February 19, 2024 • 63 mins
Have you ever felt a deep, unexplainable connection guiding you through life's most pivotal moments? Imagine if that very instinct could be the beacon during your journey to motherhood. Today, we sit with Kelli Moore, a mother whose experiences with IVF, birth, and postpartum challenges, illuminate the incredible intuition that comes with motherhood and the indomitable spirit required to advocate for one's health. Through Kelli's eyes, we witness the intensity of labor, the complications from past medical procedures, and her undying trust in her own body's messages—lessons that resonate with every listener.
The path to bringing new life into this world is often shrouded in silence, especially when it comes to the struggles of infertility and extended labor. Kelli sheds light on these seldom-discussed topics, sharing the raw emotional toll it took on her personal relationships and the support that pulled her through. As she speaks on the importance of therapies, holistic health practices, and the power of honest dialogue, her insights underscore the need for empathy and comprehensive care.
Postpartum isn't just about recovery; it's about transformation. Kelli's story doesn't shy away from the emotional and physical aftermath of a taxing birth, the questioning of increasing C-section rates, and the necessary advocacy for informed childbirth choices. In our heart-to-heart, we also recognize the significance of showing up for one another, especially in those vulnerable moments after bringing life into the world. From the vital need for maternity leave to strategies for maintaining mental health, we celebrate the resilience and personal growth that motherhood fosters, while underscoring the beauty of community and shared experiences. Join us for a powerful reminder of the strength we possess and the unwavering support we owe to each other.
Connect with Kelli on Instagram here!
We want to give a big shoutout to our sponsor Baby Tula for making this episode possible. Baby Tula crafts beautiful and incredibly comfy baby carriers, blankets, and accessories using quality materials. Their ergonomic and stylish baby carriers keep your little one snuggled close while giving you hands-free mobility. We're truly grateful for the support of sponsors like Baby Tula that allow us to create this podcast. Be sure to visit their site for all your babywearing needs! Babytula.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Have you ever felt like something wasn't quite
right during your pregnancy, butfelt dismissed by doctors and
others when you voiced yourconcerns?
In this episode we speak withKelly, a mom who went through
IVF and had a gut feeling thather daughter wanted to come
early.
Despite her intuition andshared feelings, she was brushed
off by medical professionalsand told that doesn't happen for
(00:22):
first time moms.
Kelly's story highlights theimportance of listening to your
instincts as a mother and beingyour own advocate, especially
when dealing with a complexbirth.
You'll hear how Kelly'spersistence ultimately led to
discovering a surprising reasonbehind her prolonged and
difficult labor, and how aseemingly unrelated medical
(00:42):
procedure years earlier almostcaused the catastrophic outcome.
Join us as Kelly courageouslyshares the details of her
harrowing birth experience tobring greater awareness to
placental issues faced by manyIVF moms.
Her story is a powerfulreminder to trust our intuition
as mothers and keep askingquestions when something doesn't
(01:05):
feel right.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Before we dive into today's heartfelt conversations,
I'd like to announce thisepisode is made possible by Baby
Tula, a company that believesin something we talk about a lot
here that showcasing eachmother's distinct and unique
story has the power to inspireother mothers to do things in a
way that feels right for them.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
If you didn't know, Baby Tula makes these beautiful
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If you were looking forsomething that makes you feel
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Speaker 2 (01:44):
I've had the pleasure of working with Tula Carrier
and let me tell you theirdedication to supporting mothers
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They want mothers to feelempowered, comfortable and
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They have a program called theFringe that selects families
across the world who havebeautiful stories to share about
their parenting journey, frombefore their little ones were
(02:05):
born, through the early stagesof babyhood and how they grew as
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If you wanna be inspired byreal families who are finding
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Speaker 1 (02:19):
BabyTulacom, where self love doesn't end at
parenthood, it just begins.
Thanks for tuning in.
Now let's dive in today'sinspiring story, the Golden Hour
Birth Podcast, a podcast aboutreal birth stories and creating
connections through our sharedexperiences Childbirth isn't
just about the child.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
It's about the person who gave birth their lives,
their wisdom and theirempowerment.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
We're Liz and Natalie , the Golden Hour Birth Podcast,
and we're here to laugh withyou, cry with you and hold space
for you.
Welcome to the Golden HourBirth Podcast.
I am your co-host, liz.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
And I'm your co-host, natalie, and tonight we have
Kelly on.
Kelly is a mama of one livingoutside of Denver, Colorado, and
owns Soulfire Productions, sothanks so much for coming on
tonight, kelly.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Thank you for having me.
It's late.
We should obviously be goingoff.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Yeah, we're exhausted working moms.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yeah, exactly yes.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
So if you want, to go ahead and just tell listeners
about you and your fam.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Yeah, so we live just outside of Denver, colorado.
My husband Connor and I, and mydaughter named Robbie.
She was born in January, soshe's 10 months right now and
yeah, we both kind of came fromthe podcast industry and met
through each other's shows andlived.
I was in LA when he was in SanDiego when we met and then we
(03:49):
moved to Colorado and yeah,we're here now and growing our
family and have a couple dogsand live on a mountain and live
in the good life.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
That's so good, love it.
So when did you guys kind ofstart talking about kids, or
what did that look like?
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Day one.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
We met Same.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
You know, it's a virtual love story.
You guys.
So we met over Instagram.
I binged his podcast andconnected on Instagram and then
we talked for like six or eightweeks before we met in person.
And I always tell everyone Ifell in love with him before I
ever met him and we just knewthere was something different
(04:34):
about this connection.
And I'm 35, he's 36.
And we were like 30 and 31 whenthis happened.
So you know, we had done thething.
We've dated a lot of people, wehad kind of gotten through and
we were like OK, we're donescrewing around, like are you
the person or not?
And so we were just veryforthcoming from day one, and so
when we met in person on ourfirst date, we had this very
cute picnic at the beach atsunset and you know, so romantic
(04:56):
, and we were sitting on thebeach and we just were just
mouth diarrhea all over eachother all the things, and it was
like what do you want?
What do you want?
How do you feel about this,what are your values?
And one of the things that wetalked about was that he was
born without vas deferens and sohe couldn't get someone
pregnant naturally, and so wehad the fertility treatment
(05:19):
conversation on date one.
And although that was not idealfor a lot of reasons, for me it
was just great because I knew,ok, this is what I'm getting
into, I get to do a ton ofresearch, look into what this
looks like.
I knew that I could getpregnant, so I knew that I was
good on my end and I knew thatthat would help our chances as
(05:42):
well going into IVF.
And so I just started doing aton of research from the very
beginning.
And then, when we moved from LAto Colorado, I knew that we had
CCRM here, which is, you knowoh, world-renowned fertility
clinic that I really don't like,but their rates are super high.
And so we started meeting withdoctors immediately and just
(06:05):
getting in the lay of the land,figuring out what that was going
to look like and just prepping.
So when we were ready, we'dkind of have everything squared
away.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
So I didn't know that part.
So I work in a fertility clinicand they do the Tessie or PESA
surgery where they kind of go insurgically.
So that's not an option withthe vas deferens.
I know the vas deferens makethe sperm, but is there.
There's no other way.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
No, as far as I know, that's the only way, because I
thought initially that we wouldmaybe be able to do IUI and just
be less invasive.
But according to CCRM, theycan't get enough sperm to do IUI
because of lack of vas deferens, I guess, or the way the sperm
(06:58):
are and so you have to do IVF.
It's really your only option.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
OK.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Wow, ok.
So I have like to go doresearch now too.
I'm like whoa.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
If you want to come back and tell me something
different so that I can not dothat for baby number two, I'm
very here for it, but I'm prettysure that's what we have to do.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Yeah, no, I totally probably agree.
I'm just like I didn't knowabout this, so I'm just
interested now.
And we can cut this out orwhatever.
I'm just like what?
So my mind is spinning that way.
So yeah, so once you did youguys just go through the one
round of IVF and then got thegreat news.
(07:39):
Yeah, we were super lucky.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
So we went through our retrieval.
We got the sperm, we got theeggs.
We were super lucky.
We ended up with five embryosand so we did our first round in
April of last year and gotpregnant immediately, which was
so great.
So, yeah, it was like I said.
(08:02):
I think for us it was betterbecause I knew that I could get
pregnant and it wasn't a femalefertility issue, which obviously
I hate that for anyone, andoftentimes it's the man.
I mean you work in a fertilityclinic.
How many times is it the guythat comes in that's actually
having some of the issues?
So, I learned a lot in thatexperience, but for us it was
(08:23):
pretty seamless and I was reallygrateful.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
That's good, that's awesome.
So what was pregnancy like?
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Well, you know, not my favorite experience of all
time.
So I had the worst time doingIVF, like I was suicidal.
I was super disconnected frommy body.
The hormonal swings for me werereally, really intense.
(08:51):
I'm just very sensitive.
I haven't been on birth controlsince I was 27.
I'm very connected to my body,I'm very holistic, and so I'm
just really self-aware.
And so I think that I just hada lot harder of a time.
And so you have to stay on IVFmedication until you're 10 weeks
pregnant to make sure that yourbody holds pregnancy, and so
(09:15):
it's the pregnancy hormones plusIVF hormones, and that was just
so much for me.
And so I mean there were dayswhere I just felt like I was not
a functioning part of societyand was just sleeping and just
having a really hard time.
And then, once I got deeper inthe second trimester and into
the third, a lot of the hormoneskind of leveled out, but I was
(09:39):
uncomfortable and I just feltlike my body struggled in a lot
of ways.
I was in pain, I had a lot ofbrown ligament pain.
There was a lot of things goingon.
And then, once we got towardsthe end of pregnancy, I ended up
being in labor for six weeksand we found out later what was
(10:00):
going on, but during that timewe really didn't know.
And so I was going into thehospital and trying to find out
if there was something wrong orif I was in preterm labor, and
they just kept saying everythingwas good and I had planned an
unmitigated home birth in a tubwith a midwife and a doula, and
we were going the whole thing,and so there was just a lot of
(10:23):
back and forth and I would be inlabor for four or five hours a
day, having contractions everyone and a half to two minutes,
like okay, and then it wouldjust stop and we were like what
is going on?
And that just kept going on andso we finally induced do you
want me to go into that or doyou want to ask me questions
(10:44):
before?
Speaker 1 (10:45):
I next.
I have one question During yourpregnancy and going through
that hard time, did you doanything to manage your mental
state?
Oh, I did everything.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Yeah, yeah, I'm so lucky.
I'm very resourced and I wasresourced before I got pregnant
and I did that on purpose for alot of reasons, and I always
tell everyone like I'm so gladthat I had practitioners and
support and I've been in therapyfor a lot of my life and I know
how to ask for help, because ifI hadn't, I don't know how
people do this alone.
(11:17):
I don't know how people do thiswithout help.
Like I was so out of my mind,so disconnected.
There were moments where I havea really amazing group of
friends and there's five of usand you know we talk all the
time on zoom and reallyconnected.
We know each other so well.
And I remember I was in I'm inmy office right now and I was in
(11:37):
the couch to my left and I wasin the fetal position on the
phone with my friend, Like Idon't want to be with Connor, I
hate this.
Like why am I even doing this?
I don't even want to have a kid, I'm not even attracted to him.
