Episode 44SN: Ditch the Birth Plan, Plan for the Fourth Trimester: Sunni’s Story

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

Sunni: Sure. My name is Sunni and my last name is Von Mutious. And I was born in Orlando, Florida. And that’s where I live right now.

 

P: Oh, wow. Nice. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show and we’re here to talk about families, you know, starting our own families but also the family that you came from. Do you have siblings?

 

S:  I do. I have one biological brother. I have another older brother that was like a foster brother that’s been around for a long time. And then I have a what I call a pseudo sister. So it’s a girl, now a woman. We were raised together, known each other since birth. And really the best way to describe them is like a sister because we had a very similar childhood experience because we want each other so long. So I’m blessed with lots of different types of siblings. 

 

P: That’s awesome. Coming from that context, did you did that set a seed in you to say I want to have a family myself? 

 

S: Oh, hell no.  Quite the opposite.I always wanted to adopt lots of kids and like we I wanted to bring home all of like the ragtag kids. That didn’t have anywhere else to go. So it was very much not in my life map to have a child of my own up until very, very recently.

 

P: How was that switch flipped?

 

S: The short version is I decided to enter into romantic relationship with my best friend of 25 years. And they really wanted to be a dad. And the more we talked about it, the more I was open to that conversation. And then I’m pretty like woowoo spiritual. There was this like meditation experience where a soul was like I choose you, you and them will be the perfect hosts for my life. Can I please come through you? I was like, Well, man, every time I tell the universe, no, it doesn’t work out so well. So between my partner and the universe, I was like, Fine, I’ll be a vessel. I will I will let a human come through me. So that was a really big shift though. For me. That was not something I ever dreamed of really doing.

 

P: That sounds dramatic. What was your perception of pregnancy walking into it?

 

S: I really didn’t have much of a relationship to it. Like it was something that other people did. Not something that I really expected my body to do. So my approach was very scientific. I’m a data gather. And so I read lots of books and like, the whole time I was very interested in what scientifically was happening like, oh, this week, I’m making teeth and this week I’m making a placenta like that was kind of my relationship to it. Because I didn’t have one going into it.

 

P: That’s super interesting that you had like an like intellectual connection to it more than an emotional one. Before you get there, but I’m wondering if that changed once you became pregnant just because so many things are going on in your body. beyond your control that can shift our feelings about it. Did you did you get pregnant easily?

 

S: I did fairly. I’m a little older. And so there was some concerns and I had a miscarriage in the past. So we were like not quite sure. But in the end, it was less than six months. So I like took off the IUD and just kind of were like we’re going to give it a year and six months in. It happened. So I think that’s pretty easy for my understanding of people to experience.

  

P: I think it’s super smart that you guys said we’ll give it a year because most people myself included are like I’ll give it five minutes. Now that we’re not trying to stop it. Obviously, I’ll be pregnant because that’s how it works. Which you know, I did not at all we needed all kinds of people, all kinds of medical people involved in our process. But a year is a good way to have perspective. So you’re already you’re already knocking it out of park here. This is something set up well and what was your first trimester like?

 

S: My first trimester was was not really wasn’t bad. I didn’t have a lot of the typical symptoms. My experience of morning sickness was just kind of feeling like shaky and queasy I didn’t have some of the extreme symptoms that people did. So it was really like a data gathering time for me and like physically in my body being like, are we sure nothing’s happening yet? Are we sure? Is this really is this really a thing? Right? And then of course the first so we found out the first pregnancy test was two days after we went into lockdown from COVID in March of 2020. And that was like one of those faint lines and because of the pandemic and because we were being pretty lax about things like we’re just gonna wait till next month, and see if the cycle comes back and we’ll take more pregnancy tests. So the first doctor’s visit was like most doctors offices weren’t even open, right? That’s the phase of the pandemic. We were in. And so like the first ultrasound and like seeing a little blob, and like that was the moment I think that I was like, Okay, this is really happening. It is not just faulty Dollar Store sticks or whatever the case may be. So it wasn’t really until the second trimester that physical symptoms started kicking in and I started to really I think, emotionally connect to what was happening. The first trimester was still kind of a very analytical, and there was a lot happening in the world

P: Yeah, experience so a lot to distract you for sure. And I remember being surprised that you could go 12 weeks and nobody on the outside could see what was going on. There’s no physical evidence, other than totally, right, right. Though f

 

S: For me, one of the big things was my boobs got bigger and kind of like sensitive in a weird tingly way. And I was like, this is new. This is new. This is some physical evidence, but other than that, like my body didn’t really change. I didn’t have a lot of symptoms. I was really hungry and tired but the whole world is going through this like massive global events, like is it pregnancy or is it like trauma? Right? Yeah, yeah. It was a little confusing to be sure.

