Episode 99SN: What you “know” about Motherhood is probably wrong: Chelsea’s story, Part I
This is episode 99 of the podcast, and next week is the 100th episode. it seems a totally fitting tribute, for a podcast dedicated to changing the conversation about this transformation, to have a guest whose profound book is all about debunking our most socially potent beliefs about what defines a mother and where they came from (spoiler alert: they don’t come from rigorous scientific examination, at best I’d call them science adjacent).
My guest shares the experiences she had in pregnancy and postpartum that inspired her to write this book which so powerfully dispels so many myths around mothers and motherhood. While she was talking, all I could think was: why weren’t you whispering this in my ear when I was pregnant? This could have changed how I thought about lots of aspects of my postpartum, although I’m grateful to overturn some of my most oppressive beliefs; hopefully she can change how you think of this period.
Here’s Chelsea’s book: Mother Brain: How Neuroscience is Rewriting the Story of Parenthood
Audio Transcript
Chelsea:
This idea that maternal instinct is innate and is automatic and really distinctly female. We generally talk about the scientific idea but it really was rooted in moral and religious ideas of womanhood and motherhood that were then written to scientific theories, particularly through evolutionary theory. And Charles Darwin talked about maternal instinct as the very thing that made men superior to women that were designed to care for one another and men were designed to compete with one another and that’s how they obtained higher eminence he said in all things because that competition,
paulette 0:52
Welcome to war stories from the womb. This is a show that shares true experiences giving birth to help shift the cultural narrative away from the glossy transition to a more realistic one. It also celebrates the incredible resilience and strength it takes to create another person or release that new person from their 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, did I struggle with this transition.
This is episode 99 of the podcast, and next week is the 100th episode. It seems a totally fitting tribute for a podcast dedicated to changing the conversation around this transformation, to have a guest whose profound book is all about our most socially potent beliefs about what defines a mother and where those beliefs in my guest here’s the experiences she had a pregnancy and postpartum that inspired her to write this book, which so powerfully dispels so many myths around mothers and motherhood. While she was talking, all I could think was, why weren’t you whispering this in my ear when I was pregnant? This could have changed how I thought about lots of aspects of my postpartum although I’m grateful to overturn some of my most oppressive beliefs even now. Hopefully, she can change how you think is what follows is part one of our conversation.
Today we’re lucky to have Chelsea Conaboy on the show, the author of Mother Brain, how neuroscience is rewriting the story of parenthood and this is an amazing book and if I had to give a synopsis I would say Santa is not real and either as the Easter Bunny and everything you thought you knew about parenting is wrong. Thank you. Good night. We’ll get to the details. We’ll talk about me it’s a fascinating read. But first of all start with your story because it feels like from the book that kind of motivated your interest in this subject.
Chelsea: Absolutely.
Paulette: Okay, good. So we’ll start with you first. So I know from reading the book that you are one of three. It’s right.
Chelsea: Yeah, I’m the youngest.
Paulette: And I’m wondering if you think that experience of growing up with siblings made you think you want to have a family or why did you know you want to have family?
chelsea 2:59
I don’t ever remember it being a question really. Honestly, I grew up in a pretty close family, also very conservative suburban family and we were Catholic and it was just kind of always an assumption that I that I would be a mom but externally probably but internally to I was I kind of always assumed I would.
paulette 3:23
Excellent. Okay, well, that’s a smoother path to actually being one. I think, you know, in some sense, right?
chelsea 3:29
Probably, I guess so. I mean, I think there are different bumps for everyone, but I think
Paulette: totally
Chelsea: that sort of assumption also, I think partly set me up with false expectations about what it would be like to become one for sure.
paulette 3:43
Oh, yes. And obviously you’re not alone. Yeah. So let’s fast forward to the time of your life when you think you’re gonna have kids. So do you get pregnant easily?
chelsea 3:54
Yes, we did get pregnant easily, which was a relief. We were trying I was at a very what I would consider stable point in my life. I had my husband and I had been married for about a year we had a good job. I was more financially stable than I had bad at any point in my adult life. We wanted to have kids and we were trying and then luckily we got pregnant.
paulette 4:18
And you I’m assuming you found out what’s like a home
chelsea 4:21
kit or how did you did? Yes. Yeah, absolutely. So
paulette 4:25
how did that go? Yeah, it
chelsea 4:27
was it was good. i My husband and I were getting ready to go to a drive in movie and packing a picnic. And and we’re going to bring some mixed drinks, I think and I was feeling just a little funny. And went and took a test and came out and said I’ll make my non alcoholic. It was a really happy moment.
paulette 4:50
That’s awesome. Yeah, that seems like you’re pretty attuned to your body to recognize that something feels off and I’ll take a pregnancy test.
chelsea 4:58
Yeah, I mean, I think it was top of mind. Something felt off. And I mean, I think my boobs were more painful than usual. And they they felt bloated and and it but it was already top of mind because because we had been trying that was something we were talking a lot about. So yeah, I had the test in hands and I was sort of thinking much they take
paulette 5:20
Yeah, awesome. That’s awesome. Yeah. So what’s the pregnancy like?
chelsea 5:26
So overall, for most of the pregnancy, most of the pregnancy went very well to think back here a little bit. So I was working full time at a newspaper through my pregnancy and my husband and I both worked at the same newspaper and we were living in an apartment in Portland, Maine, and we were house hunting at the same time. So the house hunt piece was a stressful part of the pregnancy because we’re under contract at one point and then it fell through on the seller side and it just was some ups and downs. Pregnancy itself physically. It was like what I now kind of understand to be a kind of mild experience. From what I’ve heard from others, I had some morning sickness, but nothing awful. I felt good in my second trimester. We let’s go
paulette 6:14
slowly there for one second. So the morning sickness, does that mean you’re throwing up at work or you just no
chelsea 6:19
nauseous? Let me see no. And I wasn’t showing up at work but I was very uncomfortable. And there were some work days where I had to go in late because I felt the nausea was so overwhelming, but but the number of days that that happened was just a handful. Okay. Yeah. I guess that’s what I mean. I felt like it was within reason if I wasn’t debilitated for an extended period of time. I just had some kind of mild morning sickness or morning nausea.
paulette 6:49
Yeah, yeah. I mean, obviously everybody talks about that, and I understand it as a as a common part of pregnancy. Yeah, for me, the felt sense of it was much more kind of dramatic than what I imagined. I guess. It’s hard to imagine what nausea feels like all the time. You know, without going through it, but it’s just a it’s such a powerful reminder that you’re busy. Your body is busy.
chelsea 7:13
Your body is busy. That’s so true. Yeah. Yeah, it’s interesting. I remember I mainly I tend to downplay it in my mind a little bit because I wasn’t throwing up actively for any length of time, but there were a lot of mornings where so my husband and I would we live very close to our office and we’ve walked to work together and there were mornings the smells of the city and the city sidewalk. Really. were overwhelming and I’d have to go very slow because between the nausea and the tiredness, but I remember him kind of leaving me. We didn’t I just couldn’t get to the office of you. Okay.
paulette 7:51
And then the second trimester is smooth. It sounds like
chelsea 7:53
yeah, I remember it being pretty happy and smooth. And you know, the house Hunt was stressful, but particularly as it went along, and I could start to feel the baby. I felt that I felt very, there was a lot of joy in it for both he and I we would read together at night he would read to the baby and it’s just the sweetest moments I would say of of our marriage and our that part of our lives.
paulette 8:22
In the book we talked about how I think your husband attended. Maybe we’re going to be looking at as a boy, yeah. What’s it called? To man, which is Yeah,
chelsea 8:32
it is main placement. So yeah. And so that’s the look, I think that’s like the local group that licenses this program, which is or or buys the license from the National Program, which is called Daddy bootcamp. And it’s offered in hospitals around the state and Yeah, he did that program. It was really amazing. I mean, so So I’m, you know, reading all of the baby books and pregnancy books that I could get my hands on. We took some classes together at the local hospital. And then he goes off to this daddy bootcamp, which is such a great program where they bring in recent dads, so dads with babies, I think under six months old, and and then there’s a facilitator who’s been through the program himself. And there has been curriculum, things that they want to talk about, but there’s also kind of open, open question, question and answer period where they can just interact with these new dads ask them what it’s really like, ask them what’s hard, and also just the dads bring the babies to the class and so there they are feeding them and comforting them with changing their diapers and they can see all of that happen in front of them, where the dads are doing it independently. I think that’s important. Nice,
paulette 9:46
is super cool. I can imagine somewhat transformative to allow you to imagine what you will one day be in the not so distant future.
chelsea 9:54
Yes. And what you can choose to be I think that’s a big part of them. Yeah. That’s a big part of the messaging of the program that you get to choose you get to choose there all these messages about gender roles and and who does what but actually, you can make it up for yourself. You can be as engaged as you want to be. And here’s how and here’s how you can think about it.
paulette 10:18
Yeah, that is awesome. I will definitely put a link to that in the show notes just so people can find it because I read it was like it would have been so great have had we had something like that when we were going through it. And not
chelsea 10:29
only that I sometimes think that there needs to be a version of this for mothers to we have mommy groups that you know, find if you’re lucky to write one fit for you. That’s after the fact. But I’ve heard this as I talked to, as I talk to parents for this book. I mean, one thing I heard from a bunch of mothers was the sense that they did all of the prenatal education and they read the books and they went to the classes but they never had this time to sit and talk about and think about what motherhood was going to mean for them who they were as a person. And I kind of think that’s a little bit of what happens at that boot camp is they actually talk about self actualization, what that will feel like in fatherhood and and I think we need some equivalent in motherhood that I haven’t seen defined yet
paulette 11:18
agree that every birth two things are born a baby and a mother and we focus so much on the baby that you just the mother, you know, you changed roles. And it’s a little bit like being pushed from a cliff because things that matter before and things that you were good at before media don’t necessarily apply to the new job. Right?
chelsea 11:37
And I’m sure we’ll get into this,
but I think we don’t have that because there’s been this underlying narrative for so long that we aren’t we’re ready we’ve already got what we need to do this job.
paulette 11:46
Yes, I’m tired quotes lined up here. So we’re gonna get to that.
The more I thought about this, the more interested I became in this idea and I went on Facebook and posted about this and found that mommy boot camp does exist now. Boot Camp for dads started in 1990, it was assumed that women had a bunch of resources so no equivalent was ever created. It says this on the website. There are lots of classes that tell her what to expect during labor and delivery. But none of that helped her navigate the changes in her relationship and life. Once she brings this new little human home. Although friends and family can be a valuable resource, nothing replaces the value of sitting down and getting straight answers for women who are just in mom to these shoes and are willing to share what worked best for them and what they learned that will be valuable for expectant moms to know if you’re interested you can check it out in the show notes.
So going into the third trimester, do you have a vision of what you think the birth is going to be like or what you’re hoping for?
chelsea 12:44
Yes, I definitely was in the camp I had. I always get her name wrong because I ina may Gaskin right so I had read Ina May Gaskins famous book about natural childbirth and kind of getting in the right frame of mind for for that experience. And I really wanted to have an unmedicated natural childbirth. I definitely did have a sense that it was okay if that didn’t happen that I was just going to do my best and see and kind of take it as it came but that is definitely what I wanted.
paulette 13:22
Take us to the day. How do you today’s the day…
chelsea 13:25
yeah, well,so that was my goal for sure. And I was in in for one of my regularly scheduled checkups. And I remember very clearly going into my boss’s office saying I have to go to this checkup. I’ll be back in about an hour and a half. And he said Well, you never know because I was so I was so far along. I was 30 approaching 38 weeks, and he was like you never know a good day could be the day and I was like I think I’ll be back because I felt good. I actually remember I had like a very cute maternity dress on I had a long list of things that I needed to do that day and and and I went and my blood pressure was high and and they kept me and monitored it for a little while. There was something else that they monitored you for previously but so anyways, I go in and my blood pressure’s high and and they monitor it for an hour or so. It said no, it’s definitely high. And I can remember the doctor looking at me and saying sort of matter of factly it’s time to move towards an induction and bursting into tears and saying no and of course, it was definitely a high enough where I see now that it was it was the right choice to make and it stayed high, you know through my induction so. So
paulette 14:52
the presence of mind to say that, Oh, this could be preeclampsia or you’re just more focused on the fact that you’re giving birth earlier than you wanted.
chelsea 15:00
I both I think at first I was like how can this be I feel fine. Yeah, and I’m not ready and I don’t want this to be rushed. And then as they monitor it for that extended period and then after as I went into the hospital to prepare for the induction, it became clear to me that it was high and it was staying high and that we needed to do this.
paulette 15:23
Yeah,
chelsea 15:24
so one thing I had been pretty stressed. At the end of my pregnancy we had found a house and we had started kitchen renovation and had moved in the house before the renovation was complete because we had to and also around that same period, we had realized that we had things in the house that hadn’t been properly medicated for and so suddenly I was like oh my God living in this house. And there’s this risk here and is it safe and you know, we had the state inspector come in and and tell us it was safe for us to be there and and there was a lot happening. And so now looking back, it’s no surprise I guess that that’s where I ended up but I definitely felt like on top of all of those stressors to now have a shortened timeline to get ready for the baby and deal with all of that. Yeah, it was it. I was overwhelmed by it for sure. Once we’re in the hospital, I think we did a good job of shifting our frame of mind to just be like, we need to just focus on what’s right here in front of us. The induction took a full three and a half days so we had some time
Paulette: Oh Good lord…
Chelsea: so we had some time…I was really lucky to be in a hospital where they don’t rush you through the induction and so they started the induction and with Pitocin, very low dose Pitocin and very quickly. The baby’s heart rate was going up and so stopped the Pitocin and they gave me I forget what it’s called but insertion they give you overnight
Paulette: cervadil?
