Tag: natural birth

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Episode 144SN: What Happens when you have a Pregnancy on a Boat with 4 other kids? Tanya’s Birth Story, Part I

This week’s episode features details of a pregnancy on a boat.

My guest Tanya shared her experiences of her other 4 births on an earlier episodes:

Her first episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-you-learn-from-your-first-two-of-5-births/id1546909059?i=1000617239231

The second half of that story: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-happens-when-with-each-birth-you-get-closer-to/id1546909059?i=1000618066765
 
She had a variety of experiences in the hospital:
*induced labor
*shoulder dystocia
*large babies
with midwives and OBs, but this pregnancy and birth are entirely different. 

She shares what she learned both about her body and the process of birthing, including the fears she had and how she overcame them. 

Acupuncture & Labor Induction

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6953318/

https://www.ajogmfm.org/article/S2589-9333(23)00414-7/fulltext

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

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

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

Check out Kaitlin’s company, BeHerVillage

Audio Transcript

Kaitlin McGreyes  0:02  

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

Paulette  0:38  

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

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

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

 

Kaitlin  2:21  

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

 

Paulette  2:29  

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

 

Kaitlin  2:42  

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

 

Paulette  6:20  

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

 

Kaitlin  7:10  

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

 

Paulette  7:14  

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

 

Unknown Speaker  7:19  

I have one older brother.

 

Paulette  7:22  

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

 

Kaitlin  7:28  

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

 

Paulette  9:41  

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

 

Kaitlin  9:48  

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

 

Paulette  10:01  

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

 

Kaitlin  10:08  

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

 

Paulette  11:06  

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

 

Kaitlin  11:10  

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

 

Paulette  11:34  

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

 

Kaitlin  11:38  

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

 

Paulette  11:43  

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

 

Kaitlin  11:47  

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

 

Paulette  13:25  

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

 

Kaitlin  13:33  

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

 

Paulette  14:52  

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

 

Kaitlin  14:56  

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

 

Paulette  18:05  

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

 

Kaitlin  18:25  

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

 

Paulette  20:56  

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

 

Kaitlin  21:00  

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

 

Paulette  21:08  

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

 

Kaitlin  21:13  

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

 

Paulette  21:45  

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

 

Kaitlin  22:07  

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

  

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

 

Kaitlin    

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

 

Paulette  7:30  

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

Nausea & Lethargy in the First Trimester

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

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

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

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

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

What happens in a C section surgery

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

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

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

Audio Transcript

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

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

Let’s get to this inspiring story.

Anja Simmons

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

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

Oh, lovely.

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

Yeah. , that’s

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

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

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

So that sounds super cool.

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

Yeah, I’d love to. Very

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I was really lucky.

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

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

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

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

mine.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah. But, but the

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah. Is that what

you

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

that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Okay.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah. Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

No, no. It’s, it’s

not, it’s not helpful.

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

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

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

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

Or How’s that going?

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

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

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

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

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

It’s totally true. But yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah. I dunno what other people

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah. Yeah.

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

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

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

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

for sure.

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

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

I agree.

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

Well,

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

fallacy, but yes. Yeah, .

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

Two and a half years.

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

or, I thought I had, yeah.

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

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

 So you get pregnant easily again?

Yes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A lot of crying. A lot of crying.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah. Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

I believed I can do it all.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So lean back. That’s a whole .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah. It is a,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You know, you’re

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Right? Yeah, yeah, totally, totally.

Posted on

Episode 82SN: Episode 82: A Doula (and Mother of 5) offers Miscarriage Support and Much More: Aliza’s story, Part II

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 social media, and other media more broadly, 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 Aliza shares ways to manage contractions…she also talks about some important strategies to help you get a birth closer to the one you want; everyone who has been through birth knows that it’s really the baby who is driving the process, but there are things you can do to potentially impact your experience, and Aliza talks about some of them here, as well as other doula secrets.

