Tag: C section

Posted on

Episode 97SN: Her Birth & Postpartum inspired her to find a better way to Postpartum: Kaitlin’s Story, Part I

We–ALL of US (in the US)–are doing Postpartum wrong. Once we experience it with our first born, we learn this, and all make plans to do something different the second time, if there is a second time. Today’s guest wants to change Postpartum for all of us.

In today’s episode, my guest shares the birth and postpartum experience that propelled her out of her work as a special ed teacher in New York City and into the field of birth workers. Unfortunately, the overwhelming two that she experienced and talks about is likely to sound very familiar. I had my kids 10 years before she did and she could have been describing my postpartum in lots of ways. But what’s new is what she did with that experience, and what she’s doing for birthing people now.

Check out Kaitlin’s company, BeHerVillage

Audio Transcript

Kaitlin McGreyes  0:02  

I poured all my time and energy into the nursery, all the things for the baby. And I neglected to mine with any kind of support for myself. And I blamed myself for it. It didn’t, I thought, wow, I really failed here. You know, I didn’t I didn’t know how hard this was gonna be I obviously did something wrong. And then I became a doula soon after my second birth, and I started seeing that almost all of them had that experience that universal moment of being postpartum, whether it’s three hours postpartum, or it’s a day postpartum or it’s a week postpartum, they all find themselves alone.

Paulette  0:38  

Welcome towards stories from the womb. This is a show that shares true experiences of getting pregnant, being pregnant and giving birth to help shift the common cultural narrative away from the glossy depictions of this enormous transition. You find on all kinds of media to more realistic one. It also celebrates the incredible resilience and strength it takes to create another person and release that new person from your body into the world. I’m your host, Paulette Kamenecka. I’m a writer and an economist and a mother of two girls. And boy that I struggle with this transition.

In today’s episode, my guest shares the birth and postpartum experience that propelled her out of her work as a special ed teacher in New York City and into the field of birth workers. Unfortunately, the overwhelming two that she experienced and talks about is likely to sound very familiar. I had my kids 10 years before she did and she could have been describing my postpartum in lots of ways. But what’s new is what she did with that experience, and what she’s doing for birthing people. Now. This is a really inspiring story. So let’s get to it. 

Today. We have something unusual, I almost never promote a business because I don’t want to sell anything but but today is different because I heard about this miraculous woman on podcast who wants us all to reimagine one of the fundamental, almost rites of passage for a pregnant woman in America. The baby shower. Basically, I heard about her company for women in postpartum. I thought this is genius. And we should all be doing this. And so I’m so excited to introduce Kaitlin McGreyes. I say your name right. Humans got

 

Kaitlin  2:21  

it so close. It’s McGreyes. Okay. My husband and I combined her last name. So it’s actually graph and Reyes but together.

 

Paulette  2:29  

I love it. Okay. So Caitlin, McGreyes. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I’m so excited to hear your personal story and the story of the company. I’m excited to hear it all. So will you tell us where you’re from?

 

Kaitlin  2:42  

And a little bit about yourself? Absolutely. Thank you so much, Paulette. That’s awesome. I am Kaitlin McGreyes. I have three children, seven, eight and 10. I’m from Long Island, New York. And I am a doula turned founder of beer village because essentially I was a special ed teacher. I went through the motherhood experience, the very typical American motherhood experience. And I felt like many of us, underwhelmed to traumatize spectrum depends on the day. And I realized that that was sort of like a universal experience. To enter motherhood, alone, unsupported. And I had this one moment where I sat in my nursery three days postpartum. And I was trying to figure out how to breastfeed trying to figure out which way was up trying to figure out how to take care of this post C section body. My husband was already back at work. Oh my god. I know he didn’t get any time off for that one. So I gave birth Saturday morning at 520. And he was back at work while I’m still in the hospital. And he worked for New York City. It just they didn’t have pay leave then we couldn’t afford unpaid leave. It was a whole thing. So I had a very bumpy entry into motherhood. And I just remember sort of looking around at my apartment and seeing all the beautiful gifts, my perfect nursery, it’s where I it’s where I poured all my time and energy into nursery all the things for the baby. And I neglected to line up any kind of support for myself, and I blamed myself for it. It didn’t I thought wow, I really failed here. You know, I didn’t I didn’t know how hard this was gonna be. I obviously did something wrong. And then I became a doula soon after my second birth, and I started supporting hundreds of women over the course of my Doula career, and I started seeing that almost all of them had that experience that universal moment of being postpartum whether it’s three hours postpartum, or it’s a day postpartum or it’s a week postpartum, they all find themselves alone, and without the care that they need, while they’re trying to care for their babies. And all of us are surrounded by stuff. We have the best strollers and the best baby bottles and bouncers and gadgets and devices and our communities. Our loved one spent 1000s of dollars on us at our baby shower to the tune of $12 billion a year on being crazy. And I thought, man, there’s got to be a better way. To do this. This just feel like we’re not doing this right we’ve got this we’ve have moms totally overloaded with stuff for their kids for their babies, and no support totally left alone. And then you have you know, all all this money getting spent on stuff when when there could be a way to spend that on supporting them and what what is the way that we solve this problem? How do we get these funds that are so generously being spent to be spent on hearing for the actual mother? I started thinking about how do we actually go buy a baby shower gift? You know, like how does that happen? We got a baby shower invite usually have some registry information you go you click a few things and and it’s done. It’s sort of just like a task that you do. And what if we shifted the baby shower registry? What if we created a place where instead of all the stuff for babies we could shower the mother with support? What if we could buy her a doula What if we could get her postpartum here but if we get our pelvic floor therapy or lactation visits or mom you need groups or you know meals and laundry and just the whole the things to sort of like envelop this new family in the care they need, which is so impactful. So I pray to be her village.

 

Paulette  6:20  

I was so excited to get into that. I want to hear your story first. And then we’re gonna save time at the end to walk people through what it looks like. What you’re doing now what you’ve learned from doing it, however long you’ve been doing it because it’s such a good idea and when I read that billions of dollars are spent on baby stuff. I thought a that’s crazy and B I totally understand it. Right. It’s that is what we’re geared toward in a way that completely overlooks the mother who’s entirely critical of the baby, right, or health or Well, being her mental state is so fundamentally important. And we’re like, Ah, here’s a rocker, you know, the mean, and the rocker is beautiful, but when you’re sitting alone, crying while you’re breastfeeding, you know, I’m not sure anything about the rocker.

 

Kaitlin  7:10  

That’s exactly I mean that that is my story. My story is that.

 

Paulette  7:14  

So let’s start off slow here. So do you have siblings in your family? Did you come from a big family?

 

Unknown Speaker  7:19  

I have one older brother.

 

Paulette  7:22  

So when you were younger, did you think I’m going to have a family or did that affect your idea about family?

 

Kaitlin  7:28  

I think I always knew I wanted children. It’s kind of funny. This is like a funny thing to say, Well, I I knew I wanted children and never necessarily wanted to be married. And maybe when I was a 90s kid with divorced parents, so the idea of being stuck in an unhappy marriage was my idea of hell, but I knew I wanted to help kids. I was always very maternal. I was always playing house. I always was loved to take care of my little cousins when they were babies. But I didn’t necessarily imagine that happening with a partner. I just knew I kind of assumed I would live on my own and then do IVF or something. And then I was a special ed teacher in New York City. And the Para, which is like a teacher’s assistant, in the classroom next door. He was really really cute. He was really, really cute. And I thought to myself, he’s so cute, and honestly, he was more than cute. He was hot. But I thought man, he can’t be nice. He’s probably kind of you know, his personality probably is terrible because he’s so good looking. And then I went up and I talked to him. And he told me that when he’s not working with the special needs kids in our school that he’s he works at a puppy daycare. Oh man. He’s everything you know. So I feel very, very, very hard for him. And I ended up marrying him and I just remember this overwhelming feeling of wow, I just want to make humans with you. It was the most was maybe the first step in the primal nature. of motherhood, you know, because on paper, having kids didn’t really make sense. It’s still quite, it doesn’t make that much sense to have kids on paper. It’s expensive, takes a lot of your energy the extra time it shifts your whole life. But there’s this space in my body. You know, this like gut space that just has this urge to have children and to have children with him. So So yeah, so that’s what we do. I’m very quickly went from a single living on my own in the city, going out all the time to living with my partner married and then got pregnant two months after we got married. Wow. So yeah, and then had three kids in less than four years. So when I do things, Paulette, I do them big.

 

Paulette  9:41  

For the sake of be her village, I’m excited to hear that. I’m glad. So it sounds like it was easy to get pregnant.

 

Kaitlin  9:48  

It was scarily easy for you know, it’s like it can go either way. Right. It can be like wow, this is really hard and heart wrenching. But it can also be like, Wow, we just think about getting pregnant. And we all three times it was incredibly, incredibly easy.

 

Paulette  10:01  

Yeah. Okay, so for the first one, did you walk into pregnancy with an idea of what it would be like?

 

Kaitlin  10:08  

No, I was the first person in my social circle. I was only 27 which in New York City is very young to start having kids. I feel like the people I know don’t start think about until they’re like 33 And they’re like, start considering it. So at 27 I was the first person I knew and was already in my circle to have a baby so I had almost no expectation and I don’t know I have this expectation that everything would be really easy. I also I also have this invincibility this like 27 year old invincibility like nothing can hurt me because I you know, tell I know how to tell people to go at themselves. You to like and that will save me which in many situations. Like it wasn’t enough. I remember watching the business of being born. And before I had my first baby and thinking, Oh, I can handle that. You know, I was horrified at what I saw. And I thought I can handle that.

 

Paulette  11:06  

Was it was it? Was it a vaginal deliveries they showed?

 

Kaitlin  11:10  

Well, what they showed on us as being born is a plant homebirth different C section because the baby was breech so she was like eight centimeters and they had to transfer pretty quickly but they they walk you through the cascade of interventions, you know, mostly in the epidural, the stall, the C section, that sort of thing. And, and I just sort of felt immune, I felt like I could handle all of that. So

 

Paulette  11:34  

how do we know today’s the day or you know, the baby’s gonna be born?

 

Kaitlin  11:38  

Because the midwife told me it’s time to go to the hospital and get the baby out.

 

Paulette  11:43  

So you do wake up with contractions and you know their contractions

 

Kaitlin  11:47  

know the midwives. Were working at a birth center in New York. There was only one so I won’t name it but you guys can figure it out. They were working at a birth center and sort of saying, Hey, this is midwifery care. But the rules at the time in New York State did not allow midwives to own birth center. So they were actually puppets for an OB run and owned facility. So I went for 41 weeks screaming Wow. And the midwife just said, Okay, it’s time there wasn’t a discussion. It wasn’t true midwifery care. And I’m always sort of careful to say that it was not true midwifery care. They were just a puppet for OB care. And it was a little bit of a bait and switch. And it’s it’s unfortunate because I tried, you know, like I tried to line up and out of hospital birth they tried lining up a midwifery led team, but it’s it made to him. I didn’t like, deep enough, but I think part of that experience was that I was a little idealistic. I was a little bit like my just gonna be my you know like I’m part of I think my deep skepticism the unfolding this as I’m saying it but like, what am I deep skepticism about the existing systems and and how they serve us is due to this like I did all the right things. I checked all the boxes, you know, I planted out of hospital birth I got a midwifery team. I took the childbirth class, I prepared as best as I could. And still, the system just took me in and systematically shut me down, took away choices took away my voice.

 

Paulette  13:25  

So before we get to the hospital, how did you come to the conclusion that you wanted an out of hospital birth? What What made you make that choice?

 

Kaitlin  13:33  

That’s a great question. I don’t really know my mom had a vaginal delivery with me and my brother, and my brother and I and my 10 year old would be correcting me and my grandma was my brother and I, I think I was just it was the beginning. Of when I start considering another human being like my son. I think it was just the beginning of this, like, what could be the best for him and what I was reading was the best is less intervention, the you know, the business would be important. It’s like how do we avoid this cycle? How do we avoid I was just sort of curious that I guess I got led down that path of looking for an alternative and I’m not somebody that has ever wanted to walk the mainstream path. Like part of my personality, so I think it makes perfect sense that I was that I was exploring my options. I’m also somebody that is very intellectual. I like to know as much information as I can it helps reduce my anxiety. So I think just in doing the, the research and looking and going and meeting people and finding out what is the best way to have this baby. That was what led me down this path and I got so close, like some key things that were sort of outside of my control. For you know, that’s that’s where everything sort of went sideways.

 

Paulette  14:52  

So you went to the midwives just for a regular checkup. Was that your intention?