Chelsea: Yeah, give me cervadil and that started the Pitocin they even lower dose the next morning and I was monitored that whole time which was probably the worst part of it honestly, wearing the monitor for those days and and then fortunately I did progress and slowly at first and then work quickly and the night when I was in labor really the active labor. I don’t think anyone realized that I was as active labor as I was and I don’t think even I realized it because I had this crazy thing happened with both of my pregnancies where I would feel a contraction and it would be intense. And then it would be over and I would immediately fall asleep or pass out not sure which and and then I’d be woken up with another contraction and I just I don’t know I managed that sort of quietly and so I went through a lot of my active labor kind of just sitting in the middle of the night through my bed.
There was a nurse there with me but I suddenly it was very clear that suddenly I needed to push and she thought that I was nowhere, nowhere near ready. And when she checked me. I was right there and I pushed for a very short period of time. And so there was a very interesting moment during the delivery where I got very scared and things felt tense suddenly and I sort of can see the faces on the doctor and the nurse still kind of watching the monitors and I let a contraction go without pushing at all and and they kind of that were like because and I said I feel afraid and and then they were like we’re encouraging me on the next one to go ahead and I pushed and he came out he had the umbilical cord around his neck three times.
Paulette: Wow.
Chelsea: And they cut it. He was fine. But I always I do think back to that moment. What was that? What was this moment of intuition potentially and I knew he needed a break for a second and I needed a break and then we did it we did it or something else do the opposite of that where I don’t know it was just very interesting moment. And so he came out and they put him on my chest and I said He’s so tiny. He was he was five pounds. 12 ounces. And so yeah, that feeling of wonder and joy at having him and real fear of how small and vulnerable he was definitely kind of defined my early weeks as a mother. I think
paulette 20:07
my you know, while you’re telling this story, all I’m thinking is oh my god, you must be so tired by the time you actually comes to pushing because it’s three days of not great sleep. And then and then you know the big marathon is still ahead of you.
Chelsea; Yeah
Paulette: and and you know, people I think can obviously see that breastfeeding is a relationship and is very much dance between mother and child, but that’s probably true of birth too. So it doesn’t, it seems to me, you know, potentially legit that it was intuition and the YouTuber had your way to communicate physically like you have been for the last 40 weeks or Yeah, eight weeks.
chelsea 20:47
Yeah, yeah, I think that’s right. I mean I am. The nurse came up to me afterward and said something like, you know, if you have any more children, I think it’s gonna go well for you you have you she said something along the lines of You have you have a very strong like intuition for your body and I and I, I was in the middle of it all didn’t really get to ask her what she meant about that. But I have wondered and I wondered specifically about that moment of what were they seeing on the monitors and it wouldn’t have confirmed my fear in that moment. And, and or I don’t know I don’t it. Yeah.
paulette 21:29
I mean, it’s interesting because you feel fear, but you don’t have the words to describe exactly what it is. That feels like intuition
chelsea 21:34
Yes. That feels from Yeah, yeah. But yeah, and then and then he was there and he you know, he was so tiny. I mean, that’s a wide I had lots of hair and and and he was he was just so tiny. I can
paulette 21:56
only see from the neck up but you don’t seem like a giant person. So when they say he was underweight or no, don’t even be bigger.
chelsea 22:03
No, he they didn’t. I thought it would be bigger. They had told me that he was going to be bigger. Also he was measuring, you know fetal measurements were or I can’t remember where they put it, but it was more of an average weight. And you know, he wasn’t what’s the phrase when when a baby’s underweight, low birth weight. He wasn’t technically low birth weight, but he was kind of close to that. And then we struggled in those first days to just start initiating breastfeeding. He had some trouble suckling, we had to help him learn how to do that. And my milk didn’t come in right away. And so that amplified that feeling, okay, that’s all he is and how he really didn’t have much weight to lose. Yeah, it’s early days
paulette 22:44
in your research. Did you come across the fact that potentially an induction at 38 weeks is highly correlated with a bigger window before milk production comes in because the symphony of hormones that’s supposed to create that is not really being created?
chelsea 23:03
I know that birth experiences can shape your milk how it comes in for sure. I don’t I don’t have this specific research to cite for you. But I know that that is generally true that and and more true, I think if you have a C section, but but it can be true, definitely with induction as well, I think
paulette 23:20
so the short answer to this question is yes, C section can delay milk production, and so too can induction because of the potential for added interventions, which is not to say that it happens all the time, but that it does happen often enough that if it happens to you know that you’re not alone. There are more details on this topic in the show notes
Paulette: and how was postpartum for the first one.
chelsea 23:44
I mean, so that was what prompted me to write this. This book really so my, my gosh, how was postpartum with the first one? So it was okay. I think I had unreasonably high expectations for myself in that time.
paulette 24:06
So what what time What did you expect?
chelsea 24:10
I expected you know, loss of sleep and for things to be hard and, and that I would need some help. And certainly that I was bad. I was going to have 12 weeks off and I was glad for that. I did not expect a change in my mental states that went beyond sleep loss. I had I think I had a sense of postpartum depression as you know, as I write in the book that it was sort of like the flu you either had it or if you didn’t have it, then you were kind of stable and steady. I didn’t have a clear sense of the real transformation that happens in that period for all new parents whether they experienced any symptoms of anxiety or depression or not. And, and then the reality of my time was that I felt really obsessive about my son’s safety and well being and about my ability to take care of him and, and so I didn’t feel you know, certainly this was eight years ago, the symptom checklist for postpartum depression was more of like feeling withdrawn or cold or unemotional, and I felt the opposite of that I felt extremely engaged with him and and worried and like I couldn’t look away and also really concerned about the safety of the world around us our food and the air in our neighborhood and house and how was I going to keep them safe when it was hard to control all of these factors that that affected our our safety. And so I felt really worried and then I also felt quite worried about the worry itself. I felt like it was this this sense of overwhelm kind of drowning out the love or the warmth that I wanted to be expressing towards him and and was it you know, a sign of something that may be broken or missing in me if I didn’t if I couldn’t just focus on that love and that forms then what did it mean about me as as a mother?
paulette 26:18
Oh, so I’m very sorry that you had this extremely stressful first step into parenthood because that sounds really stressful and it is vigilance is, you know, is energy costly, right? Just it’s exhausting. It’s right. It’s a really hard way to live. And this brings us very much into your book. So I have identified three main takeaways I could have identified 30 main takeaways. But so my three takeaways and you should amend these if this is not what you’re thinking is
- everything you think that makes a good mother and what makes a bad mother, a good mother shapes your child and what you should be feeling is essentially wrong. That’s number one.
- Number two is both chemistry and experience, rewire the brains of all caretakers. Mothers and fathers. And those effects are long lasting.
- And the third one is, there are many stories of gendered expectation that women are natural caregivers based on quote unquote science, but the science is done by people with gender expectation. So the scientific findings tend to reflect what the scientists bring to it. And so we can, you can add more to that if you’d like.
But going back to the first one, so I wanted to mention three, one you just mentioned was postpartum and was blown away by the fact that the first drug for postpartum depression was what was just approved
chelsea 27:39
yesterday, and it’s still pretty much inaccessible to most sorry, how long
paulette 27:43
have you been been giving birth for? Right get the clock out, right. So that’s not but that’s one of them. And then I wrote down the three more that I was really that I thought were really profound. So one of them was golden hour. And he talked about this podcast conversation between Hillary Frank and innovate Gaskin, the author of the natural birthing Bible, and you tell the story about how Hillary Frank says the birth didn’t go the way that she envisioned it. She was empowered like you were by you may ask and and that’s not however has been shipped epidural ship Pitocin she had been Peasy on all these things that contradicts kind of the vision she had built herself. And she walked away feeling like a failure. And kudos to ina may Gaskin for, for revising how she talked about those things because she was saying, in particular, that people have come to think of the golden hour as something that if it’s missed, then you’re not going to bond properly with your baby. And she says that’s absolutely not true. Another thing you talk about is oxytocin as the love drug, which everybody thinks of it in that way, but basically what you say is hormones are fantastically complicated, and work in a symphony and not a solo. That’s right. And they do many things and men also have changes in their oxytocin and testosterone and progesterone and all this stuff. So it’s much more complicated than that story we’ve been sold. Yeah. And because a woman’s body was made through production we all should be able to do it, if not naturally at least bad. That’s like an idea. We walk in with what was the maternal mortality rate before we had medical interventions was super high, right?
chelsea 29:17
I don’t know for sure. But my my assumption is a couple of things. One, I think like the real the real depends on which point in history you’re talking about, I guess, but back Oh, kind of pre Industrial Revolution. Anyways, I think that death was just honestly a much more common part of society. And so I mean, many more kids died, people died younger and people saw you know, other women die or be injured in childbirth. Often that was part of life. So maybe it was just so woven into the experience that it was and and it was the God given role to write. So sort of take what comes
paulette 29:57
I’m going to end my conversation. With Chelsea here. I’m grateful to her both for candidly sharing her personal story of stepping into motherhood, and for her book that helps us all step into this giant transformation, with more awareness of both what’s to come. Some of the amazing undoubted benefits of this journey, both for burning people and our partners. Really interesting really speaks to the rest of my conversation
Episode 98: Could a Baby Shower Revolution Change Postpartum as we Know it?: Kaitlin’s story, Part II
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.
Episode 97: Her Birth & Postpartum inspired her to Find a Better Way to Postpartum: Kaitlin’s Story, Part I
Episode 92: When Postpartum happens in a Pandemic: Julia’s Story, Part II
Episode 92SN: When Postpartum happens in a Pandemic: Julia’s Story, Part II
Scientists often study extreme cases to learn about the mechanics of a phenomenon. Many women found themselves running this kind of experiment in their own homes. How would the postpartum period–a time marked by isolation–feel when the whole world was isolating?
In today’s episode, author of the Upstairs House Julia Fine, reflects on her experience having her second child in the heart of the pandemic, and how the difference between a pre pandemic postpartum and a pandemic postpartum taught her something important about the period. She shares some advice she wishes she’d received before she had kids and talks about how having language around some of the dramatic challenges we face as caregivers in those early months can change our experience of them. I also include insights from Dr. Patel, a former OB who now focuses on helping women in the postpartum period, on how to combat cultural expectations around motherhood in this period.
Click here to find Julia’s work, including The Upstairs House
To connect with Dr. Patel for postpartum coaching, click here
Audio Transcript
Paulette kamenecka 0:03
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 all kinds of media to a more realistic one. It also celebrates the incredible resilience and strength it takes to create a better 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, Julia reflects on her experience having a second child and the heart of the pandemic and how, the difference between postpartum pandemic postpartum or something important about the period. She shares some advice she wishes she’d received. Before she gave kids. And how, having language around some of the dramatic challenges we face as caregivers in those early months can change our experience. I also include insights from Dr. Patel on how to combat cultural expectations around motherhood, the postpartum period. We left off last week with Julia talking about being home with her firstborn just after birth.
Julia 1:15
Then when my husband went back to work, it was really really hard. You know, I had gone from having my own life and my own creative work and teaching to like, you know, the baby was my full time job and it wasn’t sleeping. And my son still doesn’t have a six and it’s still awful. And that has been like from day one, which is a terrible sleeper. We didn’t even get those good. The first few newborn nights that people get with that fool you into thinking that oh, it’s not that bad. We didn’t even get those. It was just it was just exhausting.
Paulette 1:50
Yeah, but that’s super hard. And did you have did you have breastfeeding ambition?
Julia 1:54
I yeah, I breastfed. He latched very easily, but I was not prepared for how much it would hurt to start, just like how painful it would be to have that adjustment. So I remember saying, I’m only going to do this for another week or so. And I said that a year I said, I’m only going to do it for another week. And ultimately, because it was so much less expensive to nurse him if he could nurse we want a full year.
Paulette 2:18
Yeah, yeah, well, good. Well, God worked out, but it sounds like you were not emotionally attached to them.
Julia 2:23
Not really. I don’t know if I would have felt differently had it been hard to nurse but we had a fairly easy time. I did really resent it for a while. Especially I remember it was my first so he was born April 29. And so my first Mother’s Day would have been a week and a half later, maybe everyone should come over. We were gonna go to the farmers market because walking distance, but he just wanted to nurse and so I was just sitting on the couch breastfeeding. And finally it was like I guess all of you our place was pretty small. And it was my husband’s whole family was there so it’s like I guess you guys just go and I remember just sitting there feeling so resentful of the fact that they were there and I was doing this and I don’t know why. You know, it’s I I wouldn’t have wanted them to stay. But you know, there wasn’t there wasn’t a better solution, but I it was very frustrating and I think I felt very frustrated. For a lot of my early motherhood experience.
Paulette 3:23
I took this issue to Dr. Patel. Julia talks about feeling frustrated and resentful in those early days because of you know, the demands put on her exclusively and the pain of breastfeeding and no sleeping and I think there are these strong cultural expectations around motherhood that it’s about selflessness. And so you know, we talk about taking care of mom, but we don’t really want mom to take care of mom is many people’s perception of it. That’s like a false suggestion. So what advice would you give to new moms? How do you navigate that?
Dr. Patel 3:55
It’s a wonderful question and a very tough one because this is actually a lot of what I try to work with because it’s about mindset. And here’s the thing:
4:07
women are made guilty or ashamed of themselves especially in the learning period. to do is to think about where feeling coming from, is it because you are trying to do something that is expected of you but doesn’t feel right to you? Is it expectations you have for yourself? What are those expectations based on? And what exactly are your priorities and what do you really want? So by thinking about what are your internal priorities like whether it say okay, it’s really important to me that I breastfeed my baby. It’s not as important to me when I think about it deep down that my house be perfect for guests or that I look perfect. If that were the case, I would ask mom to really think about the other things that she is being made to feel guilty or selfish for and to just let it go and accept that your priorities are your priorities. And you are doing what you feel is right and that is perfectly fine.
Paulette 5:17
Yeah, I feel like there is no analog to how dependent a baby is so you don’t have any experience of being that necessary and required for someone else.
Julia 5:27
Yeah, and nobody else can do it, especially if you’re breastfeeding because it’s not like like eventually we started I pumped a little bit and my husband would take one shifts. And that felt a little bit better but then you still have to pump. I don’t know it’s a lot.
