Episode 34 SN: Learn to Love the Birth you Had: Katie

P: Hi, thanks so much for coming on the show, can you introduce yourself and tell us where you’re from?

Katie: Yeah, my name is Katie Tikkun, and I am from Salt Lake City, Utah.

P: Oh nice. So let’s talk a little about pregnancy, before you ever got pregnant, I’m assuming you had some idea of what it would be like what were you imagining,

K: I had a very unique experience I think growing up, because I’m the sixth of 10 children. 

P: Wow. 

K: Yes, and I was homeschooled so for my four younger brothers. I really saw a lot of, You know what my mom went through what postpartum was, was like, what having a new baby was like, and so me and my sister have talked about how a lot of our friends in terms of like having a new baby, are really blindsided like oh my goodness and overwhelmed like, I didn’t know it would be like this right it’s just constant demanding I can’t do anything but care for this baby, but we knew that, you know, we were like, Okay, I’m gonna do nothing but care for a baby for at least six months, you know, 

P: yeah, 

K: and we had that expectation going in. But even with that, I would say, My mom was definitely not a sharer in personal things around like what pregnancy and delivery was really like. And so I think I, I knew that I wanted to go into it, like, and be triumphant, you know, if that makes sense. I’m like, I got this I can conquer this. And so in terms of postpartum I think I had a better idea of what that experience would be like but the personal struggles and such. I knew there would be some, but I didn’t know what to expect exactly, you know,

P: God that is a real window into what it looks like and I think most people, most people don’t have the nitty gritty on what pregnancy will feel like and deliveries feels like a shrouded secret, and, on the one hand I feel like people often say like well we don’t want to scare anyone, but it is you know like 90% of people get pregnant again at some point of their life so I feel like it’s not really serving us to hide that part of the story. 

K: Yeah. 

P: So did you get pregnant easily the first time.

K: Yeah, it wasn’t much of a struggle. It took longer than I wanted it to, but there wasn’t, it was only about four or five months until it wasn’t as hard it’s time as I know some people have,

P: I imagined the first time you have unprotected sex, you’d be pregnant. Did you have that feeling as well, 

K: especially because I’d had, like, my, my sister and my mom talked about how easily they got pregnant, I was kind of expecting that and so yes there was definitely like some disappointment and I was like Okay, is it, you know, I’m checking those pregnancy I’m like I’m one day late. I’m gonna take a pregnancy test you know and like, so it was definitely like a lot of anticipation and disappointment every month that way, I think personally I didn’t just trust my body very much with that process like, it’s just not time yet.

P: Good, good. And how was, how was that first pregnancy.

K: Pretty good. I mean, it’s funny, I, I felt guilty, a lot for my pregnancy, and, and it’s honestly something I have had to work through in lots of areas of my life is just like, I felt like I had it really easy, because I didn’t really get morning sick, I didn’t get really huge really fast. It seemed really really easy. And so from that perspective I was like, Well, I’m just kind of going about life, you know mostly normal and, you know, I was really tired and I had to pee a lot and you know all those sorts of things, I didn’t follow a lot of cliches I had heard and so I was like, Well, I guess it’s not that big a deal for me you know it’s funny how, even if you don’t meet the bad cliches, sometimes that’s still a struggle for you right, you know,

P: yeah I think so normal. There’s no honor in the struggle, it just is and I think like, you know, if you had that part’s easy. That is awesome because being a parent is really challenging and so take your wins. Right, yes. So I’m glad that went well and then did you do want to take us to delivery you happened during the nine months or

K: when we did our ultrasound, we found out that my cord was attached a little differently, so usually the umbilical cord will connect directly into the placenta and instead it kind of went into the wall of the uterus and kind of climbed up towards the placenta, which happens sometimes. And depending on you know different factors can make you a little bit higher risk.

P: So the umbilical cord attaches the fetus to the placenta and this attachment is really important because the placenta is the source of nutrition and oxygen, a cord attached to the middle of the placenta is considered, quote unquote, normal, it looks like scientists don’t know exactly why cord attachment, might not be in the center, but risk factors include age of the mother, if she’s over 35 smoking status, and if this is a first pregnancy, among other reasons. The site in which the umbilical cord attaches to the placenta can be really important for fetal growth and development. In particular, it can affect birth weight, it might generate a low birth weight, it can affect the timing of delivery, it might lead to preterm birth, and it can affect the mode of delivery, so it’s associated with emergency C sections, because there are a bunch of different factors that might affect the site of cord insertion, It might cause problems for the developing fetus or it might not, and whether it’s a problem or not, maybe related to the underlying cause of the off center placement.