 

Kaitlin  14:56  

I went to the sonogram place for a 41 week sonogram to check on, I guess, you know, just the like normal, non stress test and water levels and whatnot. And it was the hottest day of July, you know, and I was my water was a little low. And I didn’t know I didn’t have a doula. It’s a big part of it. I didn’t have a doula. I thought that a doula would make the experience less intimate. I thought a doula was unnecessary because I thought my midwives had my back. I didn’t understand like the power dynamic that the midwives were working for OBS and I didn’t understand that even if they aren’t working for OBS that they’re trying to exist and give care in a system where they are liable in a system where they need to be covered by insurance in a system where they have to maintain hospital privileges. I had no idea about the complexities of that. So I felt that my midwife would protect me rather than be one of the people that sort of a mouthpiece for the larger system. And so, so I was told my water was low. And I remember standing on the street in Brooklyn, and she called me and said, It’s time to get the baby out. Go to the hospital. Not a question, not an informative conversation just it has been deemed it has been decided. And I remember bursting into tears to figure out why the tears you know, in the moment it’s almost like my body knew how wrong this all felt, but I couldn’t you know, when you’re in that sort of panic stress, you can’t pinpoint it. Years later, and many, many hours of contemplation, but I think I just went into immediate trust mode and I don’t know that I could have figured out well, yeah, because maybe, maybe I wanted to have a voice in my care. Maybe I wanted to be a decision maker instead of a passive participant maybe being told what was going to happen. Didn’t feel good for me and maybe I needed trauma informed care you know, it’s such a subtle thing, but it’s a huge thing. If she had said, Hey, this is what’s going on. And these are our options. Yeah, take an hour, go to lunch, go connect, go get in a room with your husband. I was by myself. Go get in a room with your husband haven’t take you out to lunch and discuss the options you know, just something as simple as that there was nothing urgent about me. You know, my water was a little low. Okay, baby was fine. So something like that would have just completely shifted the experience and and I think that’s where when I eventually become a doula and do all of this work those moments stick with me. It’s not it’s not about how the baby comes out. It really isn’t. It’s not about what medical things happen. It’s about having the space and room to adjust. It’s about having people speak to you respectfully. It’s about having a team that maintains your power your autonomy, your centering in the entire experience. It’s just that birth from that phone call on I was I was just an annoyance to everybody. I was just the thing they had to deal with. And that’s how I felt I felt disempowered and voiceless and powerless. And it I mean, it continues to grow. At first that was the best part of the birth leader was that

 

Paulette  18:05  

this is this is something I hear often from women and the fundamental question is Were things done for you or to you? Oh, they were done to me. Right because you had no choice but that’s that seems to be what it turns on. You know how much control you have. So you’re crying in the street. What happens next you call your husband.

 

Kaitlin  18:25  

I call my husband and I call my mom and they meet me at the hospital or my mom like picks up my husband and I don’t remember exactly we all meet at the hospital. And, and the midwife needs to be in triage. And so the thing to know about this situation, too, is that this birthing center was always in flux. I don’t know the workings behind the scene, but I know as a patient and then as a doula when I would have patients there. They they’re just sort of constantly in flux. So at the time, they had privileges at mammography. So I went to my mother’s hospital in Brooklyn, which was incredibly far away from my home and my parents home. We were trying to have birth center birth and that this was plan B. But the other thing that had happened is that there was this like shifting of all the midwives on the staff, and only one or two of them had like five or six had privileges at the hospital. The sense I got from the midwife who’s now a home birth midwife in Brooklyn, was that she was exhausted. And didn’t want to be there. And I got the overwhelming sense she wasn’t happy in the position she was in which is fine but it definitely bled into my care you know, she dropped me off in triage. I got an IV in my hand. I remember hating the IV so much. And then now get this pull that you’re gonna die. I was set up for a Cytotec induction in the C section. recovery room. Yep. So I was lying there, eating a sandwich. Not allowed to get up. I didn’t know you know, this is like this is like another me not allowed to get up not allowed to move. Getting double doses of side attack because the first couple didn’t work. Surrounded by semi conscious moaning women. Oh my God, who had just come back from a C section or waking up from anesthesia. Whatever it was like it’s surgical recovery room on the OB floor. And the midwife who I’m sure is overworked. His that she’s the only one you know, that has hospital privileges. It just, she was in her own place. She’s like, okay, by all means Call me if you feel like you need an epidural. That’s not midwifery care. By the way. For anyone who’s listening. That’s not midwifery care I was getting. I was getting OB care through the mouth of a midwife. Call me feeling an epidural. Call me if you feel like you need an epidural. It’s actually what she said. Cool.

 

Paulette  20:56  

Thanks. So I got it from here. Thanks. Anyway.

 

Kaitlin  21:00  

Thank you so much, you You’re the worst. So I Yeah, so I the the Cytotec kicked in around 11pm

 

Paulette  21:08  

Is that Pitocin so it was it was like Is it attack is a cervical ripening

 

Kaitlin  21:13  

or it’s an off label use. So it there’s a lot of controversy oversight attack. It has its uses. I’m not this is not an anti Cytotec podcast. It’s just that was what I had, but incredibly effective. It’s also it’s the abortion drug, it causes intense uterine contraction. Oh, so it’s an off label use there’s something like it’s for ulcers. It’s an ulcer medication that the OB is used to induce and also to control bleeding and also to I believe it’s the abortion. I don’t know though.

 

Paulette  21:45  

Just a quick note, here, Caitlyn is right. According to medical websites, Cytotec aka visa protocol, not sure if I’m pronouncing that correctly, is also a drug that’s used off label by OBS for various things including inducing abortion. It’s one of the two medications used in the abortion pill. There are links in the show notes if you’re interested in details.

 

Kaitlin  22:07  

So I get that it’s incredibly effective. I started having essentially transition level contractions every three minutes deep, deep, deep contractions, and it is almost unbearable because the nurse Wendy is now in this surgical recovery room. She’s taking care of 20 women and me who’s laboring and she won’t let me quote unquote, let me because I didn’t know I didn’t. She wasn’t allowed to not let me write. Wouldn’t let me get up she kept saying well, I have superior commanders. She would make me live not even just lay but lay flat on my back. I had those the things that go on your legs. Like clap preventative thing. I had blood pressure cuff. I had the flippy thing on your hand, but I was essentially strapped down. Even though technically not shackles really felt like it. And I remember just she was forcing me to lay the waves were so intense and so fast. And I remember saying I need an epidural I started vomiting. I started shaking uncontrollably, which is all now like now I know it’s all part of like I was dilating I was now I know I’ve actually been incredibly fast labor my body. So the baby when it’s ready, so good to know, but my body took to the induction, I think a lot faster than anybody expected it to. And I remember asking her if I can get out to the bathroom and she said to me, Well, no, you really look like you’re in charge. I can’t let you get up and she made me use a bedpan How humiliating how dehumanizing. I was conscious. I was not an epidural. There was no reason I should not have been allowed to get up out of that bed. I shouldn’t walk to school. There’s a lot of shoulds in the story, but it’s part of why I’m so passionate about everybody getting to let says this is the foundation of my work right now. It is this. I was like a trapped animal and not in a good way. I was like an animal, my spiritual unmedicated me back to you, but like a wonderful, primal, beautiful goddess animal. This was like being in a cage and I remember I was I was throwing up I was shaking. She was trapping me and honestly, I don’t know how much time I gave birth to 5:20am Voc section. This started at 11 I don’t think that much time has really time doesn’t exist in labor. You know, it felt like 10 years to me. And I remember my husband and I had prepared with childbirth classes and it’s his role right to kind of support me and not wanting to throw. My mother and him weren’t allowed to touch me unless they had cold rags because I was so hot and I couldn’t take the touch. They were like deer in headlights. If there’s ever a reason to have a doula it was just the look of their faces. The eyes not knowing what to do with me. And I remember saying out loud, I want an epidural. And he looked at me and he was like, really, you know, and I feel for him because he does his job. Right. And we think it’s our job to talk people out of epidurals. It is not our job to help people. It really isn’t is our job to offer other alternatives. But epidural always has to be on the table. We need to listen to women and I’m so adamant about that because because he listened to me in that moment. And I needed him to listen to me because he was like, Are you sure? And I looked at him and I said, not like this. This is not it’s so far gone. You know, I talked about going down an epidural. I was talking about like, you know, with a flower crown and a birth center or anything. Like obviously, I just imagined it being so much more wholesome and holistic and centered and I was able, you can’t say no epidural and then take away every other tool they have to cope. Suffering. And so he understood that and the funniest thing happened. Well, it’s not really funny. I said to her swinging, I said to like an epidural. And she said the strangest thing. She goes, Are you sure you want an epidural? That means you’d have to go into a labor and delivery room. And I was like, What do you mean I could get my own? Okay, yeah, no, I want that. Like no, I want it more. What do you think is the weirdest weirdest thing so the residents run and check me because I spent so much time as a doula talking people through the conversation about getting examined and what what pads do go on and this and that, and we really slow down the labor around these points, the cervical exams being a big, big one. And I remember it was just like, checkmate, whatever. I’m just I mean, after all, I don’t care if you check me or not, but I was checked and in retrospect, I was four to five centimeters and that was like two hours or so after. Wow. Look, I was rocking and there was a reason why I was in so much discomfort. So they gave me the epidural or they hold on to the head. So they get me over to l&d. And the l&d nurse is worse than Monday. She was so just didn’t want me to be there. She didn’t like me. She hated her job. You can just tell when people hate them. And I think too, as a birthing person or a birthing moment you press especially sensitive to energy because you have to see who’s a danger to you. So I think I’m already pretty sensitive to people’s energy. But I was really quite sensitive that night. So I remember going into the bathroom and wiping and there was blood, mucus and blood like I was opening really beautifully. And I remember sitting on the toilet. This is right before I’m gonna get my epidural. I remember sitting on the toilet and thinking I could do this What am I doing? But it’s because I was sitting on the toilet I was right. I was able to sort of release it was a completely different experience to sit on the toilet and labor versus being strapped to the bed and labor go figure go figure that was different. So I didn’t know that at this point. You know, I mean, really, I just needed a way out of the school scenario. Everyone was so awful there and I’m getting a C section that I had that this ended it was not the worst part. The C section was the way out of being surrounded by I’m so vulnerable to people who were disrespectful and who couldn’t care less about me. So I get back in my my one fear actually, you know, you asked me that question before about why I went and will say and I just remember the answer, because my biggest fear about birth was not giving birth. It was about getting a needle in my spine. So I was trying to avoid an epidural. And and my fears were founded because this anesthesiologist was female anesthesiologist came in and she gave me the epidural and I remember feeling the needle go into my spine, and it was uncomfortable. It hurt. It was like getting a needle in your spine.

  

I remember being moved and I think I remember being like, oh and I moved and I screamed and she was so

 

Kaitlin    

I don’t know the word for it but but this day and she was like, is it pain or is it just couldn’t believe I was reacting like that and I was like it’s even in getting the relief. I couldn’t get relief from the from the game so awful and looking back at it wasn’t even one of those patients. You know, the one we all fear being the one that like to be honest, I wasn’t even that I was so docile, but I think the morale at that place was really rough. So I got there. And I finally got released and it did its trick, which is great because it doesn’t always work that way for people. So it did have that full relief. But then I was resting as close my eyes and every time I opened my eyes, everybody was still in the room and everybody had really big eyes and my mum looked terrified. And I realized that they were worried about the heartbeat of the baby, that they were watching midwife the midwife had returned. She helped me through the epidural. And you know, it was the worst part about that is that she was actually incredibly comforting. She was very good during the epidural and it would have been a different labor if she stayed if she had to work. I deserved a midwife and I said, So I realized that they were concerned about it and I, I opened my eyes and I looked at midwife and I said, what’s going on? And she said, well, so my baby was going to tack a cardiac instead of radical artic. So the biggest party wasn’t going along. It was actually going to really high up. Which after taking care of strangers, newborn resuscitation protocol, that’s just as dangerous. That’s just as bad of an indication. So there was a heart rate issue. And in retrospect, what happened is essentially his head was a little asymptotic. It was just like a little off. I think it would be opening so quickly, and then the epidural, I’m sure opening me. I think he just got jammed in and stuff. And he just struggled a little bit. So I remember looking at the midwife, and she said I still hate him. We would she said they were all clearly worried about it. They were describing something that was scary. And she said I’m gonna call them the OB and the OB will come in at about 45 minutes. Oh my god. And I want to just like preface this by I said this about me and I would never say this to a pregnant person. I said, Okay, I just want to help the baby. Just get me healthy baby. And I say that because it’s incredibly toxic to say at least the unhealthy baby enters a healthy now that’s not true. I matter. But at that moment, everything I had desired about this birth was so far out of the window, right? What I meant if I had the capacity to speak in a full thought, What I meant is you’ve ruined all of this right? This has already been destroyed. I need to help the baby at the end of this.

 

Paulette  7:30  

I’m going to end my conversation with Caitlin here for today. I so appreciate her sharing her experience of the postpartum period, which I think is regrettably common. Many of us leave the hospital or birthing center to return home are met by our new job that requires work around the clock or that we often do alone and work that we do when we’re exhausted at a time work.

 

Next Friday I will share the rest of this inspiring story.

Posted on

Episode 95SN: Identity Shift without Identity Crisis in Motherhood: Anne’s Story, Part I

When your interests are shifted to the back seat to make room for the baby’s, you WILL have feelings about it, but most of us never talk about it because it doesn’t fit our idea of motherhood.

Today we discuss some of these challenges, and ways of making sense of them.  I talk to a writer who is also a mother of three about the ideas she brought with her into this giant transition and how she works to balance her family life and work life; the difficulty of this balancing act and the feelings it brought up for her.  I also talk with a fantastic therapist who specializes in helping mothers feel comfortable in motherhood by giving us valuable ways to think about and reframe what may be uncomfortable and conflicting feelings–like love and connection with the baby, but also moments of anger or regret– as we all navigate the job of parenting. what follows is the first part of my conversation with both women.

To find Anne Zimmerman’s work (An Extravagant Hunger: The Passionate Years of M.F.K. Fisher, Love In A Dishand Other Culinary Delights and M.F.K. Fisher: Musings on Wine & Other Libations, check out her website. Here is her writing on related topics.

You can find Jessica Sourci, from Family Tree Wellness here

Audio Transcript

P:

Welcome to War Stories from the Womb.This is a show that shares true experiences of getting pregnant being pregnant and giving birth to help shift the common cultural narrative away from the glossy depictions of this enormous transition you can find on all kinds of media, to a more realistic one.  It also celebrates the incredible resilience and strength it takes to create another person and release that new person from your body into the world. I’m your host, Paulette Kamenecka. I’m a writer and an economist and the mother of two girls and boy did I struggle with this transition….

Today we discuss conflicting feelings about motherhood. i talk to a mother of three about the ideas she brought with her into this giant transition and how she works to balance her family life and work life and I also talk with a fantastic therapist who specializes in helping mothers feel comfortable in motherhood by giving us valuable ways to think about and reframe what me may see as conflicting feelings–like love and connection with irritation and anger– as we all navigate the important job of parenting. what follows is the first part of my conversation with both women.

