Tag: miscarriage

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Episode 86 SN: Her C Section Recovery led her to Holistic Healing: Kayshaun’s Story, Part II

Today my guest experiences pain in her every day life for years after her pregnancies. And then finally, after an exploratory surgery, gets the diagnosis she’s been waiting for.

In today’s episode you’ll here how Kayshaun, a nurse turned business woman and mother of four, uses the pain and trauma from her four complicated pregnancies to help other people to find their voice and consider natural remedies to things like fibroids and endometriosis.

Fibroids

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcell.2021.633180/full

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9277653/

Why does it take so long to get a diagnosis of Endometriosis

https://www.yalemedicine.org/conditions/endometriosis#:~:text=On%20average%2C%20women%20in%20the,before%20receiving%20a%20proper%20diagnosis.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicebroster/2020/08/27/why-it-takes-so-long-to-be-diagnosed-with-endometriosis-according-to-a-expert/?sh=c6ad0769674a

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/endometriosis-experiences-the-long-painful-road-to-diagnosis

Audio Transcript

Paulette : Welcome to war stories from the womb. Today my guest experiences pain in her everyday life for years after pregnancy. And then finally, after an exploratory surgery gets a diagnosis

This is to show that shows the 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 more realistic one. It also celebrates the incredible resilience and strength it takes to create another person, or at least 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. In today’s episode, you’ll hear how kayshaun a nurse turn a business woman was a mother of four is the pain and trauma from her four complicated pregnancies to help other people. What follows is the second part of our conversation. I also include insights about the latest thinking of preeclampsia, shared by a professor of obstetrics and gynecology. We returned to Kayshaun’s story as she’s describing the consequence of carefully investigating her fibroid situation as she’s trying to avoid a hysterectomy.

 

 

Kayshaun 1:17  

In a way the tumor cancer scare was needed. I wouldn’t have found out what we found out. Oh my gosh, Paulette, he went in there. And found that I have a plate of scar tissue. My uterus is attached to my abdominal wall in the scar tissue was growing through my organs. So he said you Saved your  life. He said if you were to wait and have that hysterectomy, you would have woke up a completely different person. He that doctor wouldn’t have been able to do it. You have adhesions connected to your bladder, from your uterus, to your abdominal wall to your intestines, all my other organs and stuff and I’m like, I got scar tissue. attached to my uterus in my abdominal wall. And I was like, that’s why I was never able to walk past that timeframe all this time. And in the doctors were thinking I was crazy, saying it’s just the fibroids and I’m like no, it’s something else. It’s something else. And I’m relieved to have a diagnosis and to have answers but it took 19 years to get this diagnosis.

 

Paulette  2:31  

Okay, so endometriosis occurs when the lining of the uterus starts to grow outside the uterine wall. It can grow on ovaries or fallopian tubes or anywhere inside the abdominal cavity. Right now, the current estimates suggest that on average, it can take 10 years before receiving a proper diagnosis. That’s the current standard, not the standard that Kayshaun lived under. Why you might ask, does it take a decade to figure this out? It sounds like the most common symptom is pain that can register the pelvic area but also in other areas like lower back. It can happen during a bowel movement or during or after sex. Because it can show up in many different places and circumstances. The pain is often attributed to other diseases like irritable bowel syndrome. It’s also missed because the pain during your period is considered quote unquote normal. I’m guessing another aspect of this disease that makes it hard to diagnose definitively is that the only way to know for sure that you have endometriosis is to conduct a surgical procedure where a doctor puts a small telescope inside of the abdomen through the belly button. 

 

So thank goodness for this doctor to figure it out. Right. We went to look right at your description. I went look for it. And are the tumors benign? Are they just fibroids are

 

Kayshaun  3:48  

okay, no. tumors were benign. Yes, they were very good.

 

Paulette  3:51  

Okay, good. So that’s amazing. Maybe you can clue us in in your holistic practice. What do you do for fibroids? I’m going to preface Keisha this description of her approach to fibroids by just saying that everybody is different or expectation may not work for you and then again it may but this is not medical advice. If you have fibroids, please consult your doctor or whatever health practitioner you see for advice specific to your body. fibroids are super common, affecting roughly 70% of women. They are tours in the uterus but they’re often benign and we don’t know what causes a fiber to grow. What we do know some risk factors that include age they’re more common as you age, obesity, Vitamin D deficiency, hormone irregularities and race. Numerous studies have shown that African American women are more likely than their counterparts to develop fibroids.

 

Kayshaun  4:41  

Oh wow. It’s a whole lifestyle for fibroids. If you want to do a lot of detoxing. Do you want to drink a lot of water you want to do colonics castor oil wraps, oh cast oil wraps or packs. It’s when you take like a wool cloth and you saturate it with castor oil and you put it on your abdomen and wrap it up with saran wrap with the heating pad. Oh that is a godsend for boys drinking like raspberry tea detox tea doing detox baths, eliminating a lot of toxins from out of your body. You know what I learned about is we introduced a lot of toxins into our bodies whether fats the products that we use, what we’re eating the cleaning supplies, so I have to get really holistically clean what my whole lifestyle I have stopped chemically processing perming my hair so I went all natural because those those feed the fibroids I started using clean skincare products. That’s one of the reasons I developed my own skincare line. So I can use all natural products, the cleaning solutions that I use, they have to be cleaned and so it was a an overall of everything. And I had my doctors they were right there with me through this whole journey doing ultrasounds watching them shrink and I remember the last ultrasound that I had did they were like they are all gone. They were all calcified and I’m like I can’t believe I did. This. It was hard. It was expensive. But it took like five or maybe even seven years to do it naturally but they wanted to do surgery and I’m like no, not gonna do that.

 

Paulette  6:29  

Yeah, hysterectomy is a major surgery and nice to avoid if you can get

 

Kayshaun  6:34  

the surgery he was like if I was to ever choose to have a surgery, he was like it’s going to be a risky surgery. He was like we have to have every organ that has this adhesion. We would have no specialists in the operating room with us because he said this has been attached for so long we don’t know what’s gonna happen when we pull everything apart. So me the holistic pain and trauma warrior. I’m not having surgery. I’m taking care of this holistically and naturally it’s a very painful process, but I’m working with a pelvic floor Therapist and I’m using massage therapy to manually break the scar tissue.

 

Paulette  7:14  

Wow, that sounds like a big task. But again, to avoid surgery, it seems like it would be totally worth it.

 

Kayshaun  7:20  

It is I’m glad that I’m able to not act so fast and not be pressured by the medical community in doing this naturally because I don’t want to be like one of those other women having surgery. And it

 

Paulette  7:33  

sounds painful, right? It’s painful for us. Yeah. So it’s,

 

Kayshaun  7:37  

I can’t work a regular job fighting to get disability. I can’t stand for long periods of time. It’s growing through my organs when he didn’t just oh my gosh, having intercourse is extremely painful. And I thought I was crazy and losing my mind and it caused the division in my marriage because I started having sex no more because it was excruciating. And I remember one time I was telling my husband I said I feel like

 

Paulette  8:06  

you’re in tissue. Yeah. As you

 

Kayshaun  8:09  

penetrating, and I’m all like you have to feel that. I know you feel it. I’m not crazy. And he’s crazy, but it was like yeah, I do feel that. I was like, it’s like he’s breaking my virginity each time. No like how can you put me through this? And so when I found out about the endometriosis and as the therapist was breaking, you know, massage therapy. I’m all like, why are you going all the way down there? You know, you should be here. I mean, she was all by the labia all and I’m like I said, and he goes all the way down there. She was like, Yes, I can feel it. She was like this growing all through here. And I was like, Can this go through the vaginal wall? And she was like, yes. And I’m like, Oh my God. That’s what I was going through all these years, you know? So to just be raw and honest and open with everyone on your platform. I haven’t been sexually active in eight years. Yeah, I have a desire to be sexually active because it’s, it’s torturous. So you know, I need to continue my therapy and break this tissue down.

 

Paulette  9:13  

I’m so grateful that they figured out what it is. So that you can stop doubting yourself and appreciate that your body’s right. Right you trust what you’re feeling? Good Lord. That’s such a long journey. That’s such a so many things that you learned along the way is there if you could pick out something that I know that this is a hard question. I got something to tell to younger Hey, Shawn, is there something you would tell her?

 

Kayshaun  9:39  

I would tell younger KayShaun to slow down and not yourself because you know, third pregnancy. I have preeclampsia again.

 

Paulette  9:48  

So the third pregnancy. How do you walk into that? I mean, it’s painful to walk. I guess I thought because you were having all this other pain. That was it. You were like I’m done.