 

P: Yeah. Wow. So did you get to go to regular office visits for your second trimester? 

 

S: No, no, I never did. I’m also immune compromised some high risk because I’m a little older and I’ve been compromised and then add them add in a pandemic. So I had a midwife. And my midwife either came to our home or we went to, to her home basically for visits so I did get in person visits, but I never went to a doctor’s office.

 

P: good lord, this seems stressful to layer on the pandemic and immune compromised and now pregnant and,

  

S: and geriatric with the air quotes, right, that whole thing? It was it was a lot, but quite a few of those variables were known, going into right I knew going into it that I was immune compromised, and that I was going to be considered geriatric, like I knew those things. So the pandemic was really the only unknown factor for us. 

 

P: Well, let me ask you a question. Even if you are if you have immune issues going into this, do they think pregnancy is going to complicate that or what if

 

S: there was a slight risk that my body would treat the baby as a foreign object?

 

P: Can I ask you Is it autoimmune? 

 

S: no. I have a rare form a rare genetic mutation of Epstein Barr Virus so it’s always present in my body and my body responds hyper active actively to infections or foreign objects which we weren’t entirely sure because it’s such a rare genetic mutation of this disease. There’s not really studies or evidence of what happens for pregnancy. Is that a foreign body a beta, or is it considered part of my body? And so we weren’t really sure how it’s gonna play out in the first trimester was really that like we’ll see. And in the end, it was fine. It’s probably honestly better, that there was a pandemic going on to distract me that I wasn’t going to regular doctor’s visits. I think if the world had been like, quote, normal, they would have been a lot more hyper focused on that but because there was so much distracting everyone it was just kind of like pushed to the background. And that was probably honestly better for my stress level and the baby in the end. Yes.

 

P: Agreed. You know, with my second one, I used to kid around about her cortisol bath, when I would go to the, to the doctor’s office. Yeah, I only kidding around with that, because I didn’t quite understand what the consequence of that was slightly less funny. When oops, turns out that’s serious, but so I’m glad that that that was kind of pressed down for you a little bit. 

 

S: Yeah. 

 

P: And then how would you want to talk about the third trimester or what the birth is going to look like? Or? 

 

S: Yeah, sure. The the third trimester was the hardest for me. I ended up having really bad heartburn. And restless leg syndrome, which I always kind of poo pooed is like, I never had experienced personally what that felt like, but it was really hard to sleep. I felt like I wanted to crawl out of my own skin.

 

P: RLS

 

S: And when I finally got comfortable, it was usually laying flat and then the heartburn would you know, so I didn’t sleep a whole lot in that last trimester it was it was a little bit uncomfortable. That was the only time I really had physical discomfort during the pregnancy and my intention, our goals, we were warned by our doula or midwife not to have a plan, right, because birth never goes to plan. But our goal was to have a home birth. And so my partner had like all the supplies gathered, they’d worked out this great system for keeping the water warm because I was due in December and even in Florida, it gets cold in December. So how do we keep warm water in the house and we had it all worked out. And then my water broke five weeks early, which put me at premie and then between high risk and all the things so my midwife was not able to deliver we ended up having to go to the hospital. But

 

P: slow down a little bit here on tickets to that day. What are you doing when your water breaks? 

 

S: Sleeping? 

 

P: Oh, is it at night?

 

S: I was the morning so here’s the fun part. I was we had a blessing way. Are you familiar with a blessing? Well, so a blessing way is kind of the opposite of a baby shower and that the focus is on the mom. So it’s blessing the mother into the right or the ritual of becoming a mother. And so I gathered a bunch of my female friends and 

 

P: I want to pause here to say this is yeah, yes. And I don’t know why I’ve never heard of it. Keep talking and then we’ll right. It’s such a good idea. 

 

S: I think so too.  And it was it because it wasn’t something I had planned in my life. Right. It felt significant to put some ritual around it right. So I had a baby shower with my partner and we did it online. It was really cute. And it worked out really well. It was fun. But this was the blessing way this was like my ritual of stepping into motherhood. And I found it in a book.