My hormones were so all overthe place and they were telling
me step by step this is why youlove your husband, this is why
(11:58):
you're having kids.
And I was in therapy and I wasgetting acupuncture and I was
doing, you know, prenatalmassage, and my eating is
incredible and you know I wasvery well nourished and taken
care of and so, yeah, I'm reallyglad that I knew how to ask for
help.
And with all of that it wasstill so hard.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Wow, yeah, I really don't know how people go through
it alone either.
I mean those hormones and themedication.
It's, it's hard.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Yeah, and it's like look, some of us have to do that
and the rates of people havingto do for any type of fertility
treatment are increasing and Idon't.
Sometimes I feel bad, likemaybe I shouldn't tell this
story, because I feel like a lotof it is very negative.
But I also didn't hear anyhonest experiences like this
before I went through it, and soI feel like I got hit by a
(12:52):
freaking truck when maybe, if Ihad heard a story like mine,
that was hey, this is going tobe hard.
Make sure you're resourced,make sure you talk to your
partner before, make sure youguys are in a really good place,
make sure you know how to askfor help.
I mean, I went to my fertilityclinic, to my doctor, and said
this was when we were doing theretrieval, and I said I think I
(13:13):
was on Lupron, which basicallysends you into menopause, and I
was like, hey, this is making mefeel suicidal, like I am unwell
, this is not okay.
And she was like, oh, I'm sosorry.
Like you're too far into thetreatment, we can't do anything
for you.
She didn't say hey, are you intherapy?
Hey, have you gone toacupuncture?
Hey, like, maybe let's have aconversation.
(13:35):
This isn't okay.
It was like, oh sorry.
And I remember leaving therelike what the fuck just happened
?
What?
How do you know if I have helpor support or not?
And so I just started thinkingabout all the people that go in
there who don't have thatsupport, who don't have a
partner like mine, who's amazingand connected and can you know,
hold space for me when I'mlosing my shit.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
And it really upset me and I feel like that's just
sort of the the medical industryas a whole.
And so I think that if we canhave honest conversations like
this and say, yeah, this is notgoing to be fun, like no one
wants to go through IVF, itsucks, and here are different
ways you can support yourselfand be honest and know that
you're not crazy, it's okay andthis isn't forever, and
(14:19):
hopefully you get a baby at theend.
And you look at them and you'relike I guess I'll do it again.
You're so freaking cute.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Let's do it again.
Yep, yeah.
I'm glad you mentioned all that, because we are both in Dula
training and the program that wechose has a like very
comprehensive fertility support,so you can either focus on
(14:48):
fertility Dula, birth Dula orpostpartum or all three so it
was it's?
Yeah, it's a really goodprogram, yeah, so hopefully it
will help some people.
I know.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Yeah, I've never been more aware it takes women like
you who are good at holdingspace, who help women and
partners feel safe and who areeducated so that anything that's
thrown your way, at yourclient's way, you guys are
resourced.
And I think that most peoplejust don't feel safe and they
don't feel like they have aplace to go to say like, hey,
(15:25):
I'm like losing it, am I okay?
Yeah, and so I think the workthat you're doing is really,
really important.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Yeah.
Thank you, I never knew aboutlike a fertility Dula.
And then seeing the programthat I'm in and being like oh,
wow, like there's fertilityDulas out there, like that is
amazing, because I'm seeing itfrom both sides and I'm like
there, you're right, like thereneeds to be more support while
you're in it and I like my hearthurts for like the people who
(15:57):
feel like they need to hide it,that like their infertility
treatments or things like that.
You know like there's like theshame around it, but I just like
that sucks.
You know that you, becausepeople are asking you like when
are you going to have a baby,and then you can't tell them.
You know there's like just yeah, and then what if it doesn't
(16:20):
work?
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Yeah, you go through all these rounds and you know
there's just so much stigma andshame around if you can't have a
baby, if you can't have a babylike naturally, without support
of medicine, and I just feellike we have to do a better job
of not shaming people and notmaking people feel like they
failed, because I don't knowabout you guys, but I don't feel
(16:44):
like I did something wrong tohave to do IVF.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
And you know that's also part of the, the shame.
I think my husband feels that Idon't have to do IVF.
I could get pregnant, truly, ifit was with someone else.
And so then he's caring andhe's watching me suffer and he's
like this is my fault and hedidn't do anything.
It's not like he cut his vastdeference out of his own
(17:11):
fricking body or, like you know,did drugs to a point where
something happened and well,that was a dumb decision, like
he was just born like that.
And I think that we just needto have more honest
conversations so that peoplerealize there's nothing wrong
with you, like you're not bad,you're not broken, you didn't do
anything wrong.
This is just a part of some ofour journeys and it's harder for
(17:34):
some than others.
I have a friend who has beentrying to get pregnant for a
year and a half now.
You were just at coffee theother day and she was like I
know this sounds bad, but Iswear to God, if this girl gets
pregnant before me, I'm going tolose my shit.
And she ended up gettingpregnant before her and she got
(17:57):
pregnant really easily and itwas like an oopsie, you know.
And so then, someone who'sgoing through fertility
treatments is like shit, likewhat did I do wrong to deserve
this, you know?
And so there's just thisconstant narrative within us
that there's something wrongwith us.
And then we compare ourselves,because we all have
comparisonitis, because we'restuck on Instagram 24 seven it
feels like everyone's gettingpregnant every seven seconds.
(18:19):
And we're not.
And there's something wrong.
And you know, it's just youcan't win.
And so I think we just need tobe supportive of ourselves,
supportive of those around us,and know that everyone is on
their own path and that's okay.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Yep, I like that.
Everyone's on their own path intheir own journey.
So kind of going back intobeing on and off in labor for
six weeks.
Did that start around like 34weeks or?
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Yeah, it was like 34, between 34 and 35 weeks, I
think, and I don't know what thelaw is for you guys, but in
Colorado we have to be at 37weeks to do a home birth, and so
that's all I cared about.
I was just like you know, Idon't want to have a baby in a
hospital.
I got to get to 37 weeks and sowe were.
I was Thanksgiving and I waslike in the kitchen making
(19:13):
potatoes and I start feelingcontractions Like okay, that's
weird, that's not going tohappen again.
And then they just kept goingand then it just went on from
there.
And it was weird because themidwife and the doula were both
just like what is going on?
And the doula had a lot of redflags and I feel like the
(19:34):
midwife just kind of I amfrustrated looking back at her
lack of knowledge and likelooking into what was going on
because she just never had ananswer for anything.
I went through my entirepregnancy and I was like maybe
ask somebody or I don't know,because everyone I've talked to
(19:55):
since then, every midwife I'vetalked to is like oh yeah, I
would have looked for this thingand I would have asked you
these questions on this intakeform.
Like why didn't you have thisconversation?
I'm like I don't know.
So I felt very alone and I feltkind of crazy.
And at one point I remember itwas the day we ended up inducing
.
It was New Year's Day and I didthe castor oil induction at
(20:17):
home and Connor and I got in thebiggest fight that day.
It was like I took the castoroil and then he decided to tell
me I was losing my mind becausehe was losing his mind.
He's like you've been in laborfor six weeks.
Like no one's in labor for sixweeks.
You're crazy.
And he was like I feel likeyou're making this up, no one is
in labor for six weeks and I'mon the floor screaming and
crying.
I'm losing my mind.
(20:38):
I haven't slept in six weeks.
I'm in labor all the time.
I'm having a baby.
I'm like what is going on?
And it just like it got reallyhard and I just felt like I'm
losing it.
Like maybe I am making this up,maybe, maybe am I pregnant?
Like are we sure?
Like I started thinking aboutall the most irrational things
(20:59):
because it was like it was crazy.
Making it didn't make any sense.
So yeah, it was pretty funny.
I was like I'm not sure, I'mnot sure.
So yeah, it was.
It was pretty funny.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
So, like while you were in labor, like you were
having actual contractions, youwere counting them.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
You were oh yeah, I was timing.
I'm on the phone with the doula.
I'm like, hold on, here comesanother one.
She's like packing her bag,talking me through it, and she's
like, okay, call the midwife.
And that happened like fourtimes where it got like intense
enough, where we were likecalling the team and then we
would just stop and it'd be like, never mind, guys, just kidding
.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
And you would just like oh, my God.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
The whole team ended up coming because my water broke
and I was like really in labor,and I was in the tub.
I labored for I don't know sixor seven hours in our living
room and then they should juststopped again.
And we were like, okay, andthey the whole team was like you
know what?
This is different.
This has gone on longer.
(22:00):
It's been more intense.
Your water broke.
Maybe your body just needs abreak and wants you to sleep and
we'll pick it back up in themorning.
So we all went to bed at like3am and I continued to have like
random contractions, butnothing intense, and then it's
stalled out until Tuesdayafternoon and the midwife is
like you need to go to thehospital.
Your water broke two days ago.
I'm now concerned.
(22:21):
And I was like, yeah, and I'mconcerned because you don't seem
to know what's going on and Idon't really feel confident with
you.
Yeah, delivering my child.
And so we ended up going to thehospital and they were like,
yeah, you have no fluid left,you need to induce, like you
need to come today.
And so I came home and wepacked up and I just brought my
(22:42):
mind around the fact that thiswas not going to go the way I
wanted and that there was areason it was happening.
And so we went into thehospital that night and luckily,
denver health here is a midwifehospital, and so I got to have
the most amazing experience.
All the midwives were sofantastic.
I never saw a doctor untilafter my daughter was born and
(23:06):
all of the nurses like more thanhalf of them were doulas.
So they were just so on boardwith the home birth and what I
wanted, and they turned off allthe monitors and the sounds and
we had our candles and ourcrystals and the music and they
were like this is the best roomever and I'm like, and so that
(23:27):
part of it I was super gratefulfor.
But yeah, we went in that night, we induced that night.
Nothing happened.
I ended up going into reallysevere back labor.
She was sunny side up and so Iended up having to get an
epidural.
I hadn't slept in like a week.
(23:48):
I couldn't stand, my whole bodywas shaking.
I was like I just like couldn'tdo anything and I was like in
such severe pain and the midwifewas just, you know, talking to
my husband and I and she's likeI'm really concerned for you
Because you're just so you're sofar beyond the pain threshold.
I feel like this is going to bemore traumatic for you if you
(24:11):
don't do this.
And I'm really grateful thatshe was there to support me in
making that decision, because Iwas just so anti epidural, anti
everything, and so I got theepidural and still nothing was
happening.
And we're just like what isgoing on.
I've been four centimetersdilated for six weeks.
(24:32):
I've been in labor for sixweeks.
My water broke two, three daysago and nothing happening.
And they go in and they're likeyou're only half a centimeter
dilated.
And I said what You're lying?
They were like no, we are not.
And I looked at the doodle and Iwas like did our midwife not
(24:53):
know how to do cervical checks?
Like I was like what ishappening?
And so we're just all sittingthere totally stumped, and I go
through three midwives and theyfinally bring in this other
midwife because you know theyare doing shift changes every 12
hours and this woman comes inand she goes I'm going to check
(25:16):
you".
And so she's got her fingersinside of me, she's doing
cervical check and she goes didyou have a leap procedure?
And I said yeah, like 10 yearsago.