 

Kayshaun  9:58  

I waited three years though to get pregnant again. Okay. It was in I had just had my second miscarriage. I didn’t even know I was pregnant. I had found out we had a car accident. A really, really bad car accident Wisdom went out the window we flipped over. I mean, it was just really crazy. And just through the them checking us up and because I’m bleeding and everything and they find out they was like, Ma’am, did you know you were pregnant? And I’m like, No, I didn’t know and they was like you’ve lost the baby. And now we need to do a DNC. And I’m like, I’m pregnant and I lost the baby. You know, I just had a car accident. My kids went out the window. My husband almost lost his limbs. It was just I’m like, I can’t believe this. You know, so it wasn’t as devastating as the first one but

 

Paulette  10:51  

surrounded surrounded by all the other trauma. Yes, you’re right,

 

Kayshaun 10:55  

right. Yeah, but so I get pregnant the third time and I was ready. Actually. I wanted a girl so I was excited to be pregnant this time because I already have two boys. I have my husband. I’m the only female in the home I’m ready for girl but it was towards the end of the pregnancy. I was at school and almost passed out again. And the instructors they call the ambulance and I get to the hospital and they do the test and they let me know that there’s preeclampsia again and it was like I went to surgery right now. It’s very bad.

 

Paulette  11:32  

So first of all, how far along are we

 

Kayshaun  11:35  

38 weeks, so I had a scheduled C section  date they just didn’t make it to it.

 

Paulette  11:40  

And when you feel the dizziness Do you think oh shit, this is preeclampsia again, or you don’t it doesn’t feel the same.

 

Kayshaun  11:46  

I don’t even think I thought about that because I was trying to get to my class. That’s all that I was worried about. And I was just like, hey, something’s wrong. You know what I did? well, maybe I’m tired. Maybe I just need to sit down but I barely made it into the class and up the stairs and everyone was all over me. But the blood

 

Paulette  12:10  

work that shows you how eclampsia isn’t like liver enzymes or something like what’s telling you okay?

 

Kayshaun 12:17  

And I was scared this time because they was just like, oh my god you gotta go in my husband got there, but we had a little babies. You know, we got a four year old two year old at this time, and there was no one around and they were gonna make me go into surgery by myself. So I’m calling my dad neighbors. I’m crying. I’m like, I can’t go into surgery by myself. And luckily we had the labor in my bed got there at the same time. And my husband was able to come in there and be with

 

Paulette  12:49  

and so they do another emergency C section which now I feel like you’re like oh, this again.

 

Kayshaun  12:54  

Yes, it’s another emergency C section but my bladder wouldn’t cut this time. I was only in the hospital for three days. I actually was able to walk on the first day. So it was just that scary process but it just made me think why is this happening again?

 

Paulette  13:13  

Too experience preeclampsia once is a huge challenge. To experience it twice is hard to wrap your head around. I took this issue to Dr. jellen, the Program Director of maternal fetal medicine fellowship and associate professor of psychology and obstetrics at Johns Hopkins who provide insight about preeclampsia LSVT show other than this underlying cardiovascular issue that you we can’t measure. Are there visible risk factors that we know.

 

Kayshaun  13:40  

So we now have a lot of risk factors we know for certain if somebody has had preeclampsia in a prior pregnancy, they’re at risk. If they have chronic hypertension, they’re at risk and then a lot of other things so carrying multiple gestations increases the risk probably because of the stress to the body is greater, but underlying diseases such as kidney disease, diabetes, autoimmune conditions, all of those things put patients are at risk as well. Then there’s risk factors that maybe are more moderate, and those include having a high body mass index or having a family history of preeclampsia being over 35 and having in vitro fertilization. Know that black race is also a risk as well as low income status.

 

Paulette  14:27  

So race seems like too big a category to be a risk factor. So that must be a stand in for something else we don’t quite understand.

 

Kayshaun  14:36  

So a lot of studies have really tried to approach race and really break it down by other what we call co founders. So we know that arrays can be associated with other things and can we tease it out and say, Oh, is it these other things and not just race? I think that there’s a lot of thought now that even when you remove co founders and try to control for that, there does seem to be a risk for black women. In regards to preeclampsia, and the United States Preventive Services Task Force addresses this and they see that black persons and lower income not either or, but independently, are associated with increased risk due to environmental, social and historical inequities, shaping health exposures, access to health care, and the unequal distribution of resources. That biological propensities so I definitely think some people will argue all kinds of genetic environmental interactions that could be attributed to race. But people have started really talking about this theory of racism as a risk factor.

 

Paulette  15:48  

Yeah, well, that seems like a super important thing to tackle and a big thing to tackle.

 

Kayshaun  15:53  

I think we’re in a world now, where it is being actively addressed in many, many areas of healthcare. And I hope that in years coming we will have better ways to actually treat it and manage it. Yeah, than we do now. Yeah, I just attended the society maternal fetal medicine conference in San Francisco last week, and one of the oral plenaries talked about treating blood pressure and lower blood pressure thresholds, outcomes, and so instead of using the usual 140, systolic over 90, diastolic they were really treating I think, at 130, systolic over diastolic to see if they could improve outcomes and it does seem like using classification systems such as that could be beneficial and definitely have seen improvements. In the management of preeclampsia as you have developed better antihypertensive algorithms for management and I do think they’re amazing drugs that are very helpful in pregnancy.

 

Kayshaun  16:58  

But everything went well after that, and then the fourth pregnancy, so horrific, I wouldn’t be able to have children after that whole pregnancy. And this is the one with my daughter. I was sick the whole time and extremely sick. I couldn’t hold down or food or anything I just kept throwing up to the point where I had to every other day I was in the emergency room, getting fluids and so even the nausea medication Zofran it was barely working. And so and this is why I say I will take a shot and slow down because I was in nursing school at this time. My dad had just paid $25,000 for me to go to nursing school and he was actually upset that I was pregnant again, because I didn’t know I was pregnant when I joined the program. And so when I found out I’m like, I’m gonna do every thing I can I’m not wasting your money. I’m going to finish this program. I should have sat my butt down and but I didn’t my doctor, she’s like you’re in and out of the hospital. We need to put a Acorda cat in your neck. Because we’re gonna have to have a nurse come to the house and give you IV so that you’re not coming to the emergency room every other day. And I’m like, Well, I’m in the nursing program and I can’t have no part in the no CT cap. In my neck. They’re not gonna let me come. So you’re just gonna have to deal with me coming to the emergency room every other day. How old are you at this point? Oh, I’m 30 man. Okay, and so they’re like, Okay, fine, you know, so I’m steadily in and out and then oh my gosh, early third trimester. Now I’m high risk. Because my kidneys and my liver is starting. They don’t know why. Wow. And they’re like, We don’t know what’s going on with you and they was like your high risk. They couldn’t find out why it’s happening. They were like hopefully when you deliver everything will go back to normal so I’m scared the remainder of this pregnancy can you

 

Paulette  19:09  

feel it to feel poorly? Oh, growing up.

 

Kayshaun  19:13  

I feel weak. I feel lethargic and put I’m in nursing school. You know trying to maintain on the honor roll and everything three kids. This was the most stressful ever in my life. But the doctors all they can say was we hope that you get better. Once you deliver it to the end of that to my scheduled C section date. It’s everything is smooth. And it was like and that’s when they said at this time too because all of this was happening. They suggested that I don’t have any more kids after this. Because I was technically waiting. I wanted five kids. That was my goal. And I knew if they didn’t see that film like because they say if you could see through the uterus, they tell you you can’t have kids anymore because it wouldn’t be safe. So I knew I could potentially have one more but they was like what your kidneys and your liver doing this is not safe. It was like you gotta get your tunes tied after this. So I got them tied, put and burned after that. But I didn’t slow down because I was in this time in nursing school. I’m in clinicals so I’m at the end. I can’t miss anything. Yeah. Oh my gosh, I wish I could go back and tell Keisha to sit her butt down and rest and wait to the next semester to finish because my crazy but I told the doctor I got a good report with the doctor letting them know what’s going on. And I’m like I gotta go back to school. So they I had them double staple me. It the little white strips that they put on those. They put them teach double back, wrap me up and seven days later, I was back in clinicals Wow. And it was so hard but I come I come from a real hard life Wow. I’m used to just pushing myself or I want to get to the next level or succeed or I’m going to be continuing the struggle my C section scar ripped open three times.

 

Paulette  21:18  

What does it mean that it came

 

Kayshaun  21:21  

apart? And you know what I did? I my doctor’s office was resolved Hey, I just busted open go back to school

 

Paulette  21:45  

that seems unbelievably painful.

 

Kayshaun  21:51  

But I was under a lot of pressure, you know, primary breadwinner for the family on ice assistance. I got kids that just can’t call his money. He’s not trying to me so I felt like I have to force myself to do this because I’m thinking oh, life is gonna be so much better and all of this but I was tearing down my body in the process not knowing I’m thinking I’m this strong, incredible woman, but I’m paying for it later.

 

Paulette  22:23  

Well, well, it’s a big theory. You are the strong, incredible woman but it’s not for free. Right it’s not for France. Yes. So when your daughter is born, kidneys and liver go back to normal.