Paulette  0:03  

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

Anne  0:07  

My name is Anne Zimmerman, and I am a writer and mother living in Portland, Oregon.

Paulette  0:15  

Anne it’s so lovely to have you on. I should confess that you were my writing teacher at Stanford for a classified suck and you’re a beautiful, beautiful writer. And that was a great class. So I’m excited to have him on. So one thing that’s interesting about your story is you have three kids. You are not Mormon but you grew up in Salt Lake City, which I think of as a pretty happy place and a place filled with big families. So maybe correct me if I’m wrong. Is that your experience?

Anne  0:44  

Yeah, you’re right. And it’s interesting because I’ve gone through various periods in my life where I think about the Mormon Church and the influence of the Mormon Church and the influence of the psychology of the Mormon church a lot because it is really interesting. Parents are not from Utah. And my family has not never been Mormon, but I was born in Salt Lake City. I lived there until I was 18. And my parents are still there. So I continue to go back there fairly frequently. And so it is baked into who I am in it. For those that have been to Salt Lake. You will know that it’s laid out on a grid with the Mormon temple at the center all the street names are keyed off of the Mormon, Mormon temple in the center of the city. So I grew up in a in a beautiful old grid neighborhood and of the like 18 houses on either side of the street. At the time, there were maybe only three other families that were not Mormon. I mean, maybe an older couple or two who did not have children. But in terms of the kids I grew up with, and there were a lot of them. There were at one point there was a family across the street had eight. There were you know, big families and the Mormon church was just pervasive, and I knew it, because I always knew that we weren’t Mormon. It was very clear. We were not going to go to the Mormon church. We were not going to go to the Mormon church just to see what was happening or try it out or anything like that. But it wasn’t until I got a lot older that I was like, oh, so what what was that like, you know, most if not all of the women at home, I should pause and say I only have one brother who’s five years younger than I am. So I did sort of experience something different within my own family unit, but just in terms of being out in the neighborhood or playing with other people from school. Or just being at school, this culture of child after child after child and also everything just seeming really I mean, you’re right. It’s like it doesn’t describe it but perfect and happy is is really true. I think you see it now in social media. I used to have a more than obsession with following in sort of humans, the lives of Mormon and mommy bloggers back when blogging was more of a thing or Instagram because it is in a way it is something that’s so familiar and comfortable to me. Yeah, just that whole we’re gonna have a baby and then we’re gonna have another baby and everything’s gonna be happy and everything is gonna be perfect and everybody’s gonna match. And we’re gonna make cookies and dad comes home and we play basketball and you know, just this very wholesome, very happy, very clean, white, obviously, culture and just I don’t know, just even talking about it. There is still something that is like, appealing about that, even though now being a mother. I sort of see that there that there’s, you know, dark dirty corners. There have to be there.

Paulette  3:48  

Yeah, having kids is too complicated to have just one

Anne  3:52  

more than I mean. We do have three children. And when I went into my motherhood experience, I think I thought we would only have two and we wanted a third child, we plan to have a third child, but that adds to the chaos factor. And sometimes when I’m in just very normal, but chaotic moments at home, I’m like, wow, so then what’s it like if you get each kid to their lesson, that’s their passion that they are willing to live or die for, you know, three tantrums or whatever it just it’s work. It’s it’s an incredible amount of patience and management. And chaos

Paulette  4:28  

yeah, it’s certainly it’s harder than a lot, right? parenting has very good marketing has we all go into it thinking it’s not going to be quite as hard as it is? 

Anne: Right? 

P: We focus on that on the easy, lovely parts that everyone wants to share and glorify and there’s you know, reasons to do that. But it is an incomplete picture. So it sounds like you grew up thinking you were gonna have a family. 

A: Yes. Yes. 

P: And was it easy to get pregnant the first time? 

A: Yes. 

P: And how was that pregnancy?

Anne  5:01  

I would say that of the three. That was my most difficult pregnancy and not because there was anything’s physically difficult about it. I mean, you know, just the normal, the normal stuff, early morning sickness, the changes in the body, all that kind of stuff. Everything was very, very routine. I was still pretty young, especially by San Francisco standards. I had a difficult birth, but the whole pregnancy was very healthy and very normal. But I think I also I had I had published a book I was teaching I had wanted to have children my entire life and then after getting married, that it amplified, it definitely wanted to become pregnant and have this child but then I remember at the time feeling like it was just super practical stuff. We have the San Francisco and but where are we going with this baby? You know, just all of a sudden it was like I remember feeling like, Oh, I knew I wanted this and I thought about this and chose this. And yet now that it’s happening, no one told me it was going to be to negotiate some of these things and to decide I was privileged in that I am able to take care of our children but just sort of like where I was going to draw the boundaries.

Paulette  6:21  

Today we’re lucky to talk with Jessica Sorci and LMFT perinatal mental health certified and certified internal family systems therapist and Founding Director of Family Tree wellness. And we’re here to talk broadly about maternal ambivalence. Jessica, thanks so much for coming on.

Jessica Sorci  6:39  

Thanks for having me. Call it. It’s fun to be here.

Jessica:  6:53  

That’s right. Yeah, there’s so much pressure on moms to be quote unquote, good moms or perfect moms. And there’s a lot of societal ideas about what motherhood supposed to look like. And feel like and that pressure is alive in every every mom. I think we just we all get that memo and feel compelled to embody something that is really not real and doesn’t exist some sort of perfection and yeah, and then having having those those real feelings that are not in the realm of bliss, and ease and connection really feels threatening, I think to to the ideas we hold about motherhood and maybe to our own sense of being decent for. For many of us, we want to be more than decent, we want to be exceptional moms. And when we start noticing that we’re actually feeling those things you mentioned, you know, some might be irritation, it might actually be rage, resentment, regret, is definitely a very big, common feeling that moms have and it makes a ton of sense that those those sorts of feelings really threaten that clean image that we think we’re supposed to aspire to. So not only is it uncomfortable to have the idea of being perceived as something other than a perfect mom, or a really good mom, or supermom in terms of how people are seeing us as we’re so comfortable inside in our inner world to hold the complexity of those polarized parts that seem like they need to do away with each other, you know, the perfect mom feelings, or maybe we could say in a more specific way those feelings of I wanted this baby or this child, I value motherhood. I enjoy the feeling of connection. There are there aspects of me that really like taking care of someone. Sometimes, I’ve got these feelings of real pride in my child, a feeling that I understand them and I am in tune. And that’s got kind of a lot of dopamine around it and a lot of feeling maybe actualizing what I was meant to do on Earth in some way, my purpose. So there’s all of that. And then to have other feelings that are completely almost seemed like they delete or erase or destroy the good feelings, right? Those ones that come up that are like so so black and white, so absolute around this was a horrible mistake. I really should never have done this. There is no room for me in this picture anymore. And it seems like it’s all or nothing. It’s the baby or it’s me. Somebody’s got to take one for the team and I’m sick of taking one for the team right like I’ve I’ve held back and maybe exiled so much of my own need in my own truth, to be of service to this child and there is a feeling inside of being really done with that of hating it of wanting my own. Well being back on use of space and time for myself. It feels like those two are just wildly in opposition.

Anne  10:41  

I had watched women not work outside of a home to choose motherhood as their profession and then and I had been like, maybe that’ll be me. Maybe that’s what I want to for sure do during a certain period of my life. And my husband was supportive of it for his own reasons. His mom had been away a lot when he was little and he was like, Yeah, we’re on the same page. This is what we’re going to do and then it just very quickly kind of became oh but what if that was wrong, what if that’s not actually what I want, but then how am I going to negotiate all that nice still? I still feel like I’m trying I mean, every Sunday night I’m looking at the calendar and going okay, what do I have to do other for other people? What do I have to do for myself? What am I getting paid for? What do I get? You know, what do I What is the writing that I want to do that I might not be getting paid for yet but in some ways is more important than any of the other stuff. I have to put that in all right. I don’t feel like myself. It’s very tricky.

Paulette  11:37  

But yeah, the the the happy marriage of parenthood and a job is a really difficult thing. And I remember early on thinking oh, now I’ve reached what I’ve heard many women describe which is I feel like I’m failing at both jobs. So that seems Yes. Now I’ve reached the level right i i can’t fully put myself into my work and I can’t fully put myself in a way that I want to be present with my child and this is the world that we live in.

Anne  12:06  

And I am incredibly lucky. My schedule has always been very flexible. My students have been very understand that you know, they’re they’re adults with hearts typically in mind, they’re incredibly understanding if there is ever a time when something has to shift a little bit, but just today, you know, it is 2023 But between yesterday and today, I think for alerts that there’s COVID at the preschool you know sort of starting to infiltrate and cutting hours a little bit because two teachers are sick and it’s like, the preschool that my littlest child goes to, is close to a hospital. So there’s a lot of working professional parents. What can people do? I mean, we’re so lucky and sometimes they think about doing something different. In air quotes, they don’t really know what that is, but it’s hard it I don’t eat I don’t know, it’s an incredibly hard balance

Paulette  12:58  

and finds the spiritual within her about I am a creative person. I’m a writer. I want to do this work, but I’m also a mother and how those things fit together.

Speaker 3  13:08  

Yes, yeah. So as I think about, you know, what, what the parts of a mother or mom parts might look like in a in a kind of generalizable or predictable way. I think there are those those parts that emerge when you have a child for basically all of us. We call one in particular the baby’s representative. There’s like a part that shows up in mom’s consciousness. That’s the baby’s rep and it’s here to advocate for that baby, and it’s here to pull all of mom’s attention and energy and resources toward the baby and does that through you know, brain changes and other physiology. It does that through kind of CO opting the cognition and preoccupying the thoughts of mom, and it does that through attachment through building a bond, and that sense of real deep caring. So you’ve got that whole babies rep going on that’s so inarguably occupying it takes up a lot of space. But you were a person before you had your child and you had those things you’re naming that and felt around your own creativity, your own reason for being your own inspiration and ways that you got your dopamine before you had this baby. That didn’t go away. It got kind of elbowed out when the babies are out showed up. But I think of those as sort of self interested parts and they do have to take a backseat. You know, in the beginning I think it just happens it’s like you don’t have any choice. Your physiology demands it when you’re giving birth and in the days that follow when you’re really not yourself on a physiological level. Sometimes that’s months that follow for some folks years, but the self interested parts are there and there’s nothing wrong with them. You know, I think the system can start to feel like it’s a threat to the baby rep. And all that is aspiring for and you are holding in your one nervous system, essentially two nervous systems. So how, how gracefully can this one individual mom hold multiple nervous systems? And multiple agendas, the babies and hers there is no getting around that it’s complicated and taxing and requires a lot of adjustment and a lot of work. But you know the the only answer really is becoming more conscious and being deliberate in your self compassion. That self compassion starts to open up more space so that maybe both things can exist. Maybe you can be a good mom who is tending to the baby really beautifully, and has her own needs her own reality her own, you know creativity or desire for productivity or let’s Let’s even say desire for control because there’s not a lot of control in mothering. You don’t get to kind of exact your own visions and volition like your baby runs. Oh, they are and you’re sort of attuning and following their lead. So, you know, to respect in a compassionate way they don’t impulse and your own desire to follow your own dreams to make them the color you want. The tone you are feeling. You know that that’s real and true and does not go away with motherhood. Very long time and I mean it goes so deep right? You don’t get to take a nap when you want to take a nap. You don’t get to think so you want to think that was a really hard one for me. I wanted some space to think like that and they would be interrupted every 30 seconds or less. I was so so frustrating and also created a lot of grief. I missed having that space with myself. So I think we have to be really respectful. How much babies wrap is asking us to give. And in that respect, there’s compassion right like they’ve given it up for a long time. was not easy. Let’s find some space for you to have your own self interest.

Paulette  17:52  

Now that my kids are grown, my sense is your grandparents. That’s the way to make it work and and but then you have to be okay with grandparents parenting your children.

Anne  18:04  

Right. And that’s actually a really important waves to lift the veil on on Utah on Salt Lake City on the Mormon church to some degree. Of course. You can’t make a blanket statement, but it is in a way it’s in the village. You know, I remember at one point, the people who lived across the street for us grandparents lived tutors. You know there there was just this really flowing back and forth and we wanting to have children younger, which grandparents are younger, which means we are all with whatever childcare or something during the summer going on vacations, you know whatever just generally being participatory factor and you have a lot of siblings sometimes, you know, and so it’s also like you can be it. It’s, you know, answer those houses together and that is that I’m not sure if that really clicked for me until after I get there. Maybe we don’t have family. We don’t have family living around. That’s where this whole weird fantasy of being like, you know, Norman Norman, I’m not sure it was ever that explicit but this desire to have kids and have this feeling of fullness and busyness and excitement and fun and like that’s where this is going to hit a real roadblock is because we don’t have any support men pandemic it and then then we all know, yeah, got parents of young children and families and that type of thing. You know?

