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Episode 77SN: Ambivalence About Stepping into Pregnancy: Courtney’s Story, Part I

Today’s guest shares her experience of pregnancy, birth and motherhood, none of which conformed to her expectation. She walked into pregnancy ambivalently ….and to her surprise loved many of the aspects of the experience that people often find difficult; because of a lifelong struggle with insomnia, the nine month hormone bath of pregnancy gave her luxurious periods of long sought-after sleep; she approached the pain of delivery as a unique experience between herself and her future daughter, and those early sleepless months with a newborn, which so many find challenging, turned out to be a period she’d been trained by her insomnia to manage better than most. I’ve spoken to hundreds of women about their experiences, and I’ve never heard this perspective….what follows is the first part of our conversation.

Find Courtney’s Book, The Year of the Horses, here

Find Courtney’s other writing, here

Audio Transcript

Paulette kamenecka : Hi, thanks so much for coming on the show today we are lucky to have Courtney Maum who has written a number of books, the most recent of which is a memoir called The Year of the Horses, which is a beautifully written book that I totally enjoyed. And if I had to summarize it in one sentence, I’d say it’s the story of your reconnection with horses, a childhood passion that leads you back to a deeper understanding of yourself in the midst of some significant midlife challenges.

Courtney: absolutely nailed it.

 

P: Which I feel like doesn’t isn’t loving enough. about horses but I am going to be honest right from the beginning and say that I’m kind of afraid of horses so while your book challenge that view, and I

 

C: I’m glad you brought that up because this is a book I really think it’s more for non horse people than horse I mean a horse people will. Inevitably I think feel connected to it, but I really I wanted to write this for the type of person who, you know, love to swim as a young person or dance or make up songs on the piano or wear funny hats and for whatever reason, you know, being an adult and a responsible person who has to you know, pay the rent or whatever it is, they’ve lost access to that part of joy and fantasy that was in their youth. So it was horses for me, but it you know, could have been something else.

 

P: Usually when I talk to people, I think childhood can shape your view of family what family is what you expect it to look like, if you want a family if you grew up with a sibling. I know from your book that you grew up with a brother. And I’m wondering if you can tell us how did you growing up with a brother are other aspects of your young life impact your ideas about kids having kids?

 

C: Let’s see I Oh, that’s a really interesting question. My brother Brendan is five years younger than I am so I spent the first five years of my life you know, it was like a fairy tale Princess childhood. My dad at that time was a big wig on Wall Street. This was the 1980s in Connecticut. You know, stay at home mom who had cocktail parties every night. You know, it was a it was a scene it was it was a very fortunate childhood. And then my brother was born and my dad hadn’t actually wanted a second child. I didn’t know that, you know, I mean, I something was wrong because they were fighting all the time, but I didn’t know that until later. And as it turned out, my brother had a lot of learning developmental issues that made parenting him different than parenting me. You know, he had to have special schooling and lots of medical treatment. And things like that. 

 

So I will say that as a young person, I staunchly did not want kids. And I think it probably has to do with the fact that when the dynamic of our family was changed, for many reasons, it drove my parents apart. I love my brother. You know, our relationship is a complicated one, because everything that I value about myself and I think the way in which I communicate with people, fundamentally is through writing. Even when I speak to people I see the world as a writer. And my brother can…he can barely read. You know, so our love language really comes down to just spending time in each other’s physical space, which doesn’t get to happen very often. He lives in Florida, and you know, we’re at our best when we’re fishing off a dock together and eating pizza such simple simple things, but you know, that means that I am thus burying a lot of parts of myself that are vital, like my reading and writing life and that you know, he’s too he’s quite religious. I’m not you know, I think it’s a it’s a work in progress. But definitely, if for nothing else, just the cost and effort that I saw in parenting the way it was modeled for me because my brother was so sick. He spent a great wafts of time I’m talking months and months in the Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital and watching my mom, first of all, not be able to be there for me, you know, physically and the cost of the hotel room and at that point, they were already divorced and money. Things had changed. You know, financial pressure was back on just I thought, Oh, my God, I already knew I wanted to be a writer. And so it seemed to me that the way forward was to support myself and get to a place where I could support myself financially and just not have kids and then there’s no one competing with myself for my time. You know, and, and to be honest, I hadn’t really wavered from that mindset what happened and I married a man who felt pretty similar. You know, he’s a filmmaker and was really keen to just have our schedule, be our own and travel the world and whatnot, and it wasn’t until I was around 33 years old. That he changed his mind and decided he actually did want to try out and I really didn’t I really didn’t we it was two years of have come to Jesus you know, disagreements it I mean, I’m, I love my daughter had the perfect daughter for me. And she’s amazing, but it could very easily it could have could have gone a different way because I still I didn’t have that change apart. He did.

 

P: So that’s particularly interesting because you know, you’re the one with all the hard labor of pregnancy and all that stuff. So I’m hoping that it was easy to get pregnant.

 

C: Oh, well, it was so easy that I didn’t even know I was pregnant. I was practicing abstinence because I actively did not want a child. And we you know, hopefully this isn’t too much TMI, that’s what we’re here for. But it was a Christmas Eve conception where my husband and I we’ve long since stopped traveling to relatives for the winter holidays. It’s sort of nice and calm to just do it with friends or be be alone and I love champagne, and I love good champagne and I think I you know mostly drank the entire bottle and I didn’t we both forgot that you know, we had sex basically. And it wasn’t until two months later, I was just a wreck. I thought I had Lyme disease. I didn’t I thought I had mono. And I had forgotten to you know, and I went to the doctor, I didn’t even have health insurance so I had to pay out of pocket. This trashy clinic. And the female doctor told me that I had she highly suspected I had diabetes. I went through all these expensive tests. 

 

P: Wow. 

 

C: Yeah, it was a lot of nonsense. So by the time I mean it was so silly. I thought I finally got it because $7 CVS kit and I was I was more than two months along. When I thought I had Lyme disease, you know

 

P: wow, what were you what were your symptoms really throwing up or you just didn’t feel wasn’t throwing up? 

 

C: But I felt carsick all the time. I mean, I now know that it was nausea. And I mean, it just sounds ludicrous. You know, I’m a well educated person. This sounds so dumb, but I things were tasting different. My husband, he’s French, so we often have wine at dinner, and I kept telling him like, you, where are you getting this wine? It’s off, you know, and he’s like, No, yeah, so it’s just tastes weird. I don’t want it. And then I remember, I like baking soda, toothpaste. That’s my brand of choice. And that I was like, Oh, they changed their logo, which is something I noticed because I work in Marketing. And I said and they must have changed their formula and I wrote a no like, I so type A I wrote a note to their customer service something saying like, you know your taste is I mean, just Hello. And ultimately what happened was, we often celebrate Christmas Eve with a with friends who were Jewish, and they messed up and they thought it was Christmas Day. And my my girlfriend reminded me after the fact she’s like, you told me on Christmas Eve like Oh, it’s good that you got the dates wrong because we’re gonna have sexy time we like got a bottle of champagne. All of a sudden that came back to me. We did consummate the relationship that night and I made a kid so it was a one time one time was stop and shop.

 

P: That sounds pretty easy to be fair to you. It is all of those symptoms are if you’re not anticipating them and looking for wacky and you know, all hail pregnancy chemistry that’s keeping you from wine without you knowing it. Right, like 

 

C: totally and we at that point, we lived in the southern Berkshires, which is just an area laden with ticks. So many of my friends have struggled horribly from Lyme disease. So it wasn’t that nonsensical that I thought that that’s what I was struggling with. And you know, again, not having health insurance at that time. I was always really slow to go to a doctor something was up so you know, but it was a it was a baby.

 

P: And how was the pregnancy?

 

C: Oh my gosh. I loved it. I mean, funnily enough, was some of the most healthy and delightful moments of my life because I’ve struggled with chronic insomnia from a very, very young age had horrible sleeping problems, which really affects my mental health. And oh my gosh, should I say I was able to nap for the first time since being you know, in the single digits of life. I napped, I felt benevolent all the time. It was glorious. To be honest. I had a really nice pregnancy.

 

P: Well, that’s an amazing gift for someone who walks into it. ambivalently 

 

C: Yeah, 

 

P: and actually, why don’t you tell us about the birth first and then I want to read one quote from your book about your experience with pregnancy and motherhood going into the birth What were you anticipating what were you hoping for?

 

C: I did enlist a doula. I didn’t necessarily have strong you know, I did not like I wanted to do a home birth but I did try to I wanted to go without medication. Because I’m someone whether it’s recreational drugs or medication, I tend to have the reverse effect you know, of whatever’s supposed to happen. And I wanted to just handle whatever pain and sensations were coming my way. First of all, I wanted to be present. But also I thought I just handled it better without anything and I did a lot of prepping for the birth thinking about pain management. And when I was 16 maybe about to turn 16 I had a horrible accident where I was biking and I was hit and run over and dragged by a car. 

 

P: Oh my god. 

 

C: And I often would think about, I bet it can’t hurt more than that. You know, and I would think I think that I’ve already dealt with a level of physical pain that probably, I hope can’t be revisited. And so I just thought mostly about pain management, which was great because I was super calm through the contractractions. So calm that the nurses said it was a problem because I was resting through my contractions. But then, but then when it came to the pushing, I hadn’t given any thought to the pushing. I didn’t go to any classes. No one people don’t talk that much about pushing. They may sound like oh, it’s like a bowel movement when it needs to come out. It comes out and it didn’t. That was not how it was for me. My baby was in a normal position and everything that I could not. I couldn’t get her out. I had been laboring for a long time and I was really exhausted, but I also just had given no, it was like I’d been asked to all sudden do an advanced ballet move that I’d done no training. I was astonished how ill prepared I was for the pushing. Ultimately, I ended up having to have an episiotomy, which I didn’t know a doctor had ever even told me. 

 

P: Oh, 

 

C: and I didn’t know until two days later I tried to get up and go to the bathroom by myself and I almost fainted and a nurse came in and said you know you’ve had an a Pz on me and I said no one no one told me that. So, you know, other than the kind of the final moments. I loved the birth as well. I mean, I It wasn’t possible because of my age but I had you know I was thinking about surrogacy I just I really enjoyed being pregnant. I thought I the birth thing. I have so much affection for that experience because it was so visceral. I’m someone who’s always in my mind and I overthink things. And my mind is always in 100 different places and the brute physicality of birth. You couldn’t there was nothing to focus on. But the task at hand. And I loved that I found that peaceful. You know, I mean, I was fortunate that I was I made it to the doctors right I had that point I did health health insurance and, you know, wasn’t worried about what it would cost because I have health insurance. So I was fortunate enough to be able to focus on the good things, but I just loved the sheer presence that that was required by my mind and my body in order to do this thing and I also thought like, how amazing that my body can create these feelings that have not been hit by a car that this is feeling the way it does. Because of what’s inside my body that I’ve created myself. I thought that was like wild.

 

P: That is pretty amazing. And then it sounds like you didn’t do an epidural

is what that sounds like 

 

C: they did. They did a spinal tap right before the piece what they they came in and they said you’ve been laboring for too long and honestly everyone needs to was changing shifts. And the doctor who’s coming on now he’s gonna give you a C section is what they said. So they were like, You got two choices. Either we go straight to C section, or you do spinal tap and we give it like a half hour or more. And so I thought okay, that’s not so they did the spinal tap and then without telling me they did the episiotomy and then off we were off then I had a baby. 

 

P: Wow. Well that’s a that’s an interesting and obviously not predicted route for that but amazing that you’re appreciating that physical experience and that you can use your past experience to call me with a present because I think most people go into it with a fair amount of panic about the pain they may suffer and pain is one of those things that you I think you don’t you can’t have a visceral memory of it anymore. Like it is kind of exists only in a moment and although you remember the bike thing as being really painful, probably you can’t recall, like the pain you can’t recall

 

C: I can unfortunately, I actually have pretty good recall of pain and I remember the physical sensations of birth very well. I find it really interesting. I can really call them up I mean, you know part of it is that I wrote I write about these things. You know they are they are somewhere but no I can access them. I feel like I cannot access them and I have a friend who she just gave birth but we were talking this summer and she was so worried about pain. really freaked out about it. And you know she’s she’s an incredibly accomplished writer herself. She’s also a polo player. And I said you know what it feels like when a horse scallops away with you and you then you’re not in your mind anymore. You just have to deal with the sensation at hand. And it’s also kind of thrilling, it’s thrilling and scary. And there’s nothing else to think about and you should start building up almost some excitement and respect for the sensations that are come coming your way because they’re going to be completely yours for the rest of your life. And you’re going to be overwhelming in a way that it’s it’s it’s just you and this thing you know you’re gonna have to overcome this and and even if you have a great support system, you know, but it’s this is a once in a lifetime thing even if you have multiple pregnancies. I think that each each is different and it’s it is special and something that only us women for better or for worse can experience it’s it’s a not everyone wants to and not everyone should you know but if if, for whatever reason you are going to give birth, you know, you might as well practice some form of gratitude, just recognize what’s happening. You know,

 

P: that’s super interesting, and I usually think it’s very hard to prepare someone else for birth because you can’t find the words that will help them feel what’s coming in can’t translate that experience in a way that that will make someone else understand it and it is entirely experiential.

 

C: You know, I mean, I you know, I can talk about how it was for me, but that doesn’t mean that it will be that way. For other people. But I mean, to me, I just, I always told people I was at sea during this horrible storm, and I could see each wave coming at me almost like the movie The Perfect Storm when the waves you know, 100 stories high. And I knew that when the wave hit that it would hurt but that there was 15 seconds between each wave where there was some fear, but I knew I would get through the wave because I’d gotten through it before and then you just get into this rhythm on the ship. That’s how I felt it and that’s how I you know if people wanted to know I didn’t go willy nilly telling people this, but that’s, you know, I just kept reminding myself that after each crest, there’s there’s a moment of peace. Right.

 

P: So the other thing that’s interesting about that is I think you have this analogous experience with horses where when I was getting the contractions it was for me a really scary sensation of my you know, having no control over the body. I’m in like, I’m in this thing, but I can’t, I can’t turn it off. There’s only one way forward. But it sounds like with your with your horse experience. You have kind of felt that in a different context and maybe not necessarily pain, but the sense that you don’t have control about what’s going to happen to your body in the next three minutes because the horse is that we’re just controlling that. 

