is always beautiful and sunny. There are some parts which are definitely much warmer. But yeah, we’re right down south. So it does get a bit cool.
P: So Erin, tell us a little bit about yourself. Do you have siblings?
E: I do. Yeah, I am one of three. I have a brother and a sister. So my sister is two years younger than me and my brother is eight years younger than me so he was a little bit of a surprise but a very welcome surprise to the family.
P: I’m the third of four and I have a sister who’s eight years younger than me and she’s like the best one. So thank God for surprises.
E: Thank goodness she came along.
P: Exactly. Did you imagine that you would have a family someday?
E: That’s I think, always probably did you know, my brother being eight years younger than me. I was always called his second mom, you know? So I think now to an eight year old and I’m not sure I would trust an eight year old with what I was trusting during that time. But you know, it was the 80s and maybe things were a little bit different, but I think I probably always did but then as I got into my 20s I became quite career focused and my mum is very maternal and was always has always been having you kids was the best thing ever. Having kids is the best thing you know, you’ll regret it if you don’t, and I was always a little bit different. You know, I was like, Look, I can imagine having a family but I think it’s also possible to that I may not have a family. So yeah. And then that sort of changed as I got into my Well, I suppose I was more towards my mid 30s where I started to think actually, yeah, this is something that I want. So I am an older mum. Just kind of how life has worked out. So
P: Erin and I are on zoom so I can see her and Aaron does not look like an older mom. So I feel skeptical. so before you got pregnant, what did you think pregnancy would evolve?
E: I think that because I am a little bit older. I’ve had lots of friends and you know my sister she has two beautiful boys and so she’d had kids as well. So I sort of I had an idea that could be tough. I didn’t have this vision of this. You know, I’d seen women that look beautiful and growing with a beautiful perfect bump. I didn’t necessarily expect that for me, but I think there’s nothing quite like a lived experience. Right? So no matter how much you can seek, you know, or you think you’ve seen from your friends or your family, nothing like living at yourself. So I think probably the main gap in my expectations was well pregnant during COVID So that was completely and and then I think probably how my birth kind of ended up but that’s a process. You know, it’s a process we go through when we go and so I have this tension. You know, I’m so happy to be here talking to you about this because I think it’s so important that we share our experiences in order to demystify, de stigmatize so many things. And also I understand that there’s nothing quite like doing it, to be able to know what it’s like so,
P: but it’s useful to hear many people’s stories about pregnancy, when very few of us have this Hollywood image of you know, it was easy, and I looked beautiful the whole time and i i loved it, every bit of it. So it’s interesting to hear people’s experience. So did you get pregnant easily?
E: I did. So as I said mid 30s and sort of early to mid 30s I decided something I wanted to do. I was married at the time, and we had started trying for family and then our relationship broke down. So I went through a whole process of grieving that thinking, Well really, maybe I won’t become a mom because I was in my mid 30s. And what did that actually mean? So I went through the whole process of wondering if it was something I wanted to do on my own, but decided that going through that grieving process was not the time to make that kind of decision. So I went through a complete life change left my corporate job, started up my own business, did lots of travel, and then met my now partner we talked for a long time before we actually met in person but I think things are often meant to be in the way that they turn out. So we were together for two months. When I found out I was unexpectedly pregnant, which was a wonderful, beautiful, happy surprise, completely overwhelming but you know, we both very much wanted it. It was earlier than we wanted. Unexpected, but that’s why it happened. But unfortunately that pregnancy ended in miscarriage quite early on around about seven week mark. I had some bleeding, which, you know, led to a prolonged period of bleeding, some scans that were inconclusive, so that I had to wait a couple of weeks and unfortunately the time my partner was overseas so I was dealing with that on my own in a very good health system in Australia, but not particularly empathetic. So I found the process to be quite I mean it was a difficult it’s difficult going through a miscarriage of course, but I think because it happens so early on and in the medical world they deal with it quite regularly. I don’t feel that I got a great amount of support.