Paulette  19:42  

Yeah, that made it much more stark for sure to say oh, actually you’re I guess what? Super hard. So let’s talk for a second about the birth. And actually the pregnancy. You walk by it because you say oh, it was normal. I remember in the first trimester falling asleep on my keyboard at school and and just being knocked out by fatigue in a way that I never understood or

Unknown Speaker  20:08  

read about that. That

Paulette  20:11  

was just it was such a shocking thing for me. People say oh, you’re gonna be nauseous and Oh, you’ll be tired. But the feeling of that is so much different than the description that it’s just shows it’s so hard to create another person and we just take it for granted because that’s what I do. Yeah,

Anne  20:29  

yeah. So yeah, so I mean, I think one thing that popped into my mind but when I left once I had one child, subsequent pregnancies, I just looked like a rock because I was tired. But with my first pregnancy, I remember being awake in the night a lot, which was really notable because my husband has struggled with insomnia for most of his life. And I remember being so angry that he wasn’t awake was like okay, I’m finally awake. Where are you think that you are sleeping soundly. So insomnia and then also I plan as the illness often is. And I remember when there was the bombing at the two men are sort of on the loose on and this was back when I was on Twitter and Twitter was kind of a easy place to be. And I just didn’t sleep practically all when they needed to know if they were going to find these people and it was so weird because I hadn’t ever felt like that water in the business and that restlessness before and I remember finally getting to the point at 330 or four o’clock in the morning orient that I just have to get up. You know, I did a lot of food writing and in written a biography about it. I just have to get up and start cooking because there’s nothing else to do. I’m not going to sleep. And that was definitely a nervous kind of again with I was very anxious about what was going to happen. You know, my husband’s mother was notably dying while I was pregnant, which is interesting element to the whole thing. And I remember he had gotten to be with her over Fourth of July weekend. I was due to have a baby in September, so I was seven months pregnant. And I didn’t go to a barbecue and I remember telling the women at the barbecue that it was because they needed to figure out how I was going to organize my closet and in my mind that was just because this is the most important thing to do right now. This is it. This is this is it, which is in some ways I will that just stem so much the stereotypical new nervous moms spinning her wheels about you know, whatever. But at the time, I think so much of it was feeling really destabilize my own identity really destabilized. It did have something to do, obviously with the fact that I was growing human in my body and all of the effort it takes to do that. But so much more of it was about me and feeling really destabilized. And, and also, again, kind of going back to both my childhood in Utah but also just the culture around pregnancy, feeling like there was I could not say anything to anybody. You know, it’s not like I didn’t want to have my child. It was just it was just so much bigger and realer and so much more of an identity ship before I even had the child than I ever anticipated. And I remember here’s something I remember that is interesting as I remember being probably I would say, I don’t know, still early in my pay, let’s say four months pregnant. And I was teaching a night class in person. And I was leaving to go to the class. And I took a picture because my mom sent me her shirt or something, took a picture and texted it to her and I said no, you gonna be able to tell that I’m pregnant question question mark, exclamation mark. And she wrote back and she said something like, Do you not want them to know that you’re pregnant? And in that moment, I was like, I do know that I’m pregnant. I do not want them to think that anything about our dealings or our interaction is in any way influenced by the fact that I am right now that I’m going to watch out.

Paulette  24:32  

For and she talks about being anxious or during the pregnancy about this identity shift. She anticipated that she’s going to have an identity shift. And it is this, I think making space for these two identities like you talked about. So do you have any suggestion about how we one goes about?

Unknown Speaker  25:33  

She’s

Speaker 3  25:41  

that natural and inevitable, but good girl. You do so it’s not a bad thing to encounter that grief. The fact that there’s grief and loss doesn’t mean it’s bad or that you should avoid it or that there’s nothing better on the other side. Having that clarity should add about identity shift.

Speaker 3  26:20  

Energy or access to your own resources. You are working which are very different in terms of your your body and your being. It’s temporary you know that the massive loss a massive hit is temporary. That’s the good news right you’re gonna get much more of yourself. So having having some softness around the surrender, I think surrender is usually the most graceful way to go in like and it is and there is a loss. You know, people don’t say that I heard a podcast recently where a therapist was talking about moms having ambivalence, and that sometimes there are moments of hate and she said nobody likes the word hate so I’ve actually stopped using it. And I thought to myself, of course, can can we just allow our parts to feel what they feel the more we can make space for that is truth and honesty, the better the playing field for the baby and for being understood, making sense being seen not feeling shameful or like there’s anything wrong with her. Not starting to think of herself as a failure or more or less of a mom. No, that doesn’t mean that your feelings can be here. No matter what they are all all parts and all feelings are welcome. And you can be great

Paulette  27:53  

Are you imagining that they’ll think something negative?

Anne  27:55  

Yes, definitely, like negative rather than positive which is so funny because I actually also remember that when they found out I was just being over me and one of the students in this particular class no one of course, no one thought your brain has been diminished by this. But I think yes, I think I’m worried that they would think that somehow. I guess specifically the comments that I might make on their work would somehow be not valid for us.

Paulette  28:37  

Totally interesting. Why is it so powerful driver of your behavior in a way that you’re not necessarily totally conscious? Of in the moment and that anxiety? Jamil and appropriate, and I guess I regret that there’s a negative overlay on that to say oh, the anxious first time you should be anxious, guess what? Right. Every single thing has changed. I have no idea where this is. Going. I just heard some statistic that 70% of pregnancies are relatively normal and go off without a hitch. But you don’t know if you’re in that camp. And it’s just for many people because we don’t know we’re relatively young. It’s the first time you were introduced to this idea that you are not in control of your body. And that’s such a weird thing to feel and to experience. And I remember saying to my husband while I was pregnant, my belly was growing. I must be doing this wrong, because this is the weirdest thing I’ve ever experienced. Except there’s no cause and effect here that I can. You’re no longer in charge of your life. Yeah, true. True and I feel like that’s a line that’s slowly being revealed to you. Right? The nausea and the fatigue is a good entry into that idea because it’s nothing that you you’re doing in the moment. Something else is going on in your body that you can’t control. It does become more and more true right as you get further along. So something about your first birth, what were you hoping to do

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Posted on

Episode 89SN: What her Unexpected C Section Taught her about Life: Anja’s Story, Part I

Welcome to War Stories from the Womb.This is a show that shares true experiences of getting pregnant being pregnant and giving birth to help shift the common cultural narrative away from the glossy depictions of this enormous transition you can find on all kinds of media, to a more realistic one.  It also celebrates the incredible resilience and strength it takes to create another person and release that new person from your body into the world. I’m your host, Paulette Kamenecka. I’m a writer and an economist and the mother of two girls and boy did I struggle with this transition….

In today’s episode you will hear, useful advice about what you can do if the birth you planned is not the birth you experience, a very persuasive case for why trusting your intuition is so important and insights on how much control you have in this transformation from person to parent.

To Check out Anja’s book: Parent from this Place How Yoga Changed the Way I Parent

Nausea & Lethargy in the First Trimester

https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/pregnancy-week-by-week/expert-answers/nausea-during-pregnancy/faq-20057917#:~:text=Research%20suggests%20that%20nausea%20and,attaches%20to%20the%20uterine%20lining.

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/22489-human-chorionic-gonadotropin#:~:text=Your%20placenta%20begins%20producing%20and,to%2010%20weeks%20of%20pregnancy.

https://www.pregnancysicknesssupport.org.uk/documents/HCPconferenceslides/what-causes-nvp.pdf

https://www.stanfordchildrens.org/en/topic/default?id=morning-sickness-1-2080

https://www.healthline.com/health/pregnancy/pregnancy-fatigue#causes

What happens in a C section surgery

https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/c-section/about/pac-20393655

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/7246-cesarean-birth-c-section

https://americanpregnancy.org/healthy-pregnancy/labor-and-birth/cesarean-procedure/

Audio Transcript

Welcome to War Stories from the Womb.This is a show that shares true experiences of getting pregnant being pregnant and giving birth to help shift the common cultural narrative away from the glossy depictions of this enormous transition you can find on all kinds of media, to a more realistic one.  It also celebrates the incredible resilience and strength it takes to create another person and release that new person from your body into the world. I’m your host, Paulette Kamenecka. I’m a writer and an economist and the mother of two girls and boy did I struggle with this transition….

In today’s episode you will hear, useful advice about what you can do if the birth you planned is not the birth you experience, a  very persuasive case for why trusting your intuition is so important and insights on how much control you have in this transformation from person to parent.

Let’s get to this inspiring story.

Anja Simmons

[00:00:00] Hi. Thanks so much for coming on the show. Could you introduce yourself and tell us where you’re from?

Sure. My name’s Aya Simmons. I am a yogi parenting coach, a speaker, an author and the biggest one, you know, mom of two, and I’m originally from England, but I live now in Toronto, Canada.

Oh, lovely.

Lovely. You said Yogi parenting Coach. Was that the first thing? What’s that? Yeah.

Yeah. , that’s

unusual, right? . What does that mean? What’s that title mean?

Okay, so what it means is From my own journey of , becoming a yoga teacher and my own yoga journey, I realized when I was supporting and, and guiding parents, mostly moms actually that it was the yoga portion that really changed the way I parented.

And that’s then what I bring to the table not necessarily touching your toes, we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about the whole feeling and scope of yoga. In terms of breath work, in terms of how you feel in your [00:01:00] body in terms of being present, that kind of thing.

So that sounds super cool.

I’m a devoted yogi, so , let’s make sure we talk about that at the end, cuz I wanna hear how you’re using it. Perfect.

Yeah, I’d love to. Very

cool. But before we get to the end let’s start back before kids. Did you have siblings? Did you always know you’d want a family?

Yeah. Yeah. So I had I have a brother, a one year older, a sister, one year younger. I come from a divorced family where they both remarried and there were stepbrothers and sisters as well. I always knew I wanted a family because at that point I really loved looking. After I was babysitting and taking care of kids, I went on and became a trained British nanny.

It’s a thing. , so I knew, yes, and I, I really wanted a big family In my head that’s just the head, not body in my head. Oh my gosh, how amazing. Loads of kids, dogs, maybe even a farm. I mean, I was like completely in the dream world of my coping abilities. . [00:02:00] But yes, so I had wanted a huge family.

 I’ve never heard anyone put it this way and it’s so smart to say in my head and not my body because I’m a hundred percent with you.

Yeah. I, kept saying to my husband a team, not a, not a football team, but a basketball team. Five. Yeah.

Perfect. Yeah. Mine was six, I felt six had my son and I went Great. I think we’re done . I do have two, but we did go again. But yeah, it was certainly at the time. Yeah.

But I think for me, and maybe tell me if this is true for you as well, it looks a lot easier than it is.

Oh my gosh. And I, and don’t forget, I had actually nanny, so I had looked after other people’s babies. I had helped moms when they’d had a baby. I had looked after toddlers, twins all of that. But I could clock out at the end of the day and sleep. Yeah. Big difference. . Yeah. I mean, huge difference. ,

the difference between me and you is I had no experience, right.

I had no idea what I [00:03:00] was talking about. And, and had never successfully, you know, nad anyone else. So right. So yeah, I was definitely flying blind, but, so you’ve decided you’re gonna have a family and then do you step into it easily? Is it easy to get pregnant or how does that go?

I was really lucky.

 When we decided Yeah, we’re gonna have kids kind of to start the whole process. I got pregnant right away. It was very easy. I had actually also a pretty easy pregnancy. I had the typical morning sickness stuff for the three months, and then I actually I loved it. I had never felt so connected to my body.

That’s interesting. At that time, yeah. And I didn’t realize how disconnected I was to my body. Yeah. Talking about the head, not the body before. And so I don’t know. I felt like I had magical powers. I mean, I really was in this like, my God, I’m carrying a child, people, I have made this thing in my belly, you know?

And so that part of it was very, Yeah, pretty blissful. I, I also was in a good part of my relationship , so my husband was just as [00:04:00] much in awe and amazed at the whole thing too. So I mean, all of those that don’t have that to be able to even get through the pregnancy, nevermind the birth and everything.

So in that, that point, I was definitely ahead of the game and, and lucky in that, you know, oh, you need a foot. Oh, you do. Oh, you sit down. I, you know, all I had all of that. Yeah. And just as excited about any little flutter in the belly, any appointment we went to, that kind of thing. So it did feel a bit like hours as opposed to just

mine.

So all of that is really interesting. Let’s walk a little more slowly through that. Mm-hmm. , the first thing I wanna focus on is everyone says, oh, it was super easy. It was normal. I was, I was really sick the first three months. I get that it’s common, but it’s not easy. Right? It’s not, it’s, it’s such a shock and it’s such a dramatic way for you to understand that your body is being rented out to some other purpose because, , right?

It doesn’t matter what you ate, you could have had a, you know, a toast for breakfast and you, you’re [00:05:00] still gonna throw up and feel terrible and have this kind of lethargy that is just an enormous weight. Yeah,

yeah. Right. It’s beautifully said. Really, really true. And obviously I’m talking 25 years ago, so at the time now, reflecting back on the pregnancy part, we’re get obviously into the birth later, but I.

I actually didn’t mind the sickness bit because , that part I knew about, I was ready when it ended and I was really lucky that it kind of did do the normal three month. Yeah. With him, with my daughter was very different. But yeah, no, it is a horrible feeling. We won our own business size, going into work, going into the washroom, throwing up, coming back out, trying to be professional, going back in, and then the tired.

Was. You know, I was, I feel I was quite young at the time. I was 30 when I had my son, and I felt pretty fit, pretty, all of those things. So but I, and I remember thinking, oh my gosh, I haven’t even, it’s not much of a baby in there now, and I’m still tired. , you know, his weight is not something I’m carrying at this [00:06:00] time, you know?

Yes. Yeah. I mean, it is. I, I kind of marvel at our younger selves thinking , You know, we’re expected to just fit into normal life and I had a job and I, you know, yeah. I just ran off to the bathroom and threw up and came back to my job. That’s, yeah. . What, why is that normal?

I know. Why, and why is that not really even, you know, something that anyone else has to deal with unless you’re pregnant.

Right? Yeah. . Otherwise you’d be running to the doctor thinking, okay, something’s wrong with me, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

And I, and I take your point that it was consistent with your expectations, so Yeah. You know, that part of it. Wasn’t necessarily hard to manage because you knew that this was, this was part of the deal, I guess.

Yeah. But, but the

 Actually, I do remember, sorry. Something that I, I just remembered now was being my lovely vain self at that point. I had a horrible chin rash across my chin, like really bad. Acne and acne’s. Not really something I’ve. Now more menopause. I’m dealing with them back there.

So I think the morning sickness or all day [00:07:00] sickness, that definitely wasn’t a morning thing only. And the rash, the rash actually bothered me more because that was more visible. Yeah,

I guess, yeah. Yeah, I’m just saying pregnancy is hard no matter what. Right? That’s, oh God. Yeah. . That is a tricky thing and , the felt experience is so different than the description, right?