 

C: Right? I mean, we like to pretend that we have control but we lose control. Every horse person is going to lose control even on the ground. You know, I have a horse right now who’s so dangerous on the ground. You know, if I’m going to be injured, probably it’s going to be on the ground while I’m just walking her somewhere and something scares her and she rears or kicks, you know. So when you’re those horrible, horrible moment when you know you’re about to have a car crash, that’s not really a lack of control you want to celebrate, right? 

 

P: right, for sure

 

C: No, I would never say that. But I remember when my contractions first started coming. I thought, Okay, well, you very well might never live these sensations again, and we can’t go backwards. So, you know, let’s stay present and just think through this as like an artistic experiment. And I remember very well, when my contractions hit, we had a little log cabin and my husband had a film studio, a place where he worked out of in the back it was not at all connected to the house and I didn’t have my phone. I had been sitting with him that day because I was feeling a little weird. And I was listless and I had no idea what to do with my energy. And I left and I gone to the house, and I weirdly started I’ll never forget this. He started watching this French movie, based off of real facts about a group of like 17 teenagers that all get pregnant at the same time. I was watching this movie, this beautiful pregnant female bodies. And all of a sudden I was like, that is hard to describe this weird, something’s happening. I drew a bath and then I had all these contractions in the bath but the problem was I left my phone in a place with my husband and I at that point, I couldn’t get out of the bath but I also didn’t know how long it would take. You know, he disappeared into work. I was there forever. I pulled towels down and blankets and I think it was an hour and a half he finally came in and I was like oh my god. Call the doula but I remember even in the bath I just thought this is amazing. I’m in a dream of my own making like those sensations you have when you’re dreaming or having a nightmare and you know that sometimes you wake yourself up because you’re about to fall, but I I was awake and I had that falling sensation into my own body. 

 

P: Yeah. 

 

C: And I really did think like, this is incredible. It’s not like, you know, necessarily like I don’t love nausea, you know, but it was like an irrevocable sensation. And I just, I learned that I was like my daughter and myself creating this experience. It was very exciting. I think

 

P: this is an amazing way to talk about it and and I’m sure you will be surprised like not the view that a lot of people share but it is it’s moving right it is if only I could have other kids that would walk into it that way. 

 

So I’m going to read a little section of your book here to kick us off with the next question you write you write the people most shocked by the fact that I had a baby or in order my mother then myself. But I loved it. Love the everything on early motherhood, my changing body the shifting of priorities even though once in a lifetime ravages of birth. I was at my healthiest and most productive as a pregnant woman. I felt beautiful and vital. After  his birth those positive feelings didn’t go away. I was anchored I felt necessary as a food source. I was all I could think of during my last year was that I wanted all that back to Easy sleep, the focus mind the permanent anchor. 

 

So what’s interesting to me about this is that you So reluctantly are drawn into this, but it is wonderful in ways you couldn’t anticipate and it sounds like you really like that newborn period, which most of us find, so challenging, and taxing and for someone who didn’t want necessarily a draw on her time. I mean, you have no time and that period, right?

 

C: Well, a couple of things like my child when she was a baby and of course everyone counseled us against this, but very early on, she started this routine where she would breastfeed for an hour at a time. But then she would sleep for five hours. Oh wow. Right. So instead of every 20 minutes, every whatever it is, that’s what we ran with for quite a long time and I am not joking. I understand five hours sometimes for but long periods of time where she was just napping and then and the breastfeeding sessions were I mean, I write about them in the book. They were never deeply and I looked forward to them because they were so long. And I had a comfy chair and a book and I’d read by you know it was just beautiful. Now of course, I didn’t get to do that for long because it my body didn’t get the signal to produce a lot of milk. Your body produces more breast milk when it’s there’s frequent smaller feeds so inevitably, she wasn’t getting enough weight because I wasn’t producing enough milk and we had to go to a formula. But in the first couple of months, I think I held out for three months it was really, it was really blissful. But ultimately I mean, I was well prepared for that period of motherhood because of my chronic insomnia. So functioning pretty well. on very little sleep was sort of a baseline thing, kind of where I was already coming from, and whatever hormones were going through my body unlike all the times before where I thought, oh my god, how am I going to face my day on three or four hours of sleep? How am I going to do this like whatever? book tour give a talk host dinner party without cracking in half I was buttressed by just oxytocin. You know, I didn’t feel stressed out about it also didn’t know it’s very lucky I was self employed. It’s important to point out that I wasn’t stressed right like I could, if I felt really sleepy, well then maybe my writing that day or whatever it was I was doing the emails were going to be a little wacky, but it’s not like I was going to lose a client at an office so the stakes were lower and then just for Virgo type A type person like me, ticking off boxes, just identifying what my child or infants needs. Were they were so easy to meet again, if she was healthy, right. I’m not talking about being an ICU or something. But it is just this checklist. Is she hot? Is she cold? She’s hungry. Is she tired? Is there a tag that’s scratching at her neck? Did we forget her favorite blanket? And honestly, I think there weren’t even there were less than 10 things and normally if you check those boxes, and we’re always prepared. I like people people who know me well can tell you on like a masterful picnic prep you know, I’m the one who always at a moment’s notice. You want to pick them I’ve had little salt packets in my purse. I have like a Swiss Army and I’m just always ready for anything. And and so that’s how I operated you know whether in the house or driving around, just had everything on hand all the time. I was very prepared. And thus I felt very successful and very happy about the ways in which I was meeting your needs and then you know, for me the the dark stuff came and I started to really unravel and feel that I was failing as a mother when she turned two and instead of, oh, she’s crying because she’s hungry. She’s crying because she wants attention. She’s crying because she wants to be played with and I’m like, Oh, that’s not something I can put in a car or in a bag or order. You know, that has to come from me. And a place of play. And time and attention and and then everything came apart. i That’s That’s for me. Like where the real mothering came in and it’s beyond survival. It’s about emotional nourishment, and I succeeded less, let’s say

 

P: Well it’s interesting that early motherhood so clearly suited a lot of your native skills, and it’s like a kind of an experience. You wouldn’t have known that those two matchups so well, and once they become real people at about two become significantly harder, right that’s I think that is true across the board. And that is kind of a spot where your own experience as a child, I think plays in really strongly in many ways that we’re totally blind to, like we

 

C: Yeah, I think that’s true. And I think I think that some people that’s when they start to shine as parents you know that for instance, my husband really suffered with type stuff because he’s the type of person he’ll go to the grocery list and forget the list. Yeah, you know, he’s, he’s not terribly forgetful, but he’s not he’ll drive somewhere and not realize that we’re driving through lunch and not think to pack sandwiches, you know, whatever the heck it is. And that stuff matters a lot. That level of organization matters a lot when you have an infant, but it matters less. That’s yeah, that’s when he really rose rose to the challenge was dropping everything to play or come up with a funny game, or throw a ball who makes the sounds and I just, I could do that for like five or 10 minutes, but then I had my own stuff I wanted to move on to I just didn’t have that. I guess I could put this in the present. I still don’t really have that emotional generosity, you know and that I could have guessed but the other stuff that I would love early stuff so much. Yeah, I didn’t see that.

 

P: And when you’re you say your mother was surprised is that because she thought you would focus solely on career?

 

C: Because I made it clear to her from a transit of teenager. My mom loves kids. She loves being a caretaker and I’d always said Don’t Don’t count on me, you know, and then she was just it was always there because my brother you know had been counseled not to have kids and just his was taking medication that a certain point I you know, rendered him incapable of having kids. And so my mom’s just really identified as someone who wasn’t going to have grandchildren and she was deeply upset about that. And it had gotten to a point where she called our cat giant man who had you know, to be like, how’s my grandson and had really come around. So just accepting that she probably wasn’t going to have grandchildren’s. So she was, I mean, beyond like, I can’t it was incredibly moving to see how excited and invested she was. And it was a really beautiful time in our relationship to because I don’t think I’ve ever needed my mom like that. You know, and all of her characteristics that sometimes makes me frustrated with her which is selflessness, her ability to self efface space and time and you know that time in my life when when I really needed someone to drop everything and be there for me and she she was wonderful that way.

 

P: Yeah, a lot is forgiven for good grandparenting 

 

C: Yes,  Absolutely. That’s well said,

 

P: I wanted to read this quote because I as I loved it, it sounds like you went to your first pregnancy appointment in France and I want to roll out my very dusty French accent. So I hope  you’re sitting October. I said, I’m interested in natural childbirth, you know, laboring without any medicine. Do you have any thoughts on that really low, closed her ledger my checks for appointments functioning as a bookmark that she said is a question for a therapist, not a gynecologist. I love that because no gynecologist here would say that.

  

C: Absolutely not. No. Oh my god. She’s. I wrote an essay about her recently. If you Google my name and letter to a stranger, this is a wonderful special thing and a literary magazine, where people write letters to strangers. She’s not really a stranger, but this was a long time ago. And I wrote a whole essay about my obsession with my French gynecologist, and she was hardcore. She’s very hardcore. And you know, that section goes on where I ask questions about breastfeeding and she says if you want to ruin your breasts, you know Knock yourself out and just Oh, and then drinking. She said, Only drink two drinks a day. Just completely flew in the face of everything that we tend to say in America.

P:

I’m going to stop my conversation with Courtney right here….where we can all take a minute to think about Marie Laure’s, what I would call, woman centric approach to pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding…..thanks again to courtney for sharing her experience. I particularly appreciate her willingness to discuss the challenging issues around this transformative event so openly. It’s the kind of conversation that should be part of our larger public conversation–there are few other decisions we make in life…I’m at a loss to think of any other–that change your life so completely like pregnancy and birth–walking into a decision that casts such a large shadow with some ambivalence makes sense, not that everyone harbors uncertainties but it makes sense to me that people have them,  and despite that, most public discussions about this topic are cast in much starker terms and really the only culturally acceptable response is unvarnished happiness. I also appreciate Courtney’s expansive appreciation of birth, both because it recognizes that the experience involves pain, but it celebrates the fact that each birth is unique and its a connection, or an experience or a memory that you’ll have with the newborn forever…and that seems like a true and useful way to approach it….Courtney and I talk about what led her to her second pregnancy, and about that pull of our imagination toward lives unlived, and…just a bit, about horses.
 
Thanks for listening.
 
We’ll be back next Friday with the rest of my conversation with Courtney Maum.

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Episode 73SN: A Birth Visited by Too Many Medical Interventions: Nicole’s story, Part I

Today’s guest walked into pregnancy with an expectation that the process would be as smooth for her as it had been for her mother, as it was for the farm animals she’d been surrounded by for her whole life, as it was from 50,000 feet: civilization depends on this process and women’s bodies were made for this project. Although the pregnancy part was relatively straightforward, the ways in which her first birth unfolded deviated profoundly from her expectation. In this first part of our conversation we’ll hear how she processed that first experience, and how she used what she learned in this experience to alter the births that followed.

Relationship between Pain Medication & Fever

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7976662/

https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/labor-and-delivery/in-depth/labor-and-delivery/art-20049326

https://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/504805

Audio Transcript

Paulette: Hi Welcome to War Stories from the Womb. I’m your host Paulette Kamenecka. I’m a writer and an economist and the mother of two girls 

Today’s guest walked into pregnancy with an expectation that the process would be as smooth for her as it had been for her mother, as it was for the farm animals she’d been surrounded by for her whole life, as it was from 50,000 feet: civilization depends on this process and women’s bodies were made for this project. Although the pregnancy part was relatively straightforward, the ways in which her first birth unfolded deviated profoundly from her expectation. In this first part of our conversation we’ll hear how she processed that first experience, and how she used what she learned in this experience to alter the births that followed.

Let’s get to her inspiring story

 

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

 

Nicole: Sure. My name is Nicole. I hail from the Midwest, Indiana. I’m halfway between Chicago and Indianapolis. 

 

P: Okay, so let’s talk pregnancy. You have three kids? 

 

N: Three. Yep, that’s right. 

 

P: And what’s the one of the ages?

 

N: three alive? I’ve three alive. Yep. So my kids are 420 

 

P: Wow, nice. That’s well spaced. Well done. 

 

N: I couldn’t have done it better if I planned it. 

 

P: Yeah. Yeah, totally. I agree. So before you got pregnant, what did you think pregnancy would be like? What were you imagining?

 

N: Uh, well, uh, so it all kind of happened kind of fast for me. My husband and I have been married now I think for seven years but we have been together for about 20 years.

And yeah, you know, when we were kids, we knew we knew we were gonna have kids, when we were kids, and that was something we always talked about when we grow up when we get married when we have kids. So we always had this, like far off distant idea. of in the future we will have children, but being unmarried teenagers, you know, we’re like avoiding that like the plague. 

 

P: yeah

 

N: We don’t want to be pregnant. We don’t you know, we don’t want that. You all have that. So we got married, and month and a half later, we were pregnant. It wasn’t quite the honeymoon baby. But we didn’t plan that we weren’t trying it wasn’t intended was not intended, but we were very surprised by it. And so my experience with it was going practically my whole life avoiding pregnancy. 

 

P: Yeah, 

 

N: to now being pregnant and it being socially acceptable, where like, so I didn’t have that time for my mind to shift from avoiding it to desiring it. So that was what what really struck me about my first pregnancy easy Yeah, that emotional trip into dealing with what what was happening? 

P: Well, good to good you know, struggle with the front end. Did you find out with like a home kid or how did you how did you find out you’re pregnant? 

 

N: I had an inkling who and I took a test and it was positive. And I, at that time, didn’t think you know, anything could happen. If the home pregnancy test says it’s positive than it’s positive and we just went with it. You know, we, you know, immediately called the doctor because that’s what you do when you’re pregnant, right? You go to the doctor, so we call the doctor we make the appointment we waited the traditional three months to tell everybody you know, in case something bad happened. We did all of those things like the way the cultural norm is so we went we went through all of that and that was all I mean, it’s still like deer in the headlights. You know, I just went from avoiding this to now everybody’s excited about it. 

 

P: That’s kind of amazing. I wonder where the three month rule. I feel like my doctor told me that although I did not follow it at all and had a miscarriage and just had to tell everyone but I think it’s I think it’s from I think my doctor said you might want to wait, but I can’t remember where it comes from. Anyway, 

 

N: I think that’s an old rule when I don’t know when doctors first started playing a big important role in pregnancy and they just advised you know, you want to save face. If you do have a miscarriage. You don’t want to have to go around telling everybody your business that you had a miscarriage and, you know, we thought we thought that that must be important. So that’s what we did. 