You can reach Aliza Said here

C section rates in Brazil and Uruguay

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/04/why-most-brazilian-women-get-c-sections/360589/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4743929/

C section rates in hospitals in the US, a Resource

https://www.leapfroggroup.org/news-events/first-ever-national-release-cesarean-section-rates-hospital-finds-more-60-percent?gclid=Cj0KCQiA2-2eBhClARIsAGLQ2RnkoaX7v0k-0LjuYYv0QqjRo_wk5UTO-Vcd6-IaZGXFTCVwtczEafkaArknEALw_wcB

Audio Transcript

Paulette Kamenecka: Hi. Welcome to War Stories from the Womb. This is a show that shares true experiences of getting pregnant, being pregnant and giving birth to help shift the common cultural narrative away from the glossy depictions of this enormous transition you can find on social media, and other media more broadly, 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 Aliza shares ways to manage contractions…she also talks about some important strategies to help you get a birth closer to the one you want; everyone who has been through birth knows that it’s really the baby who is driving the process, but there are things you can do to potentially impact your experience, and Aliza talks about some of them here, as well as other doula secrets

We’ll pick up my conversation with Aliza where we left off last week. She’s been in labor for a long time and very little was happening. The doctor just entered the room and suggested that a C section is imminent. And what follows is Aliza’s response.

Aliza  0:17  

So anyway, the doctor came in, but 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 and I looked at my Doula, and I’m like, no Pitocin going on. Here. Within 10 minutes my baby was out. Yeah. And I in that moment and she was like, giving me this like guided meditation to really watch my baby coming out and like really imagine it and talk to my baby and, and I really worked on in those moments, those things that were blocking me. And as I blocked as I took away all those things that were blocking me, my baby came out. And yeah, it was a big learning experience. And I remember my Doula telling me then, every baby comes in a completely different way, because they’re coming to teach you something completely different. And they’re gonna live their lives in a completely different way. And each child teaches you something so different. And even now as they grow up, I remember that so much like the fact that I did something with my older, with my older children. One way doesn’t mean that my younger children are going to need the same same kind of thing. Yeah, so that was my second child. 

 

P  1:33  

Wow, that’s also kind of an amazing story because you’re so present for all of it. And so self aware about what’s happening in your body, which I think is a an amazing ability to have and remarkably useful. The thing I can relate to is the resistance. Because I remember the first couple of contractions, took my breath away, but were not painful in part because I didn’t know what was going on. And it didn’t, wasn’t my immediate reaction to resist them. But once I started to resist, because I was worried about it, then became painful, then it’s like a fight.

 

A  2:08  

Right? I see many times with my clients even like, as a doula I see it many times that when they don’t know that it’s the contraction. It’s not painful. Yeah. But when, when all of a sudden oh my gosh, it really it hurts so much. I can’t do it anymore. I don’t think I’d like to really understand that. Even when my Doula told me that in between contractions, nothing’s happening. You’re not in pain. Like there’s nothing that’s causing it. To me that was completely like this epiphany like, Oh, it’s just working with each contraction. And really being present in each moment. And I will say, it’s something that I learned it’s not something that I that I was completely living before I had my babies, but I feel like birth is really something that allowed me to learn all these lessons for my life and it really changed how I could be present with my children. I use the same Hypno birthing techniques with you know, pain and other things actually have to go through like this dental work now that I’m going through and I use the same Hypno birthing techniques to like let go of pain. And it really works. You know, like when we’re able to not be in resistance to what’s going on. around us. We can ride the wave.

 

P  3:19  

I want to try that at my next dental appointment. That’s good advice. So the second one’s back and home and how are things with two little ones now? Now you have two under two, right?

 