Mm-hmm. , it’s one thing to say you’ll be sick. It’s another thing to walk around feeling green all day. Right? That’s, yeah. And eating

crackers and thinking, this is just something I would never do. I’m not a bird. . Yes, totally.

Totally. And I Somewhat ashamedly. Admit that I, a vegetarian could only eat hotdogs cuz that was like the only thing that’s vile

And I haven’t, I haven’t touched a hotdog since the pregnancy, but I was craving salt, I guess, probably. And I, yeah, that was what I could eat, but. Well, that’s so

funny. And I had I remember with my son, it was with my daughter was carrots. Go figure. So at least that was healthy. But with my son was salt and vinegar crisps, we call them in England.

Yeah. And I was making my family in England semi because I only wanted those ones. I did not want no, any Canadian [00:08:00] ships. I wanted these particular ones.

Yeah. Yeah. No, you, you have been overtaken by some, by some other force. Yeah. Very powerful force. And I also kind of relate to your awe in the second trimester when you can come up from the toilet seat and lift your head away from the garbage can.

You know, I, I interviewed someone who said, she was talking about sitting on her couch watching tv, and she was saying to her husband , can you go get me some water? I’m making a foot right now. I’m busy. I’m, I’m busy working on feet over here, so I can’t, which I was like, such a funny and great way to describe it, because That’s true.

It’s totally true. Yeah. So before we get to the birth, what were you imagining the birth would be like?

Totally blissful, totally. I can totally manage pain. People don’t die. This was very, very arrogant. I also w in the hospital here at that time, maybe they still do, you had those birthing classes.

So you would go and you did, I don’t know, six weeks or something or other. So I felt very prepared and I wrote a beautiful birthing plan and [00:09:00] I believed, And I was led to believe that my beautiful birthing plan is how my birth would be. That is it. That is what was going to happen. We could bring music in.

Yeah. We could bring in, I think a bouncy ball thing, the things you sit on. And yeah, I felt very ready, very plan prepared. I am the kind of person who I, I didn’t at that point connect to my body. So to me, I hadn’t visualized anything. I just knew beginning, and he’s my beautiful.

Okay. And I’m imagining you’re, you’re thinking of a vaginal birth in a hospital.

Yeah. Is that what

you

were thinking? That’s totally, yeah. Yeah. At that point I had tried for a midwife, a doula. They would, that was pretty rare. Now I think it’s obviously much better, but yes, for me it was definitely that my mom actually had home births with us and so there was a big thought about it, but it didn’t, yeah, I didn’t feel I I, I would be comfortable with

that.

And , did your mother’s view play into your [00:10:00] expectation? Did she say It’s beautiful? It’s a little bit,

yeah. Yeah, it was like start to finish pretty easy. You know, almost the squatting, here’s your baby, and off you go, , it did, it didn’t happen that way. Such a shame, Paulette, because I did love that whole scenario.

But the wake up, right, that actually happened because of it all, and due to it all was, was the learning I really needed. I.

Yeah. So, so we’re gonna go right there. Mm-hmm. , although I will say it’s a beautiful story and who doesn’t fall in love with that? Beautiful. Yeah. Right. The end to this dramatic transformation will be gentle and, easy.

Yeah. And quick. Yeah, very quick, very easy. People said it’ll be a bit painful, and I thought, wow. I can handle pain. What are people talking about? . Right? They, like I said, denial. Big denial, big dream. World. Denial.

Well, also the language does not suffice. Right? We need a different word for, [00:11:00] for contractions and, and labor and Childbirth than, than the word pain, which is applied to a paper cut or, yeah. Absolute. Stubbed your toe. Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah. So we, well, we’ll get cracking on that. That’ll be our next assignment, . So the day your son is born, how do we know today’s the day, what happens?

So my memory is that he was overdue, is my memory.

And I had, was having those. Contraction. You have to remind me of all the words. Cause I, I think it’s Braxton Hicks. Braxton Hicks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So I had these contractions and they would build and then stop and build and then stop. And funny enough, my mom, I was so blessed, was waiting in England for the time to come over.

She was ready, wanting to come. She figured she’d miss the birth, but as soon as labor started, she was on her way. So it got quite thought it was ready. Bless my mom. She arrives and I’m sitting on the couch like, oh no, no baby. And so it, I know it went on a few days and fast forward to when it was actually happening.

When the contractions got stronger and bigger I was. To [00:12:00] be honest, really kind of enjoying the process at that point, cuz the pain was obviously very tolerable and my mom and me were sitting, my husband was sick, he’s in bed. My, my mom and me are playing cards at the table and every time there’s a contraction, I would stand up, but I would kind of breathe through it.

My mom would run my back and then we carried on and then it, that kind of increased and my mom then woke my husband up and said, right, we gotta go. Get in the car. The hospital wasn’t sort of that far away. So that sort of was the start that it became. Okay. It’s actually really, I think, happening now.

Okay.

So it’s the timing of contraction’s, not like water breaking or anything that’s sending in the hospital? No. So no water?

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. We were definitely very premature because then we get to the heart of the door and I think, and I know this is my personality now more than I did then I’m all good until.

The moment. So as we are walking through the hospital, . I was thinking, oh fuck. Like it’s actually really gotta come out now. Now I’m in the, now I’m like, Oh, I don’t know [00:13:00] how, how does a baby come out your body? I mean, not physics, but like, oh my God.

And, and I was so surprised. I assumed the contractions were gonna be really right up on my ribs on the top of my belly for some reason, being very unaware of the body. And I thought it was going to be like like a, like a push there and then the baby’s just gonna come on down and slide out. So when the pain was obviously in the right place, lower, much lower I was kind of surprised by that, you know?

And so then as we were walking through the hospital, I was so self-conscious that people would see me in pain or crying or not handling, I’m not too sure a hundred percent what, the fear was and. And it was definitely coming out for me as embarrassed, like, oh my God, people are looking at me as I, I had to keep leaning against the wall to go through a contraction till we got to the labor delivery place.

We get to the labor delivery place. And I’m really starting to panic at this point cuz it’s really hit me , I’m having a baby, you know, [00:14:00] and how is that baby coming out? And this is really painful, you know? And at this point, I guess it’s just the beginning contractions. Unfortunately, what happened then was the nurse or somebody came out and said, okay, can you go into the waiting room?

Wait a sec, we’re just getting a room ready. And I was in there and there was a couple I think they were the parents of somebody having a baby, like the waiting room for that. And, it really was an embarrassment that people would, I, I guess it was vulnerable. I think from that, that I burst into tears and I’m really like getting panicked now about this poor baby.

Like it is the first thing I heard of it. And they you know, just realized I’m actually gonna get this baby out. And so, My memory, the nurse then comes out, sees me crying and , and that freaked her out a bit thinking I’m about to have a baby. They took me in. In retrospect, I should have been left to calm down because my contractions actually disappeared.

Then I freaked out , I freaked [00:15:00] out the baby. He wasn’t coming out, and so they take me through all the things. They lie me flat, they hook me up to something, and then it was this pressure. Of hurry up and have your baby. Yes. And I didn’t know how to make that happen. Yeah. He, he, he’d stopped , he’d gone back to sleep, you know, so that was the beginning of quite a traumatic experience.

And I, and I do wanna say for the record, I’m well aware that I’m a white woman having this experience, and I, I’m, I’m way more aware now. Didn’t know that the time of that privilege in itself. Yeah. In that, I, I assumed I was getting the best care. I trusted everybody, and I didn’t for one minute think that I wouldn’t have been treated properly.

Anna, it sounds like they took your pain seriously. Right? That’s their

Yes. Exactly. Exactly. They were like, oh, she’s crying, she’s red in the face, which I heard my cry, and that’s what happens. And push me through, okay, we, you know, she must be serious. She [00:16:00] must mean it. Yes. She must be serious. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

 In your defense I would say the feelings that you’re having about being freaked out about the baby coming out, I had probably when I was five months pregnant, And , it’s better to save them until the end. . It’s be, it’s like the, if you’re gonna have ’em, it’s best to just push ’em to the end, , because in five months I was like, how the fuck is this baby gonna get out of me?

It’s already too big to escape its intended route. So I don’t, yes, and I haven’t thought about C-section that wasn’t on my radar. No, wasn’t my mind. And I was just like, I have gotten myself into something that I cannot get out of. , I, I don’t know how this is gonna work. Yeah,

yeah. , I kind of was saying to my husband, okay, you need to make this go away.

You need to figure this out and get this stopped, . So I, I do not want children. . Yeah. I think

it’s a, a legitimate feeling and if I had a choice, I would’ve done it. Your. Right. Okay. Makes sense. It doesn’t, it doesn’t do you any good to have it, you know, while you’re in the Oh yeah. . [00:17:00]

No, no. It’s, it’s

not, it’s not helpful.

So you’re strapped down and in this room and what happens?

Yeah. And so it was hours and hours of being there and all of our birth plan. And what we had learned was, you know, shouldn’t lay flat, get up and move around. They. Everything sort of that I hadn’t wanted to happen happened in, in simple ones of just being completely out of control.

So I, I lost complete ability. So then everything stopped. So they break my water, , I get an epidural. I think we maybe got there mid-afternoon. He was born the next day kind of idea. So

  1. Wait. When they’re, when they’re doing all these things to you, you’re saying yes, but in your heart you’re feeling like shit, this isn’t what I wanted.

Or How’s that going?

Yes. Yeah, I did. I didn’t want this, but I also felt like, oh my God, I, I, I was just constantly in a panic feeling. And I couldn’t get myself back. I couldn’t bring myself back. Even having the support of my mom and my husband, you know, we [00:18:00] hadn’t done that before. Nobody, you know, it’s the same sort of situation.

And my mom you know, wasn’t my voice there. She was my support and Yeah, I just remember everything stopping and I remember that the doctor kept coming in looking quite pissed off. She was very tired and kind of like, oh, for God’s sake, like we still haven’t had this baby. This isn’t progressing. We need to do this.

And then they’re like, oh, we need to, whatever it is that they put in the baby’s head to monitor him. Yeah. Yeah. And then this isn’t progressing. And funny enough, I actually spoke with my husband this morning cuz I was trying to say, okay, what do you remember about the book? and he remembers something that I totally can’t remember at all.

And I didn’t believe I started pushing at all. They had just said, we need to get you to have a C-section. And I was completely stunned by that point. I was scared the epidural bit that they gave me, we’d heard such awful things about this. So I was like, oh my God, I’m gonna become paralyzed.

 I was just in not a great place. And so my husband remembers that I had actually started to push and my son [00:19:00] started to come out, but his foot actually caught. Something inside. And so he wasn’t coming out and that’s what led us to the C-section, which is really freaky to me because I can’t believe I have only, I feel like I’ve only just found that out today.

It’s totally true. But yeah.

I mean, interestingly, that probably would’ve colored your view for a long time if you’d remembered that bit because Yeah. Then it is some natural thing that. Right. Yeah. Had to of forcing this next decision. Yeah. Yes.

Yeah. And I felt like it was all really based on this poor, really tired doctor.

Yeah. Who was just like, oh my God, you know, this lady’s taking up a room. My shift ends. Let’s get this done. You know? So I end up having a  c-section and I was crying, I think the whole time, just devastated by that fact. And also tired. So probably tired too. Cuz I felt like it had been gone on forever.

A lovely port. Part of it was that when my husband’s a musician, not that that necessarily matters to this pit, but [00:20:00] he, he would sing to the baby when the baby was in my stomach, when my son was in my stomach, and when I felt him being pulled out. He started crying and my husband went straight to him and started humming and singing that song and he totally went quiet.

Oh, I was conscious. Yeah, I was conscious of that part and I thought, oh, okay. You know how lovely that that happened, I I never knew C-section was quite such an invasive surgery. , that was not on my birth plan, . That wasn’t gonna happen to me. You know, that must be for people who have other issues.

Anyway, so he was then birthed into the world by being pulled out. And I remember going to a room being left there a little bit. My mom came in and sat with me eventually, maybe my husband two, and then Very lucky. He just went to the breast and breastfed. And then we, I had to for c-section, stay a couple of nights in the hospital.

And that was yeah, I, I was [00:21:00] remembering that I had like I said before, as a nanny. Been around lots of little babies, helped moms, helped sort of sort that out. And there I am, totally exhausted, tired, left alone. Your spouses can’t stay in the hospital. And my baby’s crying and crying and I didn’t know what to do and I, and I called the nurse.

And the nurse comes in and literally bundles him back up and goes, you know, babies do cry. And kind of roughly handed him back to me and I was devastated. I thought when have a failure, I haven’t been able to birth him. I don’t know what’s happened to my body and I can’t move. Like I’m in a lot of pain.

And that was kind of my hospital experience. Well, it’s

interesting that you say I wasn’t able to birth them since, you know Yeah. You did birth them. I believe that. Yeah, I know. But what, so c-section doesn’t count, or what does that mean? No,

that to me at that point it didn’t. No, no. At that point, it felt like my body and I had a whole grieving process after the fact that my body had let me [00:22:00] down.

Yeah. That I could have, and I should have. and obviously everybody around you wants to tell you, but you’ve got a healthy baby. And , I get that and I get the gratitude for that, but I need to grieve whatever I need to grieve. It’s, yeah, it was there, so I did, I don’t believe it now that it’s not a birth, but I had totally believed that that was something for other.

Yeah. I dunno what other people

that that’s, yeah, that’s super interesting. And I think that’s not uncommon. I, I, for sure when I was panicked about the birth, did not have c-section on my radar. Mm-hmm. and, and I had a C-section tube. Mine was planned and it was a different thing, but Okay. But when I was thinking about the birth, all I thought about was a vaginal delivery.