Paulette 5:44
It is. It is unbelievable. I mean, this is why you live with extended family. Right? This is yeah, it turns out that was a genius idea, which we did not
Julia 5:52
know now. My youngest is now two and a half and we’re only just it’s like they’re only just coming up for air in terms of not being stressed about raising kids. Constantly. Now, we’re only stressed about raising kids like 80% of the time.
Paulette 6:09
Yeah, I want you to the time is required, of course. So it sounds like your husband also didn’t didn’t flag maybe you have depression.
Julia 6:19
He? Yeah, I think we just didn’t know. I mean, he definitely he also was working long hours immediately come back to work and when he was around, he’s a great he’s a very good co parent and especially at this point sort of post pandemic in work from home. Life. He is absolutely it just was night and day with my daughter of how involved he could be in those early days. And that’s something that I think about COVID in the pandemic we wouldn’t have gotten but with my son it was. I was just by myself a lot because he had to work and he was the sole breadwinner at that point because I had left my job because it didn’t make sense to adjunct and pay for childcare and try to work on this novel that I was working on. So it was it was really rough actually. So this is funny too. So when we had the baby, we were living in a two bedroom but it was a lofted two bedroom so the second bedroom only had half of a wall and that wall was shared with the kitchen and I just remember it was fine when the baby was in with us. But we set up that second room we set it all up as a nursery and we were like finally we can put him in his own room and have our time and our space and like get back to our relationship. And then we realized nobody nobody warned us again. This is where I’d maybe if I had had friends with kids that could have been like you can’t put a baby there with that shared wall with the lights gonna get it in the sounds gonna get in and that’s not how it works. So the first time we put them in there and we were like Did we just like hide on our tiny balcony do a pull up in our bedroom. We’re in such a small space. So we ended up breaking our lease and moving because it was just untenable. But yeah, so that’s something we’ve everyone’s like, what advice do you have for your kids? Well, if you’re in an apartment, make sure you have four full walls for the kids room.
Paulette 8:06
Totally, totally. That is totally true. And I asked about your husband in part because in your book, Megan’s husband is pretty quick to accept her suggestion that it’s nothing because yeah, I mean we all want it to be nothing right? That’s that’s like a completely human reaction. But when I was reading it, I found myself yelling at him. I was like Ben, no, dont’ believe him!
Julia 8:31
he’s not great. He’s the he’s not that is not modeled at all. After my experience. I had so much more support the family I had to live my mom read the book too. And she’s like, this is it and as a Tory, these are not my parents. These are not my in laws. This is all fiction. But yeah, I sort of I in order to tell the story I want to tell I needed him to be a little more out of the picture. And I needed him to believe her and it also a lot of the book too is sort of about inauthenticity and relationships almost are about sort of how you know an ideal idealized view of what a relationship should be can sort of ruin what your relationship actually is. So I think in that particular relationship between Megan like she has never especially been herself and open with him and so it’s like, why would she start now, Bear?
Paulette 9:21
On this topic of the difference between what you feel in this process and what you think you should feel? I’m going to read an excerpt from the upstairs house. In this scene. Meghan the main character has just given birth and is in the hospital. Julia writing in the voice of her main character says there’s nothing like the bond you will feel upon first meeting said Mrs. What to expect the Rush of love will be overwhelming. I looked at Clara puffy little larva mouthful sang and I waited for the bond. I waited for the rush of love. There were needles still stuck in my arm. Maybe they were interfering and one more excerpt a few pages later, Megan is still in the hospital and feeling off. And she says to the nurse. Wait, I said I think there’s something the matter. The nurse pressed down on my abdomen. It all feels fine. Totally normal. No, I mean, Ben was coming into the room rolling the bassinet in front of them. It looks so happy so perfectly content. Nevermind I said. I must just be tired. The nurse smiled again parted the curtains and walked out the door. Do you want to hold her for a minute before the family gets here? finessed passing Claire over before I could respond. I wanted to want to hold her. So I nodded even while realizing that I didn’t want to hold her. There she was in my arms.
Paulette: There were a lot of things that you wrote that I thought this is a perfect description of what it is of what it is as opposed to what what we’re imagining it should be or you’ve been told what we’ve been told to expect. So so it sounds like your older son is two when you get pregnant again, because they’re three years.
Julia: Yeah, he was two and change.
Paulette 10:53
And is it easy to get pregnant again? Super easy. Okay, good.
Julia 10:57
We were so lucky. Yeah, we I think it was two months and then I was pregnant and it was difficult. Again, I had I think I had a normal level of national probably about the same as it was but because I also was caring for a toddler. It was harder, but then I was five months pregnant in March of 2020. And that was very, very, very hard, just emotionally and access to my OB. And I mean, it was hard. Sort of the question of like, are you higher risk, what would happen and I was so hormonal, and I think everybody was breaking down and crying. So in that in that respect, it wasn’t that different. But it was, you know, my idea of, oh my gosh, I’ve done this before I’ve got it. It’s going to be so easy this time around and it just, you know, went out the window.
Paulette 11:52
My kids are older so I didn’t face the fears you described as a pregnant woman in COVID. But when COVID hit I thought immediately of pregnant woman I thought oh my god, it’s such a vulnerable place to be as a pregnant woman. It’s so it just makes COVID 1000 times harder, especially with a toddler because
Julia 12:09
It was very hard. You know, the one nice thing like I said, is that my husband was sent home and so at least he was there, you know, physically present even if he was working. I wasn’t alone alone, but it was. Yeah, I feel like I I have a few very strong memories of that time and then the rest I feel like I’m just like, blacked it out.
Paulette kamenecka 12:34
So how imagining you’re going to the doctor by yourself?
Julia 12:36
Yeah. It was I had I think it was about 20 weeks. So I had my 20 week. No, because he wasn’t there it had I think that people were there were like whispers at my 20 week scan. And he personally I think there was some kids meeting or something. So I’d been there by myself. But then after that meeting, I had to go by myself. It was like you went through. You waited in your car. For them to say that it was time to go into the building and take the elevator up and it was like you went through sort of the hazmat and everybody and it was yeah, it was very weird. And then there were a few appointments to that. I think they were like we’ll just do this virtually because if you say you’re feeling fine, then we believe you because nobody knew.
I remember the first time that I went to the OB sort of once we knew what was happening post lockdown and it was just terrifying to be like, am I going to get COVID and kill my child by going to try to get help for my child in utero. It just was a mind trip and I hadn’t left the house in four weeks to it was very weird but yeah, what really was amazing was the fact that the nurses the OB is and the staff at the hospital were going in and coming in there and made it feel like it was weird, but it was i don’t know i They were really just such superheroes. It was really amazing.
Paulette 14:03
It is what healthcare workers did for the pandemic is completely amazing. And, you know, whatever anxiety you might have come with has now been turned up to 11 because
Julia 14:15
the worst part so my daughter was actually four weeks premature. She was right on the cusp of being an official preemie baby. If he had waited a few days, she would not even have technically been a preemie. But she was like four weeks, three days or something. And my inlaws at that point, it was June and my inlaws had started venturing out of the house and we still were just like, we went nowhere. We started nobody. We were just very, very careful. And so my in laws were like going to start quarantining so that if the baby came early, come and be our child care for my older child. And the day they were going to start quarantining. I just started bleeding and they said, come in and they’re like, up, you’re having the baby now and so there was a period there where we weren’t sure the baby, her heart rate was accelerated. And there were some weird complications of like, we don’t know if it’s going to be a C section or what’s going to happen when they weren’t sure because my husband was with my son. We weren’t sure if we were gonna get childcare and he would even be there for the labor and I was waiting on the COVID test. So I didn’t know if I was going to be in the COVID Waiting, in which case my husband couldn’t come regardless, there was all of those things all at the same time, and like this 25 minute period, which is probably the most stressed I’ve ever been in my entire life, and they all ended up falling in our favor. I didn’t need the C section. My dad at 1am picked up his phone and volunteered to stay for a night with my son, and I didn’t have COVID but it was just it was a vastly different experience because I wasn’t having contractions because it was just an early like random bleed, but emotionally it was really wild.
Paulette kamenecka 15:57
Yeah, that sounds super stressful. So was the bleeding and indication that the labor was on?
Julia 16:02
Yeah, so retrospectively my doctors maybe your water started to break or maybe something they don’t really know what it was. But yeah, I had called thinking they’d be like, come in, and then they’d send me right home and so they’re like going over and bidding you if you’re gonna have the baby. That was my that was a shock because especially if we had woken up, my dad just turned green and we can walk him up and put him in the car. It was 830 or something and he had been asleep for like 45 minutes and we woke him up, put them in the car, took them downtown, and he’s like, what is happening? And then we thought I would, I thought I was going to come home. So they just drove around down in downtown Chicago, like they drove around in circles until I called them was like I am staying here. I guess you better take him back and figure out what to do with him because I couldn’t have any visitors. I could just have my one sort of support person, which is my husband. So in previous times, maybe we would have had him come into the hospital with us until someone could pick him up. But it was. Yeah, it was it was weird though, too because the hospital seems so empty compared to the first time around and all the times I have been there before. And then after. I was there for a few days because she was a preemie so I had I think an extra day because I had tests to run and no visitors really quiet very it was actually sort of a soothing and it felt almost like after being at home for such a long time. It was kind of nice to be somewhere else where was waiting on me. But it was very, very surreal.
Paulette 17:31
And did she spend time in the NICU?
Julia 17:34
No, she didn’t. I claim she was fine. They’ll give her some steroids and she was tiny. She was only five pounds but healthy. So she’s just very little. She’s finally caught up. She’s a normal size now but it took a year and a half.
Paulette: So they don’t know what kicked off the birth?
Julia:. No, they don’t know what kicked it off. So it it was a lot harder. And I this is I think you know I had already at this point written upstairs house and it was already off the publication but it sort of confirmed everything that I had read about birthing people needing someone to advocate for them like I find myself during sort of the period where I was by myself in triage and then they admitted me and I was by myself for a while and I remember looking over at one point interesting blood on the floor and I couldn’t it’s so hard when you’re in that state to know what’s going on and to make decisions for yourself or ask the right questions. So yeah, they ended up inducing me because they didn’t know what was going on. But my doctor came in and was like, Well, we know the baby’s gonna be born soon right? Let’s just let the baby like, you know, let her come out. And so it was such a relief when my regular doctor finally got there. But yeah, it’s um, I think I just went into early labor for whatever reason.
Paulette 18:47
And that birth I’m assuming was shorter than your son.
Julia 18:50
Oh, it was so, so quick. She Yeah, they so I was not having contractions or anything until they put me on Pitocin and again, I got the epidural right away, which I’m glad I did. And then I fell asleep and then I woke up to that being like time to push and I pushed four times and then she was here. So she’s so because she was so little, so it’s just like she came and then afterwards that was a little bit scarier because with my son, there was no reason to think that everything wouldn’t be totally normal, but with her it was like okay, well why was she early is her heart rate. Okay, did she pass all of these various, you know, premie tests, and again, she was just so so small. It was really wild. I don’t know if that had been my first kid. I think it would have been just very, very hard to not think I was gonna break her every day.
Paulette 19:40
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, five pounds is a second sugar. Yeah, she was tiny. She was tiny. And so what’s it like when you get home the second time?
Julia 19:48
Oh, man. So in a way it was. It was definitely hard because so my mom who lives on the East Coast didn’t even get to meet my daughter until she was six months old. So that whereas she had flown out when my son was born, and she didn’t say long, she just came to meet him and then left but we had family there and there were people and people bringing by it was just the four of us, but it was nice. There was something really really special about my son meeting his sister for the first time and I think because of he had not been around other kids for a long time. So I think it in a way, made that transition almost easier because he was like, thank God. It’s not just mom and dad in the house. Again, it’s something new, but I also felt like I have learned from my son, we used a pack and play bassinet because I was like, oh, we’ll save money. And I’ll just use the bassinet part of the pack and play and that really didn’t work really well for us. And with my daughter, I had the my sister in law’s nice swivel bassinet. And I knew sort of, I knew what to expect in terms of how much sleep I would be getting and I knew to have a protein bar for the middle of the night and I knew to you know, budget time for this. So in that regard, it was a lot easier even though we didn’t have help. I think that for my husband who was on Oh, and the other part too is my husband who same company you had 10 days of maternity leave the first time and then they changed policy and he now had two months.
Paulette: Oh wow.
Julia: So he was with that three year old and I was with the baby I mean basically did it like that. And then by the time he had to go back to work, back to work just you know work for him still. I sort of had the heart, the heart we were through sort of some of the more difficult parts and I was getting a little bit more sleep than
Paulette 21:44
I was gonna say I hope your daughter is a better sleeper
Julia 21:46
that she is. Yeah, she is. Yeah, and she was right away too. Yeah, it was so it was a very it was very weird because on paper, everything should have been so much harder. But the second kid just the circumstances were so much more difficult. But I think because I was already a parent, it was easier for me than that transition from sort of belonging only to myself to being somebody’s mother.
Paulette 22:15
Yeah, I mean, I’m sure that you’re hoping this too, but I’m hoping that books like yours, the upstairs house will broaden the way we talk about postpartum so people know to expect you know challenge.
Julia 22:27
Yeah, and I think because I think what’s even harder and it so much of what we see is this, you know my perfect nesting cocoon experience. And so you think, Oh, I’m having these particular feelings. And so then not only is it hard to have the feelings but you also feel sort of like guilt or shame about having the feelings and the more we can normalize it. You still might be having the feelings but at least you know, like this is normal. It doesn’t make you a bad parent. It doesn’t mean that you’re not going to have a great relationship with your kid. It doesn’t mean that things are not going to be as good as they are for anybody else. But because we talk about it in such an infantilizing way with term baby blues. just kills me. Would you say that to anybody else about any other illness or disease or diagnosis? It just is so for me personally, I felt very well. Why can’t I just shake it up? It’s just baby blues and then it’s no that’s not how it works.
Paulette 23:21
Julia talks about how what we perceive as quote a perfect cocoon normal and postpartum is based on what we see around us. And if you look on Instagram, you may see pictures of quote, a perfect food. And it really does bring people a disservice because it makes them question their own experience and makes it seem as if this transition is easy, but it’s not for a lot of people.