 

P: Does it come from a religious tradition?

 

S: Not necessarily. There’s so there’s a pagan tradition around that but I don’t know that it’s I don’t know that it’s necessarily linked. Okay. Yeah.

 

P: blessing made me think it was religious

 

S: probably. I mean, for me, I’m pretty well most spiritual, so I definitely include it with some spirituality. But I don’t know that it has to.

 

P: That’s super cool. So what does that look like? 

 

S: For me, I had one of my other woowoo spiritual friends hosted and I was like, I just want to feel loved on and given support. Like that’s all I care about. You go figure out what that looks like for me. And so what she did is I friends from all over the world. And there’s a pandemic so she put mason jars in a circle, and asked all of my friends what their favorite flower was and put a flower in the jar to represent my friends that couldn’t be there. And then I had friends locally that could and everybody offered me advice and what they could offer as support. So like you can count on me to bring you food you can count on me to that you can count on me to come live on the baby when you’re feeling frustrated. 

 

And we did a little ritual with some yarn that was supposed to like represent the umbilical cord and how everyone was connected to my pregnancy until the baby was born. So we all wrapped it around our wrist and then passed the ball of yarn wrapped around her wrist passed until we were all connected. And the idea was that you do cut the ties and you tie it onto your wrist. So every woman who attended had a yarn bracelet and they were supposed to cut it off when the baby was born, and when she know it. 24 hours later, my water broke. So they didn’t even have to wear that yarn bracelet for very long. They blessed the baby right out of me.

 

P: This is amazing. I want to get to the birth but I’m stuck on how amazing an idea this is. So if you find the book that it’s in, let me know because I’ll link to it. Because it’s I’ve never heard of it before. I obviously don’t get out much because this is a idea.

 

S: So I will I will find the book and send you a link. 

 

P: Okay, thank you so you are up in the morning and you know that your water has broken or is it dramatic?

 

S: I was in bed. So the blessing was on Saturday. I slept in on Sunday and my brother and his wife were over painting our nursery, this adorable woodland scene and so I was supposed to get out of the house because of the fumes. Of the paint. So I was sleeping in and I was gonna sneak out the back door for the day. And I get woken up thinking I’d wet the bed. And I’m thinking like the baby’s on my bladder. How embarrassing how gross whatever I get up and go to the bathroom which is 10 feet from the bed and it keeps going right to the goal water break it keeps waking out so I’m like standing in the shower without my phone and our house is quite long and my partner’s at the other end helping paint. And so I’m like yelling how nobody can hear me so I had to waddle back, find my phone make a big mess. And I’ll never forget the look on my partner’s face. They walk in and I’m like take a deep breath it’s all gonna be fine. It’s not like the movies. We have time. He’s like what it’s like my water broke in his face. He’s a black man and I swear he turned pure white. Like his whole face. It was like something out of a movie. It was hilarious. But yeah, that was that was how it all started.

 

P: But also you have a lot of presence to becoming someone else. When you’re on the brink of birth. I feel like I’m packing up just listening to the story. So can you just go to the hospital in the pandemic or how does that work?

 

S: So, some part of me must have had an intuition that this might have happened because the last midwife visit and the last appointment we’d had with our doula I had said like all of our conversation has been about the home birth like I feel like Murphy’s law is that if we’re not prepared, it’s going to happen. So I would like to be prepared just in case we have to go to the hospital. What should we know? And so they had talked us through what to put in a go bag we had talked about which hospital would be ideal in case of an emergency transfer and like would that still be the case if if we had to go for the entire thing? So we had some of that knowledge? So yes, you can just go to the hospital our midwife called ahead to say we were coming in to give my files over. We actually were I was so great. I’m still eternally grateful. The hospital we went to has a midwife program. And the midwife who was on duty for days while I was there was part of the same midwife training that my midwife had gone through, so they knew each other had a relationship. So there was I gave I gave permission for them to communicate through the entire event. And so they knew I was coming. They were like, you know, I did the whole assess, see if I’m dilated, I wasn’t dilated at all, but my water had definitely broke. And so they admitted me, and I had to make the tough decision of what two humans I would take. That’s all they allowed at that time. So I couldn’t have my mom there. I chose to have my Doula there instead. And that was so i My water broke around 1045 is when I woke up, I was admitted by 2pm and I ended up being in labor for about 28-30 hours.