And she goes you have a ton ofscar tissue and it's keeping you
from dilating.
I'm going to swipe it with myfinger and you are going to
dilate immediately.
(25:37):
I'm like, okay, so she does itimmediately.
Five centimeters I go.
Kate, can you explain to me whyI thought I was four centimeters
and then you guys told me I washalf a centimeter and now I'm
five centimeters?
She goes because there's twosides basically of your cervix
that you can check.
Your midwife was feeling theside that was open.
(25:58):
The other side was closedthough, and the other side
couldn't open because the scartissue was holding it closed.
She's like so now all of it'sopen, like you're fully open,
open for business.
I'm like, okay, so they flip mydaughter.
I'm five centimeters dilated,everything's moving, and I go
(26:20):
into labor a couple hours later.
I push for an hour and a half.
I'm able to push, I get on allfours.
I'm moving.
It's lovely, as lovely as itcan be on an epidural.
It hurts like hell.
And also I was like okay, I cando this, give birth, and
everything was great and she wasperfect and my husband was able
(26:43):
to catch her.
It was a vaginal delivery, likeall the things, and they were
like this is why you were inlabor for six weeks, because you
had the scar tissue and she wasbasically stuck.
She did want to come six weeksago, she was ready and your body
wouldn't let her.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Oh, my God.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Isn't that nuts?
Yeah, that's.
And none of the other midwiveslike.
So, like the fourth one, shejust was able to feel the scar
tissue yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
She had had patients with that procedure before.
She knew to look for the scartissue.
And she knew because she hadheard like, oh, this girl's been
in labor a lot.
She was like I bet that she hasthis thing that's keeping her
from fully dilating.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Yeah, and the lead procedure is something it's for
HPV.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
Okay, yeah, so it's actually very common.
Yeah, the more research I'vedone, I was actually on a
podcast I can't remember whatit's called, but it's hosted by
a midwife.
A couple weeks ago and I wastalking to her about it and she
did like a ton of research.
She actually went into amidwives group with like 6,000
midwives and shared my story andasked for other people to talk
about it.
This is rampant.
(27:54):
You guys are.
I'm 36.
I don't know how old you are.
You look kind of like my age.
Our generation has gotten somany lead procedures because HPV
is so common that there are somany women that are getting
unnecessary C-sections becausethey're not fully dilating and
no one knows to look for thescar tissue, so they're just
(28:15):
literally giving peopleC-sections.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Oh, my God.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Yeah, it's insane.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
My mind is blown.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Yeah, yeah.
So first of all, don't get alead procedure.
If you have HPV, it usuallyclears on its own.
No one needs this freakingprocedure.
And also, if you've had it,make sure your whole team knows,
because it's a very easy fix.
All you have to do is swipe thescar tissue, yeah, but if people
(28:43):
don't know to look for it andoftentimes people don't even
know to ask if you've had onebecause they don't it's like
birth control.
We didn't know therepercussions until now and
we're like, oh God, it's thesame thing.
So make sure your whole teamknows, make sure they understand
what to do, so that you don'thave that situation.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Yeah, whoa, yeah.
So your daughter was ready tocome at 34 weeks.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Sounds like it, or at least close.
Yeah, like maybe I wasn't readyto give birth at that time, but
my body was definitely warmingup.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Yeah, whoa, so then the scar tissue would stop the
contractions as well, like stoplabor yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Whoa.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
I remember the midwife said to me does it feel
like you're hitting a wall?
And I said that is literallywhat I've been telling everyone
for the last six weeks.
I said I am in labor, I'mhaving contractions, and then it
always feels like I hit a wall.
She's like that's what'shappening.
It's like your body's trying toopen and then it just it stops
because it's being held closed.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Yeah, oh God, I can't .
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
God, I can't believe how quickly you birthed her
after that I know Six weeks andhow.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
he were just like five.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
I know Within seconds , I'm not kidding.
We were like, I was like am Iin the twilight zone?
What is happening?
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Yeah, yeah, that feels like it.
So did your, you know, kind oflike the baby kind of like
starts getting and preparing toLike do you feel like Robbie was
preparing and then like shewould kind of hit the wall as
well?
Speaker 3 (30:26):
I don't, yeah, I mean she was, she was fully grown
and I mean if you saw picturesand I could send you one of my
vagina of her coming out, shehas a full head of hair.
I know she's almost 23 inches,she's an advanced kid.
I feel like she was likeovercooked in there and was like
I'm good, let me out.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
I'm telling you know, this is the other thing and
this is my bone to pick withpeople and pregnant women and
mothers that don't listen to us.
I told everyone she was tryingto come early and every fucking
person I talked to was likeyou're a first time mom, that
doesn't happen.
(31:08):
And I was like I am telling youmy daughter I didn't know as a
girl my kid wants to come out.
They are ready, my body isready.
Like what is happening.
They're like, no, that willnever happen.
So it was so validating for meto be in there and the midwife
be like, yeah, she definitelywanted to come out, like
(31:30):
everything was ready to go andyour body just couldn't let it
happen.
And I just wish that peoplewould listen, because my
intuition was so fricking spoton and I didn't even know what
was going on, but I knew thatsomething was off and I just
felt like no one was listeningto me and they made me feel
stupid.
They made me feel disconnectedfrom my body and my intuition
and it was so frustrating andwho cares, even if she wasn't
(31:54):
going to come early.
I just feel like there needs tobe more validation for how
women feel in their bodies andwhat they're feeling and feel
like is being intuitively guidedwithin them.
I don't know, that was reallyhard for me to grapple with for
a while.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Yeah, I completely understand.
I finally feel like I have thatmother's intuition now and it
took two kids because we were ata doula event the other night
and with all midwives and ourbirthing center in St Louis and
a woman comes in and she's like20 weeks pregnant.
(32:35):
She's like I really want tochange to the birthing center.
I just feel like something'sgiving me vibes like that my OB
just might not be the rightperson for me and I'm like you
already have your intuition.
Stick with it and don't everquestion it.
I love that for you.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
So I get it.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Yeah, yeah, it's real .
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Yeah.
So I gave birth.
The story's not over, guys.
So I gave birth, she was great,everything seemed fine.
And then they were trying to getme to birth the placenta and it
wasn't coming out.
And they were like you know,let's just give it a minute,
it'll be fine.
And I'm just sitting there likeblissed out.
I just had a baby and all of asudden she's like well, you push
(33:21):
again.
And so I push a little bit.
She's like nothing's happening.
And then like one minute passesand then there was this
ginormous gush and I was like,oh cool, the placenta came out.
And I just hear her startyelling and I was losing so much
fluid and blood like it waslike gushing out of me and the
placenta still wasn't coming out.
(33:42):
So that's when they realizedthat I had placenta and it was
basically adhered to my body,and so doctors just start
running the room and I startfading and I'm just like I feel
myself pulling back and I can'topen my eyes and I start getting
really thirsty and I just keepbeing like water and I didn't
(34:05):
know what was going on and allof a sudden I can't really feel
much because I had the epidural.
This doctor comes in and myhusband said she was like elbow
deep inside of me yanking myplacenta out.
He was like it was shreds ofyou, just like coming out.
He was like it was insane andthe fluid just kept coming and
so they start like they werecalling her room number and
(34:30):
emergency coming in.
And they came in and theylooked at my husband and they
were like we might have toperform a hysterectomy.
We need your OK for this tosave her life.
And he was like what he's like?
They were like we need your OKand he's like OK and he brings
Ro to me and I kissed hergoodbye and they wheel me off
immediately to surgery and theyhad to perform a DNC and put a
(34:54):
balloon in and gauze and I had athree bag blood transfusion and
I had a near death experienceon the operating table.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Oh, my God.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
It was freaking crazy , yeah.
And then it was over in 20minutes and I was in recovery
and everything was done.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Oh, my gosh.
Do you remember that?
Speaker 3 (35:15):
I remember everything .
Oh my gosh, yeah, I remember thenear death experience for me
was I felt myself like reallyleaving and I was like, oh, I
can go now, ok, great.
And I realized that I had achoice.
I was like, I think I'm good, Ithink I'm like ready to go, and
(35:36):
then all of a sudden, Iremember we had just redone our
will because I wanted to have itdone before she was born.
I was like, oh, it'll be fine,like Ro and Conor are taking
care of I just redid the will,like it'll be good.
And then I saw him and I sawher like vision of them and I
was like, no, I want to be alive, I want to be alive, I want to
(35:57):
be, and I just I have childrenright now.
Saying it, I just kept repeatingit in my head over and over and
over again and then I feltmyself like come back into my
body and then they were wheelingme into recovery right after
that.
Oh, my gosh, wow, yeah, I'm notstill like have a choice.
Yeah, you like do I want to behere?
And for me, I had a lot ofissues with, you know, feeling
(36:19):
suicidal when I was young,starting in seventh grade, and
so life had always been reallyhard for me and I never felt
like I really wanted to be hereand it was so interesting in
that moment.
And, of course, like rightafter giving birth, I become a
mother and that's when I get tochoose, like, do you want to be
here or not?
And I was like, yeah, no, I gotto be here.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
It was all for her.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
It was all for her, yeah so it was nuts.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
I didn't get this far in your story.
Oh, on your podcast, whoa.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
Yeah, yeah.
And the other thing is thatI've learned in my research
since this happened is that alot of IVF moms have placental
issues and placenta accretia.
So the maternal mortality ratesare pretty high Not like 75% of
(37:22):
IVF moms, but high is inprobably 5-10%.
I don't know, yeah, but peopleare not talking about it.
It's midwives and nurses thatare basically word of mouth
sharing this and theirexperiences are seeing like so
many IVF moms have theseplacental issues.
And Ro was just in the hospitalin August.
(37:44):
She had a cancerous tumor inher stomach the size of a
grapefruit and had to have itremoved and our oncologist said
that it could be from IVF.
Oh my, god.
Yeah, so IVF is screwing withnature and so they're seeing a
lot of abnormalities withplacentas and in children,
(38:06):
because there's just somethingoff when you start messing with
it.
That causes these issues.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Yeah, I know there's like three different kind of
like levels of accretia, but Ican't like think of the exact
words, like was yours?
Like level three?
Speaker 3 (38:28):
I don't know.
Honestly, I didn't even knowwhat placenta accretia was until
like two months ago.
All they said was likebasically your placenta was
stuck to your body and theythought they said this could
have happened because the babywas like in the canal for so
long and she basically likepushed it against your body,
(38:50):
which maybe, but when I starteddoing research it just was like
so common with IVF mom.
So yeah, I don't know whatdegree it was.
I mean, maybe the hospitalknows, but I know that I'm very
high risk.
It's very likely to happenagain.
It could potentially be muchworse the second time.
So we're kind of in the stagesof one do we want to have
(39:12):
another kid?
Because if it's that risky, Idon't want to die, obviously.
And two, if we do do it, whatis our support system look like?
So I would go back to the samehospital because they clearly
know what they're doing andhandled everything so amazingly
and I feel very safe there.
But I think I would basicallysay like you have to have
(39:32):
transfusion ready, emergencyready, like if anything were to
happen.
The whole team is there andprepared, because it sounds like
a lot of moms who do end upeither, like I know a mom here
she's the one that told me aboutplacenta accretia and just all
the different specialists.