A  3:31  

I have two under two and here’s where it starts getting complicated. Now I noticed they that I probably also had postpartum depression that I wasn’t willing to admit at the time. And now that I look back, there are many things that I see that I’m like, oh, okay, that’s probably what it was. It was really difficult also, because my my second child, he was a completely different baby than what I knew, I thought and I had all this haughtiness after my first one, that when you’re a calm parent, then you have come kids, but then I had my second one, and he was the farthest thing from calm, which is funny because today He’s very calm, but as a baby, he probably had some food like allergies and things that were bothering him in his stomach. And he was he was crying constantly, like even from the also he always wanted me like it was something unbelievable that from the minute he got out of my belly, he only wanted to be with me and he like knew to smell me the day after if anybody else would hold him he would cry. Unbelievable. Yeah, like something. I remember my mother in law saying like, I’ve never seen a baby at this age that anybody else takes him and he starts crying and only when I would hold him, he wouldn’t sleep. And he would cry. And I just felt like I was I was home with two two kids under the age of two. My husband wasn’t home most of the time. And it was really difficult, really difficult. I felt like I was crashing. I didn’t know at that time to also say that it was probably a lot of postpartum depression. And I fell into a really big, deep pit, like really bad. Also, at that time, we decided that we were going to go and move for a few years to Uruguay. We went to go work in the community there and it was in the midst of all that when I wasn’t completely aware yet of what was going on with me. He was six months old when we got there. And here I am in a new country, new language so much going on. And I really had to learn how to slowly take myself out of that pit and that was a big, big learning that I had

 

P  5:45  

so much. Yeah, that’s so much transition in a short amount of time. Right. So now in about two years, you have two kids new, you know, moved house which is a big deal to a different country and it sounds like you’re not a native Spanish speaker. And that’s a lot right. And now you’re not with your family or not with your friends. That’s a big move.

 

A  6:09  

Yeah, it was a lot and we were also in a very demanding position that my husband wasn’t home a lot and he was going through his transition of being in this new role and I was doing it was a lot. Also we felt like we have the strongest connection ever. Nothing can break us down. And all of this really like completely like shattered us up so that we could rebuild ourselves in a completely new way. So in those moments, again, it was really difficult and we thought we were gonna come back and we felt that we were just gonna give everything up. And then we were able to really like after completely breaking down to be able to build ourselves back together piece by piece by piece.

 

P  6:50  

So that’s amazing. So a third child is born in Uruguay, right? Yes.

 

A  6:55  

So a third child is born in Uruguay. And in Uruguay, like many South American countries, that the C section rate is very, very high. There’s like a lot of childbirth myths going on there. Like so much misinformation. And the hospital where I was supposed to give birth because that was my insurance. The C section rate was 90% Oh my god scared me. Like, really scared me. I felt like couldn’t even think of what was going to happen. So I started researching and searching for some doctor who was going to be able to be with me and encouraged a natural birth because it was really important to me. And I found the only doctor who was willing to go with me and but the like they know in the hospital that when he comes everybody takes a step back because they know that he does it completely differently. And it was the most beautiful experience ever. So I had a friend who really really wanted to talk to me for a long time and I kept saying, I’m not having the baby until I talked to you. And like I said it as a joke. But then I was ready to have the baby and I was like you know what, maybe because I haven’t talked to her yet. I’m not happy with the baby. So I invited her to my house and we were talking until again. Again another birth that started with late night talks. We were talking until like 130 in the morning. Then she went home and again at four in the morning contractions started and I called my doula. my Doula came we were I was in the bath a little bit and she saw that it looked like I was really moving forward. And she said she thinks I should probably start going to the to the hospital. So we call the doctor and he was on his way as well. And we were just like really in this bubble that we were able to create. Again, I want to say it’s also because we were after this, this period of time of transition and transformation that we like rebuilt ourselves. And we were in and I really feel like we were rebuilt before that and we came to this bird link in a beautiful united and connected way. So we were just like swaying and swinging again and singing and and really just enjoying and we get to the hospital. Now. Uruguay is an atheist country and you can see me your podcast listeners won’t see me but I am an orthodox do. I wear a head covering like I’m kind of odd there they you know I’m like the I mean all my neighbors knew me and they knew that I was the odd one but you know for the when I walked into the hospital they were like, what is this going on? And anyways it was very weird because there they have never seen the the nurses that I was with. They said they have never seen a woman who chose not to get an epidural or not to get a C section like a woman that chose to come and have a natural birth they’ve never saw that before. So And here I was coming with my with my music in my hand. And and but we were just singing and we were singing in Hebrew, also in Uruguay, singing Hebrew songs and bouncing on the ball and just like completely blissful. And when we walked in, I said to my Doula, I was like, How many centimeters Do you think I’m at? Later, she told me she thought I was at four and I said, I’m telling you I’m six centimeters. And the doctor came and he checked me. He was like, okay, the six centimeters was like, Okay, great. Let’s go. So we walk into the into the room, and he asked me if I wanted to be checked anymore. And he said, you know, let’s just go with it. And the whole time I was so connected with what was going on in my body. And he was so enabling to really be in that belief. You know what to do with your body? Like I would ask him Okay, now what? And he’d be like, You know what to do? You tell me like it’s your you know how to birth, which was amazing. It was really, really amazing. I mean, he was there watching me the whole time. It’s not like he was but it was very empowering. And so we were just like, really enjoying there and, and he would ask me like, Okay, how are you feeling? And I, I’d say to him, now I feel like my baby needs a little more time to come down. He’s still not all the way down. And then finally I said to him, Okay, I think I think the baby’s down and he checked me. And he said, Yeah, you’re fully dilated. Do you want to do you want to start putting anything? No, I’m not having a contraction yet. I laid down and I my contraction stopped for a few minutes, which is a beautiful secret that many birthing mothers don’t know that our body naturally gives us this resting time before we push many times. We don’t see it when we’re in a medical environment. But our body gives us that sometimes it’s three minutes. Sometimes it’s not a long time, but it gives us this time to really regroup and give ourselves that energy before we go to the last phase of pushing.