 

Kayshaun  22:37  

And then eventually Yes, I was done by squirting breast and as much as all but I heal but I’ll still remain happy bye walked for too long or anything like that, even though they were just like, oh, let’s try but like but I heal. I was happy to not have preeclampsia again. She’s healthy. I think this was the shortest amount of time I stayed in the hospital which was only in three days which I was kind of shocked. I’m all like, I was high risk the whole time.

 

Paulette  23:10  

I was gonna guess. 10 minutes based on location on schedule, right?

 

Kayshaun  23:16  

Yes. Wow.

 

Paulette  23:17  

I mean, that’s amazing. And so how old are the kids now?

 

Kayshaun  23:21  

Now? 21 1915 and 30. Wow.

 

Paulette  23:28  

You’re still in high school? Yes. Yeah. You look amazingly calm and well rested for that. For everything that happened and for kids in this period.

 

Kayshaun  23:40  

I tried really hard, you know, going through all of these different challenges. It has taught me to look more into myself to more self advocacy, because it finding out to have stage three individuals is 19 years later, it could have been found a lot sooner if I was more in tune myself. We tend to let others tell us how we feel like oh, ignore the pain or is not as bad or pray to God and all this stuff. And it’s like if I would have just told those people to shut up and listen to me. It takes what I’m going through seriously. I wouldn’t have suffered as long but that’s part of my mission now to speak on a sea of those and chronic pain or chronic health issues to stop letting others tell you what you feel. I did a post the other day that is you can’t see or feel or understand my pain doesn’t mean that it’s not real.

 

Paulette  24:40  

I totally agree with you. I’m hoping that with more research into women’s health conditions, endometriosis, fibroids, menopause, for example, that it will be less of an uphill climb for our kids and it has been for many women in our generation. So So is that your work? Now? Is that what you’re doing now

 

Kayshaun  24:55  

right now. So I have the skincare line. And I do a lot of educate. I don’t work in the medical field anymore, but I’m so used to educating others and so I’ve made remarketing a lot of people follow my journey I’ve been speaking about it a lot more so I am transitioning to add and to help others with their fibroids. A lot of people want to follow my journey with handling the endometriosis because I’m doing it holistically so they want to follow me on this journey. So I’m shifting over to share that more and to help others and I left the medical field. I kind of like thought like what am I going to do? I spent 20 years in medical field now. I have to really find myself but I’ve been able to see all the trauma all the pain that I have been through learning how to deal with it holistically is because now I can help others. I’ve had people come as I would share, they’d be like, Oh my God. I thought I was the only one biller with myofascial pain syndrome and you’ve been helping me and then I felt guilty like oh my god, I’ve been keeping all this knowledge into myself and just those close to me. So now I have that that urge. It’s my purpose to help others with their pain holistically in naturally and I fell I have both sides of the world. I got the medical knowledge and the holistic knowledge because of my personal experiences. So I feel good to know all of this trauma all of this pain wasn’t for nothing because as I’m getting better now I can help others get better as well. Do you have a website or somewhere people can find you? Yes, I do have a website it is WWW dot renew you body better.com And that is directly to the website to purchase any type of face or bodies in care products and I think I can kind of say I kind of knew I would end up to this because as I was formulating products for the skin, I was still formulating products to help with the issues like my my bath salts is a detox bath salts to help not only with skin but just overall general detoxing for the body. So I’m excited for expanding into this new journey. So just on your platform, and speaking I’ve never done this before. I’ve never spoke about this story is shared on this intimate level before so I’m so grateful you know for you and your platform that I’m able to share my story and help others.

 

Paulette  27:29  

I totally appreciate it and we’ll put a link to your website in the show notes so people can find it. Yes thank you. Thanks so much to Keisha for sharing all the facets of her medical journey through pregnancy and birth. I also appreciate her candid discussion of fibroids and endometriosis. A huge fraction of women develop fibroids at some point in their lives. And their statistics for endometriosis are estimated to be one in 10 but we don’t hear too much about it. We need to talk openly about it so that women feel confident taking these issues and questions about pelvic pain to an expert to get help rather than muscle through which too many women do. Thanks also to Dr. jellen for her insights about preeclampsia. I find it totally inspiring to hear about all the work that’s being done now to figure out exactly why this happens. And hopefully, someday in the not too distant future, a way to dramatically improve outcomes for women and babies. Thank you for listening. If you liked the show, SUBSCRIBE And leave us a review we’ll be back next week with another inspiring story

 

 



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Episode 85SN: Her C Section Recovery Led her to Holistic Healing: Kayshaun’s story, Part I

In this episode, you’ll hear how my guest rejected her doctor’s insistance on a hysterectomy and saved her own life. 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.

Today you’ll hear how my guest learns to trust her body and advocate for herself–a critical skill in any medical procedure, maybe even more critical in childbirth; she had four births and each was visited by something unexpected that required her to develop these skills. In this episode I also include the insights of an associate professor of gynecology and obstetrics from Johns Hopkins. What follows is the first part of our conversation.

To find Kayshaun and her skin care products, click here

Odds of Having a Miscarriage with an Amniocentesis

https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/amniocentesis/about/pac-20392914#:~:text=Miscarriage

Rate of Uterine Rupture with a VBAC

https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/labor-and-delivery/in-depth/vbac/art-20044869

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/21687-vaginal-birth-after-cesarean-vbac

Injury during C section

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7652199/

https://journals.lww.com/greenjournal/abstract/2016/05001/bladder_injury_during_cesarean_delivery__a.109.aspx#:~:text=The%20incidence%20of%20bladder%20injury,attempted%20vaginal%20birth%20after%20cesarean.

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Episode 81SN: A Doula (and Mother of 5) Offers Miscarriage Support and Much More: Aliza’s Story, Part I

This is a show that shares true experiences of pregnancy to help shift the common cultural narrative, away from the glossy depictions of this enormous transition to a more realistic one. It also celebrates the incredible resilience and strength it takes to create another person and deliver them into the world. I’m your host, Paulette Kamenecka, I’m a writer and an economist and a mother of two girls. In this episode, you’ll hear advice about managing miscarriage or a woman who has experienced numerous miscarriages intermingled with the births of five children, and she’s a doula. She also shares how each experience taught her something valuable. Today, you’ll hear the first part of our conversation.

To connect with Aliza, check here

Audio Transcript

Paulette: Welcome to war stories from the womb. This is a show that shares true experiences of pregnancy to help shift the common cultural narrative, away from the glossy depictions of this enormous transition to a more realistic one. It also celebrates the incredible resilience and strength it takes to create another person and deliver them into the world. I’m your host, Paulette Kamenecka, I’m a writer and an economist and a mother of two girls. In this episode, you’ll hear advice about managing miscarriage or a woman who has experienced numerous miscarriages intermingled with the births of five children, and she’s a doula. She also shares how each experience taught her something valuable. Today, you’ll hear the first part of our conversation.

Let’s get to this inspiring story. 

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

Aliza:  my name is Aliza Said and I’m so excited to be here. Thank you for having me. I am a mama marriage coach. I’m also a birth doula actually, and this podcast is very relevant. I’m a mom of five and I live in Israel. My main passion is helping moms who are feeling really overwhelmed and as I like to say feel like they’re drowning in dishes and dipers to be able to reconnect to themselves and to the people around them that they love. So that’s what I that’s my main task in this world now.

P  That’s awesome. And, you know, my sense is that the Senate moms you’re talking to are all of them. Five kids, you lucky duck. That’s awesome. Oh, yeah.

A  1:42  

Yes, very lucky.

P  1:44  

So I love to start us off before the kids before Did you know growing up that you wanted a family? Do you have siblings? Was there something else that kind of sparked that interest?

A  1:55  

Yeah, so I come from a big family as well. We’re six siblings. And from the time I remember myself as a little girl, I always had a doll with me. I was always like mommying something. I always wanted like a chimpanzee pet just so that I could be a mommy. Like I always wanted to be a mother at every age like so it was definitely something that I always dreamed about. I really wanted. I was able to see really empowered moms around me. And that’s just who I wanted to be. So that was really special.

P  2:32  

That’s super cool. So I’m imagining that the first baby came before you became a doula or is that not right?

A  2:38  

Before before I only became a doula before my fifth baby. 

P: Okay, okay. Yeah, I will have a right yeah, 

A: so actually, the first birth is what sparked my desire.

P  2:54  

So for the first one, did you get pregnant easily?

A  2:57  

I mean, what’s easily?  To me. No. And it was really hard for me because I thought, and this is what I saw all around me that people get married and 10 months later that they have a baby. And that didn’t happen to me. And we also had a miscarriage a few months after getting married. And that to me, nobody around me ever spoke about miscarriage. I never heard about someone having a miscarriage. That was like, completely heart wrenching for me like I’m also not pregnant right away like everybody said, now having a miscarriage and I felt like a failure. I felt like my body wasn’t working. I felt like everybody was able to do it and only I couldn’t and that was really difficult. Now I noticed that it was one of the biggest gifts that we were given as a couple and me as an individual because it definitely made the mother that I am today but in those moments, it was really tough. we actually had an appointment to go start in fertility treatments. And we decided that before we start, we were gonna go on a vacation and we found out that we were already pregnant. 