 

 

P: So once your water broke did your labor start naturally or they had to did not? 

 

S: Yeah, they, they were so generous in honoring my wishes. I think mainly because of that personal connection. It was such a blessing. And my Doula happened to know a lot of a staff at the hospital too. But I really wanted to avoid any medical intervention if possible. And so they agreed to let me labor naturally, for 12 hours. That was their comfort level. And so after 12 hours, I only dilated a couple of centimeters and they ended up introducing Pitocin to help speed things up. And they actually were getting very close to they were starting to have conversations of like they might have to do a C section. We might have to do something more dramatic. When my body finally was like Alright, fine. We’ll kick into high gear. So yeah,

 

P: wow. I realized like on the ground, it’s not moving super fast but it sounds pretty fast. 

 

S: It in a moment it was like that weird duality right of like holy crap I’m in the hospital. We did not really plan for this. I did not envision this so I’m trying really hard to make it feel as safe and comfortable as possible. So like, we got permission we brought like LED candles and I set up I plan on having an altar and I had like a slideshow of trees I wanted to watch while I was in the water to feel grounded. And so we set up an iPad with my slideshow and we had music going and we were infusing oils like doing whatever we could to make it feel more home like and it was it was awesome because every time a nurse came in, they would come in like all stress from whatever they’ve just been dealing with. And they walk into this space that’s got music going and oils and they’re like, Oh, this is different and they would have them relax. And so at the one time everything’s going really quickly and like oh my gosh, I’m about to have a human but at the other I had really awesome support systems and helping to be present and in the moment and the piece that I haven’t mentioned yet that’s pretty critical to this whole story is I have a condition where my brain does not register a fight or flight response to pain. 

 

So I don’t register pain as a oh crap when we get out of this situation. So like I shattered a knee at one point and walked on it for miles because they didn’t realize how bad the injury was. So for me labor is a very different experience because most women would be freaking out with the contractions and I was just like, hey, I I feel like I’m a little gassy is that a contraction? So I think that allowed me to be a lot more present. And grounded, which isn’t always a good thing, right pain. Pain has a purpose in our bodies. But in this case, particular scenario, it was helpful.

 

P: It seems like it would be helpful because most women say I have two kids but both of them were C sections. So I didn’t and the first one I did not have a contraction. I felt like I was going to a business meeting when she was coming her on her birthday. But what a lot of women say for the second one I had contractions and it’s so intense, that it’s hard not to feel scared and to make your body tense awaiting the next one, which seems counterproductive. It seems like all the all the Hypno birthing and all that stuff is to make you calm in the moment. So in this scenario, it seems like it’s actually beneficial because you’re not tightening all your muscles when you get a contraction because that’s not the path, right?

 

S: Yeah, my Hypno birthing. my Doula did do some hypnosis type stuff. But it was more in the vein of getting in touch with my body and being really focused on what the muscles were doing so that I could help encourage things because my natural response was not to do that. I didn’t I don’t respond that way. So it was more of like getting in touch with the pain or the discomfort to help versus resisting it. So it’s a very different sort of MO that we had to have for me.

 

P: So could you feel it at all? 

 

S: Oh, yeah. There’s a point right like and I feel like period cramps. I’ll feel discomfort for that. Right internal pain. I feel a little bit of discomfort extra like being punched in needles and stuff don’t faze me at all. But yeah, I felt the Ring of Fire. I felt like the pressure it was it was the way I describe it. My friends who have gone through an unmedicated birth say that like it feels much more uncomfortable than like pain when I talk about it for them. They’re like something was being ripped out of my body. And I was like, something needs to get out. Like I’m holding something back and I need to release so it was a different experience but I felt it at the end for sure. I did a lot of low groaning a lot of low groaning

 

P: and that’s supposed to help you manage the pain or help your body move in the right way.

 

S: My understanding is that when we scream high in our register, it’s engaging like our upper upper muscles and it engages a fear response but when we grow it pushes our diaphragm down and it engages kind of more of our like, animalistic instincts, which is what you need when giving birth. So I had been encouraged to do that. And that was what my body wanted to do. Like I did not have to remind myself not to scream, I groaned naturally and loudly without any encouragement.