P: Yeah, That’s really hard. I’m sorry, they didn’t find someone who had good hands for that job and hard that your partner was gone.
E: Yes, it was. It was a full time as I said it was very early on in our relationship and not at all expected. So yeah, it was one of those things and when I look when I think back now I think I don’t really remember that month post it. I think I was quite numb like I am quite a spiritual person. I’m quite an emotionally self aware person and I’ve learnt to the feelings as they arise but at that time Yeah, I think back to that month I you know, I came back to my business. I just kept going because I thought that was what I had to do. And you know, I think one of the things that again it’s lived experience because I think I probably haven’t been completely very empathetic in the past when it’s happened to people when I’ve known about it. It’s all the hopes and dreams that you attach to a pregnancy this little being that although just a little bean at the time, everything you imagined for that what that means for you your relationship for creating beautiful little life sort of disappears in a flash and I don’t think there’s a lot around to actually deal with that. And because we don’t talk about pregnancy till sort of the 13 week mark when it’s safer to do so I think it’s not until you actually start talking to people that you realize how common it is.
P: I feel like we need some kind of rituals around it to help to help us grieve and just something to help us get some sort of closure on it right because it feels so finished and unexpected and you have no control right one way or the other.
So I took this question of rituals to a midwife. today. We’re really lucky to get to talk to a certified nurse midwife. Her name is Ann Richards Ann thanks so much for coming on the show.
Ann Richards: Thank you so much for having me. I am a birth podcast fanatic and listen to them all the time and I’m just giddy that I get to be here on one
P: Erin’s first pregnancy in a miscarriage and instead of about seven weeks, she said she didn’t really think it was dealt with very empathically I’m guessing that you see it often in your practice, and wondering how midwives are trained to deal with miscarriage and if there’s any effort afoot to develop rituals around this because it’s so common,
Ann: that’s interesting. So you know the training for it is very different. I think, depending on where your practices in school, we didn’t learn a whole lot about how to manage it. Oftentimes it’s well if it you know, a fetus in the uterus without a heartbeat, and obviously the body hasn’t passed that that non viable pregnancy then you’re usually just consulting and passing the patient off to an obstetrician who then is talking about management options. And so it’s kind of brushed over to be honest because we call that a missed AB or missed abortion slash missed miscarriage, meaning the body has not recognized that that the pregnancy is no longer viable and so you can kind of lay out how do we help the body to pass this non viable pregnancy? So it wasn’t until I was in my current practice where I worked collaboratively with obstetricians that I got to see those discussions regarding management. But whenever you diagnose someone with a miscarriage, you know, maybe they come in for that very first ultrasound, that very first prenatal appointment and there is no heartbeat. It’s devastating. It is for me personally, knowing that I have no idea how devastating it is for the patient. You know, it’s so hard to say you know, not knowing exactly how that was dealt with by the midwife she saw but I’m I’m just really sorry to hear that. You know, because it is that’s something every time I see a patient for her first visit, I have a huge lump in my throat until we see a viable pregnancy. And if we don’t, it is incredibly hard to navigate because I’m totally tearing up thinking about it. You can’t help but just feel helpless, you know, as a provider, and I can’t even imagine as the patient you know, wondering, why did I do something wrong? You know, which of course the patient hasn’t it’s such a difficult situation to navigate and there’s no right answer. There’s no easy answer in counseling someone but there’s of course, an empathetic way to approach it and recognizing that this for that that person in that family is is a lost life is a lost idea of life and at the last family pains, my midwife Heartseeker that she didn’t receive the compassion that that she needed and certainly deserved.
P: I feel like everyone I speak with agrees that we need some kind of ritual, kind of manage and move on. I don’t know where that’s going to come from. I don’t know if you think that it makes sense that it comes from medical practice or it will come from somewhere else.
Ann: I think it should originate with us. I mean something I actually recommend my patients now that it’s called the Japanese Art of miscarriage is a beautiful, just very raw approach to to miscarriage and helping families it’s from a patient’s perspective but I think it’s called the Japanese art of miscarriage and it’s what I personally use in counseling people if I think they’re ready for that.