K: Thankfully I wasn’t super high risk, but it was something we needed to watch and just kind of look at and and that sort of thing so that was a little, you know, one of those moments where it’s like okay, everyone’s seen this isn’t that big of a deal, but they’re still bringing it up and all those questions and wondering and everything, and then my water broke when I was 37 and a half weeks. And

P: was it it wasn’t like a Hollywood moment or you were just,

K: no, I was like, I almost thought that I was like, Okay, we want the gruesome details here. Yeah, I almost thought that it was like, maybe like peeing myself a little bit I was like, because it was just this tiny tiny little bit but it like wasn’t stopping, and I went almost all day and I was like I don’t even know what’s going on with me right now. And I was like how to pad and I was like, This is really weird. Again, like when you think water breaking you think, oh it was this big guy like gush thing and it was not it was more like a little leak. And so

P: I feel like I’ve heard that before and that oftentimes people aren’t sure, and when they call the hospital, the hospital people say, are you sure you’re not just seeing her, and you know no one really knows so yes there, yeah.

K:So for my birth plan with this. I’ve gone through midwife and birth center. probably not surprising knowing I grew up homeschooled and all the stuff I was like, wanting to go, all natural and like, keep it super, you know, meditative and I had really got this image in my mind of just this really like, zen, relaxing, like spiritual experience type birth and delivery, and, and I had this image that I have what I wanted. And when I talked to my midwife and like I think something’s going on and she’s like yeah your water definitely broke, and she’s like, I can’t deliver outside of a hospital when you’re five weeks early. So I was like okay and that’s, you know, that’s when that image just started to crumble. 

P: Two quick questions. One is, did you attend your sister’s birth. No. So had you been to anybody’s birth before

K: I had never seen an actual delivery before I had watched, I think it was called the business of being born that was like my only experience to like action because they actually showed films of what deliveries were like, that was really my only exposure.

P: Okay, so this idea has just come from, you know your environment or your upbringing or you’re just, that’s what that’s where that came from. Okay, so that’s disappointing that the midwife says it can’t be done here in the birthing center. 

K; Yeah, 

P: can she go with you to the hospital.

K: She did, she couldn’t deliver in the hospital, but she did, you know, go with me to answer questions and kind of get that support took on a bit more of a doula role, but we ended up in the hospital, I hadn’t had the…

P: the strep B test

K: Yes, the strep B And so, because I have results on that yet. I had to be on antibiotics, the whole time so here I was, I want no drugs I want no needles I want no no and here I am like attached to an IV drip of antibiotics and like that this big monitor thing strapped to my belly for the contractions and I didn’t even go into labor right away like my water had broken and they, they really tried to get me to take some Pitocin. And, and to, to really induce that labor and that like high risk, infection, I was grateful that I have really decided that I wanted. I knew that my grandma and my mom had had terrible reactions to Pitocin. And so I was like, we’re not doing that we’re going to try pressure points and we’re going to try getting me moving around we’re going to give it at least an hour or two in the hospital of trying, before we go that route, and I’m really glad I did because my labor started up in you know, five minutes or so, and and we’re able to get things going, and ended up being, I think it was all told, maybe 15 hours of labor, honestly that was probably the thing that surprised me the most was like the sleep deprivation, on my brain, especially because it was like evening when we started. 

P: Yeah 

K: and so I was, you know pretty much awake for two and a half days almost, the mental fog, You know I, especially again back to that vision that I had, like, I you know I want to be present and like meditating and like all this stuff and I was like, I’m exhausted and I’m brain dead and I’m struggling to like really function here, it just wasn’t that that was one aspect I just wasn’t anticipating

P: that kind of makes sense if you imagine, I bet your sleep was not ideal in the third trimester because you’re big and uncomfortable and yeah. So then to go into this marathon thing that’s both emotional and physical for that many hours… laboring that long is is hard work. 

K: Yeah, It’s a lot. 

P: Yeah, that makes sense so was the delivery was just attended by doctors and it was, although it was not what you anticipated it was relatively smooth for that context.

K: Yeah, it was relatively smooth, even though my son was five weeks early, he seemed okay in the end…I was laying on the table, pushing, and I had a nurse midwife in the hospital, who was delivering. And my other two words I was able to not do lying on my back on a table and oh my goodness, if you can possibly avoid it, do not deliver on your back, it is the worst thing ever you want gravity on your side on this one, it was hard and uncomfortable and if I were to name the overall emotion of that experience to, you know the pushing of the delivery would be frustration, honestly, it was mostly just like, let’s just do this already and why is this so hard and unroot, I’m ready. We’re all ready, let’s just get this done and like almost that impatience, right. 

P:Yeah. 

K:On top of all the exhaustion and everything else. 

P:And then we’re guessing since you’re not excited about medication that there’s no epidural.