 

P: Okay, good. And then you said you were in labor for 28 hours. That’s a long time

 

S: That’s from the time the time my water broke to the time the kid was born was 30

hours. 

 

P: Wow. Was the birth only attended by a midwife? 

 

S: Oh, no, there was a whole hospital staff there. It was just instead of having OB is it’s a midwifery option. So I had midwives instead of obese, but I had nurses they were coming in checking. Because I was at five weeks. We hadn’t yet done the strappy test. And so we had to decide whether or not to do and I fill in all of that fun stuff. And there was a point where the baby’s heart rate would get elevated when I had a contraction. So there was concerns they were monitoring, Matt. So all night long, people were coming in and taking my vitals and all that fun stuff, typical hospital stuff, but it wasn’t until the next afternoon that the action started.

 

P: And then how long for the birth.

 

S: I went from five centimeters to birth in less than an hour. 

 

P: Wow. 

 

S: Yeah. When I was ready when that baby was ready it was like were happening because I still had like the hospital like mesh undies on and I was like it’s a ring of fire and they’re like it can’t be you’re not there yet you only six centimeters. And my Doula was like I think you should check and I took the the cut the underwear off me like there’s

 

P: I’m glad you were validated. Yes, 

 

S: right. Yes, I was. 

 

P: And so your baby is running. It sounds like 35 weeks. And are they what so what happens once the baby is born? Do you get to hold him or her or how does that go?

 

S: Yeah, so the plan for home birth was to put the baby on my chest and try to latch by the way you know the dreamy stuff. So it did as much of that as they could. So they promised to delay cord cutting as long as they were allowed in the hospital which was five minutes they weren’t my partner cut the cord. So they put the baby on my chest. And this was a funny moment too. Because I’m white and my partner’s black. I was having a hard time visualizing the baby and so it kept becoming a purple Muppet in my head. And when the baby came out, they actually were purple and I was super excited by this. I was like oh my gosh, they really are purple and everybody in the room thought that was hilarious because I’m, you know, dopey at that point. But yeah, the baby was on my chest for maybe three or four minutes they cut the cord, but because the baby was premie their left long did not want to operate the way it should and they were hearing some distress and so they took the baby off to the NICU just to make sure everything was okay and then I went into distress my placenta was completely shredded. And so I lost two liters of blood with them trying to do manual retrieval, and then they eventually took me off to an emergency DNC.

 

P: Wow. Do they think that’s related to the early birth? Like there was some issue with the placenta? 

 

S: They never really mean there’s no way to know for sure. The assumption afterwards is that that that’s what caused the water to break is that there was some distress in my body. But it’s certainly a blessing in disguise in that if I had had a home birth, I would have had an emergency transfer and because of how quickly I lost blood, there is a high chance that I might have not made it to the hospital. So it worked out well in my case, but that homebirth didn’t happen. And then I was in a hospital where they couldn’t respond quickly. So and the baby had the cord around their neck, not not in like a the midwife could have handled it but that was part of what was delaying the labor is that the baby that’s why there was distress in a reduced heartbeat every time the baby tried to move down into the birth canal. The cord would tighten around their neck. So 

 

P: yeah, that makes sense. So did you you was the baby born without an epidural? It sounds like oh yeah, no I know medical intervention. They give you some kind of medication for the DNC. 

 

S: I’m assuming they tried manual retrieval for about 45 minutes and my body stopped responding. I started shaking and going into like a shutdown. And so then they decided they needed to put me under full anesthesia and they were prepared to do a hysterectomy. And so I had asked the it was a chief OB was who did my surgery and I told them I really don’t want to be cut if it can be avoided and I really don’t want to lose any organs if it can be avoided. I would rather risk of infection if there’s a possibility. It’s like Alright, I got it. And he did it by all me. I mean, they said it was the longest DNC that ever done they had to re up my anesthesia because they stayed in so long, but they in the end, were able to get the placenta through a DNC which is uterine scraping. 

 

P: Yeah. 

 

S: And they never did have to cut me open which I was really grateful for because I wanted to avoid that. So

 

P; No kidding. Yeah. Do they say why it took so long? 

 

S: It was because the the because the placenta was shredded and we kept the placenta because I was one of those that wanted to freeze dry it and consume it. It looks like a pile of ground meat. It was like a pile of ground beef is what it looked like. And normally it looks almost like a jellyfish heart. 