Dr. Patel 23:40
Exactly. And as soon as babies out of mom mom’s kind of left to herself and all the focus is on baby with at least the rest of the family right and yourself. And she’s dealing with all the physical whatever she went through for childbirth, the mental the hormonal changes and plus the loss of control the loss of her own identity. She’s now just known as mom, you know, she’s not necessarily who she was before and it’s it’s very difficult. And so the one thing that I always say to to new moms is if you feel weepy or upset or irritable, allow yourself to feel what you’re feeling. Right? Just because it’s baby blues doesn’t make it not real or silly or because it’s going to go away in a couple of weeks doesn’t mean you’re not feeling it right now. Talk about it, let it out. Let your feelings show share your feelings with others and get the help and support that you need. And then take care of yourself get the fresh air get the exercise, change the scenery. Try to get as much sleep as you can try to get healthy food and let go of the need for control because nobody’s perfect and nothing is gonna go exactly according to plan and it’s all okay. It’s okay to feel what you’re feeling. I feel like so many women fight that just makes it worse
Paulette 25:03
That’s totally true and a critical thing to highlight accepting that as a lifelong project, right. Your kids will teach you that in 1000 ways in the next 18 years, but the initial indoctrination is so extreme.
Dr. Patel 25:18
It is it’s extreme and it’s sudden, in a way and no one tells you right? So if you’re blindsided
Julia 25:24
and I think if I had had different language for it, I might have just been gentler on myself and less, you know, get over it. You’re fine.
Paulette 25:34
For sure I there’s a lot of language around pregnancy and maternity that really needs to be revoked and renewed, really to the geriatric pregnancies
Julia: oh my gosh,
Paulette:
So there are a lot of terms that need to be both more accurate and more useful, because those terms don’t help. They’re things like the incompetent cervix. How is that helpful, or accurate or useful or you know, there are no very to other things where you use that kind of adjective with a body part in a way that makes you feel like a failure.
Julia 26:13
I know there’s there’s enough to feel bad about that. You shouldn’t have to feel bad about these things that are just biological phenomenon.
Paulette 26:21
Yes, yeah, totally. Agree. Am I leaving something out from your book or your experience that you’d like to highlight?
Julia 26:30
I don’t think so… I think we have touched on all of it. I mean, it really, I think most most importantly is it left me and it feels like you were left with this to after your experiences. I just my own personal experience left me very frustrated with the way that in the US especially we provide or don’t provide for new parents and just ready to do whatever I could to try to change that until I’m writing the book. You know, I hopefully it was like, Look at look at how little support we aren’t giving people how can we change that? And I don’t know that I’ve have had the answer to how can we change it but I hope it shines the light on the experience that something people have.
Paulette 27:11
Yeah, I think calling it the fourth trimester suggesting that you should be done. With that difficulty in three months is insane. And there’s so many other like you mentioned biological processes that take so much longer to recover than three months is just for your uterus to shrink. So that can’t be the whole story. So it is important to enlarge this conversation to include lots of other things.
Julia: Absolutely.
Paulette: Before you go into our talk a little bit about your Yeah, sure.
Julia 27:39
So my my third novel is coming out June 13. From flat iron books and it is it’s funny because it is vastly different superficially, but at heart it’s about a lot of the same things, which are sort of gender roles and the patriarchy and you know, women and girls specifically sort of not being believed or having an opportunity, but what it’s about is it’s a book about so the composer Antonio Vivaldi who wrote The Four Seasons taught and wrote music for this sort of all girls orphan orchestra in Venice in the 1700s. And so the book takes place in 1717 and it is about two girls, one a violinist and violist who are sort of competing to be in this top tier women’s orchestra and they make a deal with this unknown creature in the canals of Venice and sort of has dangerous repercussions. So it’s very much if the if upstairs house was like me writing from a lot of my personal experience, this was what do I wish I was doing instead of being stuck in home with two kids in the pandemic But yeah, comes that it’s called Madalena and the dark.
Paulette 28:53
Thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story.
Julia 28:56
I’m so glad you’re doing this is really wonderful. Thank you for the opportunity.
Paulette kamenecka 28:59
Absolutely. And the book again, upstairs house. I thought it was really good.
Julia 29:04
Thank you.
Paulette 29:06
Thanks again to Julia for sharing her experiences and how they influenced her to take up the often intense challenges of postpartum period as a subject worthy of exploration and a novel. If you think of the weight of the dramatic changes that happen instantaneously after you come home from the hospital or birthing center, it’s astounding. You’re immediately required to mother a newborn and figure out what the job entails how to do it and heal in real time. And oh, by the way, a life depends on it. It makes sense that we all feel like it’s a lot but doesn’t make sense is that we don’t talk about it more. If you’re interested in other stories of how people manage postpartum depression, you can check out episode 60 and 61, where I talk with a psychiatric nurse who experienced postpartum depression. And in Episode 58, I include the insights of a researcher who worked on the trials of the first FDA approved drug needs specifically to address postpartum depression, which was both shockingly because it’s so recent, and not shockingly because Women’s Health rarely gets top billing 2019 in the show notes, you can find links to Julie’s work and to Dr. Patel. Thanks for listening. If you like the show, please share it with friends. We’ll be back next week with another inspiring story.
Episode 91: A Postpartum that Inspired a Novel: Julia’s Story, Part I
Episode 91SN: A Postpartum that inspired a Novel: Julia’s story, Part I
“Need is an albatross. To be needed is to wear the weight of stones across your chest . To be wanted. That is different. To be wanted by a child is the cleanest of desires. To still be wanted once the child is fed and rested; once the diapers are fresh and the snot has been siphoned from the nostril and the gas has passed through. To be recognized not just as a body, but a person, a comfort to be loved.”
That’s a brief snippet from the novel The Upstairs House by Julia Fine, my guest today on war stories from the womb.
In today’s episode the author Julia Fine talks about how her experience with the significant challenges of the postpartum period inspired her novel, what she’s learned about the experience now that’s its in the past, and how she hopes it will foster a more realistic public discussion of the challenging months that most mothers encounter in the weeks just after birth. I also include the insights of a former OB who has become a postpartum coach about signs of PPD and her advice to help women manage this often stressful, exhausting, lonely period.
Here is a link to The Upstairs House, Julia’s book about the Postpartum period, and to Julia’s other work
You can can find Dr. Geetika Patel‘s workshops, newsletter, Birthing Mamas group, and postpartum coaching here. Feel free to contact her through my website.
Audio Transcript
Paulette 0:07
My guest today on 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 this enormous transition you can find out all kinds of media to a more realistic one. It also celebrates the incredible resilience and strain it takes to create another person inside your body and release that new person into the world. I’m your host, Paulette Kamenecka, I’m a writer and an economist and a mother of two girls. And I struggled with just about every aspect of this process.
In today’s episode, the author Julia fine talks about how her experience with the significant challenges of the postpartum period, inspire her novel, The upstairs house, what she’s learned about the experience now that it’s in the past and how she hopes it will foster a more realistic and honest public discussion of what it’s like for most mothers in the weeks just after birth. I also include the insights from a former OB who’s become a postpartum coach about signs of postpartum depression as opposed to baby blues. And her advice to help women manage this often stressful, exhausting, lonely period. What follows is the first part of my conversation with both of these women.
Hi, thanks so much for coming on the show today. We are lucky and excited to have author Julia fine on the show. And we’re going to talk about many things, one of which is her recent book, I think 2021 2021 Yeah, called the upstairs house and I want to describe it and you can correct me. Okay. So generally speaking, I’d say it’s a book about the challenges of the postpartum period. One of the themes is how cultural expectations about love and relationships can profoundly shape our actual experience of them. And what I’d say about the book is it follows two threads. One is the story of the main character in the present day, whose name is Megan, who’s working on her I’m guessing English dissertation,
Julia 2:40
right? Yeah, it’s a history, but it’s sort of some overlap. Yeah.
Paulette 2:43
And she has her first baby and is stepping into the postpartum period. And another thread starts off as a story of two women who are featured in Megan’s dissertation and progress and talks about their intimate relationship in the 30s and 40s. And one of the women featured in the dissertation is what I would call shadow famous, which is that we all know Margaret Wise Brown because every parent has read Goodnight Moon 4000 times, but we don’t know her know her which is coming through in the dissertation. And these two threads get tangled when Megan returns from the hospital with her firstborn and starts hallucinating that the women from her dissertation have moved in above her flat, there is no apartment above her flat. So that’s one of the signals that there’s this isn’t necessarily really what’s happening. And Megan is negotiating the intense challenges of this period of isolation, the exhaustion, the emotional flux, while her dissertation characters have invaded her home and in her mind are sort of stirring up trouble.
Julia 3:41
Yeah, that sounds about right to me. Okay, excellent.
Paulette 3:43
So I in some ways, on your perfect reader, because I did my dissertation at University of Chicago. I lived in Chicago was pregnant for that. I felt every single thing I lived in a walk up. All that stuff felt so real and familiar to me. I love this book. I thought it was really powerful. And for me, one of the marks of a good book is does it make you feel something and I felt panicked. I 100% I 100% felt it and I and I it is one of those books that you can’t put down so congratulations on this amazing work. And I know that you talk about in the book how you want to bring attention to the postpartum period. So we’re going to talk about that because I want to hear about your experience. How old is your
Julia 4:26
i So My oldest is he’ll be six at the end of April. which just sounds nuts to say but it’s true. And then I also have a two and a half year old.
Paulette 4:34
Okay, so you’ve been through this today. So let’s talk first about your experience. And then we’ll talk about this book and the one that you have coming out in June. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So with most people we talk about is how the family that you create is in some ways linked to the family that you came from, in terms of your ideas about what you want a future and what you think it’s going to look like. So did you grow up with siblings?
Julia 4:56
Yeah, I have. So this actually is very, very apt because I’m the oldest of three I have two younger brothers, one of whom is three years younger than me, and it felt like everyone we knew the sibling, my age, and then there was younger. So when it came time to have a second kid, I was very much like, I want it to be three years younger, which I think ultimately means nothing, but to me felt very, very important. And it was funny too, because in order to have my kids three years apart, and one of them had to be born in June of 2020, which is like a terrible time to be giving birth. So if I had, if I had not felt so strongly, perhaps it would be different, but it definitely impacted you know, wanting my kid to have a sibling. I’m not sure that it would have been as important to me who I not grown up with siblings and sort of felt the value of that
Paulette 5:41
Okay, so now let’s fast forward to your children. When you go to get pregnant, is it easy?
Julia 5:48
Yeah, so my first is a surprise baby. I mean, we knew that we wanted kids, you know, within sort of like a three year window, but when I got pregnant, I it was not planned. And we were sort of like what now what do we do? And it sort of goes back to the book too, because I had just written but not yet sold. My first novel, you just signed with a literary agent. And I felt like I want to have a career before. I have kids because I had seen my own mother. How difficult that was. My mom had been a lawyer to work for the Justice Department and she had a career and took some time off to raise her kids and then tried to go back to it and it was so difficult. So I could only imagine how hard it would be if I had not yet really established myself because I was hoping to establish a career as a writer, which sounds nuts in any regard, especially nuts with a small baby. But we were sort of back and forth about like, is it the right time for us? And then ultimately, I think I felt like okay, well what if, you know, we decided it’s not the right time now. And then it’s hard to pregnant later or what if I regret it and so that was enough. For me to be like, This isn’t my timeline necessarily. We’re like two years off, but it’s gonna make sense for us. But what it meant was that in my circles, at least, I was the only one really having a kid I was 29 when he was born, I have just turned 29 which I know you know, in certain places is like, Oh, my goodness, why don’t you have five kids already? Among my friends and family. I was the first one and that made it, I think, more difficult because there wasn’t really I didn’t really know anyone who I could meet up with. afterwards. I didn’t know anyone who could sort of like explain pregnancy to me or sort of reassured me about things like I found myself in the role sense and but at this point in my life, like a lot of my friends have kids, but I found myself like as my college and high school friends were having kids. I was the one who’s like, Oh, this is normal. Oh, don’t worry about that. Oh, that’s weird. Maybe you should call somebody you know. It’s just nice to have that person. So I think that despite the fact that I had a very supportive family and very good friends who you know were there and what ever aspects they could be I found pregnancy and postpartum periods specifically to be very lonely. And I think that is what led me then to write a book about a very lonely woman who does not have the support that I had. And it also sort of led me to look into like, wait a minute, why is this the case? Like why as a country are we so obsessed with making women give birth and then giving them no resources? No preparation, I felt just like totally sort of thrown in the deep end. Because you read all the books, you know, like, you know, in six months of pregnancy, this is what your baby’s doing, and here’s how you should feel but then the baby comes out and it felt to me at least, like there were no real resources. There was a lot of like your baby should be eating and peeing this many times. But there wasn’t anything like for me necessarily. It felt it felt very isolated, very lonely. I felt like I was doing something wrong. And it took me probably like eight months to make friends who also had kids, and we were all like, oh, I felt that way too. And hence sort of feeling like Alright, there’s room to write more about what it feels like to become a new parent. Like, what it actually feels like.
Paulette 9:08
Yeah, so I’m picking up two things from what you said. The first is this attempts to mesh a family life with a career as I said, I missed my grad school graduation because I gave birth and then I was racing to recover because I had to start a job within three months. And this that, you know, the the career system is not set up for birthing people in any way. And I am sort of hoping that since COVID, kind of grasp the work environment and shook it hard, that we’ll get different ways to progress in a work context because it doesn’t make any sense and like you, I want it to be established before I had kids and and that’s just those are too many things to juggle and balance and the current system we have does not actually strike the word balance because that’s a silly word that doesn’t really apply to this experience. If you’re lucky enough to get to control your fertility. It’s hard to know what to do with that. There’s no There’s no good time. There’s no right time to do it. And the second thing that you mentioned was that there is no emotional investigation of what it is to be a mother when you give birth to a baby now, two things are being born the baby and a mother. Absolutely. And those things are both brand spanking new. And I feel like the books that are out there that describe it are a little bit more medical or clinical then is useful.