K: No, I was, I mean, that’s like a whole other story. But yeah, I didn’t I knew I didn’t want to do an epidural, 

P: wait, what’s what’s the story of the epidural.

K: Honestly, I think it’s, it’s a lot just kind of my upbringing of being pressing natural paths more than conventional doctors, and my mom’s experiences of she’d had some epidurals and some not. And she’s like, it’s not worth the big needle was always her story it was like it’s not worth that big freakin needle it’s freaky and. And so, Me going so I was like, Yeah, that sounds like kind of awful, and personally I believe that that I wanted to be there for my baby, because they were going through this experience, and I wanted to go through this experience with them I didn’t want to opt out of it because the. I know this can be a little controversial but personally I was just like, I want to just to own this and have this experience and not feel given to fear around this experience.

P: That’s amazing. I remember being terrified halfway through my pregnancy. How on earth is this baby coming out, I don’t understand the physics. I understand that it has happened and that’s the only reason I’m here but now that I’m in, it seems like it’s not gonna work. So I have to confess. My only knowledge about homeschooling is that those are the kids that will win the National Spelling Bee. So when you say oh, you know the homeschooling thing like so. It’s why it sounds like it’s not only do they win the National Spelling Bee but it comes with all these other things. So the other things are like, you don’t pursue conventional medicine or 

K: Well, I would say that if, if a person chooses to homeschool, then they kind of like sidestep convention and culture to a degree. And once you’ve taken that one first step outside the box, it’s really easy to explore all sorts of other outside the box ideas. So, I think, you know, homeschoolers can be all across the board in terms of what they do or don’t do, but it’s common for them to do other fringe things like fringe medicine or fringe, you know beliefs or fringe, you know, whatever it is, just, just because once you make that leap, it’s really easy to continue. Okay,

P: that’s a good description. Okay, yeah. So, once this baby is born, because he’s early do they put them on your chest or you don’t have that.

K: I got him on my chest for maybe three seconds. I got to, you know, rub his head and go oh my goodness I have a baby, and then he was gone for. I don’t even know how long felt like at least an hour. They made me sit up like they cleaned everything up and they made me sit up and I ate, and like I showered and then they put me in a wheelchair and I finally got it felt like forever before I got to go see him and when I did go see him. He had cords and needles and things and like I was definitely not the experience I wanted to have as grateful as I am for you know that health care and making sure we were both safe. It was just really hard to let go of that 

P: That sounds hard was he kind of big enough.

K: He was big enough, he was five pounds 

P: Oh…

K: four ounces.

P: Yeah that’s a great size.

K: He was big enough, and today, and really he was fine, they kept him in NICU for like seven hours for observation to be safe, and we spent the night at the hospital and then we got to go home the next day. 

P: That’s like a drive by, that’s fantastic for that early that’s great. Wow. 

K: Yeah, 

P: I mean, how did you feel after the birth, do you feel okay

K: I recovered pretty quickly. I was so angry, they kind of pushed on my stomach to get blood clots and I clean things out, didn’t know that was going to happen was extremely uncomfortable. I didn’t do that with my other two births, and it was fine and great.

P: currently postpartum hemorrhage is the number one cause of maternal mortality and delivery. To prevent this doctors want to be more proactive in the third stage of lever after the placenta is delivered. They can either administer oxytocin to induce contractions of the uterus and prevent blood loss, or they can perform uterine massage. It looks like the jury’s still out on whether the massage method is effective, but it also looks like one of the risk factors for postpartum hemorrhage is marginal insertion of a umbilical cord, so maybe that played a role.

K: but For the most part my bleeding was was pretty minimal. I healed up pretty quick, they did stitch me a little. but even as the, the nurse midwife was doing, she’s like, this isn’t a huge deal but I’m just going to stick to just in case. Pretty simple, pretty easy. I think for the most part, my recovery on that. My recovery with all of my births have been pretty quick and easy.

P: good

K:  Again, charitably, but I feel like my, my body seems to just kind of get pregnancy, pretty well, my pregnancies aren’t too bad. My, my deliveries are pretty comfortable. Well, as much as deliveries, my postpartum is pretty quick, but

P: so do you go home triumphant, or how are you feeling when you get home.

K: Honestly when I get home. It’s definitely mixed, cuz again lost that experience, but I’ve got my baby and we’re good. And honestly, like, I think, I wanted to move into like this, this magical, I’m a mother, which means I’m kind of saintly and like everything’s great and you know a little bit of those kind of like everything’s gonna be rainbows and butterflies and I don’t know, there’s definitely some of that going on of idealizing. And then when it’s like I’m changing diapers and feeding a baby and trying to go about the rest of my life and it was, it was interesting for me because, again, as I said before, I’ve heard lots of moms say how overwhelmed and surprised they were about how much effort, a baby took. I almost had the opposite experience I think because growing up in such a large family, with so many kids there’s so much going on, it was like almost boring like yes I’ve got this baby to take care of. But then, it almost felt like I wanted to hurry up and have like a whole family, if that makes sense. 