P: So If you’re interested in exploring this, I put a link to it in the show notes. Feel free to check that out.
And so did you try to get pregnant immediately again or how’d you handle it?
E: Yeah, so we did to my plan is Filipino so he was in the Philippines when it happened. And so I went over, um, towards the end of his trip to visit him. We spent a bit of time there, recuperating. The advice from the hospital was to at least wait one full cycle, trying again so we started trying again after that. Our relationship went through a bit of a very rocky patch, but we then did become pregnant again. And we found out in February 2020s. So it was six months post. So I think in hindsight that six months felt very long at the time, you know, that every time you’re paying on the stage hoping and wishing and thinking and and you know, the I think you said before, you know, one of the things about pregnancy is that so much out of your control. And so yeah, thinking about the six months was not a long time to wait but it felt excruciatingly wrong at the time, but yeah, we got the wonderful news in February 2020 that we were expecting. And then months later, we went into lockdown. We actually took a holiday to Bali, and it was sort of an early babymoon and I’m so so glad we took it now. Time we were coming and going it was sort of on the precipice of things before they got really crazy. We knew that there was potentially a race I was quite seeking. They sickness but it felt like the right thing to do and it was we got back just in time before everything really kind of shut down.
P: Remind me how far is Bali for you guys not that far.
E: Not too far. So it’s a five and a half hour flight from Melbourne. Okay, so
P: not too bad.
E: Not too bad at all. No. And it was you know, it was lovely. It was a beautiful, beautiful time and as I said, potentially quite risky but it was very different over there at the time, you know wasn’t a lot of precautions happening. It was a little quieter but just not necessarily a great thing about the precautions but it was nice to escape it a little bit. Yeah. Before heading back into what was the year that has been so
P: god yeah, in hindsight, it’s genius. Well done.
E: It worked out beautifully. The universe was definitely protecting us. So then we came back and I ended up admitted to hospital because I was vomiting and I was diagnosed with hyper. Yeah, yes, very, very bad morning slash all day sickness.
P: Do we know what generates hyperemesis?
Ann: It’s very largely suspected to be related to pro pregnancy hormones that HCG are the hormone that is tested for via blood or urine when you do a pregnancy test and the higher that hormone, which tends to be much higher in multiple gestation pregnancies, the higher the nausea I really feel for patients who are going through that a lot of women are prepared to maybe not feel their best or not go well in the first trimester. But hyperemesis is just a different beast. It just lays you up and most women have a singleton Or one baby pregnancy and the gamut of what’s normal for how they feel in early pregnancy is so wide what woman you know, feel mildly nauseous or not nauseous at all and other women have hyperemesis or vomiting multiple times a day every day. It makes no sense. It’s just kind of mind boggling. It really attests to the fact that we know some about pregnancy and birth but we don’t know a lot more than we do know
E: I ended up medic medicated for that up until about 16-17 weeks, I think and that was sort of, I guess the beginning of the discomfort for me around wanting a more natural type of birth. I had a lot of fears around giving birth, but I was working through them. I really don’t like taking medication unless I have to you know, modern medicine is wonderful, but I try to avoid it as much as I can. Particularly when I was pregnant. You know, I didn’t know what these tablets were going to do. But I was just so sick. I couldn’t function without it. So I think that’s probably the first real step of letting go. That, you know, I have to be the best I can be in order to grow the baby the best I can so
P: yeah, not being able to eat is definitely a barrier you’re gonna have to cross right so yes,
E: yes, exactly.
P: So was the second trimester easier.