P: Oh, wow. 

A: Yeah. Which was very, very exciting. But yeah, it was definitely a journey. And I now say that I’m so grateful for it, even though it was really really difficult and those moments

P  4:22  

Now age is not the only thing that can affect your, your journey. But how old were you for the first one?

A  4:28  

So I was really young, we got married very young. I always say I needed my husband to grow up like I needed to get back and really on, because we needed to grow together. I was 19 when we got married, and I had my first baby 21 and a half

P  4:45  

So like today we say that’s young because people are having babies later and later but historically that’s not super young at all. That’s like right in the wheelhouse. Right, it’s when there’s when your body knows to be pregnant.

A  4:56  

Right? And I remember even the doctor saying to me like when I had the miscarriage she’s like, well, you’re so young and healthy and like I ate really, really healthy and I was exercising like, super healthy. She’s like, you’re gonna get pregnant really fast. And then it didn’t happen. So like it doesn’t always go according to the books. And I think that that’s also part of the beauty of it, that it’s kind of the gateway to go into parenthood. It doesn’t all go according to the books and there’s this element of learning to let go of control and to be able to, you know, ride the wave.

P  5:32  

Yeah, it’s such a it’s such a good lesson if that’s the way you interpret it because it’s totally true and everything you know, parenting will teach you whether you want it or not that you have no control. But this is a very good lesson that and I think most of us grew up even if you I live in the US and even if you didn’t grow up here, most of us grew up in the US. Okay, well, you grew up thinking I will have sex and I will be pregnant. And that’s how it works. And that’s not really how it works. That’s not that’s how it works. Sometimes right? That’s not that’s not really a thing. So how was the pregnancy?

A  6:04  

So the pregnancy Well, I just want to also say to what you just said right now, that also it doesn’t always happen like that and also miscarriages happens. And I like make it a point to talk about I had two miscarriages probably another one in the middle over there. And I talk about it a lot. And I think that it’s so important to talk about it and like I say it’s kind of like awakening this silent tribe of women out there that we’re all in this together. So how was the first pregnancy the first pregnancy was beautiful, blissful, amazing. We were just like so in awe of the miraculous thing happening. And it was really beautiful. Like I felt amazing. I was really just every minute of it.

P  6:48  

So take us to the birth. What are you envisioning? And then how are we doing today is the day

A  6:57  

so what am I envisioning? Well, once I became pregnant, I was like, Okay, I’m going to do this in the most empowering, beautiful way that I can and I started researching and like really learning everything I could and reading a lot and and I found hypnobirthing. And I would like watch these home births and I was like, that’s what I want. And everybody around me said to me, just wait it’s your first birth. You’ll never survive without epidural. It all sounds nice and everybody around me was saying all these different things and I was trying to believe it could be beautiful

A  7:37  

My husband was at a party. He was working in education, and he was with this student until like two in the morning. They have this party. He came back we were like we were like talking until late and then four in the morning. I started feeling like period cramps. I was like meaning I think something might be starting here. I put like a warm bottle and we were just like kind of soaking it up. We put on our music and my playlist that I got ready. And we started just enjoying the day and the wave started coming and the contraction started. We went out for a walk to go see the beautiful view and I was like it’s gonna take time. So the first birth and we were just having a lot of fun together. And I wasn’t counting contractions or anything because I was like it’s gonna take time, but my mother kept calling and she was like, okay, that were two minutes in between contractions like you gotta go. And we were just I was not in pain at all. I was completely like riding the wave, like I said before, and just really breathing through it like swaying with my husband and going on a walk in nature. The doula came to my house. And I said to her, I think we should start going out because we lived kind of apart from the hospital. And I said, I’m a little nervous because when there’s contractions, and I’m breathing, I feel like something’s coming out. Okay, let’s go so we finally got to the hospital and I walk in and I’m like, swaying and swinging and singing to myself and the doctors let the midwife who who was there when we got there like Okay, first birth, it’s going to take time I see that you’re excited, but then she was like really not acknowledging that I was far along. And then she checks me and she’s like, you’re fully dilated. 

P: Oh my gosh. 

A: And she was like, completely shocked. My husband started hysterically crying and we were just like, so excited. And she was like, Okay, I’m getting you a wheelchair and I don’t need a wheelchair. I’m gonna walk. So I walked in. I walked into the laboring room, and I was like, Okay, now what? So the midwife was like, Okay, start pushing, even though now I know I was not ready to push at all. I did not feel the urge to push at that point. But I was fully dilated and she said to push so I started pushing.

P  9:55  

So I put three hours well, let me only stop you there for a second. Yeah. Do you know how push have we taken a class like what happened to the homework? That seems like that flew out the window?

A  10:06  

Well, that at that point, I wasn’t gonna have homebirth yet. I only had at my fourth grade. I had like a real journey with each birth. So the so I knew how to put we did like a course with with my doula. We kind of spoke about pushing, but I was in such an endorphin bubble, that I was just completely blissful. Like the midwife asked my husband, what did she smoke at home? I was really just enjoying every moment of it, and we were singing and we were like, completely enjoy it. And it wasn’t even like aware of things I was saying, like I opened my eyes and I know that everybody’s crying around me, because I was like, pouring out my heart and I was like, I was completely drugged on endorphins. So in I mean, now I know to say that I did not need to push for two and a half hours, but in those moments, I was really enjoying it. We were singing all the doctors there was like a line outside of the room because they all wanted to come in and see the beautiful spiritual experience that was going on in the room. So I remember the doctor said to me, you know, we need to put up a big screen so everybody can see how it could happen. So after two and a half hours of pushing, she finally came out and it was just a beautiful moment like unbelievable. It was really blissful. And yeah, so that really was what started my journey and understanding what an unbelievable power we have as women and what we can birth into this world. second birth was completely different.

P  11:40  

We’ll get there that so that’s awesome. That is such a lovely story. And I can imagine if that were my first birth, I’d have five kids also. Because I’d be like, I always just want to do this more. Right. That sounds great.

A  11:54  

Absolutely. I say some people like to go bungee jumping. I like to have kids.

P  11:59  

Yeah. Yeah, they’re I think there are some people who have like, the just so physiology and all that and so it’s awesome to meet one of them. Thank you for coming on. So that sounds lovely. That sounds amazing. And then how’s the how’s the fourth trimester fine, and how does it go?

A  12:17  

So yeah, so also that like we were completely blessed, I’m telling my first story, but hold on for a second. Like it sounds too perfect. That’s alright. Life gets real, but the first one was very blissful. Also, she was the easiest baby ever. She completely like made it so easy for us to do the transition. She slept when we wanted her sleep. She didn’t like she was just you smile when when she was awake. Like she was the easiest baby ever. All right now she’s, you know, teaching us what kind of parents we need to be. But, you know

P  12:49  

And she’s still have like that character.

A: No.

A  12:56  

I mean, what’s the character like? 

P: Is she really easygoing

A: She suddenly like easy, you’ll have a lot of power in her. Okay. Okay. Like, I mean, she has all of that but ya know, she has a lot of a lot of inner fire.

P  13:09  

Good. I like to hear. So now let’s get to the second one and ensure you have this first one and how old is the first one were you before you think oh, let’s have another. So

A  13:20  

we were really thinking I was on birth control. But it didn’t wait. I was on birth control and then I had a miscarriage. And then that was again, not so easy. But even though it was a completely different experience, going through it with my baby on top of me. That was when she was around seven months old. And then I got pregnant again. Then I went to like, I also went to like a natural doctor and someone who was actually a traditional midwife, and then she went to go there in Chinese medicine. And we did like acupuncture and herbs and lots of different things, which was a very good healing process for me. And then about a few months later, I kept telling her I want to start trying to get pregnant because once I start trying, it’ll take me like a year and a half at least, like it takes me time. Like, let’s give me the time and she kept telling me no, no, give yourself time to heal yourself and to heal. And then I think it was my daughter’s first birthday. She’s like, okay, you can start trying, but like on a low burner. And then I got pregnant right away, which was like really miraculous and really amazing. So I also want to say in parentheses. There are many people that wait much longer, and like my story is, you know, a small little time that we needed to wait and this was the journey we needed to go through. And I just want to say that I send so much hugs and empathy to anyone who’s waiting much more than me less than me and I feel like those months gave me the ability to understand and have much more compassion towards women who go through that, like I really, I’m very lucky I didn’t have to wait so long. But I it was such a significant part of who I am. Because it gave me that compassion to all the women out there even though I understand only a tiny bit of what they’re going through. So I just want to say that

P  15:17  

that’s nicely said Wait, let me ask you one thing before you go on in your journey of the five kids. You had two miscarriages total or you had more

A  15:27  

two probably three but we didn’t really like two, two official.