 

P  11:39  

So when you say many people don’t feel is that because if you had an epidural, you wouldn’t feel it. Right? You

 

A  11:45  

don’t know when you’re having your contract when you’re having contractions or not. And also many women at this at this stage, they’re already if they’re in hysterics, they’re in hysterics in between contractions as well and some some women you know, feel like they’re losing control, which is also another way to birth, which is a beautiful way to birth as well but complete lot to lose your control. And then you won’t feel it either. So but if you’re connected and you’re, then you’ll be able to end it doesn’t always happen but many times usually I see with my clients as well. That there is this kind of resting time. So I said to my to my doctor, I he’s not ready to come out just yet. And I lay down and we sing like another two songs. And then I got up and I was like Okay, I’m ready. And I actually have a video that my my husband said to me, how are you doing? And I was like I’m so great. He was like have what stage or yet was like I’m fully dilated. He’s like, Yeah, you like you like having a baby. It was like, Oh, I highly recommend it. It’s so beautiful. Like I was again completely drugged endorphins. And then I squatted and within two pushes he was out. Wow. And when when he came out, he was like complete. He had these huge eyes. And he was like looking at me and I said to the doctor, he’s not crying. So the doctor said to me if you had a birth like that, would you cry? And it was really just beautiful even a week after that. A friend of mine had a baby also in the same hospital and they found out that she was Jewish. So they’re like, Wait, do you know that Jewish woman that had the baby last week, and she was seeing the whole birth? We’ve never seen anything like

 

P  13:24  

that. So funny. A lot of Jews in Uruguay is what I’m hearing.

 

A  13:29  

No, there’s actually not so many. So when they find them, it’s kind of a novelty.

 

P  13:33  

It’s so funny to me, like do you know the other one?

 

A  13:36  

Well, I have, you know, clearly do it. They seem that

 

P  13:40  

that is super funny. So that’s another fabulous birth and what’s the what’s the age difference? What’s the gap between number two and number three? Two and a half years? Okay. Okay, so now you have three under four. Yeah.

 

A  13:56  

All right. My oldest was four.

 

P  13:57  

Yeah. So that seems like a lot or we’re all good.

 

A  14:02  

You know, going from two to three was so great. I mean, I think after after having my second baby who taught me like you don’t have control and you don’t really know what’s going on, and you know, have some more humility in your parenting. I think I was ready for whatever. And again, I was blessed with a really calm baby. And he was so easy and just really helped us in the transition, I guess. And it was just a really fun transition. We really enjoyed having another baby and watching the sibling dynamic is so emotional. I like even like until today all the time. I like see the dynamics between them. And I feel like there’s no bigger gift that I could give them then than this. You know each other. Yeah, that’s yeah, so yeah, so that was really special as well.