 

P: Yeah, yeah. So it was the first trimester easy. 

 

N: The whole pregnancy was pretty easy. Really. I didn’t have a lot of morning sickness. I craved pickles. I was working in a factory at the time. I was on my feet a lot time and that was the big joke like crazy pregnant lady drinking pickle juice. And I did I am but I had heartburn in my third trimester and that was really the hardest thing. You know, everybody has the discomfort and the tiredness and that part of it. But looking back on it, it was pretty easy. I know though that there were days when I was like, Oh my gosh, I can’t do this anymore. Like in the moment you deal with that, but But when it’s not extreme, and there’s not medical conditions and things like that, you just say Oh, this must be what everybody does. This is 

 

P: we just sort of accept it because it’s because how else is it gonna go right? That’s what you’re told. Yeah. So take us to the day of the birth. How do we know today’s today? And then let’s walk slowly through that day. 

 

N: Yeah, sure. So. So looking back on everything that happened where my expectations didn’t really match up to what was happening was like with the birth part of it, and, and that was where, like, the experience just hit me like a Mack truck. So I grew up on a farm. You know, I assumed pigs and cows and horses. You know everything goats, sheep, I’ve seen everything be born. I know like, I knew when I was a kid like population how that happens. So I’ve always known this and I’ve been around forever. And when I got pregnant, my mom’s advice to me was, you know how this works. Don’t read the literature that they give you. It will scare you to death. You know how birth works. You’ve seen it done. Trust your body and it will happen. And my mom, in my mind was a warrior. She had four kids and the first three were born in a hospital completely naturally. The fourth one was a C section. You know, and there’s, you know, the story around you know, how the baby wouldn’t come down to the birth canal and that’s just how it was and whatever. But, you know, I had this wonderful example in my life of how birth was supposed to work. So I thought, okay, I don’t need to read anything. I don’t need to prepare my body knows what to do. I’ve seen it done. It’s going to happen. So I didn’t read anything, not What to Expect When You’re Expecting I didn’t watch videos. I didn’t blogs, nothing. 

 

And my husband says he knew that I was going to go into labor because I came home and I was like, our yard is a mess. I hate it. We’re going to clean it. All up like the baby is coming. I don’t want to have to come home and deal with a messy yard. We’re going to mow it and we’re going to weed it and we’re going to pull all the shrubs out of the flower bed. And you know, I just had all this energy and he said, you know, he reminds me of sitting on the couch after doing all of that work. I was just sitting there saying, I don’t know why everybody says pregnancy is so tiring. And I don’t know why the third trimester is supposed to be so bad because I just have all this energy and I feel so great. He’s like, uh huh, he knew what was coming.

 

So that night after doing all of this yard work and just feeling so amazing. I got up to go pee at midnight. And as I was sitting on the toilet, I heard like an audible pop.

 

P: Oh wow

 

N: That is a gush of water. You know like the things that doesn’t happen to everybody but that’s what it was. And it was read amniotic fluid and I like immediately just began shaking with fear like head to toe overcome with fear, like my whole body to the core was shaking. So I had to wait for this session to stop I had to go wake my husband up in the middle of the night. I have to say you know it’s time we have to no it didn’t take long once he heard me say it’s time like he was immediately awake and alert and up and out of bed and I had a bag packed and you know I am prepared that much at least we did not have a car seat. It was not in our car, but we’re like that’s the least of our worries. We’ll figure it out later. So we grab our bag and we go to the hospital and I didn’t think you know amniotic fluid was gonna leak I had no idea so I just put on jeans and you know I’m still leaking in the car. we didn’t have a trash bag. I made a mess of the car. I walked into the emergency room entrance of the hospital just like water still pouring down my legs and my husband got me a wheelchair and the people are like looking at me like what are you doing here? And I’m like, my water broke and they were like, oh, and then it became an emergency to get me checked in a wheelchair and to the labor and delivery. And so, all of this time though I’m still shaking with fear. We get to labor and delivery and we have this whole big rig mo row. Are you really in labor? Are you feeling contractions? Is this really your water breaking? And, you know, then the they had to do an amniotic test where they had to like swab me to determine that the fluid that was coming out really buzzed amniotic fluid. When it came back positive then they decided that I must really be in labor and I will be allowed to stay because they were so busy that night. 

 

P: That is like a little circus environment there. Although I think most people don’t experience the kind of dramatic and obvious water breaking that you did. So So I think some people are really unsure themselves like oh my Warbreaker broke or not although it seems like yours is pretty clear.

 

N: absolutely it was

 

P: And so at this point you’re not feeling contractions are you are 

 

N: i i probably had some pain in my back but I wasn’t feeling like miserable countable contractions I just my water had broken, but I’m also still shivering with fear. And, you know, in the birth that I’ve had since then, when looking back at that situation, I know that that fear response in my body was stopping any contractions that would have happened with that. So like this fear, this flight response that I was having definitely shut down. Anything that was happening. 

 

P: Yeah, there’s a lot of chemistry involved in that in that response. Right. So you can imagine it is telling your body like not now. 

 

N: Oh, well yeah, I mean, an animal’s in labor and there’s an ear Okay. Body says don’t be born because you’ll be taking your days and that’s, that’s what my body was going through. Because even though I like mentally knew that my body was capable of giving birth, I didn’t believe in my body like in my subconscious mind, you know, like, my body was fat and ugly. I hated it. I was constantly putting it on diets and berating it and saying, you know, I hate you all of these cultural stories that we have about women’s bodies. And and that was what was putting me into this fear like this mental juxtaposition of I know I can do this as opposed to the true like deep down beliefs that I have that my body was a piece of garbage like a piece of garbage can’t do something amazing. And and that’s that what, what, threw my first birth off the rails for sure. 

 

P: Yeah, that sounds like a really hard thing to work through in the moment. And did you have 

 

N: I was not aware of it in the moment. took several years afterwards to come to that. 

 

P: Well, you probably knew you were fearful. Right? 

 

N: Yeah, I definitely knew I was afraid and that but you know, I just thought, you know, my, I’m afraid but my body’s gonna do it. And when it happens, I’ll just go along with it. Yeah, okay. 

 

P: And so, since you’re waiting for and stopping contractions at the same time, how does that progress? 

 

N: Yeah, it doesn’t.

It doesn’t progress at all. So after it was about six hours, they have me hooked up to machines and they were measuring my contractions and I was kind of sleeping off and on but I wasn’t feeling the pain and I felt poorly, but I wasn’t feeling regular measurable contractions. So they

Come in and they hook up an idea that kind of, I think it was they started hanging Pitocin at that time. And looking back on it. I see you know, the audacity that they had to come in and talk to my husband about this. They didn’t talk to me about any of it. I didn’t give my consent. Obviously, I wasn’t going to disagree with them at that time. But it was not me giving consent.

 

P: why aren’t they talking to you? 

 

N: I was tired. I was sleepy and he was awake. So rather than, you know, trying to rouse me and have a conversation with me, they just went right to my husband and talked with him. Because like yep, if that’s what we need to do, then that’s what we need to do. And over the next six hours, they have three bags of Pitocin 

 

P; oh Wow. 

 

N: Which was causing back labor. So by noon, 12 hours after I had been admitted. To the hospital by noon, I was ready for pain medication. 

 

P: Yeah, no kidding

 

N:  They hung up a pain medication. And still they were measuring contractions and saying you know, we see you’re having contractions, you’re in labor. They were checking my dilation constantly which you know, that’s a whole another story of invasion of self being uncomfortable and just adding to those to those hormones that are slowing down labor. But so yeah, by noon then 12 hours later, I was on Pitocin and pain meds

 

P: man, this is this is hard. 

 

N: So what not what I expected when I went to the hospital, that’s for sure. 

 

P: Did you think it would be fast like what what was the image in your mind? Yeah, 

 

N: so So in my mind, I thought you know, this is gonna be quick and easy. I’m just gonna lay there and my body will take over and do what it’s supposed to do. And eventually a baby will pop out. And I will have this baby in my arms. And that’s, that’s all the thought. That’s all the space. I allowed this event to have in my mind.

 

P:  Yeah, that makes sense. I think people are fuzzy in describing birth, right? They kind of walk fast by that part. And I think it’s hard to find the right vocabulary to make you viscerally appreciate the pain 

 

N: for the first two births. For me that was true by my third birth that wasn’t so true anymore. 

 

P:Interesting. Well, I’m interested to hear how we get there. 

 

N: Yeah. 

 

P: So how do we progress like how do we 

 

N: Yeah, so noon, they start giving me pain medication and then from noon to six, my temperature starts to increase which they attributed to possible infection because my water has broke and that’s the risk of having your why you have to go to the hospital when your water breaks, is because of that risk of infection.

They don’t talk about how the pain medication that they were hanging, for me causes your body temperature to rise.

 

P: Okay, so Nicole mentions of the pain medications in labor may have caused her fever. So this turns out is not entirely straightforward. Like many things about birth. There are some studies that suggest that an epidural can be associated with a non infectious rise in temperature, but there are many other factors that can contribute to fever, including things like a long duration of labor, and a long time separating ruptured membranes from delivery. I put some links in the show notes on this topic. If you’re interested in the details.

 

N: so my temperature is rising possible infections still not feeling contractions, six o’clock comes and the on call doctor for the evening comes on to the ward and there’s lots of other women in birth the whole word of school they have women in other rooms of the hospital who are in labor, but can’t come into this labor and delivery and it’s a pretty small rural hospital, really, it was a private kind of thing. It wasn’t part of a huge network. So it’s not a huge fancy place. So the hospital is dealing with their own constraints besides me. Taking up this room, progressing really slowly. Around 6pm They say you know your fever is starting to go up. We need to start doing fetal heart monitoring to make sure that the baby is safe while your body temperature is increasing. You know, we went to to walk we want you to do things to try and move things along. Because if you don’t, and that’s what they started telling me around six o’clock that evening, so 18 hours after I got to the hospital. If you don’t, then we will do a C section. So that kind of also starts weighing on my mind like oh my god, am I not capable of giving birth? Am I going to have to have a C section?

 

So you know, I’ve got all of that going on. I do the walking they give me more pain meds, they increase I think probably the day to start working on the contractions and around nine o’clock. I went ahead and took the epidural, the first epidural

 

P: Oh wow, 

 

N: labor doesn’t progress. nothing’s really happening. Around 11 o’clock. They come in and say you’re going to push I think they weren’t declaring me to be around nine centimeters dilated, but by the measurements of the contractions I was having something should have been happening. They criticize the way I’m pushing and say you’re not doing it right. This is how you do it and 11 o’clock goes by and they keep making me push and I’m pushing according to readings on a machine. Not according to my body. Like I’m so out of my mind. I don’t really even know what’s going on. Like I’m I’m desperately afraid of what’s happening right now. And it came to like 1130 and the nurse went and got the doctor and said, You know she’s pushed, nothing’s happening. They decided your body temperature is too high. At 1130. They decided you’re going to have a C section so they started prepping that they started checking my epidural. I could feel where they were poking and all the tests that they were doing so I had another epidural and the anesthesiologist that came in and did it. He had to come in from home wherever he was at to do it. And he just said I’m going to give you two to make sure that you get through the next however long it’s going to take you because again the hospital has a lot of other constraints they were dealing with. He wanted to make sure he didn’t have to do it again right before they did the operation. 

 

It was between 1130 and 1145 or so they do the extra epidurals they have my husband and they put him in you know the full HEPA suit with his beard cover and all of that and 

 

P: wait How are you feeling? Are you are you upset or where are you? 

 

N: I’m drugged out of my mind at this point. I’m still shivering with fear but I just like so out of my body that I I’m I’m not capable of giving consent. I’m not capable of not giving consent. 

 

P: Yeah, 

 

N: I’m just I’m just going along with it. I’m desperately afraid of what’s happening. I’m in fear. I’m disappointed because, you know, I never thought that I would need the epidural. I never thought I would need the pain meds and I’ve taken all of that and now they’re telling me that my baby is in danger. Heart rate might be low that my body temperature is increasing, who’s going to be born with an infection? Just fear.

 

P: Okay, so this is the issue of fever if the epidural is a catalyst for a fever, but it’s a non infectious source, then we’re not worried that the baby will be born with an infection. Some theories suggest that the epidural along with other factors may induce an inflammatory response in the mother’s body. If this is the case, then it’s not likely that something is transmitted. To the baby and the baby doesn’t need antibiotics. So although we don’t have a definitive answer yet to this, this is an, important focus of study.

 

N: Yeah, everything was here. Everything was saved my life saved my babies life

 

P:  yeah, 

 

N: and they went we went into labor and delivery and the C section was fine and maybe boy was born. And they put me in a room and my in laws. Got to see my baby before I did. 

 

P: Wow. 

 

N: Yeah, yeah. And looking back that was one of the thing that was hardest for me, especially, you know, in the postpartum recovery was they put me up in the surgery board. They did the surgery. I saw that like they helped the baby’s butt up like you have a boy here he is. And they cleaned him up and took him away. And then they took me to a room to get cleaned up. And I don’t even know what happened what they were doing. You know what happened while they were cleaning me up but they gave me a picture. A photograph of this naked squirmy little thing that had salve in its eyes, you know had on its head and like, that’s how I got a picture. And, and that was like, again, like so surreal. So out of body. There’s not nobody nothing in my arms. My belly is soft and squishy. And I don’t have a baby. And, you know, we had we had called people before I went into surgery just because you know, again, kind of like the three months rule with announcing your pregnancy. It’s you call people because what if something happens while you’re in surgery? Which again shows how fearful we were? 

 

P: yeah

 

N: what if someone dies with this C section. So my in laws were at the hospital. My mom had come to the hospital and my husband followed the nurses with the baby to see them wash baby after he was born. And he has very fond memories of walking into the room and talking and, and my son like instantly looking for him recognizing His voice. So 

 

P: yeah, so that’s cool 

 

N: has fond memories. Yeah. But it was I don’t know, maybe an hour before I got to even see him. And then like, just the surreal moment of is this little thing. This score me a little baby my and having them that first hold your baby. 

 

P: It feels like you’ve been put through a very weird version of a birth in which you’re present but not entirely and they’re like not treating you like your president at any point. Right? It’s wacky to criticize you’re pushing Oh, you mean from the 1000s of times. I’ve done it before and you know, 

 

N: absolutely

 

P: the consent thing is weird and shuffling too often. You have the baby off to different rooms, like Okay, we’re done with her. Let’s just that’s just weird. 