She was in a coma for 10 days.
They were like yeah, she's notgoing to make it.
(39:53):
And she ended up making it.
Her daughter's 14 now.
But it sounds like the moms whogo into comas don't make it or
have just like really severe,you know 10 bag transfusion,
like crazy stuff.
People just aren't prepared andso if you have a team that's
prepared and they know to lookfor it, then you're obviously in
a much better situation.
(40:14):
So yeah where we are is justwe're like in dialogue currently
of what that looks like.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Yeah, and oftentimes they don't know about the
accretia until it's time and youonly have like one to two
minutes to save the mom you know, yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
We just had a accretia mom on sharing her
story but they found it reallyearly and like the hospital that
she goes to, like the doctor islike that's his specialty.
It was kind of beautiful, butalso really scary.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Yeah, hers was really severe, it was in her bladder.
Bladder I had grown into herbladder.
Speaker 3 (40:56):
Yeah, I don't know how all that works.
Yeah, I'm going to listen tothat episode.
I'm really curious to hear herstory, yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
That one was wild.
I have a question.
So I know that you said likeyour water broke and then you
like went to the hospital andlike they said that you didn't
really have any fluid, like wasanyone worried about that part?
Or like was it kind of okay?
Speaker 3 (41:21):
Yeah.
So everything looked fine.
Her heartbeat was fine, myheartbeat was fine.
They didn't feel like we wereat immediate risk for infection.
They were like yeah, it's been48 hours, like that's not ideal,
you don't have fluid left, butshe seems fine, or the baby
seems totally fine and you'regood.
So they said you know, we'renot in a rush, but you do need
(41:43):
to come in today.
And I was like okay, so that'sgood.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
Yeah, I feel like here they would have just been
like C-section, yeah, by the way.
So your hospital sounds more alittle more on the holistic side
.
Speaker 3 (41:59):
I've heard that quite a bit.
They're like I can't believeyou had a vaginal birth and I'm
like really.
And they're like, yeah, that isa C-section almost everywhere.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Yeah, that's how I was feeling.
I'm like the no fluid, thebeing in labor for so long, the
like, failure to progress, likeis what you think that was going
on.
That's like everything wascoming out of my mind was like a
C-section, a C-section, but Imean, I'm so happy that you got
your vaginal birth.
Speaker 3 (42:27):
Me too.
Yeah Well, and that's the thingis.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
I didn't need a.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
C-section, yeah, and so I mean you guys know the
rates of C-section areskyrocketing and I don't think
that we're looking at enough ofwhat's going on in women's
bodies to say is this actuallynecessary?
Yeah, you know, like emergencyC-sections exist for a reason.
I'm totally here for it.
I'm not like anti-do them, Ijust think that, like I
(42:54):
obviously didn't need one, manywomen, in my case, are going to
have it.
Many women with elite procedureand scar tissue are going to
have it, and I just wish we wereasking more questions and doing
better intake so that weunderstood where people are.
And then these conversationsare so important, like who knows
who's listening to this whomight have a mom who they're
(43:16):
going to give a C-section to,and she's like wait, she had
elite procedure, check her scartissue, and then it's totally
avoidable.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
But it's not like Western medicine is not throwing
millions of dollars to test andlike to research on this stuff,
so it relies on people like ushaving these conversations,
which is why I feel open to justtalking about this, though I
might scare people.
This is the only way we canshare this information at this
point.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
Yeah, which you've really brought like a lot of
important conversations up inthis podcast, and I'm really
thankful for that because I feellike, like we know, that
C-section rates are skyrocketing.
If you watch the business ofbeing born, they're done during
the hours of 4pm and 10pm sodoctors can get home to their
(44:06):
families.
They're not done on Christmasor 4th of July.
We know and this is not tryingto like you know C-sections are
there for a reason, but there'sother options, other ways too.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
So okay, you go to recovery After all this, your
near-death experience.
What happens after that?
Speaker 3 (44:39):
I mean, I was elated, I was like my baby is so cute,
I'm alive.
I hadn't processed.
Obviously I was in shock.
I was in shock for a few weeksand, like I said, my body's
really sensitive, so theepidural like really took a toll
on me.
I didn't feel like I was here,like physically here, fully
(45:01):
landed, or maybe that's becauseI had a near-death experience
and so it took a while for, like, my soul to come back into my
body.
I don't know.
But even the first night wecame home, we stayed in the
hospital for two nights afterand then the first night we came
home, I didn't even know, Ididn't, I wasn't with my child.
That night, connor took Ro andslept with her on the couch so
that I could sleep, and I didn'tknow that until a couple months
(45:25):
ago.
He was like, yeah, that firstnight with Ro was so special for
me.
And I was like, oh, yeah, he'slike, yeah, I wish just the two
of us Excuse me.
He's like you don't remember.
And I said what are you talkingabout?
I slept with Ro, we co-sleptfor four months.
And he's like babe, yes, andthe first night I took her and
we slept on the couch becauseyou needed to sleep because you
hadn't slept in so long and youhad just gone through something
(45:48):
really horrible.
So I wanted you to sleep.
I didn't even know that.
So I think I was, you know.
Just I wasn't here and then Ialso I had nine stitches and the
trauma from the placenta andthings being shredded out.
It was pretty brutal on my bodyand so, yeah, my recovery was
(46:10):
pretty rough.
Thank God, my husband's momcalled my brother when I was
going into surgery and was like,hey, you need to get here.
She might not make it.
And so my brother and his wifegot on a plane that night and
they were in the hospital at 730am the next morning.
I mean, I gave birth at 930 pmand they were in the hospital at
(46:32):
730 am the next day and thenthey stayed with us for a week.
My husband's mom was there fora week.
So we had a lot of support Ibarely had to get.
I also had the most amazingdoula and she did a ton of like
postpartum cooking and checkingus and we have all the best
friends and family.
So that was amazing and I'm soglad that I had support and we
(46:54):
already had a ton of mealscooked and I tried to do first
40 days in a lot of ways just tobe nourished and stay warm and
all of that.
But yeah, I was waddling andbleeding a lot and my husband
was changing me and it waspretty bad and then I ended up
getting really constipated.
Here's another little nugget ofinformation for you guys
(47:18):
Lactation balls are not thatgreat.
They can cause horrificconstipation.
No, the oats and the yeast areknown to make you extremely
constipated, which I did notknow, and they actually don't
really help lactation.
I talked to my lactationconsultant about this.
If you wanna follow her, she'sMilkmasters on Instagram.
(47:42):
She's the smartest woman I'veever met, anyways.
So I was doing these lactationballs crazy.
I ended up getting reallyconstipated and I was so
constipated one day I pushed sohard I think I already had the
prolapse, but I made theprolapse so bad and then I ended
(48:04):
up in the emergency room acouple days later.
I was in so much pain I hadwhat is it called when the stool
is stuck Impact Impacted.
Yeah, I had like impact.
So basically, I had a bunch ofpoop stuck in my stomach.
I couldn't poop, I wasextremely constipated and I had
a prolapse and so I was feelingtissue come out of my vagina and
(48:27):
I was just in extreme pain, andso that made the healing so
much worse, and I'm stilldealing with the healing from
the prolapse.
But yeah, it was really brutal.
So there's just like a lot ofthings compounding, literally
and figuratively on top of eachother and at the same time I got
back into movement prettyquickly.
(48:48):
I love working out.
I worked out my whole pregnancy.
I've been an athlete my wholelife and so I was in the gym
three or four weeks postpartumjust like stretching and moving
and that felt really good for meand just making sure my
nutrition was good and I was ina really good place.
Ro was actually sleeping reallywell I think co-sleeping went
(49:09):
really well for us until she hither four-month sleep regression
and then she basically was upevery one to two hours until two
weeks ago.
She slept 11 hours two nightsago.
Speaker 1 (49:23):
Praise.
I was very scared.
Speaker 3 (49:25):
I thought something bad happened.
Speaker 1 (49:26):
Yeah, when you wake up in a panic, I'm still asleep.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
I'm like looking on the monitor, crazy person.
But yeah, and so that afterfour months like four to seven
months I had a really badpostpartum depression, really
bad anxiety, really horrible,terrible thoughts, and yeah,
that was a really scary time andit was really amazing.
(49:51):
Again, my husband is sowonderful.
He it was a couple of dayswhere I was being a total psycho
bitch and I was like screamingto him and just being really
irrational and kind of out ofcontrol and it's just not how we
are.
And at first he was like thefuck, like why being like this?
And kind of yelling back at meand it was the whole thing.
(50:11):
And then he came to me oneafternoon.
He's like, hey, this feels alot like IVF.
And I was like does, and Irealized like my hormones were
just so out of whack and I wasso tired that it was just
crushing me.
And so I immediately reached outto our birth coach, emily
Stanwick, and I was like, hey,this is what's going on, I'm not
(50:35):
okay.
And so we talked througheverything and she was super
supportive and I just startedsharing with other people what I
was dealing with and it wassuper validating because so many
moms obviously deal with thatand it just really helped for me
to realize that I wasn't crazy.
And then I was going through,obviously, exhaustion and then a
huge hormone swing and shiftand all of that, and so I came
(50:59):
out of that around seven, sevenand a half months and I've been
pretty stable since then.
I do have a hard time.
I had got my period back ataround four or five months as
well and I do notice that aroundmy period I do feel those like
intense hormone swings more thannormal, but other than that I
feel pretty stable and I'msleeping more now.
(51:21):
So that's been really helpful.
Speaker 2 (51:23):
That's good, and sleep will give you a good mind
fuck for sure.
And you didn't even sleep atall during your tail end of your
pregnancy Exactly.
I am so surprised, I don't know.
Wow, I don't think I could havefunctioned or lived and look at
you Thanks.
Speaker 1 (51:44):
He's back.
We actually just interviewed amom who she has a support group
for moms in that four to sixmonth period Because she said
it's just, your hormones arejust all over the place and
(52:04):
that's the time where peoplestop checking in on you.
Speaker 3 (52:08):
Yeah, so, yeah, that's interesting that that all
happened at that four monthmark, totally yeah, and I think
that's why it's so important tojust be OK with asking for help.
We have really good friends,their baby.
He was born and he was blue andnot moving and ended up in the
NICU for 10 days and now he's onoxygen, he's home, he's doing
(52:31):
great and he's not sleeping andit's just been a really really
hard month for them.
And I keep reaching out to herand I'm like ask for help, tell
me if you want me to come overand hold the baby while you
sleep.
I will come over and cleanwhile you hold the baby.
Just ask for help.
I said it will make you crazyand you are not crazy and you
(52:55):
need to be OK Sending out yourSOS signal to all your people
and be like.
You guys need to show the fuckup right now.
This is not OK and I don'tthink that we're good enough at
doing that of being like yo guysall hands on deck, I'm not well
, like I'm not well.
And it's not just aroundpregnancy, I think it's just
women in general.
We're not good at asking forhelp.
(53:17):
We're not good at saying likethis is not OK.
I need you to physically behere, get on a plane, fly here,
show up at my house and takecare of me because I'm not OK.
And I've just realized that isthe most profound thing that you
could do for someone is to showup for them and to basically
barge into their house and belike, no, I'm here.