That was the only kind of thing on the menu for me. The only course. . So I, so I get that idea. So what’s postpartum like with you? Feeling like the birth didn’t go the way you wanted and the

pain now? Yeah, yeah. I’ve been trying to [00:23:00] find this book and I really, I can’t find it, but somehow I had this book given to me .

 And it was about women birthing birth experiences around the world. I remember it as an amazing book, and I happened to have it right after somehow , and it really helped me to give myself permission to grieve and how many people in birth, so-called regular birth view back, but all of those things.

There is a p kind of a grieving PO process after birth that we hadn’t ever, we, I had never knew. I didn’t know. And so I with my daughter, I had stronger postpartum depression and things that I actually tried to seek help for with him, with my son. My first birth, I not so much. I did my c-section did get infected and I remember finding that really traumatic when I went to see my doctor who hadn’t been the one at the hospital when I gave birth.

And she just in. In the reception. Oh, in the room, in her surgery. Her space just kind of sound feels like poked needling or [00:24:00] something to, I know that’s too gross for people listening, but it was really hard that, that really injured me again a little bit, you know,

because, because you felt that was another failure on your body’s part or

no more that it was at No, that was actual pain that she just was like, it wouldn’t be a big deal.

But meanwhile, I still was, had my stitches and everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was that kind of thing. So So this particular book and women’s birth experiences I wish I had perhaps read it beforehand. And I, again, don’t know how it appeared in my house, but that really did help with the forgiving myself too.

And I know when we went back to the baby group from the baby planning group, I was the only one who had a C-section. And , there was shame around that. Like God must. Not a good person or I must have. Yeah, it took a lot, it was a lot of stuff to do with that and then not being accepted that, that was allowed to feel that, to grieve that.

Because look you how selfish, you’ve got this lovely, yeah, yous good, healthy [00:25:00] baby boy,

right? Yeah. Yeah. You get it either way coming and going, right? Yeah. Yeah. That, that’s super unfortunate. I’m hoping. Our children, there is more leeway in what a birth looks like. Yes. Right.

Yeah. Yeah.

I’ve, yeah, I hope so too. And I think even the movement being way more obviously with my coaching of mothers, but way more this whole change around, , not society expectation. Finding your voice, trusting your intuition. Yeah. Like my intuition was, stay home. It’s not ready. But Okay. I, I’ll listen to everybody.

My intuition when I got there was, okay, why don’t you just go take a walk . Right. I didn’t listen. Yeah. I didn’t have the knowledge to listen and to check in. Yeah. Or to tell the hospital No. Okay. Nope. I don’t want certain things. Yeah. I didn’t, I know I had that voice.

Yeah. It is a unfortunate juxtaposition of a birth, which can involve so many medical things happening early enough in your [00:26:00] life that maybe you have never had those experiences before.

So you have no idea that you can talk back to to the authority of the doctors or, or, or set your own agenda in any way. And a birth is this kind of intermediate space where it doesn’t necessarily have to be medical. You’re there in case something goes wrong. But since you’re in a hospital, it feels like you’ve seated authority because that’s usually what happens in hospitals

for sure.

And there’s someone else involved. Right. It’s not really just a decision for me and my body. There’s a baby there. You know that What if I make a wrong decision? What if I totally, I

mess it up. Yeah. Making the choice for someone else is such a heavy burden, right? That you’re Yes. That, that you will end up doing a thousand times after that, but, but this one feels pretty dramatic.

I agree.

It does. It does. And the loss of control, I had no idea. That I really did like to control what my life was like and what my expectations and up until birth, I think I was able to control enough of my environment. Yep. You know that this was then a shock to more than just the birthing process.

Well,

it [00:27:00] leaves you with the impression that you have control, which, yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. Total

fallacy, but yes. Yeah, .

So how much space is there between your son and your daughter?

Two and a half years.

Okay, so, so does that mean that you had processed all the trauma before you got pregnant again,

or, I thought I had, yeah.

Yeah. I had really had the space and the support to sort of grief that I did. But I really wanted this vaginal birth, which is so funny to me now. What do you get a pat on your back? Whoa. You did it buzz that way, Ray. But at the time it was super important to me and I had to seek a different doctor and find actually I into, I then took the leader a bit more on interviewed doctors to say, this is what I want.

And I found an amazing doctor who I was surprised even was there at the birth that was seemed so uncommon here that he was like, I will be there. And he He fought for me cuz really he was feeling very strongly that we should, we were very quick to move. He thought it’s gonna have to be another C-section cuz she just did not wanna come out [00:28:00] after hours and hours it feels like.

 So you get pregnant easily again?

Yes.

The decided. Yeah. Is the pregnancy similar? Does it feel the same?

It I think because you then have a toddler, everything felt sort of that I, I the sickness lasted longer in this one and ti tiredness, and I had the swelling, like the ankle, the feet and, and I can’t remember what that’s called, but that kind of thing happening with her, which I didn’t have with my son.

And so that part was different. Slightly, but other than, yeah, it was pretty, it was really, I just remembered that one and I many mums, when you’ve got another before I could rest when I want to rest, and now I had somebody who’s like, let’s go to the park. Yeah, yeah.

Totally different. Yeah. and I so my oldest is 21, so we’re basically had kids around the same time.

Yeah. And I feel like in my experience, so my first one was a C-section v a c I think was less common. I’ll go back and look up the numbers for our, our time period. But I know with my doctors, they had said, you can [00:29:00] do whatever you want. And I decided to do another C-section cuz I was worried about my body had failed in a million ways, way before the C-section, which made the C-section necessary, you know?

Okay. Mm-hmm. months before mm-hmm. . So, so the c-section was like, added to the list, right? Like I wasn’t, I didn’t single that one out in entirely, but, and also maybe because I had these medical issues, I was worried about the very, very small chance of uterine rupture. . But when I told my doctors I was gonna do a C-section again and they, they said, thank God, oh my God, thank God.

Right. They were really kind of relieved. So that’s kind of consistent with your experience where it’s hard to find a doctor who will support this idea Yeah. 20 years ago. Yeah,

absolutely. Absolutely. It yeah, I remember sort of really having to seek out and ask people and try to find out, you know, that I wanted this.

And then I did start to advocate for myself. I, you know, having been through it, at least you have a bit more of a idea. Still there’s no control. We get that, but it was, yeah, [00:30:00] a different sort of setup. But for her , I remember going in, To the hospital. It was a different hospital.

 I had said, oh, I do want epidural. Right from the beginning, no, no fighting. This is time. It’s like, go for it. And my husband was there saying, oh, but she’s just like a small dosage or something, and I nearly smacked him. I went, no, just whatever you give , I want the full fact.

Well, why is he, why is he standing in the way of, he thought,

he thought that I, I would’ve wanted it to still be in the birth.

Okay. Like more of the feeling of it that he, he, he felt that maybe last time having the epidural, it stopped my body working Okay. The same way. Okay. Is what my eye, I, I think I, and so I ended up pushing a long, long time for her and they ended up having to use the vacuum thing on her head, , it’s not called a vacuum to hold her down.

And then yeah, that was funnily enough, recovering from that birth took a lot longer than the C-section one. [00:31:00] And I don’t know why, because I had two people there, but I, I had really bad, I tore really bad and then had to have those stitches and yeah, that was. From my memory,

at, at the time. Did the birth feel like a triumph?

Like now I’ve done it. Vine? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good . Well, it’s nice that I what you focus on, right? I, I know. But it’s nice that you focus on this thing and it worked out and then you felt satisfied, right? Yes. That’s nice.

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. That, that was yeah, very much so. And felt very blessed to have a little girl.

And then was very much. We are done. Let’s get a puppy. . .

Totally. So you suggested earlier that that birth was followed by postpartum depression or so Yeah. What, how did that look different and and what did you notice?

A lot of crying. A lot of crying.

Everything felt very overwhelming. I don’t know how in my head I was able to, but I was still working at our business and I was still going backwards [00:32:00] and forwards. And I would go to work, come back in nursing, then go back to work, and my husband would be home with the kids. And I just was, in my head, I cope.

I am one of those women. We just cope. We can manage it all, you know, and as a detriment to myself. Yeah. And so I did eventually go to see. A doctor and I c cannot recall the drug, but she really didn’t particularly listen to me, that I had just had a baby and that I had a toddler at home. And she was quick to prescribe me something.

And I, I didn’t take it. It was some very strong, addictive something or other. And So I, I kind of sorted it out a little bit by myself, if you call it sorting out. Like I just was able to let it as much as possible happen for tears and things. And the change my body was pretty big for that one.

I had gained quite a bit of weight. I felt very like moving, a bit tricky. I also felt, you know, I breastfed both of them and I [00:33:00] definitely felt for my second child that it was, it felt more of a chore because I’ve got things to do now. . Yeah. I couldn’t just sit in a door her lovely face. I was like, oh.

Breastfeeding as you, as any mom. Right. Walking around doing stuff. That kind of thing.

That sounds tricky. . So how, how long would you say the postpartum lasted?

I think a good five, six months. Okay. Yeah. After. And then

Yeah, I be, in my recollection, I was, she was about 3, 2, 3 months old when I went to the doctor, and then it was just yeah. Yes, that’s what

I would say. I, would also say probably, 20 some odd years ago, postpartum depression was so not a a thing we talked about or recognized that I can imagine your doctor not focusing on it because.

Yeah. It just wasn’t a thing for us. Right. It wasn’t That’s very

true. That was very true. And I remember her being a young doctor cuz my, my original doctor wasn’t there or something. And I just, I remember feeling kind of shamed by it a little [00:34:00] too and a little more like, Oh, well, you know, here take this.

And then, and I remember saying to them, but this is pretty addictive , and really, I probably, if she’d had just listened and made me a cup of tea and said, you know, oh God. Yeah. That is a lot. No wonder. Yeah. Yeah. Would’ve, would’ve made a difference.

Yeah. Yeah.

So you get over the postpartum period. Mm-hmm. , you get over mm-hmm. , you get over the depression and everything and you decide no more kids we’re not having sex.

Yeah. Yeah. I, I. Was completely overwhelmed with parenting re incredibly so.

And I, I came pretty cocky into the situation having been a nanny. Yeah. I know what to do and I so was not prepared for the full on. Fear worry. Am I doing this right? Am I doing this wrong? Needs of a child constantly, you know, 24 7 needing you, needing something from you. I found it super, super [00:35:00] overwhelming and I was so thoroughly enmeshed in there with my children which is not a healthy place to be , you know, now, you know, for either of us.

And so yeah, that sort of changed a lot of, of my awareness of myself, I did feel incredibly goddess like , having been able to make. And bring children into the world. There was something felt in myself, my femininity, my confidence in myself, my mother bear. I didn’t know that was gonna come out so strong.

But I really believed only I could. Be the best person for them, , no one else could watch them or be with them. And I, you know, with work and running our own business and all these things, I just, I didn’t think to ask for help. I didn’t know if that was an option. I didn’t wanna be vulnerable enough.

I believed I can do it all.

That’s so interesting given that you were a nanny for someone else. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. [00:36:00] Yeah. And a very judgmental nanny. I’m a great nanny. I’m was really good with the kids and fun and playful, that kind of thing. But I really was like, Ooh, Louise, your children are been, this is because I was so hard on the moms.

Dad’s not because in my generation that’s what, you know the focus was all the moms and the martyrdom of mom, motherhood and giving it all up. And for your children, it should all be about the children. And I sit sarcastically now because to me that is one of the biggest misconceptions from birth right through to raising them.

That that’s it. It shouldn’t all be about the children. We, we parenthood motherhood. From, I can’t talk about fatherhood is all about me actually .

So I, this, this feels like a bit of the magic. Why don’t you lay some yogi parenting coach on US and let us know what you would’ve done for younger Anya.

What, what could you have told younger Anya to make this road easier?

Yeah, great question.,[00:37:00] first of all, really. Bring kindness into the picture. Kindness for myself, I would have told myself that it’s okay to ask for help. You do not have to do it all.

And the yogi side would be, you know, how about you just dance still a minute before you respond, before all those emotions that you know, you are like a emotional coach to your child, right? As they’re growing up. And I would take it all on and I’d feel it so much in my body and my body would carry theirs and mine and my husbands and societies and lives and , sometimes just pausing and taking a big breath.

Can really change how you respond to something. You know, how really seeking help and support and asking for it is actually a superpower rather than not. And then the real underlying part is our kids are super, super wise. They do not need us to figure it all out for them.[00:38:00] , we have our wisdom, but they, if we are trusting our intuition, if we’re being present in our body, if we are using that beautiful life force of breath in different ways to bring us to this present moment, you see things differently.

I’m running ahead, busy, busy, busy the whole time, right between work and this. And I can cope and I can do, and my own personal self was completely neglected. I didn’t know who I was anymore. I was so meshed in, or I’m his mom and his, her mom and these kind of things and kind of realizing their wisdom of their own life experiences actually has nothing to do with me.

So lean back. That’s a whole .

Oh, no, that’s, that’s awesome advice. So how did you, how did you get from the enmeshed to the person you are right now who can give that advice.

Right. Well, so when I was pregnant with my daughter, I, started some yoga classes.

I think I had maybe taken some of it before. I wasn’t, I really actually didn’t believe in it. I [00:39:00] didn’t really like it. I didn’t like the idea of touching my toes. I certainly did not like the idea of sitting with myself and being quiet, all things which I now know are vital. And so I had started taking some yoga classes.

I think at that point, maybe they were both in school or preschool. I think my daughter maybe. So three, five, and the transformation for me was super slow, but it started to be all the stuff that I did off the mat using the skills that I learned on the mat, right? So the present where moment awareness, right?

Which obviously as a yogi for yourself, you, you, there are moments on your mat, doesn’t happen the whole time, but there’s moments that you are fully present in the breath. Mind is clear, right? Yeah. So you give yourself a chance. Be still. And so I just started, I was going, I think every Thursday morning for about six years or so, I, I, I would go to this yoga class and it was the feeling afterwards and the feeling of being so much more aware of my own body, [00:40:00] how my natural stance was holding my breath.