 

N: Yeah. And you know, at the time, I don’t have the presence of mind or the perspective that I gained over the next few years to know to say something’s wrong with this. Yeah, yeah. You can’t say what you don’t know. And I absolutely did not know in that moment. 

 

P: But it sounds like it fell off. You have nothing to compare it to.

 

N:  Right. But it just has nothing to compare it to. Yeah, yeah. So you know, then I have the whole hospital stay and you know, people come to see the baby. And I was I was really dedicated to breastfeeding and that didn’t really work well, and baby was kind of grumpy. And it turned out that he had high bilirubin so he was orange and they wanted him to lay under this light. So not only do I have like the surreal meeting of my son, but now they say don’t hold him put him under this light. You know, don’t interact with him except to feed him you know in the hole coming in all the time to check your temperature so you never really get any sleep and just all of the things just was not a great bonding time. 

 

P: Yeah, 

 

N: my mom came to stay with me which really felt good, which was really good. Besides that, just the birth experience of not being considered an active participant in the birth to a person to whom it was happening, that they had to deal with in the process. 

 

P: Yeah, all that sounds really hard to manage emotionally. And certainly your experience didn’t match your expectation at all. What’s postpartum like? 

 

N: My dad came to stay with me after the birth, which was an incredibly generous gesture on behalf of my dad. But in hindsight, and even in the moment, like it was so awkward, like my parents were splitting up in the moment. My dad was like, one upping my mom by being able to be the one who was there. With me. He is not really a baby or a kid person. He was trying to like treat me like his kid. And at the same time, allow me space to be a mom. It was really uncomfortable. So I have these five days, you know where my husband is gone. He had to go back to work and I have to deal with this and driving back and forth to the doctor and baby not nursing and nobody. I had zero support of people saying yes you can rescue they were all saying Oh, baby’s not latching right give him formula. Like no person said, Oh, he’s not laughing. Let me help you. 

 

P: Yeah. 

 

N: And it was only my stubborn persistence that did that but he finally latched on to finally nurse and I finally did that and when that got easier, then I get this you know, whole emotional wave of you know how did that happen? And I think it was probably after my second child was born. But I look back on that time now and I say that that was trauma in my day.

 

P: Yup, yup

 

N: I knew that it wasn’t right that what happened wasn’t right and after baby was born, the next morning the surgeon had come in and you know, I expressed to him my disappointment in what had happened. And I said, is it going to be possible for me to have a vaginal birth in my next pregnancy? You know, I’m already planning my next one and I just got the first one in my arm. And he says, no, no, no, V backs are dangerous. You know, in the 90s. We pushed everybody to do it. It was this big thing and we damaged a lot of women, we damaged women in the V back process and we don’t do that anymore. So if you ever see sex and you always have a C section, and besides, your hips are too small, you’re really too small of a person to be giving birth anyway. And that was just that was his answer. And it kind of was weird in the moment when he said that because my mom might know again, my example in birth is smaller than me. And she had these three babies naturally and and she was fine. So how was that the case? And it was about 18 months. I finally am starting to heal. I say, you know, that was a really sucky experience. I never want to have that again. I know I’m going to have kids in the future. And I’m never doing that again. And you know, I start reading things on the internet. I start watching YouTube videos, and around the time that I’m thinking about all of this, we got pregnant again. Like we weren’t trying it. We weren’t not trying but it just happened. And it was good timing and it was right. And so I’m pregnant now. And I’m thinking about all of this, and that freaking doctor was absolutely wrong. I am capable of giving birth and I’m gonna prove it to him. 

 

P: Thanks again to Nicole for sharing her experience. With this first birth.

Her experience of the hospital has a steep learning curve that she uses in future births her attempt to get the birth she was hoping for.

Thanks again. Thanks again to Nicole for sharing her story. Her experience in the hospital has steep learning curve that she uses in future births and her attempt to get the birth she was hoping for. Unlike many women who go into birth with a fully formed birth plan, it calls hoping to avoid another experience. She feels like a disposable contributor to the whole event.

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Episode 72SN: Becoming a Mother without my Mother: Melissa’s story, Part II

Today we pick up the second half of Melissa’s story. At the end of last week’s episode Melissa was on bedrest, she has to leave her job and be home with a four year old and a husband who worked full time, in a town in which she didn’t have a strong support network because she’d moved there relatively recently. To remind us where she was emotionally, I’m going to share an excerpt from Melissa’s writing–this is a sneak preview of her book…in this excerpt she is describing the experience of being told about the prospect of a too early birth…she writes:

I was in pre-term labor.  The office was located within the Women and Babies Hospital, and so they took me down on a gurney to the hospital Emergency Room and started the admission process.  My time in the ER was a blur.  I have very little memory of that time as I was in shock.  I changed into a hospital gown, and my husband called his ex-wife to come to pick up Tommy.  

IVs were inserted, and countless nurses and aids were getting me situated and asking what felt like a million questions.  I was in a daze.  At one point, they informed me that they needed to begin administering a series of steroid shots to give the baby’s lungs a boost in case I delivered that night.  My OB entered the room and told me what the plan was.  I would remain in the hospital while I received a series of shots that included steroids and several other medications designed to stop the labor.  She told me that the treatment would feel pretty awful, but we needed to stop the labor because the survival rate at 26 weeks was only 50%.  

How was this happening?  I was still in the second trimester, for goodness’ sake.  What did I do to deserve so much loss in my life?  Once again, I felt like my life was falling apart, and I didn’t have my mom.  I prayed my little heart out.  And every few hours, I gave thanks that I was still pregnant and the baby was still alive and growing.  

The hours crept by, and another shot was administered.  Hours turned into days, and my pregnancy continued.  It was at this point in the hospital when the shock and terror of it all began to abate, that all of the other factors I needed to deal with came crashing down.  It was at this moment that I began to feel the full impact of becoming a mom without having the assistance of my own mom. 

To find Melissa’s sites:

Website: https://www.momswithoutamom.com/

https://www.instagram.com/momswithoutamom/

https://www.facebook.com/Dr.MelissaReilly

https://www.tiktok.com/@momswithoutamom

Enjoy Being a Mom Again Quick Guide:  https://www.momswithoutamom.com/enjoy-motherhood-again-guide

Care For Yourself While You Care For Your Baby Guide:  https://melissareillypsyd.lpages.co/bonding-with-baby-while-caring-for-yourself-opt-in

Schedule a complimentary coaching call: https://MelissaReillyPsyD-MomsWithoutAMom.as.me/free-coaching-call

Audio Transcript

Paulette Kamenecka: Welcome to war stories from the womb. I’m your host, Paulette Kamenecka. I’m a writer and an economist and the mother of two girls. Today we pick up the second half of all this story. At the end of last week’s episode, Melissa was on bedrest. She had to leave her job and be home with a four year old husband who worked full time, a town in which she didn’t have a strong support network, because she moved there relatively recently to remind us where she was emotionally I’m going to share an excerpt from Melissa’s writing. This is a sneak preview of her book. In this excerpt, she’s describing the experience of being told about the prospect of a too early birth. She writes:

P 0:08
She writes, I was in preterm labor. The office was located within the women and babies hospital so they took me down on a gurney to the hospital emergency room and started the admissions process. My time in the ER was a blur. I have a very little memory at that time. As I was in shock. I changed into a hospital gown and my husband called his ex wife to come pick up Tommy IVs were inserted and countless nurses and aides were getting me situated and asking what felt like a million questions. I was in a daze. At one point, they informed me that they needed to begin administering a series of steroid shots to give the baby’s lungs a boost in case I delivered that night. I would remain in the hospital while I received a series of shots that included steroids and several other medications designed to stop the labor. She told me that the treatment will feel pretty awful. But we needed to stop the labor because the survival rate at 26 Weeks was only 50%. How was this happening? I was still in the second trimester for goodness sakes. What do I do to deserve so much loss in my life? Once again, I felt like my life was falling apart and I didn’t have my mom. I prayed my little heart out. And every few hours I gave thanks that I was still pregnant. The baby was still alive and growing. The Hours crept by another shot was administered. Hours turn into days and my pregnancy continued. It was at this point in the hospital when the Shock and Terror of it all began to be that all of the other factors I needed to deal with came crashing down. It was at this moment I began to feel the full impact of becoming a mom without having the assistance of my own mom.

M 2:25
It was it was really tough that again, this was a time when I really wished I had sisters with a mother and my aunt God bless her lived in a different state, but she was there for emotional support. My dad lives you know in a different state as well. So he wasn’t any help. I did have an emotional health but he’s still bad.

P 2:48
Yeah, yeah. It’s different. It’s different.

M 2:50
Yes, yes. So

P 2:52
this sounds like a way too much for one person to bear.

M 2:57
Yeah, it was it was a lot it was a lot but, you know, thankfully, we got to 36 weeks. Wow. Yeah. And I went in and they’re like, okay, because I got in and you know, an uptick in like a contraction. So like you’re 36 weeks at this point. We’re not going to stop it. So if you if you deliver, you deliver. Okay, that’s exciting. But it’s deliver.

P 3:26
I mean, so it was it was 10 weeks between finding the issue and yeah, that’s a long time.

M 3:32
10 weeks on absolute depths. Yep. And in and out of you ever hospital more shots and checks and all that and what, what year is this? This was 2010

P 3:45
Okay, so not I’m imagining there’s less for you to do from your day than there

M 3:49
is yeah, there was no yeah, it was no zoom. And, yeah, I couldn’t work whereas now you’re like, Yeah, I need to I mean, that was Yeah, yeah, it was definitely not like it is now. And so, yeah, so 36 weeks. Wow. Like, okay, you’re off that rest. Let’s try and get moving. We need to build your strength up. So, I’m like, Okay, I’ve been in bed for 10 weeks, and now I need to start removing, but it felt like the world opened up and went outside. That Halloween was that week so we took my my oldest trick or treating and then of course, the contractions went up. So that night, we went again to the hospital, and they sent us home. And I made it to 37 weeks.

P 4:40
Wow. Are you are you appreciating the irony of being sent home at 36 weeks? Yes.

M 4:45
Oh, I was I was like, Okay, this is good. Well, the funny thing is, Paulette, this is hilarious. We still joke about this. So Halloween night, they sent us home, it was like 2am and we get stopped. There was a DUI checkpoint, right? And so they stop us like where are you going? And my husband’s like, home where have you been? Have you been drinking, sir, you know? And he’s like, No, I don’t drink you know, he’s 30 years clean and sober. So no, I don’t drink recovering from women’s and babies. My wife was in labor. And then you know the two officers shine my light right in my belly. It was hilarious. Like,

M 5:23
okay laugh because it was just like in unison Right, right. So my belly.

P 5:32
That’s awesome. Well, a very legit costume. It sounds like

M 5:37
so, so we go in, and at that point, we were going in every day, just because I did. They wouldn’t become stronger. They would become, you know, scheduled. And at this point, I was like, I don’t know what to do. I was four centimeters dilated for about a week. Wow. Yeah. So and my husband was terrified of like, going me delivering the baby while we’re on our way to the hospital. So but ever third 2010 I woke up really severe pain. I said I think something’s different but let’s get there. So we got there. How still only four centimeter dilated? Just like Alright, I’m gonna send you over to the hospital again. As you know, I’m on that ball. You know, and I’m doing my thing and I’m walking. And then she comes in and at this point, tears are running down my face. And I said to my husband, I said I can’t move. I can’t keep doing this. I don’t know how it will be different. Because remember, I I’ve been having contractions for months there. Yeah. And so she comes in and she’s like, You’re five centimeters dilated to this I promise you we won’t send you home you’re gonna deliver your baby with you know, today or tomorrow. Like all right so she left and then literally 20 minutes later. So the at this part quite I’m still on like the emergency part of the labor and delivery hospital. So very well admit you. So they haven’t even started getting that paperwork together. And my waterproof which was like oh, okay, we’re going to and she was like, alright, it’ll take three five and 10 hours. What I felt, you know, I was walking there like what do you want us to roll you to to, you know, the your actual room. What do you want? At that point, I had pain. Like I never imagined my life and it literally froze me. Like, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t I couldn’t literally I was just stationary like statute. And at that point in time, I thought I can’t do five hours this because I had wanted a natural birth you know? So once my husband called for help and the nurses were able to like get me onto a gurney and there started rolling it and I was able to get the words out. Epidural, please Like okay, we’ll order that. So they get me into my labor room. And I’m just like, in this incredible intense pain, I could barely talk. And you know, the, the nurses asked me all the admission questions and my husband’s answering it and I start like, like, PSP and push into the quad he talks are pushing up. So let me check you. I was nine centimeters. Wow. five centimeters to nine centimeters in 20 minutes.

P 8:29
I was gonna say on the other walk from the ER it sounds like yeah,

M 8:32
20 minutes. She’s like, Oh, okay. Go ahead and push you doing your thing. I’m sorry, sweetheart. You can not get an epidural. And this this is happening. Right now. Like, oh, okay, well, she’s it goes, but it’s usually been an hour now. And my husband’s like, Honey, don’t worry, you can handle anything for an hour. And he was right in my head. I’m like, Yeah, that’s a patient. Right? You know, because in my life, everything is you know, the hours that I know when an hour looks like I can do this. Like, okay, okay. And again, barely talk. I’m doing like doing my husband’s answering the questions. And so they call the doctor back. And I was just very quick so she comes back. It’s been less than an hour. I just like oh my gosh, they’re there he is here he comes out there in time to catch the baby cow. Wow, my delivery was was only an hour so I kind of joke my pregnancy, but man my delivery was like like eautiful I mean, you know, I didn’t even have a Tylenol like it was just, you know, all natural and everything. You know, it was just wonderful.

P 9:46
That’s amazing. There’s something to be said for contractions that can be measured with a calendar instead of a stopwatch.