E: second trimester got better not immediately. You know, I was sort of hanging on to the 13 weeks thinking is going to get better. It’s going to get better. And it didn’t immediately but it did. It did go on to get better. I was in my second trimester and so I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, which was also a pretty average experience because the reason I was sent for early testing was because of my BMI. I’m a size 16 Australian, which I think is like a 14 us sizes. You know so I’m a curvy girl, but I was made to feel bad, to be honest about my size. I understand why, you know, you’ve come up as a risk kind of factor. We flagged this but it was the way in which you know, I got an email from the midwife thing for the very procedurally does why and it’s because of your BMI. And that was kind of it. So that was a that was a tricky experience, too. Because then I went for the testing and the hospital told me I didn’t have it and then they called me back a different person told me I did have it. So I was very borderline. I think the cutoff for the sugar ratings of five or 5.1. And I was just over that, like 5.1 or 5.2. So that was difficult again, I felt like I failed. And it’s sort of ridiculous in hindsight, but I felt like I was being told that I put my baby in danger. You know, there was no sort of questions around how active I was, you know, whether I was healthy, whether I had health issues, it was all sort of based on these numbers that I have a bit of an issue.
P: Of course, we’re in the US and Erin’s in Australia. So other things may be different but in general is BMI, the only marker for screening for gestational diabetes.
Ann: All women, all pregnant women get get screened for gestational diabetes, regardless of their BMI. And that tends to be between 24 and 28 weeks of pregnancy because that’s when the way the body metabolizes carbohydrates in pregnancy and how sugar crosses the placenta to the fetus is really affected and late second early third trimester, but there are risk factors for developing gestational diabetes being over the age of 35. The Grand Old Age of 35 is is the primary risk factor. And then having a pre pregnancy BMI of 30 or greater. We do encourage women with higher BMI entering pregnancy to get screened a little bit earlier. And so it sounds like what happened in her case, and
P: is there at all genetic components gestational diabetes.
Ann: If you have immediate family members, one or more with non pregnancy, diabetes, non gestational diabetes, that automatically puts you at increased risk. It’s not just BMI like there is definitely a family link.
P: And this is totally speculative. But in the course of four or five months and gets both hyperemesis and gestational diabetes, do you think anything’s going on there?
Ann: It’s really interesting. You wonder if she says really sensitive to pregnancy hormones, including the hormones that affect glucose metabolism. So that could be it.
E: And when I got to the endocrinologist, the specialist specializing National Diabetes, she said that to me, she said no because what he said I was pretty I was a bit of a wreck, to be honest. She said to me, Look, BMI is one of the indicators but she said it’s probably most likely getting your mum may have had it, it’s most likely passed on in that way. And she said the more and more research that I do the less and less I believe it’s related to that. So that helped at the time. I don’t know, she was just trying to appease me, but you know, again, it’s one of those things that I just got to the point where, after a very emotional and rocky time, just got to the point where I accepted that I was going to get extra help through my pregnancy because of this condition and that whatever was good for the baby I needed to do. So again, I was quite resistant to wanting to go on insulin. I was like I can manage this by diet and exercise. And I did for the most part but my sugars overnight, were not well managed, for whatever reason and again, there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. So I ended up on very low doses of insulin, you know, to the point that by the time I got to the end, a lot of the risk factors that were associated early with the gestational diabetes didn’t end up sort of being there. So they started to somewhat treat me like a more normal pregnancy as opposed to this higher risk pregnancy.
P: Well this doesn’t sound like an easy trip. Good Lord.
E: I know. But they will say how is the pregnancy like, oh, it was pretty good and there was nothing. There was nothing majorly, you know, big, big issues that happen but there was a lot of small issues. I think it was just kind of this ongoing pace of it felt like a lot of hurdles to jump through. And ironically, you know, where I was sort of sensitive about being an older mom, it never really came up as part of the conversation. You know, I never got called whatever the geriatric pregnancy is. Yeah, it was interesting. I think I was probably a little bit sensitive about that, but it didn’t end up being a thing at all.
P: And so when you get to the end of your pregnancy, it sounds like gestational diabetes is you just being monitored or how are we handling that?