(53:37):
And I wish that more people hadthat and felt that, because I
think we'd all have a lot bettertime healing and feeling
supported and feeling whole andnot going down these paths that
make us just feel wrong and badand crazy.
Speaker 1 (53:53):
Yeah, yeah.
I feel like our generation isdefinitely like getting better
at asking for help and justtalking about all these things.
So it's going to be reallyinteresting about Gen Z and Gen
A, like hopefully they will beable to talk about their
feelings better in general.
Speaker 2 (54:15):
Yeah, yeah, so scary.
Yeah, I had a really hard time.
I feel like a lot of peopledidn't really show up for me on
Baby Number Two and I was justtalking to Liz about this Like
there were very minimal peoplewho actually showed up for me on
Baby Number Two.
It's like the excitement justisn't there.
(54:36):
The second round, and I wasn'tOK and I felt like I was just
screaming until some blank heresometimes.
So, yep, I love your attitudeabout that.
Keep doing that.
Make sure you have that forBaby Number Two too, if you
decide to go that way.
But yeah, I feel like that'soverlooked.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
Yeah, and isn't it crazy?
Because, from what I hear,going from one to two is insane
so you would think that morepeople would show up when
there's more tiny humans to takecare of.
Speaker 2 (55:10):
I know, I know I didn't feel that way.
Yeah, I don't know.
I feel like I have to kind ofprocess this after we get off
too, I don't know.
But thank you so much forsharing a lot of that, do you
(55:36):
like?
Speaker 3 (55:36):
how are you feeling now, 10 months postpartum, and
yeah, I feel like I reallystarted to feel like myself
again around nine, nine and ahalf months so pretty recently
and I run my own company.
I have 13 people on my team, Ihave a lot of responsibility,
I'm the breadwinner of ourfamily and I think that I didn't
(55:59):
take enough time off maternityleave.
I basically went back to workafter six weeks and I swear to
God I will never do that again.
I'm saying four months on thenext one.
Speaker 2 (56:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (56:10):
So I learned a lot, but I'm really feeling like
myself.
I feel like really good in mybody.
I'm still dealing with theprolapse.
I just started this amazing newpelvic floor program.
I've come a long way and Istill feel the tissue and want
to do a lot more strengtheningbefore I get pregnant again, but
(56:32):
I feel physically so strong andso clear and I feel like one of
my superpowers now isregulating my nervous system and
it feels really nice because Iwas never good at that and I
feel like my daughter has beensuch a catalyst in me really
owning how powerful I am and theabilities I have to navigate
(56:55):
hard things and to make surethat I take care of myself,
because that's a directreflection of how I'm taking
care of her and how I can showup for her.
And I mean you guys know this,when you have kids it becomes
your why for everything you doand there's so much more on the
line, and so I feel like she'sreally called me forward in
(57:16):
being the best version of myselfand owning my power and being
unafraid to go after things anddream big.
And it feels really good and Iknow that I'm in my purpose as a
mother and so it's really coolto be able to continue living my
life and building this companyand going after my dreams and
doing things that really matterto me and really connecting
(57:38):
deeply with my husband andcontinuing to grow our
relationship, while also beingreally present for her and
present in my body.
Yeah, so things feel reallyreally good now and that's
really exciting.
Speaker 2 (57:52):
That's awesome.
I can see the glow in your face, so.
Speaker 1 (57:59):
Sorry.
What kind of things do you dofor your mental health?
You talked a little bit aboutregulating your nervous system.
Tell me more.
Speaker 3 (58:15):
Yeah, I mean, I feel like meditation and breathwork
has been really important for me, and also I just really try and
pause a lot.
I have been a very anxiousperson, very controlling and
perfectionist, and so thosetendencies, when you're really
tired, come back, and they comeback really strong.
(58:36):
And so I think that one of thebest things that I've learned to
do is, when I feel like areaction that feels really
emotional or just kind ofirrational, I try and pause and
be like what's going on rightnow before I respond, and that's
really helped me sort of noticelike, okay, what do I need in
(58:59):
this moment?
Because that's a veryirrational response to this
thing, and so what do I actuallyneed?
And so then I'm able to checkin with myself and realize, oh,
I have not had a long time inthree days.
I need to go and take an hourfor myself and go for a walk or
workout or take a bath or callmy girlfriends and just catch up
(59:21):
.
I need to do things for me, andso I think that's been really,
really helpful.
And then also asking for helpand allowing my husband to be
the parent and take care of herdaughter and show up like he was
so incredible, and he stilldoes this from time to time when
I need it.
But in the beginning, one ofthe best pieces of advice we got
(59:43):
was that he takes the baby inthe morning for two hours while
I get really good restful sleep,and that was huge for me.
It was usually the best sleepthat I was going to get and I
was uninterrupted, and then Iwould come out and he would have
breakfast ready for me and itwas incredible.
(01:00:05):
And so I think continuing toallow him to show up for me as
much as possible in that waywhether it was cleaning or
cooking or going to the grocerystore he knows that I need help
and I can't do everythinganymore because I have to worry
about a little person who can'tbe carted around all the time.
And even tomorrow I'm going toPilates at 7 am, so he's going
(01:00:28):
to have Ro for two hours in themorning.
He's like I'm so happy that youget to go to Pilates and I
didn't ask like, hey, can I go.
I put it on the calendar and Iwas like so you're watching Ro
for two hours and then the nannywill be here and then you can
do what you need to do, and thenalso having help like having a
nanny has really, really helped.
She's here five days a week forsix or seven hours a day.
(01:00:53):
I try and get all my work donethen so that I can be present
with my daughter before andafter, and then obviously I'm
with her much of the night.
Not as much anymore becauseshe's learning to sleep, oh God,
but I was up every hour withher for 10 months.
So, yeah, I think that's beenreally helpful too.
Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
That's awesome, I love that.
Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
So where can our listeners find you?
Speaker 3 (01:01:18):
Yeah, I want Instagram at KellyTMore and our
website issoulfireproductionscocom, but my
DMs are open.
So if anyone has questions orwants clarification on anything,
I'm totally here to help andany resources that I can provide
.
Speaker 2 (01:01:36):
Thank you so much for sharing your story.
I'm happy that I heard more ofit, because I guess I just
didn't get to the pepper.
There's so much more.
Speaker 3 (01:01:48):
Thank you, thank you guys, for having me.
I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (01:01:51):
Thank you, we'll see you next episode.
Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
Thank you for joining us on this episode of the
Golden Hour Birth Podcast.
We hope you've enjoyed ourdiscussion and found it
insightful and beneficial.
Remember, the Golden Hour BirthPodcast is made possible by the
support of listeners like you.
If you appreciate the contentwe bring you each week, consider
leaving us a review on yourfavorite podcast platform or
(01:02:16):
sharing the show with yourfriends and family.
Your support helps us reachmore people and continue
creating valuable episodes.
If you have any questions,suggestions or topics you'd like
us to cover in future episodes,we'd love to hear from you.
You can reach us on our website, www.
Goldenhourbirthpodcast, orconnect with us on social media.
(01:02:38):
We value your feedback and wantto make sure that we're
delivering the content you wantto hear.
Before we sign off, we'd liketo express our gratitude to our
incredible guests who joined ustoday.
We are honored that they trustus enough to be so open and
vulnerable.
We're grateful for their timeand willingness to share their
stories with us.
If you're interested in takingthe conversation further with us
(01:03:00):
, join us on our Facebook group,the Golden Hour Birth Circle.
We'll be back next week withanother exciting episode, so be
sure to tune in.
Until then, stay golden andremember to take care of
yourself.
We'll catch you on the nextepisode of the Golden Hour Birth
Podcast.
Bye.
Have you ever felt like something wasn't quite
right during your pregnancy, butfelt dismissed by doctors and
others when you voiced yourconcerns?
In this episode we speak withKelly, a mom who went through
IVF and had a gut feeling thather daughter wanted to come
early.
Despite her intuition andshared feelings, she was brushed
off by medical professionalsand told that doesn't happen for
(00:22):
first time moms.
Kelly's story highlights theimportance of listening to your
instincts as a mother and beingyour own advocate, especially
when dealing with a complexbirth.
You'll hear how Kelly'spersistence ultimately led to
discovering a surprising reasonbehind her prolonged and
difficult labor, and how aseemingly unrelated medical
(00:42):
procedure years earlier almostcaused the catastrophic outcome.
Join us as Kelly courageouslyshares the details of her
harrowing birth experience tobring greater awareness to
placental issues faced by manyIVF moms.
Her story is a powerfulreminder to trust our intuition
as mothers and keep askingquestions when something doesn't
(01:05):
feel right.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Before we dive into today's heartfelt conversations,
I'd like to announce thisepisode is made possible by Baby
Tula, a company that believesin something we talk about a lot
here that showcasing eachmother's distinct and unique
story has the power to inspireother mothers to do things in a
way that feels right for them.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
If you didn't know, Baby Tula makes these beautiful
baby carriers in nearly everycolor, design and fabric that
you could think of Intricatelyhand woven fabrics, clean linen,
neutrals or fun colorfulpatterns.
If you were looking forsomething that makes you feel
more like you after having ababy, there's Tula.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
I've had the pleasure of working with Tula Carrier
and let me tell you theirdedication to supporting mothers
aligns perfectly with ourmission here.
They want mothers to feelempowered, comfortable and
confident in their role.
They have a program called theFringe that selects families
across the world who havebeautiful stories to share about
their parenting journey, frombefore their little ones were
(02:05):
born, through the early stagesof babyhood and how they grew as
a family together.
If you wanna be inspired byreal families who are finding
ways to create a new world fortheir children, visit their site
, check out their beautifulcarriers and sign up for their
email.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
BabyTulacom, where self love doesn't end at
parenthood, it just begins.
Thanks for tuning in.
Now let's dive in today'sinspiring story, the Golden Hour
Birth Podcast, a podcast aboutreal birth stories and creating
connections through our sharedexperiences Childbirth isn't
just about the child.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
It's about the person who gave birth their lives,
their wisdom and theirempowerment.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
We're Liz and Natalie , the Golden Hour Birth Podcast,
and we're here to laugh withyou, cry with you and hold space
for you.
Welcome to the Golden HourBirth Podcast.
I am your co-host, liz.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
And I'm your co-host, natalie, and tonight we have
Kelly on.
Kelly is a mama of one livingoutside of Denver, Colorado, and
owns Soulfire Productions, sothanks so much for coming on
tonight, kelly.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Thank you for having me.
It's late.
We should obviously be goingoff.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Yeah, we're exhausted working moms.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yeah, exactly yes.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
So if you want, to go ahead and just tell listeners
about you and your fam.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Yeah, so we live just outside of Denver, colorado.
My husband Connor and I, and mydaughter named Robbie.
She was born in January, soshe's 10 months right now and
yeah, we both kind of came fromthe podcast industry and met
through each other's shows andlived.
I was in LA when he was in SanDiego when we met and then we
(03:49):
moved to Colorado and yeah,we're here now and growing our
family and have a couple dogsand live on a mountain and live
in the good life.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
That's so good, love it.
So when did you guys kind ofstart talking about kids, or
what did that look like?
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Day one.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
We met Same.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
You know, it's a virtual love story.
You guys.