Julia 10:34
Yeah, I think so. And it’s cut off at the Automate because I’m not the type of person who sits and reads parenting books as much as I would love to. I sort of feel even today. All right, well, I spend all day doing it. I’m not going to read about it, which is probably to my disadvantage, because I’m sure I would learn things from read articles. I don’t you know, there there definitely are things out there too. Because when I started to dig in to do research for the upstairs has to I found into Memoirs of women and birthing people who’ve written about their postpartum depression. or psychosis or just sort of ambivalent or whatever else it was. And it’s funny too, because as I was working on the novel, I felt like there weren’t very many novels about what it was like or a bit sort of included. That part of random and even since 2021. If you think about sort of the lifecycle of a book I think I sold the book in 2019, early 2019, and it came out in 2021. And in that time, there have been a lot more books that I think interrogate society’s idea of the new mother and if what to me feels like a more accurate depiction of what it feels like and people who are not afraid to be talking about breastfeeding, you know, for like 50 pages in a row because that is what absorbs you. And for such a long time. I think we thought oh, one it only is relevant to new moms, which I think is absolutely ridiculous. I think in the same way that we would need to learn about other people’s experiences, the experience of a new mom is equally valid, as you know, a world war two pilot that you’re reading about. They’re just different people, different minds. And also this idea that the things that women do in the domestic sphere is aren’t all literary, I think has also been sort of a pervading myth. In the past, however, many more probably from the very beginning of sort of like modern fiction, and I think that’s something that a lot of people are pushing to change that, you know, we could read about a man’s midlife crisis and be like Pulitzer Prize winning literature, but for a woman it just nobody, no one would want to quote unquote, buy it. And I think that is something that I was really, really pushing back against, because it sort of invalidates the experience. There’s nothing more nuanced, I think, than those first few early days of parenthood in terms of just your the way that your emotions are so mixed, and the highs are so high and the lows can be so low, and it’s so new, and it’s a reinvention and the idea that that would not be literary enough or that there wouldn’t be interest in that just struck me as so ridiculous that I felt like how can I write this as a book that sucks people in and forces them to acknowledge when it’s valid to feel however you feel about new parenthood and to, you know, this experience is just as deserving of literary treatment as anything else.
Paulette 13:25
This issue of our cultural view of postpartum to an expert today we have Dr. Kate Tikka Patel on the show. She’s an OB by training, who saw and experienced some of the significant gaps in medical care for mothers who’ve given birth and is now focused full time on helping women manage the postpartum period. Dr. Patel, thanks so much for coming on.
Julia 13:45
Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.
Paulette 13:48
So I think part of Julie’s mission with this book is to normalize the experience of how difficult it is this early postpartum period. What are your thoughts about that, in your opinion? How does our current medical system handle this and what could it do better?
Julia 14:01
There really is not a lot of reliable consistent guidance for women in the postpartum period. So I think it is really important to get the word out about the lack of care I mean, the current medical system is basically absent from this time period. And it leaves women adrift and looking for answers on their own. And unfortunately, I think in previous generations, that support may have come from expertise within the family or community but the way our culture is now we’ve kind of lost that. And early postpartum is full of changes and struggles and whether it was generational support community, they would provide the extra hands, they would provide the expertise, and they would provide the companionship, which which many women are lacking in the postpartum period.
Paulette 15:02
So I totally agree with you and I think it should be a day Lodz. And just if we’re talking about statistics, let’s imagine it’s only women who care about it. 86% of women at some point in their life give birth. So that’s nearly half the population surely that’s enough. At the risk of suggesting this blaspheme. I think this is a movie. I think it’s a beautiful book. And one thing I like about it is I’m a little bit of a little bit of a snob for pretty prose, and it’s but but I think it is, this is a large story. This is a real story. You know, this woman in the book has postpartum psychosis. I think my legs say that. Yeah, yeah, it’s
Julia 15:41
I mean, it’s sort of unclear throughout the book, if it’s like she’s, it’s an actual ghost or postpartum psychosis and that it sort of comes down like the medical establishment comes down on the side of postpartum psychosis, but I sort of hoped that the reader could interpret it, you know, however you wanted to, but definitely the sort of realistic way to interpret it is like she’s having a psychotic break.
Paulette 16:01
This kind of psychosis is pretty rare. But, but, you know, I was looking at statistics for it. Let’s say there’s about 4 million births a year 350 to 9400 9400 is a lot of people. If you would think these sorts of things. It’s a small fraction, but there’s enough there are enough births, that it’s that is significant, but postpartum depression is like a half a million with women a year. Like that’s just a huge number of people who I’m sure can see their own experiences in this because this postpartum period is such a fun house. It’s just it’s such a weird transition and your view of reality gets so exactly warped by exhaustion and I totally agree with the isolation which I had no, I did not give birth during COVID at all, and and it was totally isolating in a way that I had was not prepared for
Julia 16:50
how I Yeah, so it was funny because the isolation of becoming a new parent. So my son was born in 2017. And my daughter was born in June 2020. And it should have been so much harder to give birth and COVID We had no outside help. We were all crammed into this small condo couldn’t go anywhere. No one could come to the hospital with me, you know, and she was early there were all these complications. And it was still harder for me the first time around with all of the social support and trends like not in a pandemic just because that transition is so hard.
Paulette 17:23
Yeah, it is. Can you speak specifically to the issue of isolations? Like what suggestions do you give to others to help us adjust to the dramatic shift in priorities when the social structure doesn’t shift with it?
Julia 17:37
Yes, so this is so important. I can’t even emphasize it enough. And I think that the first step is awareness that we have to talk about this it has to be more normalized and understood, not just among women who are getting pregnant or had been pregnant, but also their partners and the entire community in general. We have to talk about it. And because it happens so often in our culture, and if you think about why it’s happening, it makes perfect sense, right? We’re going from these social beings completely in control of our schedules and activities. In our lives. We are going to work or you know, hanging out with friends. And then suddenly we’re new moms, and we are constantly have a little helpless infant who can’t survive without us. We can’t sleep when we want. We can eat when we want. We can even use the bathroom without being interrupted. Much less go out, go to work, hang out with friends or have a normal phone conversation. Right? So so there’s none of that interaction that we get before having the baby and so it’s it’s only natural that it would lead to isolation. The partner may also feel the same isolation. If you know, the mom and the dad or mom and partner are both just taking care of baby on their own and they’re again neither one is getting out for a while or whatever. So they may feel it as well. And they also may not be aware that mom is feeling it if they’re going to work all the time and they don’t feel it at all right. So the partner is an important person ought to also be aware, along with extended family and friends. But once there is awareness, I think the other thing to emphasize to Mom is that this is a change that is not going to go go back to what you believe is normal anytime soon. So a good idea is to accept it to accept that these are changes that have to happen right now because this little one can’t survive without you. But you can also figure out ways to reduce the isolation. You can try to get support. You can join support groups, you can share your experiences with other new moms that are going through the same thing. You can ask for someone to come and help and maybe take baby for a little while so you can spend some time doing things that you want to do. I think it’s natural for us to try to fight it right to be like, Well, no, I’m supposed to be happy. I’m supposed to be joyful. I’m supposed to be fine with this and and everything will just be fine. And but I think that fighting and that sort of negative outlook on it doesn’t help either. We have to just say okay, this is what it is. And it’s really hard but let me see what I can do to alleviate it.
Paulette 20:30
So let’s get your son’s story so you get pregnant easily on and I you know thank goodness for that story because that’s the story we all have in our head. The first time I connected sex I was like I’m pregnant. Thank you very much pregnant, which was not how it works for a lot of people so I’m glad for that. And and it is hard to be the first in your friend group to be pregnant. So what is your pregnancy look like?
Julia 20:53
Oh, it was fairly easy. I had a decent amount of nausea, especially when I compare it to doing it a second time around with a three year old versus doing it just Oh, I could just lie in bed and watch movies and I was working as an adjunct professor so I had a lot of downtime. Where I didn’t need to be in an office. I only had to be on campus three days a week. So I literally was just eating grilled cheese and watching romantic comedies in bed thinking this is so hard and retrospectively I wish I could go back there. But yeah, no, it was a fairly uncomplicated, pretty easy, you know, up until like even even labor and delivery was pretty easy like I pushed for a very long time but that’s normal for you.
Paulette 21:36
But let’s go a little bit slower. So even the nausea would you want me to walk past that and be like oh so easy. I was throwing up every day. Like it is. It is I’m it’s Yeah, it is normal, but it is your first kind of wake up call that you are renting out your body and you are no longer the owner, the owner, the only owner. And it’s a little bit shocking. I mean, I was in grad school. So I also had a lot of flexibility. But I remember falling asleep on my keyboard. Like I think of it as like natural chloroform. Like you just all of a sudden you just can’t you just can’t write which is not what I expected. The overwhelming fatigue and the and the nausea of I again I was lucky in the in the scheme of things because I only threw up in the morning. It wasn’t like all day nausea. Yeah, but but that’s still a pretty big thing to undertake.
Julia 22:28
Oh, it was a lot and I think I just mentally when I think back to pregnancy, the first time around. I just knew it was so new. And again, I didn’t have any close friends who had been through it. And so every little thing. It’s like oh my boobs hurt is that normal? Oh I’m you know bleeding. Is that normal? Is this normal? Should I be throwing up this offense? You know, I was on the What to Expect When You’re Expecting message boards where you just ask every single question it’s everybody’s asking all these questions like Is this a normal thing does this look at this like does that and I feel like it says something culturally, we’re gonna get 10 xiety inducing just carrying a child is but also like how unprepared we are because we don’t really talk about it in any circles other than that particular circle. Imagine if growing up, I had talked to people all the time who were pregnant about the specifics of pregnancy, I feel like it would have been a very different experience.
Paulette 23:27
Totally, totally. And so it sounds like the pregnancy went along pretty normally. And then before we get to the birth, did you have an idea of what you hoped it would be like or how
Julia 23:37
so I am such a baby when it comes to pain. I was like I want the epidural. As soon as possible. I knew I wanted to be in a hospital where I could be as zonked out as possible from it. I’m trying to remember if I had a playlist I might have had. I might have made a playlist, but it was not very precious at all about what I thought would happen. I just wanted to help the baby and I wanted to feel the least amount of pain that I could possibly feel.
Paulette 24:05
Okay, totally fair. So take us through the day. How do you know Today’s a day?
Julia 24:10
Oh man, so I my son was born on his due date. So it was I had gone in for all of the checks where they’ll what do they call it where they write down your cervix or whatever they do? Or they stick their finger up there, you know? And I kept thinking, oh my god, I was so I was so uncomfortable. Everybody is in those final days and weeks of pregnancy that I was just like, come on, come on, come on out. And I can remember I eat spicy food and had sex took a walk and did all the things and then it was 9pm the night before my due date and all of a sudden I started having contractions, and I was there. I’m in general, a fairly prompt person. I like to be like Okay, now it’s time to do this. Now it’s time to do that. So it’s like now it’s time to the hospital. And they’re like, No, it’s not you know, you stayed stayed home for a while to remember I finished the book I was reading. And it was a 200 pages of a book that I read between 830 and I sent my husband as you go to sleep because you’re going to need you know, I can’t sleep right now and one of us should be well rested. And I remember I woke him up probably at like 2am to be like this really really hard. And when made called they say the thing of you know wait for the contractions are five minutes apart and lasting however long and when a time that it wasn’t quite so we tried to put something on TV and it’s like I can’t even sit here and watch us we have to just go. So we got super lucky because we live in we’re in Chicago and really in the middle of the city and our hospital was downtown. And I had been like oh my gosh this traffic What will we do but it was 3am so it hurt it was terrible like every pothole felt like I was gonna die. But there was no traffic so we got there really quickly. But when you get to the hospital at 3am There’s just not as much good they cannot move quite as quickly. So we were in triage for three or four hours or Wow by which point because i They admitted me at first and they were like you’re not dilated enough. And I said how is that possible? And they sent me to walk around in the halls for a while. So I did and then I came back I was like, please check me there’s no way and then they checked in like oh wow, you’re now which sounds like is that fair? Like? But then yeah, I just remember being in triage. We got to the hospital around three and I was admitted around 7am or 730. At which point I was like it felt like heaven to be moved from the tiny little triage room with the blurry TV and you know, there’s no space at all into the big birthing room. And then I got asked for the epidural on the way up for you guys like I’m ready for it now and then it was great both times I had I’ve had the epidural and has worked. So it’s not even true with my daughter. They couldn’t find the nerve for it. So that part was awful. But for my son, they found it right away. The epidural kicked in. It was great. I was great. I was calling my mom texting my friends. You know, so ready, maybe napped a little bit. Although I do remember my husband was like, I’m gonna go get something to eat and I’m like, don’t leave you might miss the baby and the nurses were like, go get by. Yeah, so I it was a nurse that I liked. I remember I was chatting with the nurse. I started All right yeah They’re like two hours into pushing. Maybe we’re all of a sudden it’s like a switch flipped and all of a sudden is like, this is actually terrible. I’m in so much pain. It’s really bad. And it went from being like if he had just come come right on out, it would have been such a pleasant experience. But then I think he was crowding for 45 minutes. And wow. It was awful. They had to bring in the mirror, which I think I have in the book, too. They brought in a mirror because they were like, look, look at him. He is progressing, but I just use the big headed kid. And it wasn’t my OB either because it was so early in the morning, I guess or I’m not sure exactly what it was, but that would be there. I’d been seeing it was somebody else too, which felt very weird. But yeah, it just took it took a while but then he was out and it was fairly uncomplicated after that no carrying no bleeding. So in retrospect, I got very, very lucky but it was at last hour and a half of pushing. It’s all Oh, I’m actually
Paulette 28:23
there’s no fear.