E: Yes. So um, so one of the parts of one of the lots I guess, of being pregnant through COVID Was that access was quite limited to healthcare. So we had a very hard lockdown last year in Melbourne, which is paid benefits now, but we weren’t allowed five kilometers away from our home. And we were only allowed outside for one day of exercise and what that implication was in the medical side of things was that we had to attend appointments on our own. A lot of appointments were transitioned to telehealth, but because of the diabetes, I was able to continue seeing the team so my OB, the OB and the endocrinologist, in person weekly or fortnightly sort of as it went through and I also got extra scans. So I went through our public health system, meaning that I didn’t have a dedicated OB, and I think having had that experience again, taking away the positives from it. Had I been a regular pregnancy or not a high risk pregnancy or may have gotten very, very little care during that time or very, very little face to face care. So take it as that but it was fairly routine from them. The scans were going really well until we sort of got towards the end of the pregnancy and she was so we knew that having a baby girl. She was measuring bigger. So then the kind of alerts the medical kind of alerts go up and the red flags come up. And that was really stressful because again, I was quite conscious of everything that I was doing and what the impact that might have on her throughout the pregnancy and because everything had been going pretty well. You know, Mike was really well controlled small amounts of insulin. And then to get this kind of red flag around. She’s measuring large on the scan, which we think we all know well. I’ve learned that a so so unpredictable and so not accurate. So then the flag sort of went up again and then we were heading down the path of she was also she wasn’t in position. So she was great. So then we headed down the path of discussing C sections, which was not something that I wanted. So I think I mentioned before I had a fear around birth, but I had been working through it, you know, I’d been reading Hypno birthing books. I was really sort of working towards hoping to have as natural as possible birth but then there’s conversations kind of that say section induction and I wasn’t super keen on induction either. So that was quite stressful and my partner wasn’t able to be there. At these appointments, which wasn’t great. And I don’t think it’s great for the partners either. You know, I think sometimes, you know, obviously I used to have this impression that you know, the prime is not the one going through the pregnancy and so, you know, they’re not going through the pain and the carrying, but I think also on the flip side of that they don’t necessarily get that very early connection and the experience that comes through pregnancy. So yeah, that was difficult. I think it was difficult for me not having him there and I felt like it was difficult for him not being there as well. Yeah, I was relaying everything secondhand with all of my emotions and but the next scan I had, you know, sort of closer to the time again, she was measuring back normal again. So that kind of alert went down and it was all calm again. So I was really excited because I was getting to sort of the 36 week mark when that’s often when if you’ve got gestational diabetes, they’ll trying to induce your encourage you to have a C section and everything was going well and it was all fine. And then I went in to on the 37th week wanting to have a meeting with the induction midwife. As I said I wasn’t keen on induction and I was still in this very much in this mindset of if she’s not engaged. And my gestational diabetes is under control. Are we rushing her it was sort of this real challenge because of like, I’ve got these medical people who know what they’re doing and are the risks far more than I do versus the more sort of feminine spiritual side of me that’s really trying to connect with my baby and saying, but hang on, she’s not giving us signs that she’s ready. So it was really it was a tension and no my partner was he was worried he wanted to make sure that both of us were okay. And actually, like the doctors are telling you to do this. So you go in, you do it. So that was really challenging. So I went into the induction meeting and they said, Look, she’s not engaged. You’re almost at full term. We’re not going to induce her…that’s just not advise at this stage because she’s not engaged.
P: Okay, engagement refers to the position of the baby’s head relative to its mother’s pelvis as the pregnancy progresses, the ligaments around the pelvis loosen making space for the baby. This is good and important because to make it out of the mother’s body, the baby will have to travel through the pelvis. Once the widest part of the baby’s head has entered the pelvis, the baby is determined to be engaged. So if the baby’s not engaged, it’s not in a position that suggests that it’s ready to be born.