M 9:53
Yes, yes. Absolutely. Yeah, right. Exactly. Oh my gosh. Well, and the thing is, is I, you know, I said to

M 10:00
my husband, I’m glad I didn’t have that material. Because there is no way I would have been doing what I was doing. If I did have all that sensation in my body. You Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. Sorry. Like I needed. I needed the sensation of my bike like I needed. I mean, labor was hard, right? Yeah, physically. Nobody talks about that right. How physical it is like, like, you know, I’ve run a marathon. I know what difficult strain is. And there’s a physical strength that goes into labor. And I don’t know that I wasn’t able to tap into that physical strain. If I didn’t have you know, that sensation

P 10:49
if you couldn’t feel anything? Yeah, for sure. For sure. It is. I think for all of us pregnancy, every aspect of pregnancy is more physical than you imagine. And it may be that that the language doesn’t capture the visceral feeling in a way that you can that you can feel it or that it’s just not like anything else. So most stories about feelings are analogized but but there’s there’s nothing like pregnancy. There’s nothing like birth there’s nothing like those contractions and I remember the contractions keeping me from breathing. I was thinking this is a terrible system, aren’t I? Gonna need to breathe? This is

M 11:25
right. And I was terrified because being on bedrest, I hadn’t taken any, you know, delivery courses, like you know, the classes. I was terrified. I didn’t know what to do and again back then and it’s not like they would do a virtual class. You I had broken my pelvis when I was 16. So part of me was still terrified that like that would become broken and so well, yeah, all this fear going into it. But, again, I was very blessed with with a very beautiful delivery.

P 12:03
That’s amazing. And in reminding us in 2010 Are they putting the baby on your chest and

M 12:08
yes, yes. And in this hospital, babies and moms were together and they had a nursery, but the nursery was only utilized if the mom requested it. And they encouraged it. I was not being separated from my baby after everything I got through.

P 12:29
So I think his lungs were fine and he was fine.

M 12:33
He he did not need the NICU. He was definitely jaundice. So there was some, you know, a little bit of extra checking that needed to be done. But that we didn’t know until a couple of years later that he has some neurological differences. Because of the shots that were given to stop his his delivery. He had what’s called childhood apraxia of speech, as well as some other conditions. So he didn’t nurse a he struggled with nursing which is a common symptom of that disorder. But we didn’t know it at the time. That isn’t something that’s diagnosed too much later.

P 13:18
Is it something to do with how his mouth moves is that what that

M 13:22
apraxia is a dysfunction in movement. So the brain says move something, but the nerves that connect for the body to them respond, don’t transmit the message very well. And so that’s why part of why that there’s it becomes problematic so yes, he struggled with latching now I was so pigheaded and so stubborn and I really wanted to nurse so i We did everything we could we got lactation consolidated. And I was so determined because we needed to supplement with formula but the more formula we supplemented with, the more uncomfortable he became like he just wasn’t responding well to the formula. And so I was just really determined, and we got the hang of it and it became a good nurser at about five weeks. It just took a really long time. That’s typical him was a little delayed and things he gets there a little longer.

P 14:28
Well, that sounds like it worked out that you were firm about the breastfeeding

M 14:32
because, yes, yes. And I thought pregnancy was hard. Oh my goodness. Once I got to the breastfeeding, it was like oh my god, this is even harder.

P 14:41
Well if you think about it is coordinating so many things almost not what you have real control over right? You can affect milk supply, you can affect latch really. No, that’s

M 14:52
no, you know, nobody tells you like all these people are touching my breasts. At this point, I was like, Okay, well it was labor and delivery. Everyone was touching those private parts. Now it was such a nice private party. Okay, so it’s like, Alright, forget it. I’m not you know, I became one of those women that was like, Alright, I’m breastfeeding my baby and you see my breasts, but it’s,

P 15:12
yeah, yeah, you really lose that sense of privacy of your own body pretty

M 15:18
quickly. Yes.

P 15:20
I guess interestingly, you didn’t really have that labor because it went so quickly. But so many women tell the story where they’re like 11 hours in I did not care but I was naked and like, you know, the guy with the food cart is walking through like everyone’s here. All right. He really didn’t have so, so that seems this all seems like a triumph that you made that far the pregnancy that the birth worked out. But you started this by talking about how you didn’t have your mother around for kind of the hard parts and I’m guessing it was also tricky. Not to have your mother there for this joyous part.

M 15:55
That’s right. I was taken. So by surprise, you know, I envisioned this being this joyous occasion and it was without a doubt, right? But I wasn’t expecting the flood of grief that I then experienced. For quite a while that I knew I was high risk was part of it. I certainly experienced that. But the experience of grief that also came along. I wasn’t expecting my mom had died 11 years prior I had you experienced grief. I knew what that was like I’d gone through many adult milestones, no jobs, husbands, divorces, moods, you know, without my mom, but this was different. And becoming a mom, I felt so inadequate. I felt so incapable I had no idea what I was doing. Despite the fact I was a clinical psychologist and taught child development and treated women. You know, in parenting. So I had all the knowledge in I was just a shy of 30 and I was pretty confident as a woman myself. And this brought me to my knees. So because I didn’t realize the impact that not having a mom my life would have. I didn’t have somebody to ask questions of I didn’t have somebody to share. That joy in the same way that that moms share. I didn’t have somebody that could just come over and give me time for a nap or a shower. Right? I couldn’t call her in the middle of the night. I didn’t have these things. And I didn’t know what an impact not having them had. On me was having. So what did I do? I just internalized it and thought there was something wrong with me. And so that’s why I became very passionate about talking about fitness. Because I want other moms that don’t have the support and guidance of a loving mom in their life to know that there isn’t something wrong with that. Because it’s hard. We all know being a mom is hard. But the reality is the uncomfortable truth is that being a mom without a mom is even harder and there isn’t something wrong with you and you’re not alone. There are literally millions of us. But again like miscarriage, nobody’s talking about it. Nobody talks about

P 18:28
Yeah, that’s totally true. It is it is unfortunate cultural oversight defect mistake to not talk about it. And to not have like a ritualized practice around how to manage that specific kind of grief. Right.

M 18:44
Exactly. Exactly. And how to support you know, support the women that need that. Yeah, so

P 18:51
yeah, that sounds that sounds like a profound thing that you went through and that you and that you eventually understood. Are you giving talks about this or like, how do you spread your message?

M 19:02
Well, you know, that a year ago, I made the decision to start a coaching practice, focused on assisting moms without a mom. And so I’ve done talking about it, and podcasts. I’ve been doing some summits and speaking about 90% finished with the book I’m writing. And so I’d love to get the message out and I want to support as many moms as I can. Yeah, that’s fine. Yeah. And that’s why I’m doing it as coaching rather than just therapy because I’ve been working with moms that as part of my clinical work, but I want to be able to reach a broader number of women.

P 19:44
I think it’s so valuable and i i can so see what you’re saying as as a super important message. I remember my mom coming to visit me when the baby was really young. And we went out maybe for our first or second walk in the end of the street. And it started raining and I started sobbing like you need so you know what to me like she was like if they can get wet. It’s one of their tricks like it’s, but I know the feeling of helplessness as a new mom where you just, it all seems so foreign and this is such a giant transformation that I feel like we kind of focus on it with, you know, baby clothes and like strollers or something like some commercial aspect, as opposed to the, you know, deep emotional transformation that has gone on that you don’t quite understand in the moment. That you kind of need a guide you really do, right? So I can imagine that it’s even harder if you’re blaming yourself for not having the guide and not feeling competent, even. I mean, you’re like the perfect example as someone who teaches this stuff but right the embodied experience. So it was different, right?

M 21:02
Absolutely. And I didn’t have you know, it didn’t have sisters. I did great. I did. And it was older. So all my friends that had children and their kids were teenagers or adults at this point. So this is really out of sync.

P 21:16
Yeah, that’s amazing. So I’m so glad you came on and shared your story. I so appreciate it. And how do people find you?

M 21:23
Well, easily my I have a website called Moms without a mom.com They can find me on Instagram. At mom’s dad mom. I’m also on Tik Tok and Facebook and I’ll give you all that information. On my website. I have two free guides one for moms of newborns. It’s called care for yourself while you care for your baby. Because as a mom without a mom, you know self care isn’t about getting time by yourself. If you don’t have anybody to watch your baby, you have to take care of yourself while your baby’s there. So I have six pretty easy tips to do that my favorite ones.

P 22:04
Okay, awesome. That sounds great. Well, I will definitely put that in the show notes. So thank you so much for sharing your story.

M 22:11
You are welcome. Thank you so much, Paulette, I appreciate it.

P 22:15
Being a first time mother is challenging in a million ways, given that every single thing changes after birth, your body, your role, your relationship with your partner, your relationship to your work, and the world in general, is particularly helpful. To have people to consult with and few people are going to feel questions of any size or shape at any hour like your own mother. Most of the message is so important to share that everyone finds this transition challenging. It’s not a reflection of someone’s ability to be a mother if they feel this challenge. In general, we would all be better off if there were many more sources of support for the pregnancy and postpartum periods. I’m always inspired by people who use their own experience of hardship to help people that follow them and this transition. Thanks again to Melissa for sharing her story. Thanks for listening. We’ll be back next week with another inspiring story

 

 

 

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Episode 69SN: One Woman’s Experience with Recurrent Miscarriage: Eileen’s story, Part II

Today we hear the second half of Eileen’s story about her experience with pregnancy. Last week we heard about some of the challenges associated with her miscarriages. But when we left Eileen, she was about to deliver her first baby, having christened the hospital elevator when her water broke on the way up to a birthing room. we’ll pick up her story on the way to the hospital.

You can hear Naomi’s story here

alpha fetoprotein

https://www.stanfordchildrens.org/en/topic/default?id=alpha-fetoprotein-afp-90-P02426

https://americanpregnancy.org/prenatal-testing/alpha-fetoprotein-test/

Audio transcipt

Paulette: Hi, welcome to war stories from the womb. I’m your host, Paulette Kamenecka. I’m a writer and an economist and a mother of two girls. Today we hear the second half of Eileen story about her experience with pregnancy. Last week we heard about some of the challenges associated with her miscarriages. But when we left Eileen, she’s about to deliver her first baby, having just christened to the hospital elevator, when her water broke on the way up to a birthing Room. We’ll pick up her story on the way to the hospital.

Eileen: So I’m in the backseat of the car and on the other floors and I’m just like, moaning you know, and just like it was really kind of fun, you know? Like it was just like really letting it all hang out. You know,

P: wait, how long a drive is, this?

E:  is are we in for like 20 minutes? No one is it it’s it’s what time is is like 10 or 11 at night in the city. So what was it it was Thanksgiving night so there was like no traffic. So I’m more than we’re going to Lakeshore drive my husband just like flooring it, you know? And then we get to Northwestern and I’m just like, You know what I loved about it was like NUMA to see I was just like, I don’t care, moaning I don’t care, like whatever. So we get to triage and they’re like, You’re nine centimeters.

P: Oh my god. Oh my God.

E: So They put me on the gurney or whatever. We wheel into the elevator.

P: Wait a second only ask the question here. Are you Are you sensing that the waves are getting higher or whatever the whatever the image is,

E: I don’t know what the heck, you know what I mean? Like I don’t know what I was. I was just like, I was like very mammalian. Let’s just say I was very, I was totally my animal body. So then they really into the elevator and my water breaks

and that was kind of like take that!  Myt husband was like: it was like it was a hazmat situation. I was like I don’t care, you know. So like we put me into labor and delivery. And now I’m 10 centimeters. Oh, I saw my shoes on and you know, I’m just like, yeah, the doctor comes in. I mean, she’s like, has a sandwich in her hand. She’s like, Oh my god. They called her down from the  cafeteria and I’m wearing these like silver gym shoes and leg warmers. And she just like, can

we take your shoes off? And I like, I don’t care, you know, like, well, I believe he wanted to deliver cowboy boots last week. So I got

P: that’s so funny.

E: So then I’m pushing, you know, and I’m thinking like, I’m pushing and pushing. And then my jeweler turned to me she goes, I hate to tell you. But you have to push harder. And I was like, oh, okay, you know, because it’s weird. You know, you’re like you think you’re pushing but you’re again, like you’re I was holding back to get to kind of a comfort zone. 

P: Yeah. 

E: So I’ve never given birth before. So what do I know about how hard to push? So then I pushed and pushed in? Yeah, I think I was in there about an hour. I don’t know. It’s all that part’s kind of a blur. But

P: God, talk about waiting at home until the last minute, because well done. That’s extremely German engineering. That’s hard to top that. So when the baby is born, do you know are you hoping they don’t cut the cord and they put the baby on your chest? Or do you have any?

E: they did cut the cord? The cord and then yes, she came right on my chest and we didn’t know the sex either. So we really were expecting a boy and it was a girl. I mean, who cares? Right because I have a baby finally. 

P: Yeah, 

E: like a frickin miracle. Like I finally I get one finally you know so and then she nursed straightaway and all that went pretty easily for me too. And kind of like I had like the hell of getting pregnant and then like, like the reward of a good birth and easy pregnancy and

all that. So 

P: yeah. That is amazing. And it sounds like maybe the fourth trimester was not too trying, because you would have you’d seen it before you had experience. She could breastfeed pretty

well. 

E: You know, my mother said to me, nothing can prepare you for the first six weeks. And I think that was a really wonderful thing to say. And I always say to new moms too, because there does come this shift after six weeks. 

P: Yeah, 

E: you know, absolutely. Like, I don’t think I was more prepared than anybody else other than knowing like this entity will end but

P: but also that freeze gives you some sense that words can’t capture the difficulty or the hardship or the pain or the lack of sleep or the combination of all those things what that will feel like

E: Right. I mean, and I think that was really like liberating. You know, my mom just say like, nothing can prepare you so like, whatever there’s it’s not your fault, or there’s nothing you can do. Yeah, you can set up the crib and you can have the changing table and all of that stuff. You can prepare that way but emotionally and mentally can’t be prepared for that how absorbing and how exhausting and 24/7 It is.

P: Yeah, yeah. Well, good. So that is an amazing story of triumph. The girls are a couple years apart. It sounds like

E: oh, they’re three years apart. Yeah. So then my second daughter, yeah, again, it was never never trying. Right. It was like we never tried we just had sex and kind of let it go. So yeah, that was a huge surprise. I was 44 

P: Yeah. So you were you imagining to have another one or you were just Well, 

E: I was just it was funny because like to my closest friends in the neighborhood. Had we all had kids the same year or first were the same age. And then they were both pregnant. You know, 

P: wow. 

E: Yeah, with their second third like that one’s six years younger was 10 years younger. So they were younger, you know, than I am everybody. So everybody’s younger. With kids this age, but so I just was starting to kind of feel sorry for myself. Like I knew was I felt like it was too much to ask for but I did you know, want a second, of course just for her to have a sibling. But again, it was like a huge surprise a big surprise that I got pregnant with Alice and you know, happy surprise, but that pregnancy was not as easy.