Julia 28:24
Oh, I was really scared. I think that
Paulette 28:29
I accelerated Prentice
Julia 28:30
Women’s Hospital which is just I felt very I have a few friends who work there, which I think helped. But I also felt very I just felt very secure very safe very much if something goes wrong. That’s why I’m in a hospital which in a way, I was so nonchalant about the birthing process that then when I had a baby to take care of I was like, Whoa, this is the end result of this, you know, but yeah, when I hear other people’s stories, I’m like, Oh my gosh, I maybe should have been more afraid. And my mother actually when I asked her what her labor with me was like she’s like I’m not even going to tell you so bad. I’m not going to get it in your head. I still don’t even really know that story. But for my son it was. Yeah, especially then when I think my second time around was much more complicated. And so it was just sort of your textbook, labor and delivery.
Paulette 29:31
That’s great. That’s great. So they hold you for 24 hours after vaginal delivery.
Julia 29:36
I stayed for two days. I think I hadn’t started nights and I wasn’t checked in until I showed up at 3am. So do count as a night so I got an extra one.
Paulette 29:50
Okay. Okay. And then what’s it like when you go home?
Julia 29:53
Oh, gosh, that was hard. That was I mean, I that was almost directly what I what I wrote about where I remember I sat in the backseat with him. So terrified to have this child float. Drive slower. Oh my gosh, drive faster.
Julia 0:07
That was I mean I that was almost directly what I what I wrote about where I remember I sat in the backseat with him so terrified to have this child flow that drive slower oh my gosh drive faster you’re driving too slow cars gonna hit us it was just very very intense
Paulette 0:23
if it makes you feel any better when we came home from the hospital my husband dropped me off in front of our walk up and then crashed the car in the air. I’m tired. Like it’s so stressful. So drive your egg around, right it’s just it’s
Julia 0:40
yeah, no, I yeah, I remember we got in and this was good too, because this was not a COVID delivery. So my sister in law had come and I saw many of these details ended up in the upstairs house. She had come and she had cleaned up for us and she had put food in our fridge and made a little fine. And it was me she was so so sweet. And then I felt terrible because then when she had kids, I was like, I can come do this, but I’m dragging my one year old along so it’s not quite the same. But yeah, she had prepped everything. It was great. I had totally set and then I think it was that first night we’ve had actually I just remembering this now so he was circumcised at the hospital but you were supposed to wait after the circumcision. They want you to wait until he has a wet diaper. I think before you go home but because of insurance and timing and everything and the doctor’s schedule, they were like you can just go home but check for it. And I remember being so anxious. I mean, like I can’t tell heads up what’s happening. I’m calling I remember I called the doctor at 1am That first night and they were like well hold on hold on. I remember I was on the phone with a doctor. He looking straight up at me. You know, it’s like Oh, thank God, but it was Yeah. It was very surreal. And it I think I feel like it was like fun sort of at first because you’re still kind of loopy and then it very quickly. So my husband had at that point he had like 10 days of paternity I think good luck and enjoy your five minutes. So yeah, he had 10 days and so for those 10 days i do i very clearly remember my in laws coming over and I didn’t I just wanted to lie on the bed and cry. I was just like I retrospectively clearly this was not you know, I should have been talking to someone for this but at the time I think now I can look at it and be like yeah, I probably did have postpartum depression, but at the time I felt like well, it’s not that bad. And like baby blues suck it up. You know,
Paulette 2:29
first of all this term of baby blues, what can we change that? It’s silly. That feels patronizing.
Julia 2:35
Well, how much of how much of medical care is not paid for? But baby blues is I don’t even know who coined the term but it’s become a term that’s accepted and so changing it might be difficult, but I agree with you. I don’t I don’t love that term. I also feel like it doesn’t really describe what’s going on. So can
Paulette 2:53
you can you describe like what actually is happening that we’re labeling the baby blues? Yeah, so baby blues
Julia 2:59
can happen at 70 to 80% of births, which is a really large number, right? And the fact that people don’t talk about it, like as a routine thing is kind of crazy. But so the symptoms of baby blues are basically very similar to depression. You may experience sadness, sleepiness, irritability, insomnia, impatience, anxiety, fatigue, poor concentration, all the things that you associate with depression. It usually starts within the first few days after giving birth and lasts usually about up to two weeks, but it goes away on its own, and symptoms come and go. They’re intermittent. So you might be super weepy. And then 510 minutes later, an hour later, you’re feeling perfectly fine. So the symptoms usually lasts for a few minutes up to an hour or two. But usually not longer than that in one go. And we don’t know the exact cause of baby blues, but we believe it. It’s related to the large hormone fluctuations that come with delivery and also combined with the lack of sleep that mom is having at that point, the changes in her routines, a lack of control all the emotions from her childbirth, experience, all of those together can lead to baby blues.
Julia 4:23
But then when my husband went back to work, it was really really hard. Even with visitors adjusted you know, I had gone from having my own life and my own creative work and teaching to like, you know, the baby was my full time job and I wasn’t sleeping and my son still doesn’t sleep through the night. He’s almost six and is still awful and that has been like from day one to use a terrible sleeper. We didn’t even get those good. The first few newborn nights that people get with that fool you into thinking that oh, it’s not that bad. We didn’t even get those. It was just, it’s just exhausting.
Paulette 5:03
I’m going to end my conversation with Julia here. I’m grateful to her for both the beautiful novel she’s produced and for her willingness to share her own experience of this enormous transition. The suggestion that these early days weeks months of becoming a parent, especially from the mother’s point of view is not worthy of literary investigation. That’s something anyone wants to read. About. Sounds like a quote from a TV villain version of a publisher. Although I don’t doubt for one second that Julie is reading the landscape is accurate. It just feels very distant from reality. Hope her book sales bear that out. I also appreciate Dr. Patel’s work and her suggestions. Next Friday. I’ll share the second half of my conversation with both Trulia and Dr. Patel. You can find links to Julie’s work and Dr. Patel in the show notes available on the war stories website. Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, please share it with friends and subscribe. We’ll be back next week with the rest of Julia’s inspiring story.
Episode 37 SN: A Look at Pregnancy & Birth from a bygone Era: Lily’s Story
Since it’s Thanksgiving weekend, I decided to make this episode about family. And in that spirit, I interviewed my mother about her experiences of pregnancy and childbirth. My mother, who is in her late 70s, had four kids starting in 1966, and ending in 1978. You’ll hear her reference my two older brothers: Josh who is the first born, and Teddy who is the second. I was the third in line, and there is an 8 year gap between me and my sister Samara. It’s surprising to hear about how much she changed and how much the medical apparatus around pregnancy in general changed in that 12 year period. Of course, this is just one woman’s story, and my father was a doctor, so she had very good access to different medical technologies, which you’ll hear about, but I found it really interesting to hear about how her experiences were so different from how pregnancies and births are managed today. And I hope you do too.
Hypnosis in pregnancy
https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/hypnosis/about/pac-20394405
Female Gynecologists in the 70s
https://www.latimes.com/health/la-me-male-gynos-20180307-htmlstory.html
Audio Transcript
Paulette: Hi Welcome to War Stories from the Womb. I’m your host, Paulette kamenecka. I’m an economist and a writer and the mother of two girls. Since it’s Thanksgiving weekend, I decided to make this episode about family. And in that spirit, I interviewed my mother about her experiences of pregnancy and childbirth. My mother, who is in her late 70s, had four kids starting in 1966, and ending in 1978. You’ll hear her reference my two older brothers: Josh who is the first born, and Teddy who is the second. I was the third in line, and there is an 8 year gap between me and my sister Samara. It’s surprising to hear about how much she changed and how much the medical apparatus around pregnancy in general changed in that 12 year period.
Of course, this is just one woman’s story, and my father was a doctor, so she had very good access to different medical technologies, which you’ll hear about, but I found it really interesting to hear about how her experiences were so different from how pregnancies and births are managed today. And I hope you do too.
P: So hi, mom. I appreciate you letting me tear you away from Thanksgiving mingling, thanks for coming on the show.
Lily: Thank you for having me, anytime.
P: Exciting. So I thought I would focus on a couple things. with you because you started having kids in 1968 is that when Josh was born 66 Oh, wow. 66 Okay, so you’re you’re pregnant and 65 Right. You obviously wanted a family?
L: Yes.
P: And and you got pregnant easily. I know that part of the story.
L: Yes.
P: Did they have home testing kits when you were pregnant?
L: I’m trying to think no, you sort of found out the hard way. Once you got sick nauseous.
P: Oh, that’s interesting, so you just. You started to feel poorly and then what you went to see the doctor.
L: No, I didn’t I had a doctor in the house.
P: What you need to know here is that my dad’s hematologist.
L: Yeah. So when I started getting nauseous in throwing up, you know, a couple times a day and my lasted like a whole day so my husband figured I’m pregnant. Because after all I was fine before
P: and you guys never thought oh, it’s the flu or Oh, it’s something I ate or
L: well, but you could do that the first day but if you keep on having morning sickness and chucking up at anything that you drink or eat.
P: And then once you think you’re pregnant, then do you have to go to the doctor’s office for a blood test or how does it work?
L: No, no, we really didn’t go right away. Dad at the time was practicing at Kaiser Permanente. So I was sort of the housewife because he was in the house. And first time I met my gynecologist obstetrician, he says, oh, a doctor’s wife like that. Like, oh, boy. They’re difficult patients. So this was my first first meeting. And I told him, I what my symptoms were. But also what happened is that I had a lot of chest pains and we didn’t know what that was for. And that’s the only reason I started going to the obstetrician. And he sort of blew it off. He says, oh, maybe you’re worried you’re anxious, whatever it is. He checked me out and I was fine. And, you know, I was pregnant. And that was it. But yet I was having these these chest pains and I guess later on we found it was more anxiety because of my past experience.
P: Okay,
L: from after the war.
P: So my mom was born in the middle of World War Two in Poland to Polish Jews. That’s what she’s referencing here. Yeah.
L: So he had nothing for me and he didn’t spend any time with me either. He just said, Well, you know, doctors, wives are always difficult. Nice. So, what happened is that we decided to go to another obstetrician. And this one, both my husband and I went to a seminar on hypnosis. And that’s when this obstetrician presented his use of hypnosis during pregnancy. And if he started early enough, you could by the time you’re ready to deliver, you could be so relax and use the auto hypnosis that you could deliver without any medication without spinal.
P; Yeah.
L: So this is this is his reasoning, and he sort of exuded such confidence and warmth. So my husband turns to me, he says, Should we try him? Okay, because I didn’t like the obstetrician at Kaiser. So we made an appointment with him. And I told him my story, and he wanted background. So I told him where I came from and the experiences that I had, and he was fine. He says, Well, he uses auto hypnosis would I be willing to try it? So I said, okay, and he had the kind the chain with a little ball that moves back and forth.
P: Oh, you’re kidding…And I was just asked about that. If you have like a watch on a string.
L: Right, right, with a crystal ball, and he would just go back and forth and you had to concentrate, and he would try to get you under, and I was a good candidate. So I went under. And under hypnosis, he asked me why do I have this tightness in my chest and why does it hurt so much? What am I afraid of? Am I afraid of the pregnancy? And I said to him, it’s my experience of being in the hospital in Germany, and I needed to have my belly button. Because I was born during the war and with my parents running from the woods and everything. They didn’t close my belly button correctly. So with an outie instead of an any, okay,
P: so my mother and her mother survived the war. They’re getting ready to go to America. They need all their medical affairs in order and for some reason, there’s some belly button issue that needs to be fixed before they can board the ship for the US.
L: I wouldn’t be accepted in the US unless it was it was operated on and it was pushed inside. So okay, so that’s what my mother had to do. So she, she took me to the hospital in Germany, but she never told me about it. And I was seven years old, and she said I would get treats. And when she took me to the hospital, she came in the nurses took care of me and she had to leave. Well, I found out that the this doctor’s coming within like a big needle. I was terrified because I didn’t know what was happening. And I ran away so they had to chase me at 7 years and finally they found me and they just held me down, put me on the operating table and there was this big big light up on top. You know, the the light for operations, ya know, within the surgical ward, and all I could remember is that big shiny light, and they’re giving me an injection. And that’s the only thing I remember after that I recovered, and I had the surgery. So I think the idea of going to the hospital for the first time because I didn’t need to go to the hospital ever since.
P; Right
L: So the idea of going to the hospital and seeing that big light and being on a surgical table to deliver. I get that pack petrified. So once he knew that, he could work with that. And through a couple of sessions with the auto hypnosis I recovered and I wasn’t afraid of that anymore. So he just released me from from this this anxiety that I had,
P: but what I love about this story is that it feels very, you know, 60s hippie out in California, which I totally dig. And and amazing that helped him like nice of him to take walk the extra step to say why are you anxious and how can I help you and
L: yes, well, that’s why he was so special. Yeah.
P: So while I’m talking to my mother, I’m enjoying the story of auto hypnosis like it’s from a bygone era. But when I went to look it up, it’s still around now more likely called hypnotherapy. It’s still used to treat anxiety and is used specifically to treat anxiety and pregnancy
L: by auto hypnosis if you were a good patient that you could go under and, and he could ask you questions you would respond. That’s what he did. So after several sessions, I felt more relaxed and I wasn’t fearful of that situation. And my pregnancy moved along very well.
P: That’s awesome. And so after that medical intervention, you don’t have ultrasound, right.
L: No.
P: So what what thing like that was so what’s the doctor’s visit? Like? What do they do when you get there to check you out during the pregnancy?
L: You know, they feel around the size, you know, with their hands and they feel around your belly. They listened to the heartbeats and you could hear them, they let you listen to it. And the only internal exam was right in the beginning and everything was fine. And from then on, it was not every single month till towards the end. And then it was like every two weeks by the eighth month.
P: So did you get to 40 weeks.
L: Oh, yeah, because I was over I was overdue by two
P: by two days?
L: I was over two weeks.
P: Oh my god. Two weeks is a long time at that point. So how did you know that you were going to give birth that day?
L: Oh, well, it was different since I was two weeks overdue. And you know, he figured out a date and when he was he was to be born but it didn’t exactly fit on that day. So he was going to go back to New York for a conference. And he really wanted to deliver me because he had practice with me with the auto hypnosis. Yeah. He didn’t want to turn me over to another obstetrician. So that’s when he induced me
P: so his induction in 1966. Does that involve like an IV with Pitocin? Or what does it look like?