P: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah I mean 10 Kids sounds like a lot of great chaos in the best way and so it’s I’m sure with one you’re like this is it.

K: Yes, yes, I’ve told other people before it’s like it really took me three kids to feel like I even like really had a family like the family dynamic that I was at least kind of used to, you know, chaos to count as a family.

P: Yeah, yeah, that’s true. I hope your husband’s from a big family too. 

K: Yeah, yeah, there’s, there’s six in his family.

P: Okay good, so he’s on a similar plane of this Yes. Good. Yes, so how long till we get pregnant again.

K: So it was about two and a half years. I mean, my kids are just over two and a half years apart so would have been about two years. That time, I got a positive pregnancy test. The next day my period started so

P: that’s a bummer

K:. Yeah. Medically speaking, they don’t consider that a miscarriage because you aren’t really like far enough along, but that was definitely when I started to miss trust my body and be like, Okay, what just happened. Yeah and so I, I started to go see some naturopaths and nutritionists and be like, let’s double check everything make sure everything’s going well because my mom again she had 10 children, but she had more miscarriages than she had children. 

P: Oh wow. 

K: Yes. And so, I didn’t want that to happen

P:  in your mom’s case do they ever figure out what the issue was, 

K: yeah, she had her hormonal imbalances that I believe she had not enough estrogen or too much estrogen, I’m not sure I think it’s not enough estrogen, and so she was able to kind of supplement and do better. But, again, I think it was a lot just like healthcare at that time versus healthcare at this time, I won’t go forever.

P: But at least the story in your head may have been one where, if this is an issue I can I can fix it, like my mother.

K: Yeah, yeah, and that’s, that’s definitely my default mindset is like, Okay, how do I fix like jumping in and like, let’s fix this problem there’s problem, okay let’s just throw everything at it, we can get it fixed, but so when I did finally get pregnant, I was like, Okay, Now I’ve got to finally have this dream, and the pregnancy on that one was really good. Honestly, I it’s probably the pregnancy I remember the least, was just pretty good, pretty direct for me,

P: are you by like it’s a little more challenging because now you have a baby or we’re so far below the threshold of chaos that that doesn’t register

K: it’s still pretty low, below the threshold for me in terms of chaos. But the exhaustion factor was tricky. Thankfully, my oldest be very self entertaining at times. And so a lot of times I see what’s you know too, and so I’d like kind of lock us in his bedroom and I would lay down on the floor and I would sleep while he played, and it would just kind of like it worked okay.  but yeah it was it was pretty good. And so, I, the other birth center because we moved and was working with another midwife and was super excited, and I was like okay I’ve done this before. I got this now…40 weeks, he was like right on schedule and wake up three or four in the morning, and like contractions and like okay I should sleep everyone tells you you should like sleep while you can right because it’s like so really mild contractions. I should go back to sleep. And I totally can’t go back to sleep. I’m like you know all excited like my brains are running and so I’m like okay, I’m kind of restless, so I get up out of bed and I go onto our couch and like tried to kind of sleep and rest on our couch, and my husband comes out, he’s like, what’s going on, and, like, it’s just a little contraction, it’s okay, you just go back to sleep, it’s like, well how I can’t sleep so he, he’s like I’ll just get a head start on my workday because he, he works from home and so he gets out his computer and you know it’s like 4am and we’re just both sitting there going, nothing’s really happening, we’re here waiting. And I ended up being in labor. All that day, and pretty much all night. I think he was delivered at like 2am the next day. So again, the exhaustion factor. And I was really getting really frustrated like why is this taking so long

P: wait so when did you go into the birthing center and did your water break.

K: Yeah, so, so I went in and got checked around like 10 or 11am I think some sometime later in the morning, and I’m like, well nothing, you know, nothing’s really happening and with the birth center that says they’re not a hospital, they don’t let you just like check in and just stay for forever, they’re like, so we went in they checked how I was dilated and I was only like only like three centimeters in like I was barely anything and I was like, oh why, and like you know, go home, just keep going and it’ll be great. Let us know when things pick up. 