 

P: Yeah, yeah. No, this slab it is like a big brown slam right right

 

S: no,  not mine so there was embedded in the wall of my uterus. So they had like they had been really sprayed it to get it all out and it was really in there. I guess. My kid was born. With bruised palms and feet base their feet. They think it’s because they’ve been kicking so much that they were part of what shredded the placenta tall really long and they think the baby’s movement was part of what destroyed the placenta.

 

P: Wow. And how old is the baby at now?

 

S: 15 months?

 

P: Is he or she a fighter Walker around her running around? 

 

S: Oh yeah, we use gender neutral pronouns for that. Their name is Alex and yes, they are 15 months and they are already running and climbing and very, very active. They’ve been standing and trying to walk since like seven eight months. And when I started walking at nine months, so yes, very, very active little baby.

 

P: That’s so funny. Our first one did not walk till she was like 17 months and the second the second one started walking 15 months and we’ve created an Olypian…we have an olympic something

 

S: a part of me is a little envious of that experience though. Because imagining like the you know, the kids been walking for about six months now. So imagining what parenting would be like if I’d had a stationary baby a little bit longer. There’s a little envy there.

 

P: Well, you know it goes both ways, right? Both. Both of the kids could be stationary because they talked really early. And so they’re just ordering us around. 

 

S: So you might get has no word yet. Not a single word yet. Months.

 

P:  It seems like it seems like they don’t need any words because they can go get themselves right. 

 

S: That’s pretty much they walk us to the highchair endpoint. Right so yeah, 

 

P: God that’s awesome. I can’t believe they’re walking so early. Wow. Although I like that it’s consistent with the in utero behavior. 

 

S: It is it really is. They were a kicker. We have videos of my belly that look insane. They were they were a kicker and a mover and so in fact, they were breech, they were actually laying horizontal instead of vertical. 

 

P: Wow, 

 

S: that was another concern about my labor starting so early is that we hadn’t yet confirmed with the midwife that the baby had shifted, but they kept moving around in a different position. So there was a little concern they’d be in the wrong position for birth. So they they worked it out. They got head down. But yeah, they were a big kicker and mover in utero, and they’re very much that way now in real life.

 

P: So were they in the NICU for long? 

 

S: No, only for three nights.

 

P:  Oh, great. That is short, 

 

S: yeah. And so they sorted the lung issue and then you’re good to go.

 

Yeah, they just needed to use a bag to help him sleep. And they were fine. They did some preventative antibiotics, which I requested that they stop. And they were like a percent and a half out of the comfort zone for jaundice. And so they only reason they even kept them. The second and third night was to do some UV treatments, and they wanted to keep them a little longer. But we asked to bring the baby home. We felt like the sun could do the same thing as the UV lights. And in the end, that was fine. They they thrived but they didn’t want to keep them a little longer.

 

P: And how long are you in the in the hospital after your experience?

 

S: That got really tricky because they kept wanting to assess my pain and to see if my uterus was contracting and maybe there was more placenta in there, but because I don’t register it and because it’s a hospital. I had different staff all the time. And so they would know that I don’t feel pain. So it was like a It was exhausting. And so finally, we opted to have me discharged and to heal at home. Because I was I felt like I was using all my healing energy to explain to the staff the situation. So I was in for two nights. They offered to keep me until the baby was discharged but I wanted to go home. So I was in the hospital for two nights. And they they wanted to do a blood transfusion. But that’s also a tricky thing with my immune issue whether or not my body will reject antibodies and somebody else’s blood. So in the end, we just did iron and I did some natural remedies to help replace the last blood. But I was pretty shaky and out of it for a couple of weeks after that procedure.

 

P: yeah that’s Didn’t you say two liters of blood? That’s a lot. 

 

S: Yeah, I lost. 

 

P: Your body only has five. so 

 

S: yeah, it was a lot of blood loss. It was scary. 

 

P: It’s totally scary and the other scary thing is it is really fast, right? It has to be And now everyone’s like, you’re right. Everyone else is great.