L: Yes. Yes
P: Okay. Yeah, that sounds painful.
L: Well, that wasn’t so painful until the labor really started.
P: Did you get an epidural?
L: I didn’t get an epidural. Because he at the same time because I had a 17 hour labor. So he had given me all the pain medication during that time. And he was worried because the baby was so big. So basically all the pain, pain medication during this, this labor for so long. That when I went on the delivery table at the time that I came in, I had nothing and he gave me laughing gas
P: and didn’t work at all
L; with the laughing gas, but no, not really
P: well, because since then you had your other gym. With epidurals so you can compare
L: Yeah. Oh, yes. Once you got the epidural, it was a nice relief.
P: So he basically had a natural childbirth for your first one.
L: Yes, yes. Yeah. And he was nine and a half pounds. So I had a lot of tears that he had to prepare.
P: Yeah, that sounds hard. And then you stay in the hospital for like a week?
L: No, three, four days. Okay.
P: And in 1966 Where you were, was breastfeeding a thing or it wasn’t a thing?
L: No, it was if you wanted to you you can. But unfortunately, Josh was such a big baby. That I didn’t get enough milk.
P; Yeah.
L: And he was always crying because he was hungry.
P: Yeah.
L: And of course, if you were nursing, you couldn’t give him a bottle as a supplement. Yeah. So eventually, we found a pediatrician who had nine kids of his own so he knows. He knows about babies. So I went we went there. After three weeks. We just couldn’t figure out I was still not getting enough milk to feed, feed a big he was like a three month old baby and they’re in the nursery. Everybody said, What’s I think baby doing? He’s not a newborn. But the pediatrician said, look, he said you’re not getting enough milk. He’s hungry. He said, Give him a bottle of formula and see how much he drinks. And if he drinks, a full eight ounce bottle, then change them over for the sanity of you and the baby.
P; Yeah, yeah.
L: And he did he guzzled up that bottle of formula. And he was happy and he finally went to sleep. So I said, I’m done.
P: sold
L: So yes, exactly. Yeah, I’m one because I’m suffering. I was crying the same time the baby was crying. I didn’t know what to do. Yeah, so yeah, so that’s all
P: A couple of questions here: first, what were the first few months like with with a newborn? I’m assuming that you didn’t get much help.
L: Had no help. No help. Plus, my husband got, you know, he was recruited to the army because of Vietnam. So we had to leave he was a month and we left for Texas
P: Wow.
L: We left for Texas,. Yes. And we were really nervous. And we lived in this terrible terrible rooming house, because we didn’t realize that the Army gave you some kind of funds so that you could stay in a motel, which would have been air conditioned and not plus bucks. You know, real big bucks.
P: Yeah.
L: So it was a very unpleasant experience. Until later we found out that tickets daily pay out for hotel room. So we left that darn place so darn fast we moved into the Holiday Inn and it was like having that
P: that’s awesome. Yes, but the baby but Josh is asleep right is asleep or had all that go.
L: He was wonderful once once he was fed, all that he needed. He was wonderful. So he slept he just got up once or twice during the night. And that eventually changed. And he was so good. Once he was asleep. You could take him anywhere. We used to take him to the officer’s club. Hide him under the table, but the long table clocks were able to eat and nobody realized it was a baby in there. And when we left they sort of
P: I can’t believe you’re going out after the baby’s like two months old.
L: Yeah, yeah, we did. We did. So as long as the baby slept once I put him down at six. And you know, he slept to half the night. It was a big baby and he ate so he was fine.
P: It occurs to me as I will say this that my mother was 21 when she had her first child, so of course she’s going out when a baby is two months old. Were you surprised at how hard it was to take care of a baby or or no, that seemed appropriate.
L: You know what? I’m with the first one that had a baby in my group.
P: Yeah.
L: So I couldn’t ask anybody because nobody had any experience. Right? So mine within and my mother had no idea and no interest.
P: Yeah.
L: in babies So she said if I have to feed him Do not leave him. That was a clear answer. Right?
P: Yeah. Yeah.
L: So I enjoyed it because I really was very happy with him and he was just such a lovely baby. You know, I enjoyed every minute of it. And that’s why I was so broken up when he was crying. I was crying and my husband come home and he said why? Are you crying? I said because she’s crying. And then I don’t know what to do. And I couldn’t call anybody because nobody had children.
P: Yeah. yeah, yeah
L: I was the first one Married and I was the first one that had a baby. Yeah. So I had and I don’t didn’t have cousins or aunts and uncles or whatever task so I was really on my own.
P: Yeah, that sounds tricky. And was it was it cloth diapers or what was that like?
L: It was cloth diapers. It was and we had a service. Thank goodness we had a service. But in the army, they started having plastic diapers. So that’s what I use because I didn’t want cloth diapers because you know who am I going to call? We’re in a motel.
P: Yeah, So it’s like an old time milk man?
L: We’ll get a service. No, no to get a service.
P: No, what’s a service? What does that mean?
L: Oh, the diaper service wouldn’t bring you cloth.
P: You leave them a bag of dirty diapers and then they replace it with clean ones,
L: with clean ones and they count how many I returned and that’s how many I got.
P: Wow, that’s a good deal.
L: Yeah, yeah, that was a saving, saving grace. Because we didn’t have a machine in our apartment.
P: Oh, a washing machine.
L: Yeah, yeah, washing machine. So where was I going to go wash diapers with the baby? Yeah, and I didn’t have a car because my husband’s up the car. So I so I needed something and we didn’t have the paper the paper diapers.
P: Yeah.
L: At that time. So you know, was a whole mess and we just decided that was a good investment.
P: Yeah, that sounds like it so when you’re in the military, that you’re pregnant with number two.
L: Right.
P: And that also, I’m assuming was not planned?
L: Yes. We decided that let’s have a baby in the military so we don’t have to pay anything.
P: Okay. All right. That was planned. And that was the second one easier because you knew what to expect and
L: yeah, I had the same the same episodes with with the nausea. You know, that kind of thing. But, you know, luckily, everything went very smoothly and I had a very nice obstetrician in the army. Very nice.
P: And then so for that birth, this the second one come on time.
L: Ooh, it’s army time. They give you the date. babies delivered. But yes, I was full term I my due date was was February 17. And I came to see my obstetrician. He says okay, you’re ready. Oh, you come in on come break the water and you’re ready to go.
P: Wow.
L: Yeah,
P: now people get really excited if you if you break the water that’s not considered cool for the doctor to break the water unless like things have gone wrong.
L: You know what? I was clueless again. Who knew? Who knew? I certainly was hoping that I wouldn’t have such a long labor as I did with Josh.
P: Yeah.
L: And he felt this baby was big enough.
P: Yeah. So you had an appointment on your due date. And you went in. He broke your water and then did that start contractions? Are you needed to be induced?
L: No, no, I came in on the day before that was my came in the 16. And he says, You know what? You’re ready. Your your due date is tomorrow. Why don’t you go home, make arrangements for your other child and set it up? And come on in. We’ll break the water in and you’ll have the baby. So we did.
P: So you went in like it was a business meeting because you weren’t having contractions. Right, right. And he broke the water and then did your contractions start?
L: In a little while? Yeah, yeah, definitely pretty fast. Labor was was very fast.
P: did you get an epidural for this one.
L: Yes, he did the epidural. He didn’t call him in an anesthesiologist which surprised me but he did it and the only thing I have to say he didn’t stress about drinking water. So I had a lot of spinal headaches when I came home, miserable in the hospital and when I went home, so if I had known that I would have been guzzling water constantly.
P: Yeah.
L: But I didn’t know that in grandma was watching Drush. And she never never heard of it and didn’t know about it either.
P: Well, she didn’t have an epidural. There’s no
L: right but he would think that she’s a general physician. She would have had some idea of women having epidurals and you could have a headache, spinal headache, because you don’t take enough fluids. But she didn’t know anything about that. So
P: that’s totally interesting. And so did you remember how long the labor was with Teddy? Four and a half hours?
L: Oh, that’s quick.
P: Yeah, no, it’s Yeah, yeah.
L: So I like that.
P: No kidding. Yeah, that’s a great reduction. Did you feel the birth or no, because the epidural work,
L: the epidural work, so that was really slow. Everything worked out very well. I said geez, the army.
P: The mission is to get this baby out. Right So did you get to stay in the hospital man Are they kick you out? What do they do?
L: Yes. Oh, no, no, no, I got the royal treatment because my husband was an officer. So unfortunately, the baby got a real treatment. He had his own bassinet in his own room by himself because it was no other officers wives that had babies.
P: Oh they segregated the kids, that’s funny.
L: Yes, yes. Yes, they segregated the wives and segregated the babies.
P: That is strange So what was it like when you brought the second one home because now you have two and you still don’t have much help was my guess.
L: Right? Well, it was work. It was constant constant and you had an almost two year old. You know, when he was a little jealous of the baby. Yeah, he kept pushing when I and I didn’t breastfeed the second one at all. He was 8 12
P: Yeah.
L: But he was a big baby too. And you know what, I didn’t want to go through that and whether he’s getting enough milk or not and I had the two year old. I said, You know what? I’m okay. You know, so I saw with the first one that giving him formula. He turned out pretty well. Yeah, so I just went straight ahead to give him formula for the second one too.
P: Well also this is 1968. So I think the fashion of breastfeeding comes and go
L: oh, at that point. Yeah, at that point, and 66 It wasn’t really an 68 Absolutely not everybody sort of used formula.
P: Yeah. Well imagine postpartum is tricky because you’re exhausted. And have too little babies.
L: You know what, I was just happy to have two healthy kids. And that we were together because Vietnam was hanging over us every single day. Yeah. So in that sense, and and we had, what, six months left, before he got discharged, you know, dad a discharge. So I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we don’t get any letters.
P: Yeah. I would guess that’s a giant dose of perspective.
L: Yeah, right. Yeah. So all in all, you know, there were too many other stresses around. So I just concentrated on the babies.
P: Okay. And then from there, you move.
L: We went back to California. They had a position waiting for dad because he signed and then he got drafted. So they were holding that position for him.
P: So why did you leave California?
L: And that was other things. This was a general practice and they really didn’t explain that to Dad. And he had to do everything from pediatrics to wow, you know, geriatrics to, you know, everything in between. And he just didn’t like that kind of practice. And there were a lot of wealthy communities there that demanded you to come out for a headache.
P: Yeah.
L: So during the night he’d have to drive in the wilderness to find his house. And he says, oh, Doc, give me something. And he’s there stained by the fireplace with the with the drink. And he says, I have a headache. And I just came back from Japan or whatever. So dad does not like any part of it.
P: Yeah, I can see it was I can see what’s not appealing there.
L: And we decided to go to the east coast because he wanted to go back to New York. Plus, we thought we had family. For Kids. Yeah, and stuff. So yes, we headed to New York.
P: Okay, now I want you to walk very carefully through this next pregnancy which is me. So then planned again, am I planned.
L: No, that just happened in my surprise. What happened is I I had my time, it wasn’t a copper T.
P: It’s some kind of birth control.
L: Yeah. So I had, you know, different things inserted. What was on 68? Yeah, but I decided since we’re going east coast, and I was having issues with these new new thing that I would have it removed. Not thinking, yeah, you can get pregnant again.
P: Yeah. Yeah.
L: And that’s what happened on our way across.
P: Oh, wow.
L: Yeah. So I found out that I was very tired and sleepy and totally exhausted to New York. And I didn’t realize that’s one of the symptoms to have early pregnancy. So that’s, that’s when you came around.
P: wait So there’s still no home pregnancy test.
L: And no, we didn’t do anything like that. Okay, we didn’t do anything. So yeah. So we came to New York, and we thought of the heat and the humidity. It was during the summer. And of course, you know, I wasn’t used to that. And that’s why I was so exhausted and everything. But eventually, I got nauseous again. That was one little symbol of what’s what’s coming.
P: I was trying to send several signals at first, but no one was getting it.
L: Nobody was listening. I’m sorry.
P: That’s okay.
L: So how was that pregnancy that pregnancy? It was normal in that sense. It’s just that we were stuck in a motel room with, you know, with four of us. Yeah, two little ones and I was pregnant again, and I was sick. And dad was starting this new practice. So he was gone all day.
P: Yeah.
L: Sometimes in the evening, too. So I was just, you know, it was just hard there. It was very hard, and to be stuck in the motel with the heat and the air conditioning, not working and no car you know, so yeah. So that that was a difficult kind of thing, but not because of the pregnancy.
P: Okay. And then okay, and then for my birthday, do you? How did that happen? How did you know? My birthday was the day
L: well, that really annoyed me because I my obstetrician who I loved, and I think he was so great, but he wasn’t available. He had emergency, you know, delivery or something. So I saw his partner. And he he said, oh your Do you know and I was you know, maybe closing in on my ninth month. And he says, Why don’t you come on in and because you tend to have big babies and we don’t want to worry about that. Make it easier. Just come on in. And you know, we’ll give you some and we’ll induce labor. So I said no, I don’t want to do that. I said, Maybe this time I will wait till the baby is telling me yes, I’m ready.
P: Yes. Now you’ve got wise. Yes.
L: Yes. Yes. You know, you learn from each one. Yeah, but the thing is in the army, I was really due. Yeah. And everything was was just just the right timing. But what happened is that Dad told his mother, that this is what the doctor said. And we had to figure out if she would come and help us take care of the two kids at home. And that’s when I could go in the hospital. And at the time to was February, and he wanted me to come in on the 17th. I said, No. I said I’m not having two kids. Born on the same day.
P: Yeah.
L: it’s Not necessary. I’m not sure we due. feel any. I felt Braxton Hicks kind of things, but not labor.
P: Your kids appreciate that. Way to stand your ground.