E: We’re really worried about the risk of if your waters break that her cord will come out first. And one thing I didn’t mention before so my mom had a stillborn baby before me. Who’s done his cord was wrapped around his neck. So in the late 70s It was a very different proposition to things how things are now, they didn’t know that at the time, but so that caused our um for us because this has been a very real experience in my family. So basically three days out. He went on the path of a Plan C section, and I still wasn’t convinced that it was the right thing to do. Had you date was the 18th of October. My 40th birthday was the 14th of October, and the C section was then scheduled for the 15th of October. So which also happens to be my nephew’s birthday. So she shares a birthday with the cousin which is lovely. I went through the whole process of just assessing I guess and accepting the fact that my birth was not going to be I that I wanted it to be. I think it’s it’s that point of letting go of control as a parent you learn pretty quickly you have very little control.
P: Yeah.
E: And I, you know, might have a tendency to like to control things in my life, but that’s one thing that you know, the pregnancy, being quite sick and not having the same amount of energy that I had then COVID and not being able to do what I would normally do. I think probably prepared me beautifully. As tough as it was for how much you need to let go of control as parents so
P: that is a useful lesson. So did you have any contractions when you went in or felt like a business meeting?
E: No. So I did beautifully driving into the hospital. I started having contractions.
P: Oh, wow.
E: So I’ve got goose bumps now so that that made me feel happier. You know, it made me feel like although I know that those early contractions were nothing like what they would have ended up being it made me feel like she was ready to come and it gave me a little bit of a so I’ve been getting Braxton Hicks for quite a while. And so I knew that this felt different you know, that kind of rising up kind of feeling was how I described it and now we’re coming quite close together. So that was nice, but it was very strange kind of waking up in the morning, packing our bags and going we’re going into have a baby today.
P: Yes.
E: But you know, with all of the stress that had come the challenges, I think there was something nice about not having that chaotic rush to the hospital. Oh my gosh, what’s happening? My waters are broken. We need to urgently get there. There was something very nice about the calm way in which we did it. So we popped on in I was very lucky that my partner was able to be there because they were early stages during COVID where Partners weren’t able to be there. It did feel a little bit clinical, you know, you walk into a theater but the anesthetist was wonderful. She talked me through everything. was as I said it was quite calm. You know, I didn’t I couldn’t get my you know, my own burning all my music going or any of that sort of stuff that I didn’t visit envisaged in this beautiful hypnobirth that I wanted, but at the end of the day, we were there together and I held her up over the curtain. That feeling itself was amazing. And whether I went through natural birth or a C section. It was at that point in time that I just realized She’s here and she’s safe. And that is the most important thing. So yes, that magical moment when they’re then passed sort of back to you for that first skin to skin and just the three of us there. Although we were in this surgery theater, just everyone else really disappeared, I guess. Yeah. So that was just beautiful and she’s a beautiful, healthy seven pound nine. So three and a half kilos, good size, you know, good size baby. The babies in my family are nine pounders. So. She was much smaller than I expected. Yeah, just beautiful. Beautiful that that moment. It was a little bit strange because then my partner took went with her as they you know stitch me up and and those sorts of things. So being away from her and feeling a bit groggy and weird and but I knew that she was with her dad, so I was okay. Yeah. And then we headed down to recovery. I heard a baby cry and I’m like, oh, that that might be mine. wasn’t mine. She was so chilled, very, very chilled baby. And they put her on to me to latch and we did a bit of a feed there which seems to go really well. Again, I was fortunate because I’d had the C section. I’ve got a private room so my partner was able to stay again during COVID It was amazing and I don’t know how I would have done it without him you know that first night especially with you know, still not being able to really move a lot. I don’t know how I would have done it. I suppose I would have just had to call the midwives but I mean being that was absolutely amazing. You know,
E: From but it was sort of around the time where the gestational diabetes would happen. And I’d been dealing with so many different people that I felt like bringing another person into my care was would have been difficult. And also I didn’t know if she would be able to be present at the birth because of the COVID restriction. So I decided not to, again, because I was focused so much on the lead up to the birth and the birth itself. I didn’t really appreciate what that support would have been like for us post.