And so I think I went in and got checked like twice that day, and things were just taking forever, and then we finally went and stayed around like 1130 or midnight, one thing, you know, the labor really started picking up contractions were getting more regular I delivered in the tub at this big huge Jacuzzi tub. The Birth Center is great. I deliver the baby comes up they lay the baby on my chest. And I’m like, You know, we did it. And I’m holding my baby and it took me like five or 10 seconds and I’m like, shouldn’t he be breathing, and the midwife just scoops that baby off my chest again and takes him to a breathing table she starts pumping his air and starts working with him and starts, and everything, and I’m sitting there.It almost feels petty to say like, frustrated that it happened again but really it was just like a heartbroken that this happened again. And that I didn’t have my baby. I just went through all this, just to hold my baby. 

P: Yeah, yeah

K: and My poor husband had been holding me, and the afterbirth starts and I’m in this tub and the whole tub goes red, and my husband freaks out because I’m like I like collapse down in the tub goes red and he’s like she’s bleeding out he totally had like this moment of oh no what just happened. But I was fine. It was just normal after birth and I had that baby on that table for Several minutes, called an ambulance, were only a few minutes from the hospital, to call the ambulance she

P: did she get him breathing or the baby he

K: she eventually got him breathing. Okay, I forget what it’s called but there’s like that, number of points that they do on the avatar yeah yeah the app car. Um, and he was like a three year low. Yeah, when he was. And it took about, almost 10 minutes to get him up to, like, seven. 

P: so just to get some context here the app offers a test given to newborns to see how they whether they transition from fetus to newborn. It was developed in 1952 by Dr. Virginia car, and the test includes five measurements, heart rate, respiratory effort, muscle tone, reflex irritability and color, and each measurement is given a value from zero to two, so the total score ranges from zero to 10 with higher scores, indicating a better physical condition. A low Apgar score is commonly defined as less than four and that’s associated with an increased risk of neonatal death among infants born after 37 weeks.

K; And so she eventually got him there. She got him breathing. One of the other midwives mentioned that, after the fact when we were talking about she’s like, I think it was a huge blessing that you had. Becky that midwife. She has a gift for helping babies breath.

P: oh wow

K:  And yeah and so I just felt like it was just really special. And so he was having trouble breathing. He had fluid in his lungs, the ambulance showed up, it wasn’t super dramatic because he was breathing at that point he was okay, but the ambulance showed up. They checked him out, they put him in. They drove off with my baby. And 

P: that seems a little traumatic. 

K: It was so hard, so hard. And so my midwife continued to care for me. We cleaned up. My husband again this was like three in the morning, thankfully, my, my two year old is was with my sister and, and I was good there. Thankfully, but we slept for maybe three or four hours at the birth center, and then drove over to the hospital. And again, I mean this is after like, you know, being awake for more than 24 hours and like a couple hours of rest and hobbling into NICU and doctors like he’ll be fine. He’s doing pretty good. I just need to make sure we keep him on oxygen and he ended up being under bilirubin lights for a little while, he ended up being in NICU for a week, mostly because they wanted to keep him on antibiotics to prevent infection in the lungs because he had the fluid in his lungs and they didn’t want it to get infected.

P: Do they say why that happened or how common it is or.

K: They said it’s fairly common for the most part, the NICU nurses were really great. First, Nurse though. She was very much the stereotype for me of like the old warhorse type, nurse, and she insisted I couldn’t touch him, especially, again, being tired, upset and angry and sad and all of this, I’m like, why can’t I touch him and she’s like well it startles them and it disrupts them makes it hard for them like I couldn’t just hold my baby and I was so upset. And the worst part about that week of NICU was that I was not checked into the hospital, and I had to leave every night. Yeah. Every night I had to go home without my baby. 

P: Yeah, 

K: that first night. I mean home sitting around the table. Me and my husband and my two year old, just sitting there going, where’s my baby. 

P: Yeah, 

K: you know, it was just so, so hollow and especially something that I had to really, really process and work through for years. After this delivery this says my hardest one, was that I believe very strongly importance of that can be starting that connection with your baby right off you know that that bond that is created through that birth process, and it feels like that was interrupted really made me feel like the whole relationship with my baby was shattered. And as much as I could, like, cognitively say, Oh that’s fine you know we’ve got all these other opportunities and we can fix this and it’s all, you know, this isn’t, you know unfixable, but emotionally, to me it just felt so unfixable like it was just damaged that would that would never be undone. And it wasn’t helps when going to breastfeed because I had breast fed my first and everything and so I told the hospital, please don’t bottle feed until we’ve established breastfeeding that’s like, pretty standard thing to say, and they’ll ask you about come in the next day again after leaving that night and I, I’d have to pump to make sure my milk was coming in, while he was, wasn’t there. So I was waking up to pump so I still basically didn’t sleep well that first week still, but I came in the next day, and the nurse who was on duty all night. Like, I think he was hungry all night he cried all night, because I think he was hungry or they had put in a feeding tube, and she’s like We fed him but I don’t think he was full enough. And so He just cried all night hungry, and that broke my heart so bad that my poor baby was sitting there hungry. And I was like, I just made me so much more angry with the whole situation and just all like, it was one of the hardest weeks of my entire life. It was so hard.