 

S: I’m good. I mean, we’re so with me. My uterus is I don’t know the right words. It’s dropped a little bit. So my uterus and my cervix are a little lower than they would like, and we’re still not sure if that will ever heal itself. So that’s something that I’m currently monitoring, but it’s not impacting my life on a daily basis. It’s just something I’m aware of and working to heal. If I wanted to have more babies, which I don’t I was one and done right. So never really planned on the first one. They would do some things to help, you know, surgically to help help it along. But since I don’t actually want to use my uterus again, it’s more of a wait and see game and the baby is totally fine. They hit all of their milestones on track for their birth date, because when babies are born preemie, I did not notice. So when babies are born preemie you track from their due date because the preemie time is time they were intended to be in utero. Now milestones start from the birth, the due date, Alex tracked from their birth date. So they hit all the milestones on track the day they were born, which is technically ahead, so they ended up thriving, really worked out fine for us.

 

P: That’s awesome. So talk a little bit about fourth trimester because now you’re home without your blog, and you’re you have this active baby. I’m hoping that Alex slept through the night relatively early. 

 

S: Not at all. Not at all.  But that was okay, because we had put an enormous amount of thoughtfulness into the fourth trimester during the second and third trimester. So I had been working with an Ayurvedic specialist. 

 

P: here’s a little more information about ayurveda

 

Geeta Aurora

 

S: I had planned a specific diet to encourage my body to heal and my milk to come in I had recruited my parents with very specific requests for jobs they were going to do to help support us people from my blessingway had offered to do specific things to help support us. My partner and I had both taken off the first three months, which got a little tricky because it happened early, but we worked it out and so my partner was home for the entire fourth trimester. So the baby did not sleep through the night the baby got up every other hour for the first four months of their life. But we had so much support, and so little responsibilities other than like nurturing this new life that it really wasn’t a hugely stressful and impactful thing because we had set ourselves up to be present with us. We have the space to do that.

 

P: Okay, Sunni, so explain to me how someone who has not been planning to have a baby knows to do this for the fourth trimester 

 

S: books. I read lots of books.

 

P: I don’t know whether I was unwilling to commit to a fourth trimester before I got there. Or I’m not sure what but not I none of that. I didn’t see any of that. In my experience. That seems amazing.

 

S: I’m also I mean I am I will be 40 in a couple of months, right? So I was 3738 going through all of this a little older. I’m I’m professionally I teach self awareness and spirituality. I’m in school to be a minister. So I’ve done a lot of work to be connected to myself and my true nature and what I need, and my partner and I work a lot on communication in our relationship we’re polyamorous that’s a really important element of having a healthy relationship is open communication. So I think all of those things really supported me through the pregnancy process and being able to see ahead to what I might need to feel supported. And the fact that the other thing before me really honest, polite is because I didn’t want to do this, right. I was like, if I’m gonna do it, I want all of the support. I want all of the help. I have no ego in asking for help because I’m not the type of woman that wants to be a mommy mom. That was never in my DNA or my my thoughts about it. So I didn’t have any like preconceived notions of like the baby’s gonna come home and I’m going to be able to be supermom and do everything. I was like, I don’t I don’t even necessarily like the idea of being the mom to a baby. So I don’t have an ego in it

 

P: I’m going to pause you right there though. I did not plan to be a mommy mommy. But it would never even occurred to me to ask for all that help. Like I feel like I’ve been culturally indoctrinated to not expect or ask or I wouldn’t. I mean, it doesn’t occur to me until we’re talking now like, oh, that’s how it’s done.

 

S: Well, I think that’s where the IRA VEDA came in really helpful because I are Veda is Eastern tradition that started in India. And in India, most women don’t leave the house for 45 days, the mother in law and the mother take care of the pregnant postpartum woman, and they take care of the baby so the mother can focus on healing, that’s the tradition. And so I think having exposure to other traditions and what’s normalized in other countries is helpful too. Because like it’s a very sort of American slash Western thing. To think that we have to do it on our own. 

 

P: Oh, the independence thing is so dumb. 

 

S: Yes. Agree. Huge, right. It’s so indoctrinated from such a young age.

 

P: Yeah, that’s amazing. That’s a really good blueprint for other people to follow. Because it’s so smart to set all that stuff up ahead of time. 

 

S: Yeah, and the Ayurvedic practitioner had sent recipes and herbs and like really unexplained to my, my mom and my partner, were going to take care of the food for me. And so they had a session where Vedic practitioner who explained these foods are really nourishing, they’re going to help the uterine wall heal, they’re going to help replenish blood loss. They’re going to help with iron and for the breast milk to develop, so they understood so when I came home with certain ailments, they knew what types of meals to prepare for me to help encourage that. 