P  15:31  

So as a as a doula and someone who’s in this space and maybe you didn’t do for yourself because you weren’t there yet. But do you have an idealized ritual that you would tell people to do or something you wish you had done? Or, you know, something you’ve learned both from your personal experience and your experience as a doula that you might want to share with people about you know, I have found this is particularly helpful in miscarriage.

A  15:57  

Yeah, well, I’ll say two points that I find is really important, from my personal experience and from the women that I work with. One is to really give yourself permission to grieve debris. And it doesn’t matter how many weeks you were pregnant it doesn’t matter if you wanted the pregnancy and, and it happened or if you weren’t expecting a pregnancy and you happen. It doesn’t matter what the circumstances are. Allow yourself to have this time of real grief. And I feel like today we’re so quick to go back into life. I just spoke to a friend who went through a miscarriage many more weeks than I was she was almost halfway through 

P: Wow. 

A: She felt like a need to go right back and she’s a dance instructor and she like uses her body a lot and she went like right back and and after a few weeks she completely crashed and she said I didn’t give myself that time to like, really just sit with it and be okay with it that this is what my body’s going through and to give myself that time and to go through all the feelings and and sometimes it’s all different feelings and sometimes they’re scary feelings and sometimes they’re contradicting feelings, and all of that is okay and give yourself that time for that vessel. When I think that that is super important. Then know how to contain that vessel and go from there, but I feel like there needs to be more of a permission slip to all women out there to go through that. 

And the second point that I want to say is to really recognize how different the way that me and my partner are going to grieve. Many times it can cause a lot of friction, it can cause a lot of resentment, a lot of blame a lot of a lot of things. I think that recognizing that we both go through this in a very different way. But we’re both going through it is so important and to be able to open up and talk about it and to be able to know how to listen to the other person. And even though it’s my body that went through it. My husband also went through a loss and to be able to also recognize that and to be able to really go through it together and not just expecting him to be able to see what I’m going through or this is something I see a lot with my clients, whether it’s miscarriage and also birth, you know also in a birth, a husband is also going through all of these things, even if it’s not his body, but really recognizing that we’re both going through these big transformations here. And being able to recognize that and know how to really work with that instead of working against it.

P  18:33  

Yeah, those are two really good suggestions. I wish I wish in American culture we had a well defined set of rituals for miscarriage like we do for the funerals of people who have been alive a long time or even or even babies right we have a whole set you know the Irish have a set of rituals Jews have a set Indians have a set so many different cultures have a way that they process those feelings. And the step by step this of it is really useful when you’re in the deep emotional well of sadness and grief. And I wish we had something like that for miscarriage, which you know, or I guess our process is to ignore or move on. Right? That’s our ritual, but that doesn’t seem very satisfying or useful.

A  19:16  

Right. And also, I feel like when we’re able to do when you expand your heart to feel the really hard emotions, then you’re also expanding your heart to be able to feel the good emotions, you know, in such a stronger way. So yeah, I I I encourage everyone to do their own ritual and to do whatever I mean, there’s so many different things. I don’t want to share personal stories of clients this Yeah. Permission to share their own personal but there are so many things that people do as you write as Jews we have our own rituals that we do after and yeah, it’s definitely very really soul encompassing like it kind of gives you this you know, place to really go through it.

P  20:01  

Yeah, that’s totally Well said Aliza. So your point about you have to feel the bad to fill the gap. Right it’s it’s a continuum and you have to open the door to feel at all so but I interrupted you on our on our second baby. So now we’ve passed two miscarriages, we get pregnant again. We’re so excited. 

Okay, go…then what?

A  20:19  

Again. Pregnancy is beautiful, amazing. feel amazing. Have a baby with me, but really enjoying every minute of it. My baby was home with me. I mean, she was she was home with me. Yeah, at that point. She was home with me, and I’m just really enjoying. Then I was really ready. At the end of the pregnancy. I was like feeling really ready. Okay, let’s go. Let’s get this happening. We went on a really long walk. We lived like in this mountainous desert area. And we went like, climbed up mountains and came back. And I was like, I just want to wash the floor. I started washing the floor and as I watched the floor Park I heard it like burst my water. My water broke. It was a good thing. I was washing the floor because it was like

A  21:11  

yeah, I was like okay, I guess it’s it’s starting but I wasn’t having any contractions. 

P: I’m down here already

A: Now I was already going into this birth was like a lot of expectations because after the birth that I had, I would like I’m probably gonna fly through this one. It’s gonna be beautiful and I like I was still kind of a perfectionist at that point. Now I’d say I am a recovering perfectionist, but then I was still kind of a perfectionist. And to me, you know, okay, I had a perfect birth and here I am gonna have it again. So it started with the water breaking and that kind of got me nervous already because I knew that having your water break, you know, there’s probably more of a chance that anything can happen from there. If if nothing starts if that you know too much time passes, and they’re gonna have to start intervene. And I didn’t want all of them I was I was like, Okay, this is how it started. Let’s get the contractions going.

P  22:05  

So, so just to interrupt you for a second. I think what you’re saying is once your water breaks, the clock starts right because you need to because of fear of infection, or you need to get things moving. So so now you feel like things have to happen.

A  22:20  

Exactly. There’s a wide range of how long that clock is. I mean, there’s some hospitals here in Israel. There’s some that is 24 hours, some 48 hours. I know I also had a baby in Uruguay and there it’s called hours. So like it really varies where you are. I actually heard of a place of 72 hours. It really depends. So anyway, I knew that my clock was ticking, and there were no contractions at all. So we decided that we were going to send my daughter to my father in law because I wasn’t gonna eat my car. I came to pick her up and bring them bring her to their house. And we were like, Okay, let’s just make an oxytocin kind of kind of environment. So we turned off the lights and we put on candles and we started singing and dancing and just putting like good, good aromas in the house that I liked and just tried to really bring out good energies and then contractions started coming. And when they started coming at a good pace, we’re like, okay, maybe we should start going out because, first the first birth went kind of fast for our first birth, maybe the second will be even faster. I’ll just say in parentheses, it was not. It was the longest birth ever. So at one contraction, like I had a whole lot of water coming out and I felt like maybe I felt something and I was like, Okay, maybe we should get in the hospital, get into the car and go to the house. So we get into the car and really as we left the house and started driving towards the hospital, the contractions completely stopped. Like nothing, nothing at all. And we spoke I spoke to my Doula on the phone, and she said, Well, maybe go back home. See if we were in far from the house and she said maybe you know, try and bring it on again. And then you guys could go so we went back home started again. And again, the contractions started coming. And again, we leave and again the contractions are like almost met. And it was so clear to me that I was that I was kind of like blocking. Like I was nervous what was gonna happen and the whole time I was very aware of what was going on inside of me and how much it was really affecting the way that the birth was going on inside of me and how much it affected me. So we get to the hospital where

P  24:28  

the first one was so well like why what what’s bringing on the nerves that you want it to be as good as the first is that what the what’s going on for you?

A  24:36  

Okay, there were a lot of things going on. One was that that I had these really high expectations. Second, I was like the poster girl of birth like I had to bring back this beautiful story so that everybody could see how beautiful birth could be like I felt like I had huge pressure on me. I also was at the time we were like not sure if we were moving, not moving. My husband had given up his job because he thought that we were moving and then we decided we were like we were in this like really really turmoil kind of time that just wasn’t sitting on me well and there were like a lot of stressors in my life at that time. And I wasn’t like I wasn’t coming from a settled peaceful place. Like I was the first time.

P:  Okay. 

A: Also I was really nervous that maybe I was gonna have to go to the bathroom. This is like a real fear that I have and a lot of my clients also have, I was so afraid that we’re gonna have to go to the bathroom during birth. So I was like holding myself every time that I had a contraction. So then we get to the hospital and I said I still don’t want to go in I’m not in my bubble yet. Let’s walk around in the in the parking lot. Now it’s freezing cold in the Jerusalem air and it was freezing and here we are walking around in the forest. For about two hours. We were walking around and I was enjoying every minute of it because I was like swaying during my contractions. And I felt like I was bringing them on in a good way. My doula and my husband told me afterwards that they were freezing cold and they like, but they just wanted to be there for me and they were then we finally go in and I was six centimeters. And I was like Okay, good. We’re enjoying. We started actually playing backgammon haven’t really played back at me my husband at that at that time, and then contractions kept going. And then I got to eight centimeters. And I got stuck for six hours at eight centimeters. And it didn’t matter what we were doing. I put my foot up on a chair. Maybe he was the wrong position. I tried doing like all these different exercises with my doula and nothing and every time they would check me and again eight centimeters, eight centimeters. And at that time, I said to my husband, I know that these things are bothering me, like I gave him a list. And that’s why I’m not able to completely let go. And I like I’m not. I’m not completely relaxing and I know that I’m holding it up. And I was like aware but at that moment, I couldn’t yet let go. And then a doctor came in after six hours. And he said to me, Listen, we gave you a long time. And also I want to say that this time. It was painful, like this time when I wasn’t able to let go it was very painful and I like knew now what they mean when when pain when pain can be really real in childbirth. And that was new for me because my first and thank G-d my others were not. So I knew what it was and I really felt like it was when I was holding myself then it was painful. And then the Dow employment and so

P  27:38  

So it’s like resistance is the issue. 