 

P  14:54  

Now, the first two babies you had an Israel Yeah. So there are there dramatic differences between other than the high C section rate between Israel and Uruguay that you were like, Oh, this is so different. Well, the

 

A  15:07  

hospital stay was actually very nice nearby because every gets their own room which in Israel is like not heard of. That’s one hospital that you would like pay extra. But there’s no such thing. I guess it’s also because of the high birth rates here in Israel compared to your right. There are many more birthing moms here. And also it was just like, kind of like a hotel but I don’t know there was like something very, very nice about the hospital there and the stay there. And also the duck because it was a private doctor and the whole system works very differently. But because it’s a private doctor, so you get to choose like, he said to me, tell me when you want to leave if you want to leave today if you want on tomorrow. Tell me when you went outside you like it was just very, that was very nice. It was very different than I wasn’t with my family. We were far away from family and that’s very different. We were very, very fortunate and lucky that a lot of our family did come a week after the birth but yeah, but going through all of that without family is also different. Yeah, yeah,

 

P  16:07  

that’s a little hard. Okay, so then or do we leave you’re away for the fourth.

 

A  16:12  

So I got pregnant, you’re going with the fourth. And that was also like when my when my third was about a year and a little bit and then when we came back to Israel, we were a few months after we came back I had my fourth and that was a homebirth a waterbirth a homebirth which was also really really beautiful. It was a Why do you

 

P  16:36  

that you’ve had so much success with the doula midwife Doctor model? Why are we changing it to home births, so the fourth one,

 

A  16:44  

okay, so I did have success and I didn’t have bad experiences. But for example, the second birth I felt that if I were at home for longer, I wouldn’t have gone so long. And I would have felt more comfortable and more oxytocin. You know, able, in my own home in my own environment without feeling threatened without feeling like I needed to always be like on the watch of what somebody was going to do to my natural birth, you know, which I want to say before I say anything about home birth. I believe that a woman births from herself, so it doesn’t matter where you’re at. You could be at a hospital, you could be at your home, wherever you are. You can have a beautiful birthing experience and I think that every woman has to make her own decision. Not because of some kind of societal, whatever. Every woman should do her own research and every woman should make her own decision. I don’t judge anyone for their own decision, and we shouldn’t judge anyone for their own decision. And it should just be something that you know, each woman is empowered to make that choice. So the fact that I had a home birth is not dissing the beautiful hospital births that I had. Well, I did I decide I did I did feel like I was at a place where I needed that privacy where I felt like that was I felt confident enough in myself that I was able to have a beautiful home birth and also I did more research. And I I wasn’t afraid like I was I grew up very afraid of home births. I always thought that it was women putting their own personal experience over the health of their babies. And I learned that it’s not about that at all. It’s about paying attention to the health of the mother and the baby. And it’s not about the experience. So I just like learned a lot about it. And it felt very right. My husband was Argentinian. All of his family were were born via C section he like for him this whole thing was very new. And for him it was a very scary thought. So I said to him, Look, let’s go to a midwife. We’ll talk to her. Ask her all the questions you have and then we’ll make a decision. Like I wasn’t. I wasn’t like completely. That’s it. Let’s do it. So we went and we went to speak to this midwife, and I chose a midwife who I knew she had a lot of experience. I think she was 20 years in the hospital and 12 years out of the hospital. Okay, so we went to go visit her just to like, go talk and ask her some questions. And my husband asked her all these questions, and he was very nervous about the whole thing. And after we left, I said to him, so what do you want to do? He was like, Yeah, let’s do it. Like, this is what we’re gonna do. So yeah, there’s a lot of prep that there isn’t when you have a hospital birth also, I I love hosting people. And I love people feeling comfortable in my house and I felt like if I’m having my doula and my midwife and I don’t know who’s gonna come after, I want there to always be like, really good, cooked nourishing food in the house. So like I felt like this. This pressure to always have like food in the freezer, and lots of like different options. So I always was like, packing the house with the food. And the kids were very much a part of the process because the midwife was coming to her house, and they would help her find the heartbeat which was super emotional and super exciting. And that was a really fun part. I didn’t want them to be a part of the birthing experience because I was afraid that I wasn’t going to be able to be in my bubble if I was being worried also about them like if I was thinking about you know, their needs, if it’s okay for them to be be at every point like if I was thinking about them. And caring for their needs, I wasn’t going to be able to completely go into my birthing bubble. So I didn’t want them to be at the birth they were also pretty little at that time. I did my