P: So that one you find out because you miss your period. And that’s happy news  when you get the result.

E: Yeah, yeah. Surprising. 

P: And then what happens? 

E: So my first trimester is fine, kind of like the first one not a lot of morning sickness. And so we’re so in the midst of all and I’m thinking about I was listening to Naomi’s your Interview with Neil before. And so she went through that whole situation where her son was born and then her mother father died. Yeah.

P: Okay, so here Eileen is referencing Naomi’s story. That’s episode 51. And she’s talking about how her father died not long after the birth of her son, and its dramatic impact on her.

E: So my husband and I had been through that so like when this like first was born. In November of 06 and then in 08, ah, my mother in law died. So we spent like the first year of Lucille is like my husband’s French, like going back and forth to France, and he’s an only child. So so she died in 08 and then right after that. My father died. My father got sick and died in 09. Yeah, so it was like three months after my father passed away, I found out I was pregnant. So that was kind of cool. You know, like sad. too, because like in the process, we lost two of our 

P: Yeah. 

E: grandparents. So. So we had to go back to France that summer, because my husband was settling his mother’s state. So okay, so you know, I You heard how I had a miscarriage in Ireland. So when I got pregnant with my first, I’m not traveling anywhere when I’m pregnant. Totally staying put. I’m not going anyplace.

P: To give a little context to Eileen is talking about here her miscarriage in Ireland. I’m going to read another short section from her piece on fertility that she published in Toast at this point, she’s 33. And in her first trimester, she’s in Ireland, and her husband is back in the States. She miscarries in the shared bathroom of her b&b In the very early morning. There’s a lot of blood she’s just alerted her parents to the drama unfolding in the bathroom, she writes:  

I heard the paramedic stomp up the stairs. They lifted me off the floor. They swaddled me in maxi pads stacked one on top of the other shiniest move. I had an iPhone that I could unapologetically bleed into this Barbie sized mattress. As they helped me down the stairs the owner of the b&b lent me like gave me a cracker. The paramedics strapped on a gurney and bullied me into the ambulance. My mother jumped in the doors slammed and I watched my father grim faced as we pulled away in that rain speckled square window. I watched him shake his head light sharp in the lenses of his glasses. He ran a hand through his strict with grey black hair was still in his pajamas, flannel pants, leather jacket, overweight T. Then he grew smaller and smaller as the siren began as odd wailing. 

I was so relieved to be lying flat. And yet as I watched those green Irish Hills roll by, I felt again like a failure. My great grandmother in Bandon had birthed 10 children. My grandmother emigrated to Chicago and had 10 children. My mother had nine children, it seemed like to not manage one. The Moody gray clouds, the rocky walls, the abandoned castles, the herds of cows grazing and the lurid grass I watched all of it to the oblong window, I felt an elemental kinship with the landscape. The souls of the famine dead haunting the ditches, the fertile Irish landscape that was keenly linked to starvation, to death, and to ludicrously high birth rates. 

We’ll get back to the second pregnancy now you can find a link to this piece in the show notes.

E: Because Alice was such a surprise we had booked a trip to France for July. Okay, way before I even knew I was pregnant. 

P: Yeah. 

E: So we went to France. worked a lot on getting this state settled. I have a two year old and I’m pregnant. And I’m 44. So toward the end of the trip, all of a sudden, I could not urinate. I couldn’t I wake up the morning and I wouldn’t have to go pee and I was like, well, that’s kind of weird. And then it got worse and worse. And then I couldn’t pee at all. And so like we’re leaving for we’re leaving France and okay so my mother in law had a house on this little island in France. Okay, so this little island off the coast of Brittany is quite idyllic is blah, blah, blah, but healthcare wise, it’s kind of a nightmare. 

P: Yeah. 

E: So we go see this doctor. And this kind of, you know, he’s like, my husband’s like, my wife is in pain. You know, she has my stomach is starting to get big because my bladders full. I’m thinking I’m like, Oh, I’m really gonna show him you know, it’s actually not my uterus is my bladder. And every time like driving the car, everything hurts like nothing hurts like what this hurts. So the doctor is like, oh, mais bien sur, you know, she’s in pain or like, and he pulls out this PDR physicians desk reference from like, at that point, 2009 This is like the 1999 version and he prescribes, so yeah, describes this antibiotic for me. We run it we get it filled in, in France. It’s like a powder that you put in water. 

P; Okay. 

E: Well, that thing made me so sick and leave the next day and I was like, vomiting the whole way home. So I’m not pregnant. I got a two year old to get on. A boat and to get on three trains and then I fly back to Chicago. And I’m sick, and I’m puking and I can’t pee. Release me can pee this may be TMI is when I puke. So anyway, we get back to Chicago and I’m scheduled for my ultrasound. So you know I have to full bladder. 

P: Yeah. yeah, Done. 

E: They’re like your bladder is too full. We can’t see your uterus at all. So they should have like, sent me to the ER and catheterized me right. But they did it another day or two went on. I can like I can’t even tell you like seriously I’d rather go through labor than that pain. So finally we go to er they catheterized me dream you know an ungodly amount for my bladder and then and then we can figure it out. So so like the ER Doc’s are med students and they’re kind of like we think maybe, you know, you’re you’ve got a tipped uterus and that’s blocking your urethra or it’s this or that, you know, and, and then like three days later, I’m back in the ER because I still wasn’t getting another one, you know, so at that point, they put me on a Foley and I’m catherized for now this is what’s weird is unlike safely into my second trimester trimester, but I like you know, I’ve got a fully strapped on my leg. 

P: Yeah, 

E: actually, I’d rather have that than the pain so that goes on for a couple of weeks. But then they’re like can only have a fully in for so long. It’s because of the risk of infection and Eileen, you have to learn to catherize yourself. 

P: Are you kidding? 

E: So my husband and I go to a urologist in here, so learn how to do it. And we’re both you know, it’s just it’s just like a nightmare like it is the hardest thing for a woman to do to herself. Or, you know, if you’re a man, it’s not so hard, but for women, it’s very difficult. So I kind of give up on this whole thing. And so my sister, my older sister, who’s a nurse, we just cannot figure this out. We cannot figure out how to get there. And she said, well just start measuring your pee. Just Just see how much comes out. And if a little bit more comes out every time. You know, that’s a good sign. So I just started measuring it, measuring it measuring and eventually I’m just like back to normal. I don’t know why. They don’t know why. Nobody knows what happened. But I so I go back to the neurologists, like two weeks later and they’re like, how’s it catherizeing going? Like, I kind of stopped you know, and I don’t know if this is another example of that mind over matter kind of thing where I can’t go through this process like or maybe like the uterus

grew. 

P: Yeah. And shifted. Yeah, yeah.

E: In the urethra, whatever. The plumbing. You know, worked itself out. So but Oh, and also what was tough about that pregnancy was you know, I went in for all the alpha feta protein tests and everything and I got irregular results. And so then you wait what to 20 to 22 weeks before they can actually see if there’s anything wrong. 

P: Yeah. 

E: And so my doctor was like, Look, you’re because of your age, your results are skewing against you so don’t take it too hard. You know, just see what happens. So we go for the ultrasound. And my daughter, Allison, she’s just all curled up. She will not and the whole thing that they’re checking for at that point is her chamber formation. And you can see that all four chambers of the harder developing properly, and if they aren’t, then it’s I think they were thinking it was Trisomy 18. 

P: Okay. 

E: And so she just would not show her heart. She was just like this in the in the ultrasound technicians taking longer and longer and longer and I’m getting more and more freaked out, and we’re waiting and they can’t get a read. And so, you know, imagine, you know how the heart your pumping heart gets registered on the ultrasound mines like thump, thump, thump, right? I was just like, oh God, and so then they brought in. Finally the doctor came in. And he was just super chill, very relaxed, kind of nerdy guy and he just was like, she just like it was like a magic wand. Like he just did this thing with the ultrasound and then Alice just opened up and showed her heart and it looks perfect

P: That’s exciting.

E: So that was great, you know, and then after that, it was fine. The pregnancy was fine. But it was it was a rough second trimester. 

E: Yeah, that sounds rough. Good Lord. That does sound like a movie script. You wouldn’t believe right? If you read it, you’d be like, come on. The French doctor. Come on. 

E: The French doctor mais bien sur…, you know, he’s so arrogant. Oh my god. And then you know, this this hot. I mean, it was like I never wanted to like I just wanted to get to a major medical facility. Yeah, yeah, I was so terrified. Well, once we made it to Paris, and I called my doctor at Northwestern, I said, I’m scared I can’t keep any food down. You know, I couldn’t eat anything. And I’m really afraid for the baby. And the doctor was so sweet. She’s just like babies getting exactly what she needs. She’s taken that all from you. 

P: yeah, yeah, Yeah, 

E: it will be the baby will be fine. You’re the one that’s suffering, but the babies know how to get what they need. Out of the mother. So and then I said, Well, how am I gonna get on this eight hour flight without throwing up and she said tiny slips of paper without dehydrating. 

P: yeah, yeah

E: And she’s a tiny sips of water every 10 minutes. And that’s what I did. I could keep that much down, you know, and I just kept doing tiny sips of water and that’s, that’s up the nausea and that can be hydrate, you know, so just like those little, those little nuggets of advice are so precious, you know, like, really helps. So yeah, so the pregnancy got better. 

P: And what was the birth redo of the first one?

E: Even faster. 

P: Wow. 

E: Yeah. So what was weird about Ellis is Selena was born my first was born on her due date. So you know, you think your second birth is gonna be your second is going to be exactly like the first well this reconciling in your mind that like, it’s not. So I my water broke at night, a week before Alex was due and I was like, well, that is so weird. That’s not how it works usually explode in the elevator, you know? So, and again, that was mostly at 1030. At night. I call my Doula we leave her for a few hours labor totally stops. We go about our day. My sister came in took my oldest overnight, you know, because we thought it was so that was like 10 on a Saturday night and then Alice was born at 10 on a Sunday night. It was Super Bowl Sunday. So again, nothing had walked around, spent the day kind of walking, eating napping, and then labor kicked in and around eight at night. And so same time, we might actually know that you’re saying that. And so my Doula had left. She had come and  she had left. And then it was like eight and I said and of course because I’m thinking this is gonna be exactly the same as my first baby. So I called her and I said, and she was she had no car she was she writes bike everywhere. So she was in she was half hour away. And I said, don’t rush. It’s fine. It’s early, you know? Like, don’t don’t, don’t worry about it. And so then the contractions start coming. So my husband starts giving me massages between the contractions, right? This is also like, really a true story. And so he has this drum. So he started kind of drumbing for me. And it was like, it was like the drum and the contraction. All of a sudden, I just had this huge contraction, and I was like, Oh my God, right? Like I’m about to have this baby like, I was like, I’m gonna have a baby. So we were like, I can, I can feel this thing coming, you know? And so, and I have, like, if I honestly call it I was like, if I squat and make is so, so we call the doula and we’re like, Oh, I think she’s actually coming. So she’s like, I’ll meet you at the hospital. Right? So, again, we jump in the car. And we’re going we’re going down Wilson Avenue, my husband is speeding, and I’m like, now at this point, I’m crossing my legs. together to keep from giving birth like I’m holding this baby in we’re like going down Wilson and he’s he’s driving super fast and super bowl sunday is at night not too many people on the road. 

P: Yeah. 

E: And this he started speeding up and then someone starts drag racing with us and we’re like, inching down. It’s a two lanes and we’re not there to guard side by side. Finally, I look at them and I go, I’m about to have a baby, right. Oh, you can pass. So then he’s doing like 65 and a 45. We pull up the like to the to the hospital in the wrong the wrong way on a one way street. I go in there. And they’re like triage and I’m like, um, um…do like you need to go the bathroom. I’m gonna have this baby in the toilet. And sure enough, some find that get in there. And I’m 10 centimeters. 

P: wow

E: I’m 10 centimeters in the oven. This another doctor comes in. She goes, Well, I mean, this is how you’re gonna do it. This is how you got to do it, you know? So then Alice was born pretty quickly. And interestingly, her birth story was she she had her little hand on her cheek put her umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck and her wrist. And so thankfully, because of her fist on her cheek, she didn’t get strangled by the umbilical cord. So that was another piece of luck, right? 

P: Yes. 

E: And all these things.

P: I mean, there’s a lot of lucky things in that both of your kids have picked like national holidays so that you don’t have to like you don’t have to mess with the traffic getting to the hospital.

E: I mean, I probably could have had a home birth with the second you know, but I was too nervous to do that. I’d had some friends who’d had some pretty rough experiences with home births. And given my own history, I just wonder is that 

P: so that’s amazing. Yeah, so that’s easy, too. And that fourth trimester was probably a little easier because you knew what to expect.

E: Yeah, especially the birds do like I totally knew what to expect. So yeah, so that was good. You know, it all worked out. But it was a long journey, right.

P: It was a long journey. And it sounds like you’re did you write the essay and toast before you had the kids or where does that fall in line? 

E: So after? Yeah, so like I wrote it? I don’t know. I think it was published in 2015 or 16 and Alice’s point in 2010. So

P: so you had more time to process that from a different perspective.

E: Right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It’s weird because I feel like birth stories and fertility stories and pregnancy stories. You know, there’s so many different iterations of how it goes you know, there’s you got those women who get pregnant right away. Super easy, and they’re like, it’s like, their lives change so fast. 

P: Yeah. Yeah. 

E: You know, they were the kinds of people that I envy back in the day, you know, but at the same time, it’s like, they didn’t really like there. They didn’t have time to, you know, really get how precious it is, in a sense, like, what a privilege. 

P: Yeah,

E:  motherhood is.

P: Yeah, if it comes easily, right, that lesson is not as obvious.

E: Yeah, and I think I think it’s you know, I think once you go through all everything that I went through, then like, even when it’s really tough being a mother, you’re I was always so like, oh my god, I can’t believe I get to be one. 

P: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that totally makes sense. I have a similar I have a similar awe about it. And I also have an awe of about the whole process. Just because it’s so many things have to fall in place. It’s just the right time and there’s got to be luck. There’s got to be all kinds of things, none of which you control everything which you imagine you control. Right. There’s just a lot. A lot going on that if you are in a position where things don’t come easily, you can see all those thresholds.

E: And the weird thing about pregnancy and motherhood in miscarriage is you hear it all the time. It’s it’s such a common thing, right? We all have these experiences in our lives like you, you know, you went to graduate school, the University of Chicago like that is not common, right. But becoming a mother’s is really common. Like so many people go through that. And yet it’s so extraordinary. 