A: Yes.Yes. Like when you work with your body. It doesn’t have to be painful. You feel a strong power and a strong surge going through your body. But it wasn’t painful at any moment. Like even our at my first birth a doctor came in. I wasn’t aware that I said this only told me afterwards that a doctor came in and to call the other doctor that was there because somebody wanted an epidural. And they told me afterwards that I said No Tell her not to get the epidural. She doesn’t know what she’s missing out on. Like I was just so enjoying. I don’t judge anyone that takes an epidural who ever needs an epidural. Whoever wants an epidural? You know? No, no shame to that at all. Not because that’s not why I said it. It was just like in that moment. That’s what I was feeling. So anyway, the doctor came in and after six hours of being an eight centimeters he was like okay, we really tried giving you as much time as we could, but that’s it in 10 minutes. There’s nothing new. We’re starting Pitocin I looked at my doula and I’m like, nope, what’s going on here?

P  28:43  

I’m gonna stop my conversation with Aliza here. In a second. It was very much and up to this point, mirroring the beautiful and easy birth like she hoped it would. On the one hand, it’s easy to relate to these a stress feelings about trying to walk footprints left by Erzberg at the same time to vaccinate. And he’s gotten almost science fiction feel to Yes, of course you can do things to reflect your own state of mind and relaxation and those who’s getting pregnant and being birth is often early parenting. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the show, if you learned something or felt connected to or just appreciate these stories of real please go over to Apple or Spotify or wherever you’re listening. It helps we’ll be back next Friday with the rest of my conversation. She shares how his second birth went down and talks about her other

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Episode 80SN: An IVF Journey that includes repeated miscarriage…and pregnancy: Amy’s Story, Part II

This is a show that shares true experiences of pregnancy to help shift the common cultural narrative away from the glossy depictions of this enormous transition to a more realistic one.  It also celebrates the incredible resilience and strength it takes to create another person and deliver them into the world. I’m your host, Paulette Kamenecka. I’m a writer and an economist and the mother of two girls. In this episode you’ll hear more advice about things to think about on your fertility/ivf/pregnancy journey–knowledge that just might make the often challenging process of fertility a little easier to bear (and maybe also things to help you to keep hold of a bit of your sanity, as her book title suggests) from the former writer who covered the “fertility beat”, before such a thing existed, for the New York Times. What follows is the second part of our conversation.

Fertility Statistics

https://www.acog.org/clinical/clinical-guidance/committee-opinion/articles/2014/03/female-age-related-fertility-decline

https://www.acog.org/womens-health/faqs/having-a-baby-after-age-35-how-aging-affects-fertility-and-pregnancy

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8237340/

Tongue-Tie

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/tongue-tie/symptoms-causes/syc-20378452

https://kidshealth.org/en/parents/tongue-tie.html

Audio Transcript:

Paulette: Hi, Welcome to war stories. This is a show that shares true experiences of pregnancy to help shift the common cultural narrative, away from the glossy depictions of this enormous transition to more realistic one. It also celebrates the incredible resilience and strength it takes to create another person and deliver them into the world. I’m your host, Paulette Kamenecka. I’m a writer and an economist and a mother of two girls. In this episode, you’ll hear more advice about things to think about on your fertility/IVF/pregnancy journey that just might make the often challenging process of fertility a little easier to bear, and might help you keep hold of your sanity in this process. This story comes to you from the former writer who covered the fertility of you before such a thing existed for The New York Times what follows is the second part of our conversation. 

Why is it so constricting of your time other than like the windows were like, Oh, we, I guess I don’t even know what the windows look like what?

 

Amy: So let’s say you have to go in on the first day and if you don’t know when you don’t know when you don’t know when you first see is you don’t know when you hit. You’re not supposed to be drinking. Usually I’m not a doctor and so I’m not giving any medical information but a lot of people don’t drink and let’s say don’t even do drive through or whatever they want to ruin their psychology. You know, marijuana can cause firm documents. So do not get in. Let’s say you go in the first day of your period and if you go the third day and the fourth day seven planets around your work, then you have to see how your body then you’re taking medicine to increase the egg while you’re doing an IUI or an IVF. Medicine so you don’t know how the medicine might keep you up at night. You might be sleeping, it might be bloated. Then you have to do a retrieval which is like a half a day off but you don’t know if you could go away you don’t know is there going to be on day 14 or 16 if I got am i doing a transfer my cancer the embryo back to me and am I gonna guess take it easy those days that I have to wait two weeks or a week and a half to find that out or not? And then I might be a little bit pregnant, and then I might be not pregnant. So I mean, I don’t even taking over your entire life.

 

P  2:32  

Yeah, yeah, that is dramatic. When I remember about my experiences that I felt judged not by my doctor, but by the process. The idea that as a woman you could or should be having babies and so it’s culturally reflected back to us in 100 different ways. And when your personal machinery to make that happen, they’d be feeling you. It’s hard to feel as though you’re doing something right. It almost felt like like a moral condemnation. Oh, you know what am I going to save my ovaries not working. You’re not fit to reproduce, or it just it felt very personal in a way that some issue with my with my appendix with them.

 

A  3:10  

I mean, I hope that the doctors are better now than they were then. You know, you’ve dealt with women at the clinic. But then you’re like on Facebook at a meeting about someone else. Oh, I only got 20 eggs and you’re like what I got three eggs. And then there’s that competition is rife with so much disappointment. Like once you’re the thing Oh, I only got 20 eggs and only kind of fertilized and only five minutes day three and the only one ready for transfer. So there’s just you know, this law of diminishing returns on your disappointment. But there is for anyone who can’t get pregnant right away. Just this notion that we all thought it would be easy, and it would be quick and it would be simple. There’s that whole disappointment of like my body’s failing me I’m not doing what I thought would be easy to do.

 

P  3:59  

As me suggests it would be super easy to get pregnant. idea that felt like a threat before I was ready to have kids and a taunt once I was ready and couldn’t get pregnant. But I don’t think that I did matches up with the numbers. So here’s some of the numbers. According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, also known as ACOG. You had your maximum number of oocytes or immature eggs when you were a 20 week old fetus, which was six to 7 million by your birth to down to one to 2 million. By puberty, you have 300,000 to 500,000 by age 37 with 25,000 and only 1000 By age 51. This is a sight on here but I thought this was pretty funny. I was telling my daughter about these numbers and she said that’s fine. It’s not like a little What 25,000 Is what I’m 37 So the issue with that is that not always xx will be chromosomally normal, otherwise known as euploid. Sperm mature over a period of about two months. Eggs mature over a period of decades. It sounds like there’s a lot of stops and starts they mature to a point and then they wait and then the next trigger happens and then they continue to ensure it’s not like these miniature eggs are active for the whole period. And it’s important this very long maturation process that scientists think contributes to the much higher rate of chromosomally abnormal eggs that’s firm. By the way, male fertility also declines with age but less predictably. The American Society of Reproductive Medicine reports that while women under 30 have about a 25% chance of getting pregnant naturally each cycle, that chance it drops to 20% for women over 30 Forget estimates by the American Society of Reproductive Medicine by 40 the chance of getting pregnant naturally each month. It’s just 5%

 

A  5:45  

you know, just like you need medical medical, you didn’t think you would, you know you just thought you’d get up at the doctor for when you’re pregnant. But you didn’t think like this basic bodily function is not you know, I think like a third of IVF patients are under 35. So it’s not a matter of needs a lot of young women going through this Ludhiana Linda. So it’s not like oh, I’m too old and I waited too long, but also like oh my god, I’m so young and all my friends are getting pregnant and I can’t that’s such a hard feeling.

 

P  6:16  

Yeah, that was definitely a hard feeling. It was definitely a hard feeling. But I agree with you that it this is like a cultural perception of what men expect your body to do and what it means if your body can’t do that. And it’s not necessarily accurate, right, your body can still do a million other things.

 

A  6:33  

I’m sure though people who have diseases might be mad at their body to you know, yes or no.