 

P  20:26  

totally fair and like if they don’t understand it, it could be scary. And I yeah, that all that makes sense. Right? So I decided

 

A  20:33  

that I didn’t want them to be with us and my parents who lived pretty close to where we were living at that time. They were going to come and take them. So it was actually a weekend, the second weekend that they went to my parents, and we were but we were like on a honeymoon vacation. We felt like it was really nice to be just the two of us without any kids. Since I don’t know when and we were just we lived in a place that was like in the middle of of the forest and it was like kind of raining the whole day and we went out walking the whole day and I started feeling a little bit of contractions in the morning and then played started coming on and then towards the afternoon. A little bit more. And then towards the evening. I felt like okay, this is really real now. We started tracking my contractions, which is the first time in my life I can track contraction because I needed to tell the midwife when she should come out to us. So we started tracking, tracking the contractions and I sent like the screenshot to my to my midwife, and she said look, it doesn’t look like it’s real labor yet because you have like every seven minutes and then every format, and then every five and then three and like it’s not so consistent. But here’s a really good thing that every woman should know every woman is different and like we said it doesn’t all go according to the books. And I knew that my body never was consistent, I guess kind of consistent with my personality. I’m not such a consistent person. I like to think to go with the flow. And I knew that with all my groups it’s it never goes consistent. So I said to my midwife, you know with all my books, it’s it’s like that and I feel like I’m in real birth. So she’s like, okay, you know your body the best. So she came out to us. And when she came she checked me and I was seven centimeters. Wow. Yeah. And again, music. It was actually the festival of Hanukkah of Hanukkah. Wow. So we had the lights burning and like it was like this beautiful, kind of divine kind of environment, feeling and ambiance and it was just

 

P  22:30  

this sounds cinematic for sure. It was it really was

 

A  22:33  

like we dim the light. We also had like the life that you could like dim in all different levels. And so my husband like played around with the lights to make it beautiful. We had music playing and it was it was really beautiful. We we blew up the pool in the middle of the house. And my husband was in charge of the hot water the whole time. And he and he was in charge of that as I as the contractions kept coming out. I said I’m ready to go into the pool. I got into the pool kept on breathing a little more. And it was just really fast and kind of I think it was like in total three and a half hours. I like touched she my midwife said to me, you you test like you tell me when you’re ready and you can you can feel which was so cool for me because I never really felt like it was my third birth. My doctor said here put your hand and try and feel his head and I couldn’t because of the way I was squatting or I don’t know what I couldn’t feel him. But this time I like really felt him coming out. So I like was able to feel his hair in the water. Wow. And as I was in that moment, my husband was filming me it was important for me to send a video to the kids like during the birth or whatever. So he was filming me in and I’m like telling them the baby’s coming you coming? Really really soon you’re gonna meet your brother soon. And then and he sent that to the kids and like he wrote to my mother we we feel the head or whatever. And then within like 10 minutes the baby was out, which was amazing. It was it was really beautiful, like so blissful.

 

P  24:09  

Like that birth was physically easier in the water and at your house.

 

A  24:14  

I think so. Yeah. I definitely think there was something very I don’t know the word enabling is coming up again like just enabling and given making space for be vulnerable in whatever way you want. And there was something very, very calming in that that allowed me to birth in a very calming and beautiful way. Like I wasn’t afraid of anything around me. I don’t know, I don’t know how to explain it. So that was really really amazing. And the water was great. It was really great. Also it was freezing cold at that time also so being in warm water it was amazing. And then having a baby and crawling into your own bed is like unbelievable. That sounds like comfortable and

 

P  24:57  

especially when

 

A  25:01  

your other choice is to be

 

P  25:02  

share a room with someone else. Right? Right.