P: It sounds super hard and it is again in part it is like you have this image in your head of what its gonna look like and you got, you know 95% of it, or whatever 90% of it. So to have it kind of wrenched away at the last minute, as a surprise in a way that you didn’t expect in a rate I mean, I’m sure in your wildest dreams you weren’t. He made it 40 weeks right you’re probably gonna go home with this baby, so many things were overturned and last minute. And because my guess is they thought your baby was healthy, the whole way through, you’re not thinking of this care that he’s getting in the NICU as critical or whatever it was,

K: especially because I kept getting feedback from all the nurses, oh he’s, he, you know, it took him a day to be above his birth weight, you know like he’s just eating and he’s growing and he’s doing all these things, they kept talking about how perfect and wonderful he was and he was just fine, but they’re like, oh, but we need to make sure he keeps on the antibiotics for a whole week, it was just like, it just felt so arbitrary and so frustrating and so like, Yes, I’m grateful that you’re keeping us all healthy seriously like. It was so hard. It was so hard and frustrating.

P: Oh that sounds really hard, I’m sorry.

K: Thank you, it was, it was a lot for me. And the last day they, they’re like, You know what, let’s just skip his last dose of antibiotics, and he can, he can go home now. So we finally like, he didn’t even fit in newborn clothes anymore. So, now, especially after my premature firstborn who was in like preemie clothes for like a month. This he was just tiny. And it was just funny, like, Oh, he’s just so big and chunky and he was, he was great, and finally got home and I’m almost convinced now that you should just pump. If you don’t have to pump because that was the best milk supply I’ve ever had when I was pumping regularly and consistently that first week, gave me great milk supply.

P: and How was the two year old like his new brother.

K: Oh they, they’re fine, they’re happy, but it was like, the longer it went the rougher things got, you know, and like 

P: I think it takes, I think it takes the first one a minute to figure out the new baby staying,

 

K: yes. But it wasn’t too bad. No, it never got too awful as I remember. So, eight months later, my period started up again I was like, that’s, that’s, that was a really weird period, they always say you know when your period starts again it can be a little different and shorter or longer or whatever. I was like, Well, that was weird. And another month goes by, I’m like, I’m like a week or two late oh well and when it starts again it can be really irregular I’m like wrong. And so I took a pregnancy test well okay I’m pregnant. Again, with the nine month old. Yeah, it was, it was great I mean we’re planning on having more kids and stuff so it was fine. It was just like, oh well this was not exactly the timeline we had in mind, and especially after my previous birth, it was very like, okay, I can do this again, it actually turned out that that like little period. Definitely not a period it was implantation bleeding. And so, that hadn’t happened, I don’t know how long I would have gone pregnant without realizing I was pregnant because I was not looking for it. Thankfully we got an early ultrasound that clued us into that and, and let me know that I was further along than  I was. 

P: That’s a gentle slide into pregnancy.

K: Yes, yes. So that was interesting being pregnant with a nine month and honestly I think. I think the hardest thing about that was that my eight month old ceased being the baby.

P: yeah

K:  Oh, you know, like and I kind of feel bad for that poor middle child. I was surprised how just being pregnant prevented me from really like engaging with him is like my youngest and my infant and like it was just different after that, like knowing that I had another one on the way,

P: you can be pregnant and breastfeed, that’s fine.

K: I hear it’s different for everybody. I lasted to maybe like four months along. Five months along. 

P: that seems like alot.

K:  It is a lot for your body to try and do both at the same time, although I hear there are women who tandem feed their newborns and their toddlers and I’m like, Yeah, that was an interesting journey bring especially like bringing my two and a half, almost three year old, and my eight month old, to all my appointments and everything and like juggling all that and my big belly and I had braces at that point, As an adult, I’m small and petite and look pretty young and I was like I totally look like a teen mom, pregnant and tiny baby and braces and anyways a little funny, but felt like a spectacle anywhere I went my pregnancies are pretty straightforward, you know, tiredness, And that was probably the biggest thing for me actually is. I didn’t get huge necessarily you know by comparatively, but my ligaments. One thing people didn’t really me into was like, how the ligaments that hold up your uterus and your pregnant belly, get strained and stressed and below to enter like, oh my goodness they hurt so bad trying to move around again hauling children and stuff was like it was a lot of strain on those, and, and then I know that that one I had, you know, some magnesium deficiencies so I got this bad Charley horses and just like tension and stuff and sleeping was awful, especially when it’s like you’re waking up with a nursing baby when you’re pregnant, 

P: that seems physically confusing. 