P: yeah, that sounds that sounds smart. I think a doula or other living or some other support system for sure in the US that postpartum care is really, really thin. You don’t see your gynecologist again for six weeks, which is six weeks. Time, right? Yeah, so maybe that’s something we all need to put a little attention on to figure out how that can be. Improved.
E: So we had the midwives visit from the hospital but that was again limited somewhat because of COVID. And we have a maternal child health nurse system here where but that’s really about the baby. That’s about making sure the baby’s okay. I think the six week or eight week mark, they ask you the questions the standard questions about postnatal depression but my nurse as lovely as she was, she was sitting at a computer facing away from me asking this question and sort of a tick box activity. I’m not sure that they’re skilled up to really deal with the gravity of those types of situations and I did not have postnatal depression. I don’t believe there were things in our house that we’re taught, you know, there were we’re dealing with this whole changing dynamic, you know, and I think having a child brings up stuff from your own childhood, whether consciously or unconsciously, so, yeah, so 100% agree with you, I think much more care and particularly focusing on the emotional side of things post birth is something that we could all benefit from.
P: It is a little too medical. I totally agree with that. So how old is your daughter now?
E: She’s six months old Isabella? And she is a delight. She has a beautiful girl she is as I said she came at a very chilled baby. And she is for the most part very chilled, but she sort of goes from zero to 100 She’s also very cheeky and she’s starting to realize that when she does things she gets certain reactions. So she she like this morning she woke up singing now she’s found her voice and she just wakes up smiling every day. So bless her as I said, she’s a very, very good sleeper, which has been wonderful. So we’ve just removed the dream feed. So she’s sleeping from 730 ish to 630 so
P: wow.
E: Yeah, yeah, that definitely definitely helps.
P: That’s awesome. How fun. So you’re so close to this experience. I’m going to ask you this anyway. Is there any advice you would have given to your to your pre pregnant self?
E: Yeah, I think the one around the doula engage a doula. That’s kind of a very practical piece of advice. I think. From a bigger picture perspective. Advice I would give is, don’t be afraid to speak up. I’m not generally a person that’s afraid to speak up but something happens to me when I walk into a hospital. I think hospitals don’t realize how hierarchical and overwhelming they are, you know, the medical side of things is something they do every day, but it’s very new to us. So don’t ever feel bad for asking questions. Don’t ever feel bad for saying that doesn’t feel right to me. I need to think about it. And don’t be afraid to ask for extra help both physical and emotional I think you know, it’s okay to say I’m struggling a little bit with this got to the point where you know, people wouldn’t be offering food and I would normally say no, we are okay because my partner’s a chef by trade. So where I kind of got that covered and I actually got to the point of just saying, actually, that will be lovely. Thank you so much. Because even though you might be okay one day, something might happen that you’re just you know, something might not happen you might just wake up feeling not so great. Yeah. Except the help you know, it is a particularly vulnerable time. I thought I gave myself time to recover despite the fact that we returned to work early. I really was very conscious of being present when I was with her and still am, but your body has been through an amazing and massive thing and we are emotional, spiritual. I went through a big transition when I was pregnant. I knew my life would change when she arrived. But I had underestimated how it would change as soon as I was pregnant. So she kind to yourself, trust your intuition and let go of control, I guess.
P: Yeah, that’s a good that’s a good lesson that you will learn quickly as a parent, right. So
E: absolutely. I was grateful to learn it earlier on. So she, she teaches me every day. Cue reminds me every day but yeah, it is you know, there it’s it’s now much less about any of that than it has been before.
P: It’s such a great story. Thank you so much for coming out and sharing your story. I totally
E: appreciate it. It’s my pleasure. Thank you for allowing me to tell my story.
P: Thanks again to Erin for sharing her story, and to Isabella for doing her part to ease her parents into family life. Thanks also to Ann Richards for her insights about a wide range of issues from miscarriage to breastfeeding–I appreciate your time, expertise and empathy. Thank you for listening. If you liked this episode feel free to share it with friends. We’ll be back soon with another inspiring story.