So we met over Instagram.
I binged his podcast andconnected on Instagram and then
we talked for like six or eightweeks before we met in person.
And I always tell everyone Ifell in love with him before I
ever met him and we just knewthere was something different
(04:34):
about this connection.
And I'm 35, he's 36.
And we were like 30 and 31 whenthis happened.
So you know, we had done thething.
We've dated a lot of people, wehad kind of gotten through and
we were like OK, we're donescrewing around, like are you
the person or not?
And so we were just veryforthcoming from day one, and so
when we met in person on ourfirst date, we had this very
cute picnic at the beach atsunset and you know, so romantic
(04:56):
, and we were sitting on thebeach and we just were just
mouth diarrhea all over eachother all the things, and it was
like what do you want?
What do you want?
How do you feel about this,what are your values?
And one of the things that wetalked about was that he was
born without vas deferens and sohe couldn't get someone
pregnant naturally, and so wehad the fertility treatment
(05:19):
conversation on date one.
And although that was not idealfor a lot of reasons, for me it
was just great because I knew,ok, this is what I'm getting
into, I get to do a ton ofresearch, look into what this
looks like.
I knew that I could getpregnant, so I knew that I was
good on my end and I knew thatthat would help our chances as
(05:42):
well going into IVF.
And so I just started doing aton of research from the very
beginning.
And then, when we moved from LAto Colorado, I knew that we had
CCRM here, which is, you knowoh, world-renowned fertility
clinic that I really don't like,but their rates are super high.
And so we started meeting withdoctors immediately and just
(06:05):
getting in the lay of the land,figuring out what that was going
to look like and just prepping.
So when we were ready, we'dkind of have everything squared
away.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
So I didn't know that part.
So I work in a fertility clinicand they do the Tessie or PESA
surgery where they kind of go insurgically.
So that's not an option withthe vas deferens.
I know the vas deferens makethe sperm, but is there.
There's no other way.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
No, as far as I know, that's the only way, because I
thought initially that we wouldmaybe be able to do IUI and just
be less invasive.
But according to CCRM, theycan't get enough sperm to do IUI
because of lack of vas deferens, I guess, or the way the sperm
(06:58):
are and so you have to do IVF.
It's really your only option.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
OK.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Wow, ok.
So I have like to go doresearch now too.
I'm like whoa.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
If you want to come back and tell me something
different so that I can not dothat for baby number two, I'm
very here for it, but I'm prettysure that's what we have to do.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Yeah, no, I totally probably agree.
I'm just like I didn't knowabout this, so I'm just
interested now.
And we can cut this out orwhatever.
I'm just like what?
So my mind is spinning that way.
So yeah, so once you did youguys just go through the one
round of IVF and then got thegreat news.
(07:39):
Yeah, we were super lucky.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
So we went through our retrieval.
We got the sperm, we got theeggs.
We were super lucky.
We ended up with five embryosand so we did our first round in
April of last year and gotpregnant immediately, which was
so great.
So, yeah, it was like I said.
(08:02):
I think for us it was betterbecause I knew that I could get
pregnant and it wasn't a femalefertility issue, which obviously
I hate that for anyone, andoftentimes it's the man.
I mean you work in a fertilityclinic.
How many times is it the guythat comes in that's actually
having some of the issues?
So, I learned a lot in thatexperience, but for us it was
(08:23):
pretty seamless and I was reallygrateful.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
That's good, that's awesome.
So what was pregnancy like?
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Well, you know, not my favorite experience of all
time.
So I had the worst time doingIVF, like I was suicidal.
I was super disconnected frommy body.
The hormonal swings for me werereally, really intense.
(08:51):
I'm just very sensitive.
I haven't been on birth controlsince I was 27.
I'm very connected to my body,I'm very holistic, and so I'm
just really self-aware.
And so I think that I just hada lot harder of a time.
And so you have to stay on IVFmedication until you're 10 weeks
pregnant to make sure that yourbody holds pregnancy, and so
(09:15):
it's the pregnancy hormones plusIVF hormones, and that was just
so much for me.
And so I mean there were dayswhere I just felt like I was not
a functioning part of societyand was just sleeping and just
having a really hard time.
And then, once I got deeper inthe second trimester and into
the third, a lot of the hormoneskind of leveled out, but I was
(09:39):
uncomfortable and I just feltlike my body struggled in a lot
of ways.
I was in pain, I had a lot ofbrown ligament pain.
There was a lot of things goingon.
And then, once we got towardsthe end of pregnancy, I ended up
being in labor for six weeksand we found out later what was
(10:00):
going on, but during that timewe really didn't know.
And so I was going into thehospital and trying to find out
if there was something wrong orif I was in preterm labor, and
they just kept saying everythingwas good and I had planned an
unmitigated home birth in a tubwith a midwife and a doula, and
we were going the whole thing,and so there was just a lot of
(10:23):
back and forth and I would be inlabor for four or five hours a
day, having contractions everyone and a half to two minutes,
like okay, and then it wouldjust stop and we were like what
is going on?
And that just kept going on andso we finally induced do you
want me to go into that or doyou want to ask me questions
(10:44):
before?
Speaker 1 (10:45):
I next.
I have one question During yourpregnancy and going through
that hard time, did you doanything to manage your mental
state?
Oh, I did everything.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Yeah, yeah, I'm so lucky.
I'm very resourced and I wasresourced before I got pregnant
and I did that on purpose for alot of reasons, and I always
tell everyone like I'm so gladthat I had practitioners and
support and I've been in therapyfor a lot of my life and I know
how to ask for help, because ifI hadn't, I don't know how
people do this alone.
(11:17):
I don't know how people do thiswithout help.
Like I was so out of my mind,so disconnected.
There were moments where I havea really amazing group of
friends and there's five of usand you know we talk all the
time on zoom and reallyconnected.
We know each other so well.
And I remember I was in I'm inmy office right now and I was in
(11:37):
the couch to my left and I wasin the fetal position on the
phone with my friend, Like Idon't want to be with Connor, I
hate this.
Like why am I even doing this?
I don't even want to have a kid, I'm not even attracted to him.
My hormones were so all overthe place and they were telling
me step by step this is why youlove your husband, this is why
(11:58):
you're having kids.
And I was in therapy and I wasgetting acupuncture and I was
doing, you know, prenatalmassage, and my eating is
incredible and you know I wasvery well nourished and taken
care of and so, yeah, I'm reallyglad that I knew how to ask for
help.
And with all of that it wasstill so hard.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Wow, yeah, I really don't know how people go through
it alone either.
I mean those hormones and themedication.
It's, it's hard.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Yeah, and it's like look, some of us have to do that
and the rates of people havingto do for any type of fertility
treatment are increasing and Idon't.
Sometimes I feel bad, likemaybe I shouldn't tell this
story, because I feel like a lotof it is very negative.
But I also didn't hear anyhonest experiences like this
before I went through it, and soI feel like I got hit by a
(12:52):
freaking truck when maybe, if Ihad heard a story like mine,
that was hey, this is going tobe hard.
Make sure you're resourced,make sure you talk to your
partner before, make sure youguys are in a really good place,
make sure you know how to askfor help.
I mean, I went to my fertilityclinic, to my doctor, and said
this was when we were doing theretrieval, and I said I think I
(13:13):
was on Lupron, which basicallysends you into menopause, and I
was like, hey, this is making mefeel suicidal, like I am unwell
, this is not okay.
And she was like, oh, I'm sosorry.
Like you're too far into thetreatment, we can't do anything
for you.
She didn't say hey, are you intherapy?
Hey, have you gone toacupuncture?
Hey, like, maybe let's have aconversation.
(13:35):
This isn't okay.
It was like, oh sorry.
And I remember leaving therelike what the fuck just happened
?
What?
How do you know if I have helpor support or not?
And so I just started thinkingabout all the people that go in
there who don't have thatsupport, who don't have a
partner like mine, who's amazingand connected and can you know,
hold space for me when I'mlosing my shit.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
And it really upset me and I feel like that's just
sort of the the medical industryas a whole.
And so I think that if we canhave honest conversations like
this and say, yeah, this is notgoing to be fun, like no one
wants to go through IVF, itsucks, and here are different
ways you can support yourselfand be honest and know that
you're not crazy, it's okay andthis isn't forever, and
(14:19):
hopefully you get a baby at theend.
And you look at them and you'relike I guess I'll do it again.
You're so freaking cute.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Let's do it again.
Yep, yeah.
I'm glad you mentioned all that, because we are both in Dula
training and the program that wechose has a like very
comprehensive fertility support,so you can either focus on
(14:48):
fertility Dula, birth Dula orpostpartum or all three so it
was it's?
Yeah, it's a really goodprogram, yeah, so hopefully it
will help some people.
I know.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Yeah, I've never been more aware it takes women like
you who are good at holdingspace, who help women and
partners feel safe and who areeducated so that anything that's
thrown your way, at yourclient's way, you guys are
resourced.
And I think that most peoplejust don't feel safe and they
don't feel like they have aplace to go to say like, hey,
(15:25):
I'm like losing it, am I okay?
Yeah, and so I think the workthat you're doing is really,
really important.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Yeah.
Thank you, I never knew aboutlike a fertility Dula.
And then seeing the programthat I'm in and being like oh,
wow, like there's fertilityDulas out there, like that is
amazing, because I'm seeing itfrom both sides and I'm like
there, you're right, like thereneeds to be more support while
you're in it and I like my hearthurts for like the people who
(15:57):
feel like they need to hide it,that like their infertility
treatments or things like that.
You know like there's like theshame around it, but I just like
that sucks.
You know that you, becausepeople are asking you like when
are you going to have a baby,and then you can't tell them.
You know there's like just yeah, and then what if it doesn't
(16:20):
work?
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Yeah, you go through all these rounds and you know
there's just so much stigma andshame around if you can't have a
baby, if you can't have a babylike naturally, without support
of medicine, and I just feellike we have to do a better job
of not shaming people and notmaking people feel like they
failed, because I don't knowabout you guys, but I don't feel
(16:44):
like I did something wrong tohave to do IVF.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
And you know that's also part of the, the shame.
I think my husband feels that Idon't have to do IVF.
I could get pregnant, truly, ifit was with someone else.
And so then he's caring andhe's watching me suffer and he's
like this is my fault and hedidn't do anything.
It's not like he cut his vastdeference out of his own
(17:11):
fricking body or, like you know,did drugs to a point where
something happened and well,that was a dumb decision, like
he was just born like that.
And I think that we just needto have more honest
conversations so that peoplerealize there's nothing wrong
with you, like you're not bad,you're not broken, you didn't do
anything wrong.
This is just a part of some ofour journeys and it's harder for
(17:34):
some than others.
I have a friend who has beentrying to get pregnant for a
year and a half now.
You were just at coffee theother day and she was like I
know this sounds bad, but Iswear to God, if this girl gets
pregnant before me, I'm going tolose my shit.
And she ended up gettingpregnant before her and she got
(17:57):
pregnant really easily and itwas like an oopsie, you know.
And so then, someone who'sgoing through fertility
treatments is like shit, likewhat did I do wrong to deserve
this, you know?
And so there's just thisconstant narrative within us
that there's something wrongwith us.