 

P  6:44  

So I’ve always been issues in cancer and I can, I can attest that at least in my experience, there is this sense of failure of like, how did I you know what did I do wrong to get to this spot, although that also and pregnancy are less than this. You don’t have that much control over your right. We imagine that we deal with but we don’t really

 

A  7:06  

  1. You know, right? You don’t know how your body’s going to deal with anything. In life. That’s the truth.

 

P  7:14  

So you did all that and had miscarriages and then he did, did you say nine cycles of IVF? Yeah. How many years does that take

 

A  7:29  

it was three years until I was pregnant with my daughter. So it was four years until I had my daughter because it wasn’t like once I had my daughter, I knew she was going to be my daughter for i for all intents and purposes, I was never sure she was going to be born either. You know, so that fourth year was brought during her pregnancy. Well, because pregnancy after it’s good after IVF but also after a miscarriage is very fraught like my doctor said to me, you’re not going to be happy until the baby is in your hands. Because I was like, why am I not happy? He’s like, because of what you’ve been through. Yeah, that’s,

 

P  8:07  

that’s a hard road. So did you enjoy the pregnancy at all? Were you able to?

 

A  8:12  

I think I had a moment in my second trimester. You know, there was a moment in my second trimester where I was like, we went on a baby man and everything but I think that I was very, a little bit dissociated from it. In the whole time like my heart we had a rule because we have a whole heartbeat monitor because like I would go to the doctor I would get everything would be great. And then by the next day, I was like, I don’t know if I you know, cancel a baby. So my husband we put a cap on it that I was allowed to check the heartbeat once a day on the home heartbeat monitor, and even that and my husband used to do the state, like you need cream to put it on the ultrasound jelly. And he was let me try it without jelly. And like I would still you know, I would still lose my mind in that moment before I felt the heartbeat. So when I was like nine months pregnant, and I was dealing with you know, at the end of June and July and everything I felt pregnant, but I never like allowed myself to leave in full for like I talked about this in the last chapter in my book about you know, pregnancy after miscarriage pregnancy together. IVF and there’s a school and this is you know, for everything. Electrification like Oh, I’m happy, you should be happy. And like, I hate the word. Like you shouldn’t be happy, okay, you know, my body. Don’t tell me how to be like, I’m nervous and I’m understandably nervous and I can’t be happy. You know? I’m sad that IVF and more repeat miscarriage do not ruins but robbed me of that experience of being you know, the happy go lucky. But that’s just what a lot of people have to go through.

 

P  10:05  

Yes, yeah. Amy talks about the complicated feelings that accompany pregnancy after repeated miscarriage. She writes that if you’re like me, and so many other women who grow to motherhood was as wealthy as a bouncy castle, you might not exactly have the pre pregnancy always dreamed up. You may no longer have the desire to post Tietze but in the oven gift on social media, have a gender reveal party with a pink or blue cake or endlessly debate baby needs. First of all, you might not want to do all of that sensitivity to all your friends who are still adding second, you might be too nervous. I myself have been pregnant so many times that at first I couldn’t believe this fifth pregnancy was the one that was going to stick. And then she writes with a heartbeat came relief but only momentarily. A few days later, I’m back to worrying again. After all I’ve heard a heartbeat once before and after this he ended it because I hadn’t been paying enough attention now I was paying attention to every swallow twinge flutter. always nervous while I wasn’t feeling anything in particular pregnancy was so so tense. Even when I pass the in utero blood test for major diseases and move into my second trimester. I still couldn’t relax. I couldn’t be happy not for longer than two minutes. I was having what I later realized was infertility PTSD. I can’t imagine you’d be any other way after your experience. Right? I mean, then

 

A  11:26  

people you never know. You know? Some people on IVF people are not. Well, some people like a pregnancy anyway. They hate every minute of it. They also have to deal with oh, why are you healthier? You should be happier. You don’t have happy hormones. It’s gonna ruin the baby. You know, almost expectation. It goes I mean for fertility people it goes farther back with like, oh, you should be happy for her. Why can’t you be happy for her? You know, your best friend’s pregnant your sister’s pregnant? Your brother in law’s pregnant and you should be happy for them. You know, it’s funny like in the last 10 years, so much has changed, like fertility has got better and more people have done it but sitting on all these Facebook groups, which didn’t exist when I was going through it, but like, it’s still the same emotional journey. You know, like people just complaining that their mother is yelling at them. They’re not acting happy for their sister. Or you know, things like that. It’s just an expectation about how we should feel is ridiculous. And I don’t know if you can explain it. You know, I always tell I always say that. I went through so much with infertility and still when I was pregnant and I had some that I kind of understood finally why other people want you like to share that joy. So I do it from both sides of the aisle. But we can’t expect anyone to like have feelings for us. They have their journey and we have Arthur.

 

P  12:50  

It is it is hugely complicated. And I remember going to the gynecology office when I wasn’t yet pregnant, surrounded by pregnant women, you know, waiting my turn to do the IUI or whatever, you know, just overwhelmed by the sense of like they’re making it look easy. A lot of pregnant people out there is this is true. You seems hard to me somehow.

 

A  13:11  

I mean, the nicest thing I always say this, my oldest friend was growing up. The nicest thing she said to me was she had four kids and her oldest was eight. So I had assumed she was like totally done. And I was trying to hear about something. And she said, Amy, I have to tell you something. I’m like I don’t know. And she said to me, I just need to tell you that I’m pregnant. And but you don’t have to be happy for me. I just want you to know that. This still makes me cry because I’m always like, that is the nicest thing anyone ever said. Like just letting you know, you don’t have to monitor your reactions for me like you could just be who you are.

 

P  13:48  

Yeah, I agree. I agree that I would imagine you feel seen when someone says yeah, because it is like a recognition of all the things that you’ve been hurt. Yeah, for sure. Amy has a chapter in her book about managing your feelings about other people’s pregnancy in the face of your infertility. I’m going to share another excerpt here. She writes, how culture can often perpetuate the myth that female friendships are Ride or Die through thick and thin Sex and the City girls etc. Reality lose friendships are rough, especially during life changes and extra especially when one of us is pregnant and one of us is not but desperately wants to give it to someone else to make room for their infertility feelings, or your pain or your fears for the future. And that’s a relationship where it’s safe. Because through the delivery of your daughter, I don’t know though. were you imagining you know, a water birth or you know, home birth or something like that,

 

A  14:44  

or what did that look like? You know, just it’s funny so I had all dated during my journey I went and all these alternative journeys as well. Like I went to baby healer who told me I had locked maternal energy. I went to the

 

P  14:59  

stop right there. So I’ve been to a Reiki healer as well. What do you think? Were in the moment where you’re like, Oh, this feels better?

 

A  15:07  

What was your reaction? I think I went twice so it must. I can’t What did I think I thought okay, I’ll try it like to think that I have very bad association with motherhood given my own family history, and I don’t have a good energy for motherhood and I have to connect to like the positive energy for motherhood.

 

P  15:33  

super interesting.

 

A  15:35  

Probably not really relevant to my journey. You know what I mean? Like it’s it didn’t solve any of my issue.

 

P  15:43  

Okay, totally interesting. So let’s go through that. I’m totally interested in the that once the conventional things don’t work, all you have left is to try all the alternative.

 

A  15:51  

Exactly. So I went to I went to the Jewish ritual bath, which many religious women go to every month after their

 

P  15:58  

bed. And what’s the what’s the theory behind that?

 

A  16:01  

Why is that supposed to help? Well, religious women go through actually something that’s very good for fertility basically, I don’t know if people know this. But they are not allowed to have the week of their paid and a few days after. So they’re basically abstaining from sex for the first 12 They’re basically having sex in the most fertile window. Their cycle if their cycle is normal and not normal, then they have a lot of trouble. So they could have the ritual bout themselves. There wasn’t something I was ever planning on doing. So some people go there and they say, they blessings and everything like that. And I just, you know, it’s one of the things I was doing making that kind of thing I was there. But one of the things I did after the Reiki healer, which was you know, not only it was also try to picture the picture, you know, lying on the table Q hospital scene of the woman screaming in pain, I mean, I always knew I was gonna have drive like after my journey, I’m like I but I always try to picture labor and kind of picture picture picture. I was like my, you know, law of attraction moment like picture giving birth. And it didn’t happen that way. Because the closer we got to Brenda, I was 40 What I really wanted and I was trying to avoid a C section at 40 weeks. My repeat miscarriage specialist by Amy I really liked you to know you’ve been through. I’d really like you to give birth. I was like just getting you to 41 He wasn’t even my, my maternal fetal medicine doctor. He’s like, he’s like, you can’t have 41 Like you work too hard to get here. So I just was like, No, my dad is going to come out. She’s going to come out now that I know her. And I know that she’d leave like her father all the time. And I think I sat in there for 14 So 14 and a half years. And at that point, I realized that you know, despite all my imagery of radicals, neighbors, friends, I was kind of like on the fence. I was like, I just like I don’t care their way of doing. I know what happened. When we started. We did the epidural, and they said that the baby was not taller. It wasn’t like an emergency C section. They just said she wasn’t tolerating it very well. So we’re gonna move into a C section. And I crazy. In the last month of my pregnancy, I had this crazy itchiness and it wasn’t due to any. Sometimes it has to do with like a liver problem, but I was just like praying for the baby. That’s when they gave me an epidural. I was like dying from fussiness and they gave me this massive dose of Benadryl. That’s kind of out of it. For the C section. There’s a little bit out of it, and I haven’t C section and my plan was not followed at all. I was still mad and my husband didn’t. I want I didn’t want her to be. I wanted her to have her right away. I’m still kind of upset about that. But I was on the fence at that point. I wasn’t going to ask for like a scheduled C section but I was like to do it.