P: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I do think I was terrified. of birth. And I kept telling myself, you know, how many hundreds of millions of people have done this, right? This is a doable thing. But in your own, on your own journey in your own life in your own experience. It just it takes on something different, right. It is a totally different animal.

E: Right, right. And and, you know, that’s why like, there were a lot of things for me that I really, when it came to birth, you know, I was reading a lot about Ina May Garter, you know, like, it’s like, this is a natural process that women have been doing forever and I really did not want to turn it over. You know, the power of that over in a way but we haven’t jokes to my family because like certain of us have very high thresholds for pain and other people in my family has super low press thresholds. I happen to be a high threshold person. So like, I really, yeah, yeah, I mean, like, I know that I could impose because my experience of miscarriage too, I was just like, okay, I can I can deal with this pain. I can manage this pain, but I know that that’s not the same for every woman, right? I mean, like, many women are just like, give me that epidural, you know, bring on the drugs. But yeah,

I don’t blame that. You know. It’s fine. Like, I don’t want to be like, you have to do it my way, kind of mother, because that’s a trap that women get into against each other, right? Yeah, the kids are how you get pregnant or how you give birth or is it a season like all of those judgment things, and ranking of what’s most superior is really toxic. 

P: Yeah, I totally agree. In fact, I saw some maybe it was a New York Times headline this morning about the baby food shortage which you know, my husband and I discussed like, oh my god, it’s so scary. What would you do a week I breastfeed at all so we that definitely would have been us. And you know, the New York Times article said something like people are telling them to just breastfeed

E:  it’s too late. 

P: Like you have no people can’t force feed like it just there’s a million things that go into that. Right. So to suggest just breastfeed is doesn’t make any sense, right? There’s no I mean, in

a lot of women, like my niece has had a six month old Well, she can’t suddenly start breastfeeding months in late, you know, like, so that I know it’s so frightening for those women I feel really bad about that must be

so scary. 

E: Yeah, is I’m feeling scared. And I my youngest ones 18. So I can only imagine. I can only imagine what they’re going through. I’m stressed on their behalf. 

P: Well, thank you so much for coming and sharing your story. It’s an amazing story and I will link to your essay. Thank you toast and if there’s anything else you want to join to them and your website or anything else.

E: I do have a website, eileenfavorite.com I mean favorite.com It’s got other content. I have a novel called the heroines that came out when I was actually so when I was pregnant with my first which is kind of cool. Wow. And yes, so I’m a professor and there’s all kinds of things on that website. They’re not necessarily about parenting, but other creative things I do.

P: That sounds awesome. All right. Well, I’ll link that. 

E: Thank you. Thanks for

giving me the opportunity to speak with you. It was really fun time.

P: Thanks again to Eileen for sharing her story. I think reflecting on everything that’s happened over the course of the 10 years. She and her partner were interested and are ultimately not directly interested in having kids. It’s a very unique personal set of experiences. And as she said last week, each person processes miscarriage differently. And we as a culture should make space for all these differences and hold them gently. Thanks for listening. We’ll be back next week with another inspiring story.

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Episode 68SN: One Woman’s Experience with Recurrent Miscarriage: Eileen’s Story, Part I

 In today’s episode, my guests challenge is with miscarriage. She has two miscarriages both at the end of the first trimester, and then uses IVF (despite the fact that getting pregnant isn’t the issue)…and get’s pregnant, and has a miscarriage….eventually she becomes the mother of two girls, but that’s later in the story. She is a writer, and in one of her pieces about this topic  called On Fertility in Toast magazine she writes: When you give birth, you do it with others. When you miscarry, you do it alone. Even if doctors and nurses are present, numbing you, holding your hand, giving gentle instructions, they’re not with you, because what’s happening is both too awful, and too common, to be shared. Nobody wants co-ownership of the failed human. Many don’t even consider it human.

Even if your father is driving you to the hospital in his buttery yellow Lincoln, or even if your mother is riding in the ambulance with you, or even if you husband and sister are outside the procedure room waiting, you’re still alone. There was a person/being/cluster of cells that was alive inside you, and now it’s not. Times three. It happened when I was 31, 33, and 38.

I’ll stop reading there and you can hear my guest describe her experience…our conversation is broken into two parts. In this first part I also spoke with a doctor whose specialty is recurrent miscarriage and he shares insights from his own research and experience.

To find Eileen’s writing in The Toast, go here

To find Dr. Kutteh’s paper on a new algorithm for recurrent miscarriage, go here

Audio Transcript

Paulette: Hi welcome to war stories from the womb. I’m your host Paulette kamenecka. Im an economist and a writer and the mother of two girls.  In today’s episode, my guests challenge is with miscarriage. She has two miscarriages both at the end of the first trimester, and then uses IVF (despite the fact that getting pregnant isn’t the issue)…and get’s pregnant, and has a miscarriage….eventually she becomes the mother of two girls, but that’s later in the story. She is a writer, and in one of her pieces about this topic called On Fertility in Toast magazine she writes: 

When you give birth, you do it with others. When you miscarry, you do it alone. Even if doctors and nurses are present, numbing you, holding your hand, giving gentle instructions, they’re not with you, because what’s happening is both too awful, and too common, to be shared. Nobody wants co-ownership of the failed human. Many don’t even consider it human.

Even if your father is driving you to the hospital in his buttery yellow Lincoln, or even if your mother is riding in the ambulance with you, or even if you husband and sister are outside the procedure room waiting, you’re still alone. There was a person/being/cluster of cells that was alive inside you, and now it’s not. Times three. It happened when I was 31, 33, and 38.

I’ll stop reading there and you can hear my guest describe her experience…our conversation is broken into two parts. In this first part I also spoke with a doctor whose specialty is recurrent miscarriage and he shares insights from his own research and experience.

Let’s get to this inspiring story…

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

Eileen: My name is Eileen favorite. And I’m from Chicago, Illinois.

P: Nice. Excellent. So Eileen, we’re going to talk about the family that you have created. But sometimes the family you’ve created is a reflection in some ways of the family you came from. So I’m just wondering, did you grow up with siblings? Did you know you wanted to have a family what what’s your background like in those in those respects?

E: I grew up with siblings. I grew up with eight siblings. Wow. I I’m the number eight of nine. So yes, I always anticipated that I would have children and I have two girls.

P: Wow, that’s amazing. eight of nine is amazing. So imagining you all are pretty close in age.

E: Yes. My mother had the first four in four years. And then I don’t know, after that every two years so there were nine of us born in 13 years. 

P: God that’s like an amazing accomplishment to be to be honest. Wow. So we all know that’s hard work.

E: Right. So she my mother was 24 when she had her first and 37 when she had her last.

P: Wow. Okay, so that led to you thinking you definitely wanted the family. Did you want a large family? 

E: No. 

P: Okay. Okay. Probably also related right to your experience

E: more just you know, the financial realities of a huge family definitely shifted over time. You know, it was much everything was a little bit cheaper when my parents were coming up right homeownership education, all that good stuff. So I knew that for me that would not be in the game in the cards.

P: So let’s talk about your family then. Before you got pregnant. What did you imagine that would be like?

E: Well, so I have five sisters. So I pretty much watched all my sisters have babies from the time I was 13. I had my first nephew Wow. So I was always around kids, little kids being kids, you know, always so I don’t feel like I had any kind of illusions about it. Having been an adult so young, and then having much my sisters have babies and see their struggles and see their happiness. 

P: And so you didn’t imagine that you weren’t necessarily walking into some easy process.

E: No, no. No, I knew what it was like my sister had her first baby when she was 21. So you know, she was young. She got married young, she was you know, I was so I was babysitting at 14, you know, and she and her husband wanted to go out and parties, you know, so like, I was watching pretty young babies from a young age.

P: Wow, that’s good training, actually. 

E: Yeah, 

P: so was it easy to get pregnant the first time well,

E: so you know, my story is that it took me 10 years of infertility and miscarriages before I had a baby. So my my first pregnancy was like, Hey, let’s try to get pregnant and yeah, we got pregnant right away, but then I miscarried. So that was when I was 31. And then it was two years before I got pregnant again, at 33. And then I miscarried again, and then I didn’t get it.

P: Wait, let me let me stop you right there for a second. So at this point, then now what’s our view? I have one miscarriage and for the next pregnancy, I was, you know, on DEF CON two for the whole thing. Yeah, I’m wondering if you took it the same way or you thought this is a process and this is how it works?

E: Oh, no, they were. They were devastating for me. The miscarriages were really hard and really unexpected too because as you can hear I come from this very fertile background. My mother had nine children. She was one of 10 herself. Wow. And my grandmother was an Irish immigrant. And she came from like a family of 10 in Ireland, you know, so like I come from this long line of hyper fertile women. Yeah, so I never expected it to be a problem for me.

P: I brought this question about genetics and fertility to an expert.Today, we’re lucky to have Dr. William Kutteh. On the show. He’s the director of fertility associates of Memphis and board certified and reproductive endocrinology and infertility. Thanks so much for coming on the show. 

Dr. Kutteh: Thank you. 

P: Before we get into the specifics, Eileen’s mother and grandmother are both from really large families like 10 kids. I mean, herself is one of eight kids. And she was saying that she expected because she comes from what she described as a hyper fertile line that she would have kids easily wondering, is is a hyper fertilized thing or is fertility has no basis in genetics or how do we think about that?

Dr. Kutteh: That’s an interesting that’s an interesting point. Many people think that what are super fertile meaning that their problem is not they can get pregnant if they can easily get pregnant.

Issues then the study is what to do different about her family, and in many cases was this concept of uterine receptivity, how receptive is the embryo and neuter and selectivity. So in a normal, fertile woman who’s not having miscarriages?  She has a selection mechanism. In the years that allows computers to discriminate between the normal embryos that may be genetically abnormal. And if the embryos genetically abnormal in individual, normal reproductive potential, like her mother, then in most cases, we believe that that abnormal embryo never attached. She would not get pregnant. And next month, maybe a good embryo come along, she would get pregnant. In case of some women, I don’t know about this. Because this is all research and there’s not a test. I can draw blood or do a sample or whatever. We think that something about that selective mechanism of the uterus to discriminate between an abnormal and a normal embryo is altered in a way that uterus no longer is capable of doing a good job of saying is this going to be a medically normal, or is this going to be an abnormal embryo? And it can’t discern. So, you know, reproduction is complicated. There’s a lot of waste along the way. There’s a lot of duplicity. There’s a lot of excess on your test sperm A man may have millions and millions of sperm. Thanks for one fertilized the same thing, women that have hundreds of 1000s of eggs at birth, and they may have two three or four children typically. So the selectivity years in this individual that male say it was super fertile. It can grab the embryo, its ability to select out that embryo that’s normal, abnormal, is weak or under functioning or not not working well. And therefore the uterus holds on the embryos that normally would never attached. There’s another screening mechanism in a woman’s reproductive system that looks at that India when it’s a quarter of an inch and a half an inch in size 6,7,8,9 weeks for most miscarriages curve, and somehow we don’t understand somehow says this one, there’s this genetic problem or that genetic problem. And therefore, we’re going to shut down all maternal support to this particular pregnancy and we call that a mystery. So this is an individual’s this may be what was going on. She’s still able to produce eggs, they’re still able to get pregnant they’re still able to get to the uterus and attach and start knowing that that selective mechanism, which embryo implants in which, somehow

  

Eileen: so yeah, so it was really tough after the first one, and then, you know, I kind of got into that, you know, I think women go through infertility, you go through this sort of like, let’s try to get pregnant and then all the kind of rigmarole of like sex on timing and temperatures and your legs up the wall and all of that stuff. And after a while, that would get really a strain, you know, on the marriage. So, I would we would sort of go through like, let’s just stop trying, you know, with scare quotes, stop trying, you know, because it was sort of like even a verb itself is an action, that it has an underlying sort of feeling of desperation about it. And so you kind of let it go and then I got pregnant again, in the middle of graduate school, but how, and then I miscarried again. So at that point, I was, yeah, I was 33. In the summer between my MFA. I’d gotten one year down and I was going into my second year, and then I miscarried over the summer and then it was really five years before I got pregnant again.

P: So after the second one, do doctors say okay, if you’ve had two miscarriages, we need to look at X, Y, and Z.

E: Nope. It’s all falls under that. This is so common, and it happens to lots of women and the percentages whatever I think the percentages are like 25% of pregnancies end in miscarriage. So and I didn’t have tests to see, you know, the chromosomal test. Well, that to say my second miscarriage happened in Ireland. So you know, it was I was on vacation, so like it really wasn’t even discussed the idea of like doing a chromosome test.

P: One thing about Eileen’s case is that after she experienced her second miscarriage, there weren’t any tests run to determine what was the issue, and she was basically told that it’s common to miscarry. What’s the standard of care for recurrent miscarriage now?

Dr. Kutteh: The last dozen years or so there’s been a emphasis particularly from arboreta knowledge, that when a woman has an experience, whether she passes, whether she has medically induced passes or that tissue surgically collected, that it should be sent for genetic testing and the reason is not necessarily that he’s going to change any medical treatment that we do. It changes the way we think about that history. And hopefully the way that that individual patient or her partner, think about that mystery,

P: It makes sense to get tested in one of your papers you described all the things that can contribute to miscarriage. Does the testing involve the genetic testing of the products of the miscarriage or it’s everything

Dr. Kutteh: no society has been recommending that I have heard that the American Society of Reproductive Medicine was revising their guidelines. And in medicine, as I said, it may take eight to 10 years before changes, impact appear. To be is reasonable care for patients, like one of the factors also showed a study that prospective study on your 100 patients where we did all the guideline test and we did the test on the miscarriage. We tried to figure out what’s the most cost effective and beneficial and what will be less than those to answer. And when you add that medic question on the miscarriage to the standard, recommended gobbling effect now, we can give an answer to about 90% of people. There’s no more so sorry that bad luck kind of thing. We don’t understand what’s going on. You can give them a pretty good idea of what’s happened. Then we always can fix it, but at least we can say what it is and what our chances are in the future.

Eileen: Then five years went by without getting pregnant again. And I decided to try fertility treatments. So I went through I went through a round of IVF I got pregnant and then I miscarried again.

P: So did the miscarriages happen at the same point?