L: Yeah. So then, he said, Well, your taking chances he tried to scare me. I didn’t. didn’t appreciate that. So I said thank you. I’ll think about it. And I just wanted to get out of his office because I said no to I called my obstetrician. And we were at that point on first name basis, because of the doctor community kind of thing. Yeah, he was just the warm person. And he didn’t want me to call him Dr. Stall. So he’s just call me. So I called him up. And I said, your partner, which I named, he wanted me to come in that you would do pit and just induce labor. But I didn’t want to and I said why can’t I wait and have the baby when when this you know, I didn’t know what your boy or girl there’s no way of testing that. I said I’ll wait till till I’m in labor. So he says okay, okay. But then what happened? I got pressured into the following week, because grandma said the only time she could come with the following week to take care and help me out.
P: So Grandma decided my birthday.
L: Yep. Yeah,
P: was she still a practicing doctor at that point.
So, to give a little background here, my grandmother is also a doctor, now living in NYC, and my parents have moved from the west coast to the NY suburbs to be near her. My grandmother and my father were also war refugees who came to the US in 1950…so although she’s a doctor, she had to start her life over again in the US, and had now been in NY for about twenty years…as you can hear for a variety of reasons she and my mother always have kind of a contentious relationship
L: Yeah, I wasn’t happy about that. But dad didn’t want to be left. Taking care of kids. Yeah. So he sort of pressured me to go in the follow me. Yeah. And, you know, with with all the arrangements and the baby with was fine, and you were in position, so nobody saw any problem with that. And Dr. Stall said, Look, we’ll give you pit, if it doesn’t work. You could go home and your weight of it works, then you’ll have your baby.
P: How far from the due date?
L: Pretty close to close? But I think babies gain most of their weight the last two weeks, yes, three weeks.
P: According to the american…
L: And the other doctor told me that you were smaller than than the other two users. Oh, you had only bruisers. We don’t want that. You know, that kind of, you know, attitude. So he said it’ll be easier on you and get on everybody. And he was he was always concerned about you know, problems with the umbilical cord and all that kind of thing. He was trying to scare me into certain things.
P: Yeah.
L: You know, so when I said that’s the only time she could come. What am I going to do? Yeah, I didn’t know anybody here either at a new place. Yeah. So I couldn’t get somebody else to come in and help me and I wouldn’t trust a new sitter to come and take care of the two kids. That’s how we did it. I went in. They gave me pit and, you know, I had you
P: and how was that delivery?
L: Fine, and I had the epidural, and you came out and there is no worry about the umbilical cord or whatever. But you were seven pounds six pounds. Okay. Yeah. So you were much smaller than my other two.
P: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
L: So, so by the fourth one, I lay down the law I said I’m not coming in You know what, this baby is going to tell me when it’s coming in and I’m not coming in at all. So until it until it’s it’s time, but this you know, the fourth one of course I had the amniocentesis
P: wait so let’s go go slowly. Then the fourth one because there’s a big gap between me and the next one.
L: Yes, you came out. Everything was fine. You’re beautiful. You’re healthy and and it was like three and a half hours. An hour off.
P: You’re shaving off the hours that well done.
L: Yes. Three days in the hospital that out? Yeah, that’s not too bad. Yeah, yeah. Well, I was fine. If everything is fine. You know, and how we’re
P: we’re still doing formula but now we’re doing plastic diapers is my guess.
L: Yes. Okay. Yes.
P: Okay. Yeah. And then there’s an eight year gap between me and the next one. Right. So that one is a surprise.
L: Yeah,
P: were you 35 for that one?
L: I turned 35. in December. She was born in January.
P: Yeah, so you just turned 35 But nowadays, they call the geriatric pregnancy
L: I know, but yet a lot of people have them this late.
P: No, I’m not saying they’re right. I’m just saying what was the reaction? Were you older at the time to be having another baby?
L: You know what, after the three normal births and I never had any problems or issues my obstetrician wasn’t worried.
P: Let’s talk for a second about how different it was between the first and the fourth. Okay, for the first year 21 of your child and for your 35 so
L: 3434 Because that’s my whole pregnancy. was when I was 34.
P: Yeah, that’s true. Yeah, that’s a good point. So 34 for the second one. How much has the doctor’s office changed? And do you get a home kit for this one to know that you’re pregnant?
L: Well, I went in and they did the test. Okay. I didn’t get home. They didn’t take it at home. And he he examines you so he knows right away that you’re pregnant,
P: but did you go because you felt nauseous? Or what was your
L: I had the same thing and I just, you know, I said, I’m pregnant. You know, I knew that after we were out in the motel once we got a rental and moved into the house I was looking for an obstetrician. And it was funny because we we met the obstetrician at one of the doctors parties, and he bumped into me and he spilled a drink on my dress. I got so upset because I sewed it. I made the dress and it was a pregnancy. Yeah, very elegant dress. And he says, Oh, he says I’m so sorry. He says, please send it to cleaners. I will pay for it. Don’t worry about it. And he introduced himself and they said, I see you’re pregnant. He says who you’re going to
I say don’t have an obstetrician. A pretty good one. It was very, very sweet and very, ebbullient genuine
P: I hope you looked around the party to see if he wasn’t spilling drinks on everyone and that wasn’t
L: no and I asked around and they knew there were three of them. The other guy was his brother in law. And another guy but he was cold. I didn’t care for him. He was a good technician. Like cold.
P: Yeah,
L: that’s how I met sigh and then I you know like you fall in love with your obstetrician. He was one of those guys that so, so nice. You know so caring.
P: In this taped conversation i didn’t press to know more about the idea that someone would “fall in love with their obstetrician”, but I called her back to ask about that, and it sounds like this doctor was very solicitious when it came to my mother’s care. If she brought some fear up in her appointment, he’d call her a few days later to check on her. I’m guessing that this kind of special treatment is a reflection of the fact that she is a doctor’s wife, and when she says “fall in love” I think she means, you form a real emotional attachment to someone taking such good care of you during this vulnerable period
L: When I got pregnant the fourth time grandma just seated Him with all these What if something is wrong? What if you know, baby has such and such whatever so dad said you know we are taking a big chance we always throw the dice when we have kids.
P: Yeah.
L: You don’t know there’s no test. There’s nothing and I said you know what? Whatever happens, I will take care of it. You don’t have to do anything. You haven’t done any You haven’t changed a diaper you have the baby.
P: Good news. More of the same
L: what’s the Difference. What’s the difference? I said this is what what I’ll be doing again. I would love to have another child.
P: I’m guessing he because he was worried about the baby big do an amnio?
L: Well, that’s why I went back to Sy and I said look, Hank is up to the very upset about it. So is there anything I could have as a test to see if everything is okay with the baby. So at that time, that procedure was just coming out and insert that big long needle and draw the fluid out. And you know his story. He did it the first time with all the students around and dad was there front and center to watch him and he drew blood And everybody gasped and he took the needle out real fast dad was so white they walked him out.
P: his concern is that if you draw blood, it’s an increased chance of aborting the fetus
L: aborting Yeah. So he begged me when he could do it again. And carefully because he’s working with the monitor.
P: Yeah.
L: To see wherever it is. And he just to insert the needle again. And he said he promised it would be quick turnaround to the students and he said I don’t want to sound or else out of here. You know, yeah, I didn’t want anybody saying anything. So since I was already there, I said just do it because it would ease so much other things.
P: Yeah,
L: at home. So he did it and it worked really well smoothly. But he told Dad, to drive as fast as he can. put me to bed, put my feet up and not to move for a whole day.
P: Okay.
L: 24 hours. So once I pass that it became sort of safer, that I’m not aborting. Okay, but I would have been would have been very upset.
P: How far along were you?
L: I think it was three and a half or four months at that point and that was so hard for now. was later on? Yeah. It was wait. It wasn’t like six weeks?
P: Yeah, yeah, that’s like 16 weeks. And at this point you’re probably showing earlier because you already have three kids.
L: Right, right. Right. So and we had a wait for a month.
P: Or oh my god that’s crazy
L: I was ready to just just scream by the time it came. And at the same time dad got the Tay Sachs We never did the Tay Sachs and we should have done it for the other two because we are both European jews
P: Yeah, you mean he just got the test for it while you’re waiting for the amnio .
L: Yeah, yeah. And they said you want to do what do what tests? No, I’m having big tests. Like,
P: was he negative?
L: Yeah, if he’s negative, I’m okay.
P: So Tay Sachs is a terrible disease that causes all kinds of problems for babies who usually die by the age of five. Anyone can be a carrier for this genetic disease, but it’s much more common in Jews of European discent…about 1 in 27 people in this category are carriers, carriers don’t have symptoms, and to pass the disease on, both parents have to be carriers. if both parents have the genes, the baby has a one in four chance of having the disease–
L: yeah, yeah. So that’s that we did that that time.
P: When you get the annual results, is it a letter in the mail?
L: Oh, with the whole packet. Sy got the report, too. But he called me in because he didn’t want to say it on the phone. I was so nervous and he gave me a kiss on the cheek. He says everything is fine.
P: Oh, good. Okay, good.
L: Yeah, yeah. So until until I got the whole report. And they had the X chromosomes, you know everything. I have the whole report. I want to see that. That’s cool. And of course told the sex of the child but I never told anybody. So we made a pack. Nobody knows.
P: You and dad knew.
L: Of course it’s on the test. So that’s a secret you definitely kept from us.
P: I remember saying if it’s a boy, I’m gonna send it back.
L: I was like, sister, I remember being pan I was so excited. I was so excited that you’re going to have a sister never told her friend nothing. I was very excited. And after four months, I finally was able to enjoy the pregnancy.
P: Yeah, it sounds like you enjoyed all of them to some degree.
L: Well, the first first three months were Yeah. And I’d had every, every one of them exactly the same. Nope, nothing changed about one and four. So once after that, it was it was very, very nice.
P: But now it seems like you’re wading into technology in that you have an end of this time you have a definitive blood test to find out that you are pregnant, and did not have ultrasound or you did no,
L: we still didn’t have ultrasound, we still didn’t have
P: so what’s the scan that the OB uses to do the amnio?
L: He’s connected to a screen and everything at that point. But in the doctor’s office, we don’t have that
P: so that they have ultrasound there just for this test.
L: Yes. Just to see where he’s putting the needle and
P: it’s not regularly available so people aren’t getting this.
L: No, no, this is all new. This was all new. That’s why all the students were there. Learning. We were right on the foreground with this test.
P: That’s amazing. And then I remember I remember going to the hospital so you must have started started having contractions
L: on the 16th of January.
P: Yeah,
L: he said on the 16th of January. I woke up with
P: Wow.
L: Go figure
P: nowadays, if you have contractions they say don’t come to the hospital until two minutes apart. Where they tell you
L: Yeah, well the thing is, I went to the office first. Perfect. And he says yes, you’re in labor. But he said you can’t go to the hospital yet. But you have to, you know, wait till till they’re closer. But there was a blizzard coming,
P: I remember that.
L: When I went further along, went to the hospital because his partner was there. So he said to you and he said you better hurry up because ready
P: Wow.
L: So Sy had to zip out and go to the delivery and he broke the water. Okay, just was the final thing and boy that was it. Was a very hard labor. It really came on very, very strong, much stronger than then with you. Or Teddy.
P: How long were you labor for?
L: three hours
P: Oh, okay, so still is almost the same length as mine. Yeah, and no Pitocin I’m assuming
L: no, no. Pitocin and the thing is, by the time he gave me the epidural on the delivery table, yeah, not in the unit. You know when you check in, but um, delivery table, and then she was born and I don’t think the epidural even took effect.
P: Yeah, yeah, it’s too late. Yeah,
L: I felt everything. But everything was was nice. And so I was so happy because the umbilical cord was so short. Which was good because I worry about wrapped up in everything. And he kissed his babies when they were delivered. If it always gets the babies, and he had he had students there. this time? Not the last time but it was great. What’s good.
P: So, so two questions. One is dad is never in the delivery room.
L: No, he didn’t want to go in. He went in with Dr. Cheek with Josh. Okay. And I was in such pain with the contractions and he gave me the laughing gas because the epidural had worn off hours before and when he gave me laughing guess, Dr. Cheek said. You’re not helping at all leave. And he kicked him out
P: It wasn’t common to have the husband in the delivery room or was not. No, it
L: it wasn’t common. The fathers so we sat outside but since he was a doctor, they let him in. Yeah, yeah. But each time after that when they said you want to come in. That’s it? No. Wait outside.
P: Yeah, that’s helpful. Okay. Yeah. And then no female gynecologist were to be seen
L: at that point. No. No, all of them were men. Yeah. All of them were men.
P: so I was curious about this and looked it up: according to the LA times, in the 1970s roughly 7% of gynecologists were women…now its 59%, so what my mom was saying is true, pretty much all of them were men
P: so you seem like you have changed a lot over the course of those four births in that you were such a like deer in the headlights for the first one.
L: oh definitely, are you kidding
P: Right and you just didn’t know how any of it was gonna go right. You know how what pregnancy would be like and what were 50 like and
L: and they didn’t have those classes to come into the hospital. expecting parents to come in and be take you on a tour. This is where the delivery this is whatever. And you certainly didn’t have any lamaze classes. Let’s put it that way. Yeah,
P: yeah. By the time the last one was born, there were like breathing glasses and stuff, right?
L: Yeah, yes. Yeah.
P: You didn’t want to go
L: you know, was my fourth one. You know, I knew what to expect.
P: Yeah. Yeah.
L: And I felt very comfortable in my obstetrician.
P: Yeah, God, you’ve had quite a ride.
L: Yeah, yeah. I got stronger and more confident of telling them what I want. Like, like the last one.
P: It more assertive yah, yah,
Thanks again to my mother for sharing her story and for hanging out with me on Thanksgiving. Women of her generation seem very strong to me, to deal with the massive uncertainty of this process with much less than future generations would enjoy. One thing we didn’t talk much about was the postpartum period, and when I called my mom back to see if I’d missed anything, she said, that there were no lactation specialists…the nurse helped you with breastfeeding in the hospital and then if everything seemed okay, you were sent on your way and the doctor didn’t check you out again until six weeks later…although so much has changed around pregnancy and birth, not enough has changed around postpartum care, since it looks very similar today to what it looked like 50 years ago…that’s a frontier to work on for sure.
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