Yeah. Yep. Doesn’t serve you. My natural stance was full on anxiety and tension. I never knew that. It’s like that had to peel back the layers of suddenly, you know, you, I’d be like, feel like I’m relaxing. I’m making cup of tea or cutting vegetables and my shoulders are up here. My jaw is tense. And I had no idea.

So like I said, from before, I was really ahead walking around . Yeah. With this body underneath that I had no, no connection to. And I grew through my yoga. On my yoga mat to really like myself again and really kind of love or more in love with myself as imperfectly as I am, as, yeah, you know, all bits of me, where my mind goes, how I am, what I, what matters.

 I didn’t realize I was an empath at all. I, meanwhile, I’ve been soaking up people’s energy since babyhood, of my own, right? Yeah. And so that was all the, the [00:41:00] tie in and then I realized, How simple but difficult it is to be fully present first for me and then for my children. Yeah. And that was a big change around in how I parented.

Yeah. It is a,

it is an amazing transformation. And I came to yoga much later than you did, and I was an athletic person before then. Mm-hmm. . And for me, the most shocking thing was to coordinate breath with movement. Yeah. In that really controlled way, which I had never done before. And I had a really hard time doing, I was really surprised that it was so hard to do that.

Yeah. But it is, you know, the breath work is so powerful and it is this dual connection between mind and body where body can dramatically affect mind. And you, you don’t really think of it. That too. You don’t really think of it as a two-way Yeah, right. What

it’s, yeah, absolutely. And I think going back to sort of the yogi part of things [00:42:00] the more I liked myself, the more I showed up as a kind of mom.

Right. Yeah. The more I could be when I say parenting’s more about me, I bring the energy into the room. I come in as a bitch. Nobody’s really being very nice. Right? Yeah. And, and I’m not talking about ever perfection. I’m so far imperfect, beyond imperfect beyond imperfect.

That realizing that I actually threw my own energy. Can change the whole situation. How I respond to something changes the whole situation. You know? Being caught up in like, kids are really annoying and they’re full on and they trigger you in all kind of ways, all the way from little babies who don’t wanna sleep all the way up to teens, slamming doors, and, you know Their life choices.

It’s a continual learning, but it all starts with me. That was a one of the biggest changes I think of the, that yoga really was the catalyst for me, for that. Yoga was my therapy, I guess, to know myself more, to realize, you [00:43:00] know a certain twist or a certain thing. I, I could just be bursting into tears and crying and I wouldn’t know why, but my body was just like, oh, thank God.

She’s just finally letting this bit go, letting this bit go.

Yeah. That, that’s amazing. And becoming embodied is a, is a huge deal, right? That has a dramatic effect on who you are in the world and how you show up. And I agree with you that it is it’s easy to be overwhelmed as a parent, right? .

There’s lot lots going on. And I don’t know , how universal this characteristic is, but to take on the emotional emotional content of your kids’ moods Hmm. Feels very natural to me. Feels like a, the thing that you would do. Yeah. But that’s a, that’s a tricky thing to do, and then you’re not in your own body and then you.

You know, you’re

reactive. Yeah. You’re absolutely, absolutely. And, and, you know, having the compassion too. I mean the, the yoga I studied was called yoga, and that’s what I eventually went and had my teacher training in. And that’s [00:44:00] really my embodiment is really about self-compassion, compassionate self-acceptance, and.

I would imagine practically everybody, I’ll speak just for myself though. There’s a feeling of unworthiness that comes with us from childhood. Yep. Through divorce. I’m, I’m very aware of that. Just having parents, two people, like nobody, we are all figuring it out. . Yeah. So they’re having compassion from them and compassion for myself and, you know, being able to say, sorry I messed up and being.

Say, okay guys, I’m outta here, I need to time out. You, I just can’t handle the emotions and I f I even to this day, I find that the hardest part to keep myself separate from them. Not detached Yeah. But separate that. Yeah. You know, feel filling my own energy field, working on rooting down. I’m all in my head and I’m stressed and, and I realize I, in honoring of myself, I, I can’t cope with a lot in one time.

Now I’m a pretty strong person now and there’s lots going on in my life and that obviously loads of ups and downs and [00:45:00] huge, big things. But I really, for me, I need to keep coming back to me in order to be able to sort out a problem, deal with the death, deal with, you know, money issues, deal with marriage, you know, and, and for that, it’s the honoring of myself again.

That has to be the change. I can’t change who, who this child is. Yeah, I can do my damnest, but really if I see them in the light of love, just on their own journey and their own experience, I felt for me, a huge weight lifted. Like I don’t actually have to figure it all out.

Very subtle. I don’t have to figure it all out for everybody. You know? Yeah. I, I actually, they, they, they can figure that out for themselves, and the best I can do is lead by example. Yeah. You know, and again, not imperfect ways, like if I don’t, if everybody feels like they’re being really unkind, okay, hey, have a look at yourself, or I just realized I snapped at them and shouted at them and I’m not being [00:46:00] very kind.

Right. It’s that kind of constant self-awareness and reflection.

Yeah, that, that sounds. Like an amazing journey and an amazing thing that you’re giving to other people through your coaching business. Thank you. So how can people find you? You’re on the

web. Yeah. My biggest place that I hang out and offer.

, different solutions and things would be on Instagram as Yogi Parenting coach. Yeah, that’s kind of the main one. I do have a website and things, but I’m just not very active. I need all those things, sourced it out sometime. But I, I like Instagram, so that’s really where you’ll see most of me.

And you can book with me and you can, I wrote a book about parenting from this place, how yoga changed the way I parent and get that on Amazon. So yeah.

Wow. That’s super cool. Congratulations and thank you so much for sharing your story. That’s amazing. Well, thank you

very much. I’m glad we collected This is You too.

I think what you’re doing is an awesome thing because we really need real authentic stories out there so that the [00:47:00] next generation and the next generation just able to speak about it without sugarcoating it.

Right? Yeah, yeah, totally, totally.

Posted on

Episode 88SN: Developing skills of Self Advocacy to create a better Pregnancy, Birth & Postpartum : Megan’s story, Part II

In today’s episode, you’ll hear the second half of my conversation with Megan. She shares:
* how she was able to identify what turned out to be PostPartum Depression in herself given that her symptoms didn’t match her sense of the condition
*a useful perspective on managing the difficult transition from one to two children and
*insights about what she wished she’d known about her relationship with her OB before the birth of her first child.

Crohn’s Disease & Pregnancy
https://www.webmd.com/ibd-crohns-disease/crohns-disease/managing-the-effects-of-crohns-disease-during-pregnancy#:~:text=Active%20Crohn’s%20disease%20raises%20the,as%20compared%20with%20pregnant%20women.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/crohns-disease/symptoms-causes/syc-20353304

https://www.karger.com/Article/Fulltext/504701

Audio Transcript:

Paulette Kamenecka: Welcome to War stories from the womb. 

This is a show that shares true experiences of getting pregnant being pregnant and giving birth to help shift the common cultural narrative away from the glossy depictions of this enormous transition you can find on all kinds of media, to a more realistic one.  It also celebrates the incredible resilience and strength it takes to create another person and release that new person from your body into the world. I’m your host, Paulette Kamenecka. I’m a writer and an economist and the mother of two girls.

In today’s episode, you’ll hear the second half of my conversation with Megan. She shares how she was able to identify what turned out to be PPD in herself given that she didn’t originally realize she was experiencing symptoms that were connected to the condition, a useful perspective on managing the difficult transition from one to two children, and insights about what she wished she’d known about her relationship with her OB before the birth of her first child. 

Let’s get to her story.

Megan: So I was really scared going into my second birth because I was scared I was gonna have to have another C-section. I didn’t want another emergency c-section.

 But I did wanna try to have a V back. So I was trying to balance, I don’t wanna schedule a C-section because I don’t wanna do it if I don’t have [00:27:00] to, but I also don’t wanna end up in the same situation because it was, it was just horrible. emergency C-sections are, it’s terrible. I think they’re, you’re, it’s really painful.

The recovery took forever. It was just not a good situation. But I did have this wonderful, wonderful doctor who really cared about us. She really, really wanted it to work for us. She was also very practical and wasn’t gonna push it if it wasn’t gonna work. So she would tell me what was best, basically.

 I learned that I can ask more questions and get more information than I had the first time. But it was really, it was really the birth itself that sort of gave me back to myself in a way, if that makes sense.

Yeah. So so labor started on its own. We went to the hospital and we, we went a bit earlier than most people would because it was a second birth and because I’d had a C-section, so we, they wanted to be monitoring me fairly well. My doctor didn’t end up being the [00:28:00] one who delivered my son, but one of her colleagues who was also wonderful was there.

And so it went sort of similar except for I wasn’t induced. So it was a few hours of sort of active labor, but not. Baby’s coming, pushing out kind of labor. I went into transition this time, I was prepared for it. So I knew like I might be at four centimeters. Once I start hitting those really strong, powerful contractions, I will dilate very fast.

And I let them know that ahead of time, this is what, this is, what will probably happen. And then with him it was different. My water broke very dramatically and he just dropped right down. Wow. The nurse was like, well, let’s check you. And she’s like, oh, that’s ahead. We are having this baby opens the door, calls out, we’re having a baby in here,

And I pushed for about half an hour with him. And I was scared because the doctor, he was. He was kind of doing little frowns and hmms and I was like, what is he stuck? And he’s like, no, no, he’s not stuck. [00:29:00] We are having this baby today. Everything is okay. I just, I wasn’t quite stretching as well as he would’ve liked.

So he did end up doing an app episiotomy which some people are probably gonna be like, oh no, not the app episiotomy. But for me, coming from an emergency C-section that was nothing, I was not even the least bit concerned. I’m like, do what you gotta do, it’s fine. And it was totally different.

So he comes out, they put him right on my chest. I got to hold him for an hour before they even checked him or did anything cuz he was, you know, he was fine. And we had him with us the entire time and it was just, it was absolute bliss in comparison. It felt so easy, , it was just yeah, it was amazing.

And and I was able to nurse him. I nursed him for 13 months and he was this really happy, chubby little blonde boy, and he was just an absolute dream. And then, you know, it’s the whole mothers and sons thing. I was completely in love with him. . It was just ridiculous. His big sister was completely in love with him to, [00:30:00] and yeah, it just sort of, it was really healing, it felt like, cuz I’d also had postpartum depression and I was really angry.

 You had postpartum depression after the first one. Mm-hmm. . And it sounds like you changed your doctor. Oh yeah. Okay. So, absolutely did. So maybe walk us a little bit through, through that. How does that process happen? How do you, figure out you have postpartum depression?

I didn’t figure it out strangely until she was about seven or eight months old. That’s when I realized, okay, something is wrong. This is not normal. This is not me. I was just angry. and I’m not usually an angry person. And, and I feel like just for a lot of people, even if you don’t have postpartum depression, having kids can trigger you in ways you’ve never been triggered before.

And the sleep deprivation, I feel like for me, I know that’s a big factor, but also just the trauma and all of the, dashed hopes, and everything was you know, and it was just, it was this [00:31:00] huge transition and I did not take to it as well as I was hoping. I absolutely loved my baby from , before she was even born, would take a bullet for her without a thought, loved her.

And also staying home with her drove me nuts. She wasn. A difficult baby, but she wasn’t an easy baby either, and she, she really likes attention still . Yeah. And I’m an introvert and I’m with this person who just wants me to pay attention to them.

Yeah, so I’m an introvert and now I’m with this person who wants my attention 24 7, like all the time. And it’s exhausting. It’s just really exhausting. But I also wasn’t getting out or seeing friends.

I didn’t really have friends to see. And so it was really isolating, but also you’re never alone. Yeah. Yeah. And I’m sleep deprived and my body’s been through all this trauma. So yeah, just all of those [00:32:00] things came together and , I was just mad. The thing is, I don’t think I realized because I wasn’t feeling down and blue and depressed, I was feeling angry and resentful a lot of the time.

So it wasn’t until about seven, eight months that I realized, okay, this isn’t normal, something’s wrong. And I talked to my family doctor, and she said, I agree, something’s going on here. What would you, how would you like to handle this? And so I didn’t go on medication, but I did end up speaking to a mental health therapist a few times, and that was so helpful because I was able to just, Let it all out without worrying about hurting her feelings or upsetting her because she cared about me because she, you know, she was an objective, not emotionally involved person.

Yeah. So I could just say anything on all of the things and just release it. And she just validated my feelings and gave [00:33:00] me some tips on maybe trying to get out of the house a little bit more , have some time to myself. And it didn’t like go away, but it helped a lot with managing it. Yeah.

that’s the other thing , you know, the fourth trimester is shockingly hard.

Mm-hmm. , I remember even to get a shower and I’d put the baby in the bassinet. Even that felt like a a tiny bit of release cuz you don’t have to hold this person. I remember the baby Bjorn, one of those carriers once my baby was big enough to go on the carrier, , I was walking around with my arms up in the air.

Like I’d won something . Cause I, cause I could, right? Cause I could put my arms in the air . It, it is really hard to become mm-hmm another per another person’s source of everything. It, which is like a step up from what pregnancy was, right. Pregnancy or just renting your body. But, but motherhood feels like you sold it.

Oh yeah. You don’t belong to yourself anymore. You don’t have the same freedoms and you won’t for a very long time, if [00:34:00] ever . Yeah. Cuz I mean, I know from watching my mom that even when they leave, you still worry about them. You still are available on the phone. twenty four seven.

Yes. Yeah,

just. You’re never, you’re never quite your own ever again. And I think I struggled, I struggled with it more because I also was like, this is not how I planned to feel . This is all I’ve ever wanted. And now that it’s here, I’m finding that I don’t actually want it as much as I thought I did.