And then we compare ourselves,because we all have
comparisonitis, because we'restuck on Instagram 24 seven it
feels like everyone's gettingpregnant every seven seconds.
(18:19):
And we're not.
And there's something wrong.
And you know, it's just youcan't win.
And so I think we just need tobe supportive of ourselves,
supportive of those around us,and know that everyone is on
their own path and that's okay.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Yep, I like that.
Everyone's on their own path intheir own journey.
So kind of going back intobeing on and off in labor for
six weeks.
Did that start around like 34weeks or?
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Yeah, it was like 34, between 34 and 35 weeks, I
think, and I don't know what thelaw is for you guys, but in
Colorado we have to be at 37weeks to do a home birth, and so
that's all I cared about.
I was just like you know, Idon't want to have a baby in a
hospital.
I got to get to 37 weeks and sowe were.
I was Thanksgiving and I waslike in the kitchen making
(19:13):
potatoes and I start feelingcontractions Like okay, that's
weird, that's not going tohappen again.
And then they just kept goingand then it just went on from
there.
And it was weird because themidwife and the doula were both
just like what is going on?
And the doula had a lot of redflags and I feel like the
(19:34):
midwife just kind of I amfrustrated looking back at her
lack of knowledge and likelooking into what was going on
because she just never had ananswer for anything.
I went through my entirepregnancy and I was like maybe
ask somebody or I don't know,because everyone I've talked to
(19:55):
since then, every midwife I'vetalked to is like oh yeah, I
would have looked for this thingand I would have asked you
these questions on this intakeform.
Like why didn't you have thisconversation?
I'm like I don't know.
So I felt very alone and I feltkind of crazy.
And at one point I remember itwas the day we ended up inducing
.
It was New Year's Day and I didthe castor oil induction at
(20:17):
home and Connor and I got in thebiggest fight that day.
It was like I took the castoroil and then he decided to tell
me I was losing my mind becausehe was losing his mind.
He's like you've been in laborfor six weeks.
Like no one's in labor for sixweeks.
You're crazy.
And he was like I feel likeyou're making this up, no one is
in labor for six weeks and I'mon the floor screaming and
crying.
I'm losing my mind.
(20:38):
I haven't slept in six weeks.
I'm in labor all the time.
I'm having a baby.
I'm like what is going on?
And it just like it got reallyhard and I just felt like I'm
losing it.
Like maybe I am making this up,maybe, maybe am I pregnant?
Like are we sure?
Like I started thinking aboutall the most irrational things
(20:59):
because it was like it was crazy.
Making it didn't make any sense.
So yeah, it was pretty funny.
I was like I'm not sure, I'mnot sure.
So yeah, it was.
It was pretty funny.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
So, like while you were in labor, like you were
having actual contractions, youwere counting them.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
You were oh yeah, I was timing.
I'm on the phone with the doula.
I'm like, hold on, here comesanother one.
She's like packing her bag,talking me through it, and she's
like, okay, call the midwife.
And that happened like fourtimes where it got like intense
enough, where we were likecalling the team and then we
would just stop and it'd be like, never mind, guys, just kidding
.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
And you would just like oh, my God.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
The whole team ended up coming because my water broke
and I was like really in labor,and I was in the tub.
I labored for I don't know sixor seven hours in our living
room and then they should juststopped again.
And we were like, okay, andthey the whole team was like you
know what?
This is different.
This has gone on longer.
(22:00):
It's been more intense.
Your water broke.
Maybe your body just needs abreak and wants you to sleep and
we'll pick it back up in themorning.
So we all went to bed at like3am and I continued to have like
random contractions, butnothing intense, and then it's
stalled out until Tuesdayafternoon and the midwife is
like you need to go to thehospital.
Your water broke two days ago.
I'm now concerned.
(22:21):
And I was like, yeah, and I'mconcerned because you don't seem
to know what's going on and Idon't really feel confident with
you.
Yeah, delivering my child.
And so we ended up going to thehospital and they were like,
yeah, you have no fluid left,you need to induce, like you
need to come today.
And so I came home and wepacked up and I just brought my
(22:42):
mind around the fact that thiswas not going to go the way I
wanted and that there was areason it was happening.
And so we went into thehospital that night and luckily,
denver health here is a midwifehospital, and so I got to have
the most amazing experience.
All the midwives were sofantastic.
I never saw a doctor untilafter my daughter was born and
(23:06):
all of the nurses like more thanhalf of them were doulas.
So they were just so on boardwith the home birth and what I
wanted, and they turned off allthe monitors and the sounds and
we had our candles and ourcrystals and the music and they
were like this is the best roomever and I'm like, and so that
(23:27):
part of it I was super gratefulfor.
But yeah, we went in that night, we induced that night.
Nothing happened.
I ended up going into reallysevere back labor.
She was sunny side up and so Iended up having to get an
epidural.
I hadn't slept in like a week.
(23:48):
I couldn't stand, my whole bodywas shaking.
I was like I just like couldn'tdo anything and I was like in
such severe pain and the midwifewas just, you know, talking to
my husband and I and she's likeI'm really concerned for you
Because you're just so you're sofar beyond the pain threshold.
I feel like this is going to bemore traumatic for you if you
(24:11):
don't do this.
And I'm really grateful thatshe was there to support me in
making that decision, because Iwas just so anti epidural, anti
everything, and so I got theepidural and still nothing was
happening.
And we're just like what isgoing on.
I've been four centimetersdilated for six weeks.
(24:32):
I've been in labor for sixweeks.
My water broke two, three daysago and nothing happening.
And they go in and they're likeyou're only half a centimeter
dilated.
And I said what You're lying?
They were like no, we are not.
And I looked at the doodle and Iwas like did our midwife not
(24:53):
know how to do cervical checks?
Like I was like what ishappening?
And so we're just all sittingthere totally stumped, and I go
through three midwives and theyfinally bring in this other
midwife because you know theyare doing shift changes every 12
hours and this woman comes inand she goes I'm going to check
(25:16):
you".
And so she's got her fingersinside of me, she's doing
cervical check and she goes didyou have a leap procedure?
And I said yeah, like 10 yearsago.
And she goes you have a ton ofscar tissue and it's keeping you
from dilating.
I'm going to swipe it with myfinger and you are going to
dilate immediately.
(25:37):
I'm like, okay, so she does itimmediately.
Five centimeters I go.
Kate, can you explain to me whyI thought I was four centimeters
and then you guys told me I washalf a centimeter and now I'm
five centimeters?
She goes because there's twosides basically of your cervix
that you can check.
Your midwife was feeling theside that was open.
(25:58):
The other side was closedthough, and the other side
couldn't open because the scartissue was holding it closed.
She's like so now all of it'sopen, like you're fully open,
open for business.
I'm like, okay, so they flip mydaughter.
I'm five centimeters dilated,everything's moving, and I go
(26:20):
into labor a couple hours later.
I push for an hour and a half.
I'm able to push, I get on allfours.
I'm moving.
It's lovely, as lovely as itcan be on an epidural.
It hurts like hell.
And also I was like okay, I cando this, give birth, and
everything was great and she wasperfect and my husband was able
(26:43):
to catch her.
It was a vaginal delivery, likeall the things, and they were
like this is why you were inlabor for six weeks, because you
had the scar tissue and she wasbasically stuck.
She did want to come six weeksago, she was ready and your body
wouldn't let her.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Oh, my God.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Isn't that nuts?
Yeah, that's.
And none of the other midwiveslike.
So, like the fourth one, shejust was able to feel the scar
tissue yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
She had had patients with that procedure before.
She knew to look for the scartissue.
And she knew because she hadheard like, oh, this girl's been
in labor a lot.
She was like I bet that she hasthis thing that's keeping her
from fully dilating.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Yeah, and the lead procedure is something it's for
HPV.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
Okay, yeah, so it's actually very common.
Yeah, the more research I'vedone, I was actually on a
podcast I can't remember whatit's called, but it's hosted by
a midwife.
A couple weeks ago and I wastalking to her about it and she
did like a ton of research.
She actually went into amidwives group with like 6,000
midwives and shared my story andasked for other people to talk
about it.
This is rampant.
(27:54):
You guys are.
I'm 36.
I don't know how old you are.
You look kind of like my age.
Our generation has gotten somany lead procedures because HPV
is so common that there are somany women that are getting
unnecessary C-sections becausethey're not fully dilating and
no one knows to look for thescar tissue, so they're just
(28:15):
literally giving peopleC-sections.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Oh, my God.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Yeah, it's insane.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
My mind is blown.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Yeah, yeah.
So first of all, don't get alead procedure.
If you have HPV, it usuallyclears on its own.
No one needs this freakingprocedure.
And also, if you've had it,make sure your whole team knows,
because it's a very easy fix.
All you have to do is swipe thescar tissue, yeah, but if people
(28:43):
don't know to look for it andoftentimes people don't even
know to ask if you've had onebecause they don't it's like
birth control.
We didn't know therepercussions until now and
we're like, oh God, it's thesame thing.
So make sure your whole teamknows, make sure they understand
what to do, so that you don'thave that situation.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Yeah, whoa, yeah.
So your daughter was ready tocome at 34 weeks.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Sounds like it, or at least close.
Yeah, like maybe I wasn't readyto give birth at that time, but
my body was definitely warmingup.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Yeah, whoa, so then the scar tissue would stop the
contractions as well, like stoplabor yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Whoa.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
I remember the midwife said to me does it feel
like you're hitting a wall?
And I said that is literallywhat I've been telling everyone
for the last six weeks.
I said I am in labor, I'mhaving contractions, and then it
always feels like I hit a wall.
She's like that's what'shappening.
It's like your body's trying toopen and then it just it stops
because it's being held closed.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Yeah, oh God, I can't .
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
God, I can't believe how quickly you birthed her
after that I know Six weeks andhow.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
he were just like five.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
I know Within seconds , I'm not kidding.
We were like, I was like am Iin the twilight zone?
What is happening?
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Yeah, yeah, that feels like it.
So did your, you know, kind oflike the baby kind of like
starts getting and preparing toLike do you feel like Robbie was
preparing and then like shewould kind of hit the wall as
well?
Speaker 3 (30:26):
I don't, yeah, I mean she was, she was fully grown
and I mean if you saw picturesand I could send you one of my
vagina of her coming out, shehas a full head of hair.
I know she's almost 23 inches,she's an advanced kid.
I feel like she was likeovercooked in there and was like
I'm good, let me out.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
I'm telling you know, this is the other thing and
this is my bone to pick withpeople and pregnant women and
mothers that don't listen to us.
I told everyone she was tryingto come early and every fucking
person I talked to was likeyou're a first time mom, that
doesn't happen.
(31:08):
And I was like I am telling youmy daughter I didn't know as a
girl my kid wants to come out.
They are ready, my body isready.
Like what is happening.
They're like, no, that willnever happen.
So it was so validating for meto be in there and the midwife
be like, yeah, she definitelywanted to come out, like
(31:30):
everything was ready to go andyour body just couldn't let it
happen.
And I just wish that peoplewould listen, because my
intuition was so fricking spoton and I didn't even know what
was going on, but I knew thatsomething was off and I just
felt like no one was listeningto me and they made me feel
stupid.