K: yes, that’s good way of putting it. Yeah, yeah, the pregnancy was again pretty straightforward. We get to it. And I’m 40 weeks and baby really happens and I’m 41 weeks and nothing really happened.

I have a few contractions, I’m getting contractions like almost every day, I was like okay. He ended up being 10 days late, so I was like, 

P: Wow

K:yeah, I’m like nine days late and I’m like, really I get serious about, like, what’s going on here. And personally, in hindsight I really think I was like, emotionally crossing my legs, and just being like, I’m not ready for this, I don’t want to do this again, I can’t do this again. And I think there was, there was sort of a sort of subconscious procrastination there that anxiety of this is going to happen again and I’ve got this big idea you know this this big vision, again that this is the thing that I want that’s going to make everything perfect and wonderful and my relationships with my kids will be perfect because this birth was perfect because you know like all of these things just tied to this outcome of, I just want this and I need this and I have to have this and I’m never going to get it. Again, I finally go into labor, it’s another full day, just trying to get things in place, the baby lined up and get things moving. And I’ll tell you I was, I was having like an anxiety issue. The whole time I was just so on the verge of tears of just going. I’m just scared that this isn’t gonna work out again, I’m just scared of not that something terrible life threatening would happen but something like, I’m going to be hurt and disappointed and sad again.

P: Okay, before you get to this birth, let me ask the question, your kids are kind of close together so it’s our and, Obviously, child wrangling at that age is an all encompassing endeavor and so it’s hard to have much time for reflection, because you’re literally feeding someone or changing someone or whatever it while you’re pregnant with your third if you have any moment where you say okay the first two didn’t go as I planned but we’re happy. The kids are great, we’re connected, it sounds like not that much of that is going on yet.

K: No, no, that’s, that’s a really good point is that no I didn’t. I was so much, as you said, like, in the thick of all of it. 

P: Yeah, 

K: I didn’t have that, that moment to just step back and be like, You know what, It’s all good. I think part because part of me. Me wanted to just look at that of the events of those, you know that hard week in NICU and you know those hard deliveries and those moments and look at those and go, Yeah, those were terrible and I didn’t like that. Rather than looking at that, you know, The where we are now and it’s okay it’s all okay and we’re fine and we’re good and we’re fixing it and we’re moving on, and I think honestly, I think, part of me wasn’t moving on. I think part, I think there was that opportunity for me to have moved on and I could have moved on and and have done more and I think part of me was still stuck on those in that resentment and frustration and anger of. I didn’t get what I wanted. It’s especially hard. And like, when I say it that way is like, I didn’t get what I wanted sounds a little like spoiled and entitled and whatever, but it’s like, it’s hard to recognize that when it’s like it was a good thing to want good

P: I’m going to put could have moved on in quotes because, yes, yes, you could have moved on, if you weren’t doing 150,000 things, right. You were sitting around eating bonbons you were, yes. The thing is I can see that you’re, I can see that it’s so upsetting and I’m thinking, put the kids rightly or wrongly, but now take us there it’s 10 days late, but now you’re laboring like so it’s understandable that you’re anxious about this.

K: Yeah, and and I’m taking, I’m taking a long time the same way I have before and like things aren’t lined up great and, and I’m going okay, go to the birth center. And I’m laboring, it’s like, midnight or early you know later or something, and I’m in the shower, delivering, they have this huge shower in the birth center, and my husband, bless him, he’s been helping me this whole time, super dedicated and trying to do pressure points and relieve tension and stuff, most of my Labor’s, he’s had to do counter pressure on my back and my hips, basically holding me together so the baby can come out without breaking, what it feels like. And so he’s holding me and he’s got me in this funky position because it’s what I where I need them to be and he’s trying to hold me up while I’m kind of squatting and delivering this baby and the baby’s heart rate started to drop and we’d been at this for a while and I’ve been pushing for, I don’t even I don’t know how long but it was longer than the midwife wanted me to be pushing, and the baby’s heart rate was dropping and the baby’s heart rate was dropping with each contraction, and my midwife was like okay, Katie. Next, push you are delivering this baby. This baby is coming out. You go and, and the baby comes out, and I have my baby, and she puts him up on my chest, I get to hold my baby. He stays. And I get to hold my baby and he’s there, and my husband is there, and we have just this moment of here we are, we did it. And it was, it was great. 