And I feel terrible about that. And I’m mad, , why, why is it happening this way? So yeah, it was a big shock.  I’ve heard somewhere that the first baby , it’s like a bomb going off in the mother’s world. It just totally rearranges you, it rearranges your life. It’s not quite as big of a deal for other father.

And then the second baby, that’s when it hits the dad because now you’re. You’re each dealing with a [00:35:00] child all the time, so there’s no, one person can take the kid and the other person can do whatever anymore. It’s like one-on-one, then you have three and it’s like, forget , forget taking a break anymore sometimes.

But yeah, that’s how it felt. , I don’t even know who I am. I’m not the same person. Everything has changed. I’m just trying to , put the pieces back together of myself. Cause I don’t, it’s all just sort of exploded everywhere.

 But it sounds like you figure out how to do that before you decide to have a second because you do decide to have more kids, right?

Yes.

somewhat. Yes, we did. We kind of, we kind of got things somewhat figured out. Thankfully she, she was never a really terrible sleeper, so that helped. But also with each of our kids, we’ve also chosen to have them because we felt really strongly that there was a kid for us. I, I mean, after the first time, I don’t think I would’ve had any [00:36:00] more at all, if not for that feeling, because now I know how much work it is and how much it, you know, takes a toll on you physically.

It’s a lot of mental and emotional work. It’s not all cuddles and, it’s really exhausting. Each of my children, I felt really strongly that I needed to have them, or I wouldn’t have had more than one. Probably

 So talk to me a little bit about that, is it a spiritual thing or what does that mean?

For, for us, , I would say it’s a spiritual thing just because that’s sort of my background or our religious background, but for us it usually starts with me. I just feel very, very strongly , Hey, I’m waiting kind of feeling. And I’m not always happy about it, necessarily at first.

Sometimes it takes a little while for me to get on board, takes my husband even longer to get on board because he was like, holy cow, kids are so much work. This is exhausting. [00:37:00] But yeah, I don’t, it’s hard to describe. It’s just, it’s, it’s kind of a gut feeling in a way. Uhhuh, , it’s time, time for another one.

And then of course it took months. You know us to be ready. Yeah. And husband to be ready. Cuz we have to both be on board. I’m not just gonna keep having babies if he’s not also willing to have these babies. Cuz once they’re out, they’re equally his responsibility. So.

Yeah. Yeah. Good to get commitment up front for sure.

Mm-hmm. . And so skipping ahead again. What is your postpartum experience with your second one now that the birth is much closer to what you were imagining in the first instance?

It was definitely different. It was just as hard, just in different ways. So transitioning from one kid to two kids is another equally enormous transition.

It’s really difficult. I mean, you have this kid that you’ve been used to giving all of your focus to. All of your [00:38:00] attention, all of your affection goes into this one child. So there’s kind of, at first there’s some guilt, oh, they’ve been used to being the center of our universe and they’re, they’re no longer the center of the universe.

There’s this helpless little baby that needs a lot of time and attention and being held and all this stuff. And so there’s that adjustment, which once he’s, if, if your older one really loves the baby, it helps a lot. Cuz then that’s really, that’s even better. Seeing siblings just adore each other is even better than just having your one.

But yeah, there’s the whole, the sleep thing comes back. If, if you started to get more sleep, now you have a baby, you’re probably not getting much sleep anymore. And you have a two-year-old to deal with and she was a very two, two-year-old. . So it was definitely tricky to figure out [00:39:00] how to balance the needs of two children who often needed very mutually exclusive things at the same time.

So yeah, it was tricky. And when we were both home, it was a lot easier because you’re, you’re one-on-one, you can handle this, you’ve got this when it’s just you with the two kids, it’s, it’s really, it took a, it took a lot. So I think that my postpartum depression did come back, but not as severely as before.

And also I was more prepared for it this time. I was more aware of what I needed and of asking for what I needed. And so, yeah, it was, it was there for sure, but I was able to manage it much better because I was prepared this time. I was, I knew what to expect. I knew the warning signs. So yeah, I think it’s still,, my youngest is almost three and it’s [00:40:00] still kind of flares up in a way.

If I’m especially tired or especially stressed. I can feel the anger building and, and sitting there . But, the same thing, I, now I know what to do. I need, I need more sleep, I need a break. I need to talk to somebody. You know? So I kind of, kind of know how to handle it now.

So yeah, those are three big ones, right?

The loss of sleep is the quickest path to crazy, right? , I remember in those early days when you get three hours in a row and you’re like, I’m a new human three hours in a row, , good lord, I’m, you know,

I’m rich. Amazing .

Which just gives you a sense of how, how just dramatic the sleep deprivation is.

So that is a really hard thing to go back to for sure. And how much space is there between the second and the third?

I think about 21 months. Okay. I got pregnant a lot faster than we expected to the third time. Second time took about five months. Third time took no time at all. . And we were like, oh, [00:41:00] okay, well, whoops.

Yeah. Didn’t meet snack clothes together.

The that’s the flip side of the easy pregnancy, right. ,

oops. Wasn’t expecting. Well, I mean, I’m, I’m in my thirties, so I was fully expecting it to take longer each time. Yeah. Didn’t, so we’re like, what? All right. . That birth was an absolute dream. I had a midwife this time and I had him at home and I could rave about home birth with midwives all day long, it was amazing.

It was absolutely amazing. It was hard still, but it was amazing.

And so even though you had the good experience with the second one, why do you choose to have the third one at home?

I’d heard multiple relatives that had home births and just hearing really good things about midwives and how they’re much more relaxed about the whole thing than doctors send to me.

And just not being in a hospital, cuz we had to stay in the hospital for about 24 hours after my son [00:42:00] was born and we were fine, but we were just waiting for our pediatrician to come and say he was fine. Everyone could see he was fine and I was fine. , but we had to wait this whole day in a hospital and I didn’t wanna do that again.

It was hard, it was hard to be away from my oldest that long. , I wanted to get home to my first baby and I just didn’t, I didn’t wanna do that again. So we went with a midwife and it was the best. I wish we’d done it the first time. Honestly, it was amazing. It was the best birth experience.

 It’s so much more relaxed. You’re in your own space. The midwifes, , they’re not strapping you to monitors, they’re checking on you just as much, but you’re not strapped to stuff. It’s just, much more relaxed. And then afterwards you just go to sleep in your own bed while they tidy up and that’s all they come to you, you know?

It’s just really nice. So, and it was the fastest birth. [00:43:00] I think from start to finish, it was four and a half hours. Oh wow.

It was really quick. That’s like a long lunch.

Yeah, it was , it started early that morning. I was like, oh, I’m having real contractions and they’re regular. And then, four hours later I’m just about ready to push and I pushed for 10 minutes and there he was

Wow. Well, and I honestly think that a huge part of that is just, I was so much more relaxed. It’s easy to get tense in a hospital and that slows things down and it makes things harder. And I was just really, really relaxed and felt very safe and confident that everything’s gonna be fine. And, and if it wasn’t fine, the midwives knew what to do and how to deal with it.

So I just let go and there he was and he was one of those amazing. One in a million babies that sleeps really well. So that was a, that was amazing. . [00:44:00] That was, that was just cheer. I mean, it’s always just cheer luck. You never know. You never know what kind of sleeper you’re gonna get.

But yeah, he, he slept really well right from the very beginning. He nursed super well and quickly and not super often either. So, so it was just like, wow, freedom. It was really nice. And I felt like transitioning from two to three was not nearly as hard as transitioning from one to two. So, except for being outnumbered

Yeah, my guess is the outnumbered bit will be harder as that, as that continues. But it sounds like the progress from the first birth to the third birth is pretty amazing. Mm-hmm. , they’re almost diametric opposites, right? The first and the third.

Yeah, and I needed that. I needed to most likely end on a good note after that first experience and how hard it was and how it kind of affects, it does affect your relationship with your child.

Not necessarily negatively, but I tend to worry [00:45:00] more and be more protective of my oldest than I am of my voice because their, lives started in much more happy, relaxed, easy ways and we were able to bond immediately and things weren’t as difficult. Whereas with my, you know, with my first, it took us a few months to kind of get into our stride with each other and figure things out.

So,

yeah. That’s amazing. So it seems like you learned a lot on this, on this trip.

Yeah, I learned a lot about how it all works and how I work and how to , seek out what I need rather than just accepting whatever is offered to me, I guess.

The self-advocacy is a super important thing to come by. And I guess what’s interesting about your story to me in part is I am also an autoimmune person.

[00:46:00] Hmm. And even though I had some self-advocacy in that space, I’m not sure I took it with me to the birthing space.

I think I was worried about the effect of my Crohn’s disease on pregnancy and birth. And so I overly trusted the doctor more than I should have. I wasn’t asking enough questions and I wasn’t.

Doing my own research enough. You can definitely take that way too far as well. But there’s nothing wrong with asking questions and if your doctor doesn’t want you to ask questions, you should find another doctor. Yeah. You know, , just finding things out and going to where you need to go to get what you need is really important.

And I wish I had known that the first time , but I learned it and ended up having a really amazing birth experience at least once. [00:47:00] So ,

that’s good. Yeah. That sounds amazing. And it is a, it is a, I feel like it’s a a story of victory for you who did not want another C-section to have these other births that didn’t involve that at all.

Mm-hmm. . . It absolutely was. I was, I was terrified, , that that was gonna be it. Cuz I, I had met a few people who had had c-sections the first time who ended up just always having C-sections. And I didn’t wanna do that. I wanted to do this on my own and just basically proved to myself that I could not, not to the point of like endangering my baby ever.

I was always clear on, you know, if it becomes dangerous, absolutely do what you need to do, but if I could do it, I wanted to do it.

So. That’s awesome. That’s a very that’s a, that’s almost a made for TV movie . Because it has such a, it has such a perfect arc. , [00:48:00]

there you go.

Maybe I should write a book. I was gonna say congratulations on that.

That’s good news. So now your kids are, are they seven, seven.

Six, four and two.

So three under six is no small feet? No,

it’s . Birth spacing is a whole nother subject.

And does this mommy section look how you thought it would look?

What do you mean by that? You had ideas about what birth would look like and what you wanted. And it sounds like you grew up with the idea that you would be a mother. Yeah. It, it’s obviously hard even in that in all the years you spent not being a mother, thinking about being a mother.

No one ever imagines the tantrums or the dirty diapers or they won’t eat the food or all that stuff. But on the whole, does this experience kind of, is it what you were hoping for?

It’s [00:49:00] different than I. Was hoping for. So I was always , oh, I’m gonna be a stay-at-home mom. That’s gonna be my career, cuz that’s what my mom did. And so I quit school in the middle of a bachelor’s degree because I was pregnant and I was like, I can only focus on one thing at a time and that thing is gonna be my child and I probably shouldn’t have, it probably would’ve been better for my mental health to have had something else as well that was just mine.

And also just exercise for parts of my brain that feel like they just turn to mush after the baby. And so while I still wanna be home and available to my children, I also want to stretch myself and, build a career for myself in ways that don’t make my family sacrifice too much. , but just realizing that I have to, I need these things in order to be the mother I want to be.

Because if I just put myself completely on hold, I get resentful, I get bored out of my mind. [00:50:00] It’s a lot more boring than I thought it would be. Yeah. It can be mind numbingly boring to be home with kids all day. And you, you find yourself scrolling through Facebook just because you’re like, somebody rescued me.

I need something . I need something interesting to look at or read or just something that’s not this. So I’m definitely not the exact kind of mother that I thought I would be. It’s definitely a lot different than I expected. I think. Some days I do really well and some days I really don’t. But I’m also learning that that’s just part of it and you do the best that you can.

And so if you’re having a day when you’re not doing well then you need to figure out what you need to be able to do better. Because, you know, I don’t lose my temper with my kids because I just can’t be bothered to control my temper. . Yeah, yeah, yeah. I lose my temper with my kids because I am not able to do better in that moment, for whatever reason.

So I have to [00:51:00] figure out what do I need? Do I need a nap? Do I need to take a break? Do I need to call my mom and Vince? So whatever it is I need to do so that I can come back and be the calm mom that they need. And also, I’ve just learned to apologize a lot, , because I can’t, I, I’m not, I can’t be perfect all the time.

I can’t be calm all the time. I, I don’t know how I’m trying to figure it out, but I don’t know how. And so I just have learned to. Take responsibility and tell them I’m sorry, and try to do better and Yeah. No, and I guess the answer is no. It does not look the way I thought it was going to at all. In some ways it’s better because your actual real kids are so much more interesting than imaginary kids.

Yeah. Also, it sounds like as hard as it is, that’s true that any job, any job you have some days are great. Some days are not so great. Some days you [00:52:00] lose your temper. Some days you can’t do it. But it sounds like you are honest and human with them, which is so much more than , , people give to a lot of jobs.

Right. That seems to me unbelievably valuable for your kids to see, people make mistakes, people get angry, and this is how you handle it when that happens. Because guess what? That’s gonna happen. I hope so. ,

that’s the hope, right? That that’s what they take from it, rather than, oh man, mom’s always angry.

I’m not always angry. Sometimes it feels that way, but I’m not . , I mean, it, it happens to them all the time too, right? They fight and they get upset and they, they just try to figure out, do you need a break? Are you hungry, ? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We try to figure out why, why is this happening and what can we do about it?

And we need to apologize when we’ve hurt somebody or yelled at them, or whatever it is. So, yeah, I don’t think, I, I think my husband has had a similar, I don’t think being a dad [00:53:00] is at all the way he thought it was gonna be either. But we’re figuring out how, how to do what We have the reality . Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Parenting for us, because it’s different for everyone, right? Just dealing with it as it comes and whatever happens, we figure it out.

That, that sounds like the messy, beautiful project of family. Right? That’s definitely messy for sharing . Yeah. That, that’s awesome. Thank you so much for sharing your story.

I totally appreciate it.

Oh, thank you.