 

P  19:17  

And so they did the C section and then they you get the time with the baby on your chest and how did you feel when you actually had her in your arms?

 

A  19:27  

I was super out of it because it was Benadryl. I was happy. It was beautiful. It was like it at NYU downtown overlooking the water. Like we had that picture. It wasn’t like oh my god, I finally have the baby. My whole infertility journey was over. I can just relax now it took a while. You know, and I don’t know I don’t know how like a woman who wants to be home. I feel like I don’t know. I don’t have anything to compare to but there’s definitely like, I was definitely more nervous and I think if I would have just had a baby, like just straight. You know, I was like, nervous. I was always checking if she was awake. I was checking her heartbeat monitor and I know that a lot of newcomers. But I was that’s not my personality. It definitely is fertility made me a lot more overbearing and nervous than I would have been. And I think that there was like, you know, and then, of course you know, it’s so funny like when you’re not fighting but like when you ran a marathon. Then after the race you like, you want to have your medal, you know, and then you can relax. But after we have the baby, you’re like your baby breastfeeding and everything else that comes with it. So it wasn’t like you have time to go and do things like the first six months. I think it wasn’t like I didn’t have trouble bonding with her. But I don’t think I felt like I can release that breath. It took me a while to be separate even while figuring out breastfeeding, which is like the second part of the world after infertility.

 

P  20:57  

Well, you took four years to wind you up. So I can’t imagine you round down you know, immediately so that totally makes sense to me. And the extra attentiveness once the baby’s born also makes sense given that IVF kind of opens this, like pull the curtain back to show you what it looks like when things don’t go well. Medically. Right. Which is

 

A  21:20  

right, correct for a lot

 

P  21:21  

of us because we’re relatively young and we have kids. You haven’t seen that before. And it is a little bit shocking, right?

 

A  21:28  

I mean, I think I read a statistic that many women never send in the hospitals giving birth. Yeah. And I think I was also one of those people who just believe everything’s going to work out. I mean, I moved to New York City at 39. I moved to the Upper West Side and I met my husband. So that’s takes a kind of optimism that make the fire.

 

P  21:50  

That’s awesome. And so it sounds like the fourth trimester for you was challenging like it is for a lot of people. Yes. Did you get the hang of breastfeeding or how did all that

 

A  22:00  

go? No, I had to have my daughter’s tongue tied. Because she was I was pumping. I was explicitly pumping and she was not getting anything out. And then finally lactation consultants told me to, you know, get her time steps.

 

P  22:20  

According to the Mayo Clinic, tongue tie is a condition in which an unusually short thick or tight band of tissue connects the bottom of the tip of the tongue to the floor of the mouth, which restricts the 10s range of motion. Although doctors don’t know why it happens, they know what happens during fetal development. If a newborn has tongue tie, it can make it difficult to stick out their tongue and it may or if you’re breastfeeding, sometimes tongue tie might not be a problem. And sometimes it requires a simple surgical procedure, like the one we described, where the doctor clips the tissue to free the top. That tissue doesn’t have many nerve endings or blood vessels. So often this procedure is carried out in the doctor’s office without anesthesia and babies younger than three months old. And so and you said now she’s seven and a half. Oh, wow. What she is who? She does her singing

 

A  23:11  

damn fan talking and arthropathy Yeah, so she’s nonstop talker.

 

P  23:19  

That’s cute. Is that is that a run in your family? I guess. Like sometimes

 

A  23:27  

I was on. I don’t I don’t know if I mentioned this, but on my have the BBI with integrating High Courts of immune suppressive drugs. I don’t know if you are. But I can move on. Very high dose of prednisone steroid that is controversial, but you know and it makes you crazy. So I always joke I was like I was the steroids but she’s so like, everything is amazing. Everything with our daughter like a 10 She’s on either amazing or horrible traffic.

 

P  23:58  

That is super cute. So I’m actually a weird outlier. I love Britain. So I’ve been on a bunch of times. And it is the kind of thing where like, you never get tired,

 

A  24:07  

never feel tired. It’s like, sometimes you wish I was like, oh I can be but right now.

 

P  24:15  

Totally. But that’s amazing. She sounds horrible.

 

A  24:17  

Yeah, she’s great. And she just we just got it together.

 

P  24:24  

Wow, that’s fun. So I bet you have a lot of advice for younger you. But if you could give your younger self advice what what do you think you would focus on?

 

A  24:36  

Well, if I would give any young women not only young women, young self, but just any young woman is I you know, we all know so much about our politics and our finances and I just wish that we knew more about our body. And you know, people would say Oh, do you think every woman should freeze their eggs? I’m like, I don’t care if people and I don’t care if they even have children. Norma, I just like in their late 20s. I want them to know about their body and they want them to know if they have people that might be if they have no period they want them to know that might be PCOS. They want you know, I speak to so many women in their late 30s When a lot of these things interfere. I just want everyone to be educated. And I think what happens is there’s so much going on in the world and there’s so much to be worried about. I think, you know, young women who don’t have a partner or don’t know if they want to don’t even think about it they don’t even look and they’re like I’ll deal with that only up I just want every author and every woman even men know your family history. Like I didn’t find out until who knows when that my brother had blood circulation issues. Hello blood circulation issues are gonna affect me as well. You know, I just want people to know whether I just want everyone to make an informed decision and have all the information just the way you would about like buying the house or just not that information like demands that were female empowerment.

 

P  26:03  

Yeah, it is. It is amazing. And I think a lot of us, myself included, learn a lot on a pregnancy journey. Well, when things don’t go well and when things do Right, exactly. We have not prepared to do it earlier. If I would give advice

 

A  26:16  

for anyone who’s having fertility issues and also just this is a finite moments in your life. It feels like it’s gonna last forever, but it’s not going to last forever. So like, you know, you know, even though I had that picture in my mind of having the baby on the table, and I didn’t have it the way I wanted, and you might not have the kid the way you know, but you might not have it the way you think you’re gonna have. You’re gonna get that in school, but you know, some one way or another.

 

P  26:43  

Yeah, I think that’s good advice. It is a useful perspective because for sure when you’re in it, there’s nothing else. Right, it’s very hard to look up. Well, thanks so much for coming on and sharing your story and your book called The trying game is available all over obviously. All over Amazon but

 

A  27:00  

any bookstore. Yeah. Actually, if you like the sound of my voice, I’m actually narrating the audible version.

 

P  27:09  

Oh, that’s that’s awesome. And you have a website people can go to to find your other writing. Yeah, you can go to

 

A  27:21  

trial, but that calm and I have lots of articles on fertility, health, parenting,

 

P  27:30  

things like that. Okay, that sounds great. Thanks so much. Thank you. I look forward to it. Thanks again to Amy for sharing more about and really appreciate conversations with women in which they share their actual experience. Our goods in general Warren, Washington.

 

You IBM, we’re also hashtag grateful for everything we fought for. You do not discuss our mixed feelings. I’m not talking about the feeling of being scared shitless the excitement and terror that comes from knowing I’m talking about the leftover infertility of the past, mixed in with the cost of child labor. She writes. I think it took me a few weeks to feel that unfair joy. Sure. I was recovering from major surgery and trying to exclusively breastfeed the second world after 70 to subsist on negative sleep to entertain every form family member by myself. I couldn’t relax. I understand she was here to stay that she was mine. Mama, exactly. Receptionist would say a few times before I understood that she was talking to me. I am the mama. Yes, I ran into check on the every five video monitor. Meanwhile, I was outside. The only ones because I was also still running for my feelings like I had during fertility. I was still unable to relax the Brotherhood. Did I fear of the baby not waking up one morning I was overwhelmed but my fears this year to see what another day with her would bring. An early read was crowded out. And finally going through infertility as they be more sensitive to others. Because I remember what it was. I don’t remember every HCG data. Every embryo counts every medical protocol. But I do remember the the desolation of not having a child having a child this child this wonderful, beautiful, adorable person. There were so many dark days. I never thought I would get here. I didn’t know whether I would recover from a pregnancy loss. I didn’t know that I could start fertility takes away from uproot my life move across the world with just the world getting pregnant and moving on without being who was denied the one thing I wanted. I did not know what the settlement was together. Yet. Here we are with our curly girl in a mermaid bathing suit flopping around with a fish. Most days the gratitude has to go against me to college and I have to just pretend to be a regular thanks so much for listening. Hope you enjoyed this episode. Feel free to like and subscribe. I will be back next week with another inspiring story.



 

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

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

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

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

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

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

To find Melissa’s sites:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Audio Transcript

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

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

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

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

M 2:50
Yes, yes. So

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

M 15:18
quickly. Yes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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