But was it worth the anger and frustration and disappointment and grief of missing out on the previous times. I wasn’t too sure. And it was really interesting for me to sit there and go, Okay, this just happened, like like we did it, we succeeded. And it’s not. I’m still the same person, and we’re still in real life, and I still have to go home and feed this baby and change this baby and, and it was a little, it was almost a letdown, like it was great, but it was almost letdown, because I had for so many years and so many experiences and so many times sat there going. Oh, I couldn’t get this perfect experience. Oh, but I didn’t get this perfect experience, and as hard as those other experiences were. I really think that, like there was this realization for me of I put myself through a little more than I needed to, you know, I’ve just Yes I did, like, like you said, it’s like, but what about everything else being fine the babies are beautiful. The babies are there and, and you’re, you’re moving on with life and it was kind of that, that made me realize just like I wasn’t letting myself move on.  

I’m so grateful that I got to finally have the birth experience that I had envisioned and wanted, but it was a little bit of a wake up call for me to go, that’s not the most important thing, it’s great and it’s wonderful. It’s not the most important thing, and that there’s so much else that matters, you know, you get another, hopefully, 18 years you know with these kids, and you get so many more opportunities, and so much more potential to create amazing experiences with them. And as significant as birth is and can be. Don’t let it ruin everything else. Don’t let it set you up in a pattern of being frustrated and disappointed.

 

P: Yeah, it’s hard to compete with an ideal Right, 

K: exactly. 

P: So they’re all make sense but also what a great lesson in for parenting right it’s, you’re gonna need that forever, so I feel like it was hard earned, but but useful.

K: Yeah, definitely. Because that’s what I really learned like with my middle son who’s in NICU and I felt like I’d abandoned him and it was like so hard and I lost on so much on the connection with them, because of that experience. It was a hard wake up call for me when I realized I needed to still believe I could have any relationship I wanted with him, I don’t have to let that keep me from having any kind of special amazing, wonderful relationship I want to have with him.

 

P: Yeah, I’m gonna take this opportunity to edit your self talk and say, abandoned him in the NICU, what are you they’re kicking you out every day, you don’t really have a choice. There’s no, I know how terrible it is to leave a kid in the NICU but that is the bargain you make right you will feel alive and I will get out of your way. Yeah, it’s the whole thing is hard right it’s, it’s harder than it looks.

K: Yeah. Amen.

P: So how old are the kids now.

K: My oldest is now seven, and my middle son is four, and my youngest is three.

P: Oh lovely God that’s fun.

K: Yeah, it’s a lot to have three little boys.

P; I bet, I bet, are they all doing the same thing because the three year old wants to do it the seven year old does and,

K: yeah, pretty much, I mean, it’s usually like the the three year old decides to sneak into the raisins and when everybody’s eating the raisins are all over the whole kitchen before I can even blink. But yeah,

 

P: good ,that sounds, that sounds very fun and I’m guessing that you have already kind of shared this but if there’s something you could go tell your younger self, what would you tell her

K: something like, except that she didn’t love it. And just, just learn to love what you have and don’t be so set on what you want, that it breaks you.

P: Yeah, that’s great advice. That’s great advice because this whole process is so filled with surprises. 

K: Yeah, no matter what right, 

P: I’m wondering if your mom or your sister. Your sister has kids, right. And were they at all helpful, they have a similar idea in their head of like this sort of riches look like or.

K: I would say that they definitely inspired me in terms of one team, You know natural births and things, but that there’s also, you know, the nuance of relationship that that makes it, is this something we talk about is this something we don’t talk about like, I think there are definitely holes there that we could have talked better about it and more thoroughly and more openly than we did.

P: Yeah, yeah, I don’t think I had any of those conversations with my mom..I’m one of four, and so it was fairly surprising and I have friends who had kids before me, but it still was not, you know, it wasn’t very detailed so you kind of go in there with whatever’s in your own head. 

K: Yep. 

P: Well your yours is an amazing story because, you know, there’s so much learning, and now it sounds like you’re at least approaching the level of chaos you’re hoping for.

K: Yeah, we’re getting there. I’m actually expecting my fourth so 

P: Oh nice…Congratulations. When you do me good that’s a good time to give birth right, even in Utah, is it. is it spring there in May.

K: Sometimes a little bit. 

P: Okay, fingers crossed. 

K: Yeah, thanks.

 

P: Well good luck and thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your story.

K: Thank you so much. I hope that helps a lot of moms out there.

P: Thanks so much to Katie for sharing her story. Her three very different births provide a really  clear example of the power of expectation to shape experience. I am hopeful that as more people share their experiences of pregnancy and birth, we all walk toward this transformative event as if it were a trip, a trip to a place we’ve never been–something that’s exciting and will change our lives, something that will likely have ups and downs (because no trip that long is entirely smooth and without surprises), and importantly, it will be an experience full of episodes that we can’t predict and that may well teach us about ourselves

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