E: Pretty much yeah, pretty much like around nine somewhere between the nine to 11 weeks. Point always in the first trimester, which tends to be a chromosomal issue, right? Okay. So on this, I’m the third one. I said, Look, I want to cry, I want to test you know, I want to see what went wrong. And so sure enough, there was it was Trisomy 16. So there was an extra chromosome or allele or whatever. So that was sort of comforting. Knowing that’s what it was because I think for a lot of women when you have this really, you know, there’s a lot of like self blame like what did I do wrong? Did I drink coffee? Did I you know, have too much stress did that you know like and then you realize like that really helped me realize like, the problem happened at conception. Really, really small kind of microscopic level when I have absolutely no control and and that that sort of really helped.

P: Yeah, I think the truth of it is, for the most part, we don’t have much control at all over any of the pregnancy. So the idea that it’s your fault, I think is based on this belief that I could have done something different because I control this process in my body when really you’re not controlling any of it.

E: Right. Oh, you know, and it was really funny because when I got pregnant, again to talk a little bit about space between so I had I had another miscarriage I was 38 and I think by the time I turned 14, I was like ready to accept, like, I’m not going to be a mother. You know, like, this is not in the cards for me. I made my peace with that. And I think it’s really I want to be really careful when I talk about something like that because I feel like a lot of women who mystery get told you just need to relax. You just ate and then you get pregnant and again, this idea of control around but also like us sort of faulting the mother for being too anxious or something to get pregnant. You know, like

P: It’s you It’s your anxiety. That’s right. Yeah, yeah. 

E: So I really want to I really want to like express that like I did deep. But I don’t want to prescribe that path toward fertility. Because I think that’s really a dangerous thing to say to any woman. And like I don’t want anyone to like say that but I can say that, like in myself. I had reconciled it. You know, it was 10 years. Yeah, years of trying to get pregnant. I was like, I’m kind of done with this thing that’s just not working.

P: And in the end, the whole process is stressful. We had a lot of trouble getting pregnant and I remember like once the sex becomes work yeah, you’ve stripped away kind of the fun, and it’s now it’s just stressful. You’re in it for an outcome. And that’s, that kind of takes some of the joy out of it for sure.

E: Right. And so like I just, I’m a yogi, so I’ve been practicing yoga for a long time. And so like I really I really saw that like mind body connection. And I really believe in that mind body connection. At the same time. I don’t want to say that like it’s something you can just will yourself to have, like it has to be a deep conversion within the self. And no one should tell anybody else. Just that though, you know, but I will say that I did deeply let go when I turned 40 And I was just like, that’s okay, I’m gonna be able to do other things with my life, yada yada. And that’s when I got pregnant. What was really interesting was during that first trimester so I’m I’m a I’m a professor, so I was teaching one night. I was you know, very early in the pregnancy, maybe about 1011 weeks, and I went to the bathroom on the break, and I was bleeding. And I was like, Okay, I’ll tell you what’s also funny. At the same time, my sister was pregnant. My sister was two years older than I am. And so she was she was even older than I was. She was 42. I was 40. It was pretty much going through and she was six months pregnant. And when I told her that I was pregnant, I said okay, let’s just get ready because I’m gonna miscarry when you have your baby. So let’s just, let’s just get ready for that, you know? Like, let’s just, she was like, whatever you need to say, sister, you know, whatever. You know, whatever. Whatever makes you feel like yep. So let’s just say that’s going to happen. And so I called her that night and I said, I’m spotting. And she was like, okay, and I said, this is totally out of my hands. Either there’s the right number of chromosomes, or there is right yeah, 

P: yeah. 

E: And, and I really, I really believed that finally, you know, I really believe like, this is completely out of my hands. If this is going wrong. It’s nothing I did. It happened 11 weeks ago with sperm egg. And that’s all we have to do. So I went the next morning, I went to see my doctor, and we are going to start crying. And he gives me the old ultrasound wand, you know, because I’ve had been through so many, you know, three really horrible ultrasound, and he was like, we’ve got a heartbeat and I could not believe it. You know, I was like, and he goes if you’ve got a heartbeat that’s strong at this point. That’s probably going to work.

P: Wow. Oh my god. One thing I want to say about the miscarriages which are super painful, kind of amazing that your body can distinguish what’s going on chemistry is saying, Oh, this this sperm combination will not develop into a person. Yeah. And that in itself is like unbelievably cool wisdom that you can’t control.

E: No, you can’t control it. You know,

P: I mean, when I miscarried, I was doing a lot of computer programming at the time. And so that’s the way I thought of it is like, Oh, my body has figured out that this is not going to go to some endpoint. So it’s and that to me was a little bit comforting because I was doing this programming and you know, you get this error, you know, obnoxious beep and error message every time your code wasn’t working. I love it. And so, like that helped me get through to say, you know, this is kind of like

E: you’re articulating something. I think that’s really important for people to remember is that every room is going to encounter this experience in a different way. And they’re going to find comfort in all these different ways. And some people they might find it like, well, it was God’s will or it might be something else, you know, might be well, data error. Yeah, like not the right chromosome number, you know, whatever. But like we have to make space for like, all the different responses and like give voice to them. Yeah, because the culture hates to talk about miscarriage and, and people said the wrong thing to me because they didn’t know what to say. 

P: Yeah, yeah. I think people don’t know what to do with those sad feelings, right? Or how to talk about loss and for sure, I was upset and disappointed but in our you know, singular journey was a big deal to have gotten pregnant. And so we kind of held on to that.

E: Yeah, and I think for me, it was kind of weird to because I had didn’t have any problem getting pregnant. Pregnant, so I resisted, like fertility treatments for a long time because of that. And then when I turned 38 I was like, Alright, I better at least try this IVF because I don’t want to look back and regret it. Yeah. And then after I miscarried after one IVF round, which is horrible. I think I think that was worse, you know, and I mean, because you go through all the needles in the shots and that’s and all this stuff and like the fertility doctor was just like rooting for me, you know? And then, and then I went through another round, and I didn’t get pregnant. And I think that maybe contributed to just be like, okay, you know what I mean? Like, I think I in my head, I said, Look, I’d rather never be pregnant again. Then go through another miscarriage.

P: Yeah, it’s just it’s so much more complicated than we are willing to admit or thinking.

E: I was speaking with a friend of mine who just had a miscarriage a couple of months ago, and she was just like, it’s really hard to get pregnant. You know, she’s like, there’s only like this really small window every month. You know, the timing has to be just perfect. Yeah. Like, I know, it is really small when you start breaking it down and trying. 

P: Yeah, it’s just, it’s kind of a miracle that it even happens, you know, around 

E: Yep, I agree. Luck has such a huge it’s such a huge player in the whole process. Yeah, I feel Yeah, I mean, that was kind of what I came down to in the end. I just sort of went you know, I’ve just, I just had bad luck. Like, you know, like, up until that point, I was like, I’m just on the bad side of the of the odds. Yeah, yeah. Like bearing the brunt of the odds for all the women you know, like because I’m very you know, like, I’m, I’m like, oh, for three and, you know, that’s, I’m not gonna do the math right. But you’re, you know, I’m saying represent our miscarriages that I’m miscarrying more, carry my share. 

P: So how common would you say do we have real statistics on how common miscarriages

Dr. Kutteh: recurrent miscarriage?  Yes. So it’s a hard study to do because you need to, if you asked me how many patients every year we did a study when I was in Dallas at Parkland Hospital, it’s a non referred population. patient demographics are roughly a third Hispanic, Caucasian, a third African American, and at that time, there were 15 or 16,000 deliveries performed in that hospital every year. Now it’s and went through the database and found how many women had been diagnosed with recurrent miscarriage when I presented the hospital as about 1.5%. Now, that has to be an underestimate because everybody might not come back to that same facility for indigent patients that were saved for that hospital because as I say, less than baseline, if you look at all the other types of studies and literature is probably two three or 4% of all reproductive age couples will experience frequent mistakes your patient for example,  

her pregnancies and standard losses. This is the same with the same, some people said in a baby and we were supposed to see this and say this is normal. 

P: And you pass the 10 week mark in a heartbeat and then what’s our pregnancy like?

E: It was great. I had a really easy pregnancy. I don’t have any I mean, no, not really very little sickness. No, I never. I never had any sickness or nausea, fatigue, you know, no. Weight gain, no, nothing. It was perfect.

P: What were you imagining for the birth?

E: My second miscarriage was in Ireland. And so if you read the essay that I wrote about fertility, which was The Toast, it kind of goes into the blow by blow of that miscarriage but it was pretty traumatic. And I went into labor, basically a mini labor that’s what they call it in Ireland, mini labor, where I was just doing the abortion. It was it was brutal. I’m a writer. So like, as I was going through that, I told myself, I’m going to remember how steals and I remember that it was like, I’d have this like, pounding in my back and then just you know, a flood of tissue. And you know, and so, when I went into birth, right labor, so two things I went through initial childbirth classes and the regular childbirth class, and because I had to write so I gave birth at Northwestern British Women’s Hospital at Northwestern. And so before you could do natural childbirth class, you had to do traditional childbirth class. So I was in that and the whole traditional childbirth class was about epidurals. Yeah. And when you get home and wet, you know, and Pitocin and now it’s kind of like, okay, wait a second. You’re telling me that when I get an epidural, I can’t eat. I can’t walk around, and I won’t feel my leg. I’m thinking, how am I supposed to give birth if I can’t feel my legs? Yeah, I can’t feel my body below the waist. How do you possibly give birth so that was my logic. I know. And I know some women love epidurals so like No, no judgement, but like in my logical Virgo brain, I was like, that doesn’t make any sense. Right? So then I did the National Child Birth class. And they said, the best thing you can do is come to the hospital as late as possible. So and the other thing that I did through my yoga studio was I found an incredible doula. So when I went into labor, I called my Doula whose name is story. And, you know, she came to the house and she was also a massage therapist. So like for every contraction, I got a massage.

P: That’s awesome.

E: So it’s just like in what I was noticing it was that stab in the back feeling that I knew. Yeah. That I had already survived. Yeah. And in my brain, I’m thinking I can get that stab in the back and actually get a baby out of this. No problem. Yeah, you know, so I think like for me, compared to most women going into labor there was that pain fear factor was not as strong because I had been through that other experience with the kind of the catastrophic result of no baby. So I just really migraine I was just like, You know what I can I can take any of this if I get to be at the end. So story came and it was like, Okay, I think we’re, I’m writing down the, you know, the differences, the timing of the contractions, how many how many minutes? How many, you know, and I’m like, I think I’m ready to go to the hospital. I think I’m ready to go and she’s like we’re like up all night and she was ready to just go lie down on the bed for a little while. So she knew like because my my contractions were like kind of all over. They had hit a certain rapidity and so it’s now Thanksgiving morning, you know, Thursday morning at five. Dory and my husband I were off lying on the queen size bed and my labor completely stops, just stops. And so she’s like, okay, you know, I’m gonna go home call me if it starts up again. So she’s like, just walk around and just wait, you know, so I was ready to go the hospital around five in the morning on November 23. And then she talked me out of it. She really talked me out of it, which was great. And so then the whole rest of the next day, I just kind of hung out, walked around, but I didn’t want to go to Thanksgiving dinner. at my mom’s house. I just found had that whole like, feeling that 

P: Yeah, yeah. 

E: And then around eight o’clock that night, the contraction started again. You know, pretty rapid. I called Dory came and basically labored in my living room with her for, I don’t know, maybe three hours, so does your For, I don’t know, maybe three hours. 

P: So does your water break at this point or no water? 

E: Because that’s funny. So, so, so she’s giving me massages. And in she said to me this amazing thing she said, Okay, they know what he’s visualizing right now, like when you’re in when you’re when the contractions are coming in. So I used to live in Southern California, so I was like, Oh, I’m imagining like, you know, diving under the wave, right? You know, I like the waves coming in. So I’m like in my mind of a contraction, just dive in under the way and she said, I hate to tell you this. But in order for your labor to advance you have to stop diving under the wave. You have to let the wave come through you. And I was like, Oh, no. And so that whole idea of the mind body connection told me that like, I was actually keeping myself from progressing. Yeah, my brain was like, I was saving myself. I was keeping my cervix from opening through my own like Jedi mind tricks. So but the way she put it was like, it just I got it, you know, and so then the next contractions that came I didn’t die, you know, and I sort of like let that power come through, you know, and so what’s the what’s the visual now are you getting hit by the wave? Was really felt like the power went came up from below the earth and like, straight through me, like straight up my middle and like, open my cervix, you know, and she enjoys it. I’ve never seen anybody turn labor around that fast. It’s amazing. I know. It’s super amazing. So next thing, you know, and she’s like, Oh, we better get to the hospital right? Because like I

So, I’m in the backseat of the car and on all fours and I’m just like, moaning you know, just like it was really kind of fun. You know? Like, it was just like really letting it all hang out. You know how long a drive is, is are we in for like, 20 minutes? No one is it it’s in. It’s like 10 or 11 at night in the city. So it was Thanksgiving night, so there was like, no traffic. So I’m moaning. We’re going down Lakeshore drive my husband just like flooring it, and then we get to Northwestern. And I’m just like, You know what I loved about it was like, I had no modesty. I was just like, I don’t care moanin I don’t care like whatever. And so we get to triage and they’re like, You’re nine centimeters. 

P: Oh my god. Oh my god. 

E: So they put me on the gurney or whatever. We really into the elevator. Wait, let me ask you a question here. Are you Are you sensing that the waves are getting higher or whatever the whatever the image is, I don’t know what the heck, you know what I mean? Like, I don’t know what it was. I was just like, I was like very mammalian. Let’s just say it was very. I was totally my animal body. So then they really into the elevator and my water breaks  all over, and I was like Take That!

P:  I’m going to end this episode right here, with Eileen very much in labor, with her husband newly surrounded by amniotic fluid. Next Friday the 21st we’ll air the rest of our conversation. 

It’s impossible to listen to Eileen’s story and Dr. Kutteh’s experience and not be awed by the complexity of the project of growing another person. One other statistic that I wanted to add from Dr. Kutteh’s 2020 paper in Current Opinion in Obstetrics and Gynecology that blew me away: and I quote It is appropriate to remember that human reproduc- tion is an extremely inefficient process. Approxi- mately 70% of human conceptions never achieve viability, and nearly 50% spontaneously fade before ever being noticed [21,22]. Spontaneous miscarriage is ultimately the most common complication of pregnancy.

thanks for listening

we’ll be back next week with the rest of Eileen’s story.