 

A  25:05  

Right. So it was unbelievable and my midwife also she did all my laundry at when I was like nursing the baby she’s like started cleaning the whole house and she did all my laundry and she like left the house with with like all different she left me all these different herbal tinctures and all these different like aromas in the house that I should have. And it was just like, I felt like I was in a spa like in my own home. So it was beautiful. That sounds awesome.

 

P  25:29  

That sounds totally amazing. And now why the fifth one is not in your house. Right? Right. So the fifth one was not in my house. We had

 

A  25:37  

moved and for technical reasons only. I couldn’t have my fifth one in at home. But this is the proof that it doesn’t matter where you are if you are in your body you can be empowered in your connection with your body and with what’s going on. Because the fifth birth I decided that I was going to choose a hospital according to which hospital would allow me to have a waterbirth so I chose which hospital I was going to go to we needed to drive a little further to we came it was actually in the middle of a crazy rainstorm here that it was like kind of a hurricane but not exactly a hurricane. And it was pouring rain. And the contraction started at night I called my mother the teacher come and be with the kids. She came and she was with the kids and contractions were already coming like every two minutes, but I felt that they weren’t so strong yet and that they were I was like still in the beginning and I said to her Don’t worry, we’re still in the beginning. She was like no, you’re gonna have the baby in the parking lot. And I was like, no, no, I’m telling you. I still have to I’m still in the beginning. So we go into the car and it’s pouring rain like crazy, crazy rain. And then we park the car and there was like a little bit of a walk until the entrance to the hospital and until today my husband laughs at me about this. Because we started walking to the hospital and a contraction starts and I’m like, Okay, come here. Let’s start swaying. Like pouring rain. There’s thunder lightning and here we are dancing in the rain and holding a wall, holding the pool to blow up when we walk in. So here we are in the rain holding was local. And we walk in and I was like, Okay, I think I’m like in labor. And they check me and they’re like put your four centimeters, which I thought was important for me to come earlier because I wanted us to have enough time to blow up the pool and fill up the pool and everything for that and they were they said that we needed to have a perfect monitor if we wanted to be able to be in the pool. So I said okay, let’s do a monitor. Meanwhile, my Doula came and she was unbelievable. didn’t keep her hands off of me at all for one second. She was like massaging me the whole time and she was amazing. And I would pull on the ball, just singing waiting waiting for them to open up a room for us to go in. And we were again singing having a really great time. I was like dedicating songs to our family and sending messages look here we are having the baby and I’m singing this song for you. And then after like an hour and something they said to us, okay, the room is ready, you can go into the room, but there’s a little bit of a dip in the monitor. So you’re not going to be able to go into the pool yet. You have to have another perfect monitor. When you get into the room. We walk into the birthing room and I feel like things are getting much more serious. And I looked at my doula and I was like okay, like things are coming here. And I walked kind of barely to the to the room. And when I came in, they’re like, Okay, let’s check you again. And they checked me. And they said five centimeters. And I looked at my doula and I was like, huh I had these, like two voices inside of me. I had one voice, okay, it might take longer than I expected and I’m gonna let go of the control and that’s okay. And it’s okay if things are going to look completely different and I’m okay with that. And I had this other voice telling me my body is not at five centimeters. I am totally so much farther ahead than the doctor left after he checked me and I stood up to like try and get the pool started. I said to my husband, don’t blow up the pool. We’re not gonna have time for it. Because I stood up and I felt like I was already pushing and I said to my doula and my husband, I said, I’m going to break my waters right now and the next contraction and she’s going to come right out. And they’re like, Okay, like the midwife that heard me she was like, Okay, I don’t want your expectations to be so high. And I hear the monitor now. I’m a doula already. So I already have eyes on other things in the birthing rooms. And I hear that the monitor is beeping that the monitors that her heart rate was going down. And the next contraction I pushed because I was feeling a need to push already and I see that my water broke and I looked down and I saw that the water was a little yellow. And that’s why her heart rate was going down. And the doctor started coming in not just one doctor a few doctors because they see that the heart rate is going so much is going with with the so the yellow is meconium

 

 

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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