So it’s like a whole system

 

P: so two things Thing Number one is I am also on the Ayurvedic train and have done a bunch of punch of karma and done all kinds of treatments and, but not before I had kids, so I wouldn’t have taken advantage of it that way. But the other thing that’s amazing about it is I feel like Western medicine. treats the fourth trimester like Goodbye and good luck. Yes. And there’s no discussion of the nutrition you will need to heal. That’s not a part of the conversation. But it’s so important. So amazing that you had that already set up. Yeah. In your experience, right. Yes.

 

Unknown Speaker  6:53  

It was especially valuable for me because I had so many things that needed healing. And it’s so important, right? Like no judgment against the moms were like, I want the sushi. The second I can’t want the burger or the milkshake, the second the baby’s born. And if once you get that like adrenaline rush and that fix of the food that you’re craving emotionally, if you can focus on the food your body needs versus the food, your mouth or your emotions want, it can make such a drastic difference in how your body heals and how your postpartum depression does or doesn’t develop, and how much you can connect to your baby and your ability to breastfeed. If that’s important to you. Like I could tell such a huge difference that there was like a couple of weeks in there. I got really stubborn and you know, very human about it. I was like I want pizza hut and I want sushi and I want them and I would feel so crummy and suddenly the postpartum depression would start to sneak in and if I was able to pivot back to a diet that I knew was nourishing my body, all of those symptoms would diminish almost immediately. It was really amazing the direct connection between my nourishment and my mental health and my physical well being.

 

 

P: That’s amazing 

 

S: and now there’s like a whole different relationship to the fourth trimester in that culture. I think it’s 40 or 45 days of healing and focus on nourishment. It’s, it’s, again, I think it’s a cultural thing for us, especially,

 

P: for sure, and I’ve heard it also in like, you know, in China, there’s a lot there’s some name for that for the fourth trimester. It’s different that’s like a woman’s feet shouldn’t touch the ground. You know, a mother’s Mother’s Day shouldn’t touch the ground or something. The absolute genius. 

 

S: Yeah, it also helps to with this with the community, right like I made it very clear to the people closest to us going into the third trimester that we were creating this fourth trimester bubble, and so I don’t think I don’t think I think this is a true statement. Never once did I have to say, No, you can’t come see the baby. Please don’t come over the I didn’t have to deal with any of that. Nobody expected to come over and see the baby and to be in our space until after that fourth trimester was open, especially when the middle of a pandemic. So people would come over and drop off food and be like, if you’re up to it, can you bring the baby to the window, but they were so generous about it like only if you’re awake and whatever. So like I didn’t have to do any of that extra emotional, heavy lifting to create a safe space that a lot of moms have to negotiate. Like I feel guilty because my aunt wants to come over the mother in law wants to come over. Like we had set all of that up in advance. And I’m so grateful because especially those first few weeks of me having that blood loss I didn’t have the energy. Yeah, and having them be in the space would have been so much more exhausting for me. So like that was another huge element for us of creating that fourth trimester. So intentionally. Was the the ease it gave us to not have to have difficult conversations in the moment.

 

P: Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s awesome. So let me ask you a tricky question. Looking back now do you have advice for your younger self?

 

S: I think I love this question. I think now looking back for me, and my personality and my dynamic. The amount of data that I gathered was a coping mechanism. And it was useful and I’m glad that I had it but I think It distracted me from the emotional connection to the fact that like, this human that I’m growing is going to be my child, my progeny, I have a relationship with them. It wasn’t until like the third trimester that I started really cluing into the fact that they could hear my voice and that my heartbeat was going to be comforting to them. Because I basically read ahead the next trimester so it wasn’t until I was like in the third trimester reading about bringing the baby home that I was like, oh, like just turning my heartbeats gonna be comforting to them. What what that must be like to be in my belly and then come out as big bad world and be away from my heartbeat. And I kind of like I would tell myself to create space, and do more journaling and more meditation and more like self work to be present with the experience. In addition to the exploration of the science, I think that’s something I missed out on a little bit.

 

P: Yeah, I feel like the intellectualizing makes sense, given the whirlwind around you and all that but that is interesting advice for yourself. You have done it differently. Well, thank you so much for sharing your amazing story. 

 

S: Absolutely. Thanks for having thanks for having me. I think the more stories we hear the easier this is for us to process our own. So I appreciate that.