They made me feel disconnectedfrom my body and my intuition
and it was so frustrating andwho cares, even if she wasn't
(31:54):
going to come early.
I just feel like there needs tobe more validation for how
women feel in their bodies andwhat they're feeling and feel
like is being intuitively guidedwithin them.
I don't know, that was reallyhard for me to grapple with for
a while.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Yeah, I completely understand.
I finally feel like I have thatmother's intuition now and it
took two kids because we were ata doula event the other night
and with all midwives and ourbirthing center in St Louis and
a woman comes in and she's like20 weeks pregnant.
(32:35):
She's like I really want tochange to the birthing center.
I just feel like something'sgiving me vibes like that my OB
just might not be the rightperson for me and I'm like you
already have your intuition.
Stick with it and don't everquestion it.
I love that for you.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
So I get it.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Yeah, yeah, it's real .
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Yeah.
So I gave birth.
The story's not over, guys.
So I gave birth, she was great,everything seemed fine.
And then they were trying to getme to birth the placenta and it
wasn't coming out.
And they were like you know,let's just give it a minute,
it'll be fine.
And I'm just sitting there likeblissed out.
I just had a baby and all of asudden she's like well, you push
(33:21):
again.
And so I push a little bit.
She's like nothing's happening.
And then like one minute passesand then there was this
ginormous gush and I was like,oh cool, the placenta came out.
And I just hear her startyelling and I was losing so much
fluid and blood like it waslike gushing out of me and the
placenta still wasn't coming out.
(33:42):
So that's when they realizedthat I had placenta and it was
basically adhered to my body,and so doctors just start
running the room and I startfading and I'm just like I feel
myself pulling back and I can'topen my eyes and I start getting
really thirsty and I just keepbeing like water and I didn't
(34:05):
know what was going on and allof a sudden I can't really feel
much because I had the epidural.
This doctor comes in and myhusband said she was like elbow
deep inside of me yanking myplacenta out.
He was like it was shreds ofyou, just like coming out.
He was like it was insane andthe fluid just kept coming and
so they start like they werecalling her room number and
(34:30):
emergency coming in.
And they came in and theylooked at my husband and they
were like we might have toperform a hysterectomy.
We need your OK for this tosave her life.
And he was like what he's like?
They were like we need your OKand he's like OK and he brings
Ro to me and I kissed hergoodbye and they wheel me off
immediately to surgery and theyhad to perform a DNC and put a
(34:54):
balloon in and gauze and I had athree bag blood transfusion and
I had a near death experienceon the operating table.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Oh, my God.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
It was freaking crazy , yeah.
And then it was over in 20minutes and I was in recovery
and everything was done.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Oh, my gosh.
Do you remember that?
Speaker 3 (35:15):
I remember everything .
Oh my gosh, yeah, I remember thenear death experience for me
was I felt myself like reallyleaving and I was like, oh, I
can go now, ok, great.
And I realized that I had achoice.
I was like, I think I'm good, Ithink I'm like ready to go, and
(35:36):
then all of a sudden, Iremember we had just redone our
will because I wanted to have itdone before she was born.
I was like, oh, it'll be fine,like Ro and Conor are taking
care of I just redid the will,like it'll be good.
And then I saw him and I sawher like vision of them and I
was like, no, I want to be alive, I want to be alive, I want to
(35:57):
be, and I just I have childrenright now.
Saying it, I just kept repeatingit in my head over and over and
over again and then I feltmyself like come back into my
body and then they were wheelingme into recovery right after
that.
Oh, my gosh, wow, yeah, I'm notstill like have a choice.
Yeah, you like do I want to behere?
And for me, I had a lot ofissues with, you know, feeling
(36:19):
suicidal when I was young,starting in seventh grade, and
so life had always been reallyhard for me and I never felt
like I really wanted to be hereand it was so interesting in
that moment.
And, of course, like rightafter giving birth, I become a
mother and that's when I get tochoose, like, do you want to be
here or not?
And I was like, yeah, no, I gotto be here.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
It was all for her.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
It was all for her, yeah so it was nuts.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
I didn't get this far in your story.
Oh, on your podcast, whoa.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
Yeah, yeah.
And the other thing is thatI've learned in my research
since this happened is that alot of IVF moms have placental
issues and placenta accretia.
So the maternal mortality ratesare pretty high Not like 75% of
(37:22):
IVF moms, but high is inprobably 5-10%.
I don't know, yeah, but peopleare not talking about it.
It's midwives and nurses thatare basically word of mouth
sharing this and theirexperiences are seeing like so
many IVF moms have theseplacental issues.
And Ro was just in the hospitalin August.
(37:44):
She had a cancerous tumor inher stomach the size of a
grapefruit and had to have itremoved and our oncologist said
that it could be from IVF.
Oh my, god.
Yeah, so IVF is screwing withnature and so they're seeing a
lot of abnormalities withplacentas and in children,
(38:06):
because there's just somethingoff when you start messing with
it.
That causes these issues.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Yeah, I know there's like three different kind of
like levels of accretia, but Ican't like think of the exact
words, like was yours?
Like level three?
Speaker 3 (38:28):
I don't know.
Honestly, I didn't even knowwhat placenta accretia was until
like two months ago.
All they said was likebasically your placenta was
stuck to your body and theythought they said this could
have happened because the babywas like in the canal for so
long and she basically likepushed it against your body,
(38:50):
which maybe, but when I starteddoing research it just was like
so common with IVF mom.
So yeah, I don't know whatdegree it was.
I mean, maybe the hospitalknows, but I know that I'm very
high risk.
It's very likely to happenagain.
It could potentially be muchworse the second time.
So we're kind of in the stagesof one do we want to have
(39:12):
another kid?
Because if it's that risky, Idon't want to die, obviously.
And two, if we do do it, whatis our support system look like?
So I would go back to the samehospital because they clearly
know what they're doing andhandled everything so amazingly
and I feel very safe there.
But I think I would basicallysay like you have to have
(39:32):
transfusion ready, emergencyready, like if anything were to
happen.
The whole team is there andprepared, because it sounds like
a lot of moms who do end upeither, like I know a mom here
she's the one that told me aboutplacenta accretia and just all
the different specialists.
She was in a coma for 10 days.
They were like yeah, she's notgoing to make it.
(39:53):
And she ended up making it.
Her daughter's 14 now.
But it sounds like the moms whogo into comas don't make it or
have just like really severe,you know 10 bag transfusion,
like crazy stuff.
People just aren't prepared andso if you have a team that's
prepared and they know to lookfor it, then you're obviously in
a much better situation.
(40:14):
So yeah where we are is justwe're like in dialogue currently
of what that looks like.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Yeah, and oftentimes they don't know about the
accretia until it's time and youonly have like one to two
minutes to save the mom you know, yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
We just had a accretia mom on sharing her
story but they found it reallyearly and like the hospital that
she goes to, like the doctor islike that's his specialty.
It was kind of beautiful, butalso really scary.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Yeah, hers was really severe, it was in her bladder.
Bladder I had grown into herbladder.
Speaker 3 (40:56):
Yeah, I don't know how all that works.
Yeah, I'm going to listen tothat episode.
I'm really curious to hear herstory, yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
That one was wild.
I have a question.
So I know that you said likeyour water broke and then you
like went to the hospital andlike they said that you didn't
really have any fluid, like wasanyone worried about that part?
Or like was it kind of okay?
Speaker 3 (41:21):
Yeah.
So everything looked fine.
Her heartbeat was fine, myheartbeat was fine.
They didn't feel like we wereat immediate risk for infection.
They were like yeah, it's been48 hours, like that's not ideal,
you don't have fluid left, butshe seems fine, or the baby
seems totally fine and you'regood.
So they said you know, we'renot in a rush, but you do need
(41:43):
to come in today.
And I was like okay, so that'sgood.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
Yeah, I feel like here they would have just been
like C-section, yeah, by the way.
So your hospital sounds more alittle more on the holistic side
.
Speaker 3 (41:59):
I've heard that quite a bit.
They're like I can't believeyou had a vaginal birth and I'm
like really.
And they're like, yeah, that isa C-section almost everywhere.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Yeah, that's how I was feeling.
I'm like the no fluid, thebeing in labor for so long, the
like, failure to progress, likeis what you think that was going
on.
That's like everything wascoming out of my mind was like a
C-section, a C-section, but Imean, I'm so happy that you got
your vaginal birth.
Speaker 3 (42:27):
Me too.
Yeah Well, and that's the thingis.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
I didn't need a.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
C-section, yeah, and so I mean you guys know the
rates of C-section areskyrocketing and I don't think
that we're looking at enough ofwhat's going on in women's
bodies to say is this actuallynecessary?
Yeah, you know, like emergencyC-sections exist for a reason.
I'm totally here for it.
I'm not like anti-do them, Ijust think that, like I
(42:54):
obviously didn't need one, manywomen, in my case, are going to
have it.
Many women with elite procedureand scar tissue are going to
have it, and I just wish we wereasking more questions and doing
better intake so that weunderstood where people are.
And then these conversationsare so important, like who knows
who's listening to this whomight have a mom who they're
(43:16):
going to give a C-section to,and she's like wait, she had
elite procedure, check her scartissue, and then it's totally
avoidable.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
But it's not like Western medicine is not throwing
millions of dollars to test andlike to research on this stuff,
so it relies on people like ushaving these conversations,
which is why I feel open to justtalking about this, though I
might scare people.
This is the only way we canshare this information at this
point.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
Yeah, which you've really brought like a lot of
important conversations up inthis podcast, and I'm really
thankful for that because I feellike, like we know, that
C-section rates are skyrocketing.
If you watch the business ofbeing born, they're done during
the hours of 4pm and 10pm sodoctors can get home to their
(44:06):
families.
They're not done on Christmasor 4th of July.
We know and this is not tryingto like you know C-sections are
there for a reason, but there'sother options, other ways too.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
So okay, you go to recovery After all this, your
near-death experience.
What happens after that?
Speaker 3 (44:39):
I mean, I was elated, I was like my baby is so cute,
I'm alive.
I hadn't processed.
Obviously I was in shock.
I was in shock for a few weeksand, like I said, my body's
really sensitive, so theepidural like really took a toll
on me.
I didn't feel like I was here,like physically here, fully
(45:01):
landed, or maybe that's becauseI had a near-death experience
and so it took a while for, like, my soul to come back into my
body.
I don't know.
But even the first night wecame home, we stayed in the
hospital for two nights afterand then the first night we came
home, I didn't even know, Ididn't, I wasn't with my child.
That night, connor took Ro andslept with her on the couch so
that I could sleep, and I didn'tknow that until a couple months
(45:25):
ago.
He was like, yeah, that firstnight with Ro was so special for
me.
And I was like, oh, yeah, he'slike, yeah, I wish just the two
of us Excuse me.
He's like you don't remember.
And I said what are you talkingabout?
I slept with Ro, we co-sleptfor four months.
And he's like babe, yes, andthe first night I took her and
we slept on the couch becauseyou needed to sleep because you
hadn't slept in so long and youhad just gone through something
(45:48):
really horrible.
So I wanted you to sleep.
I didn't even know that.
So I think I was, you know.
Just I wasn't here and then Ialso I had nine stitches and the
trauma from the placenta andthings being shredded out.
It was pretty brutal on my bodyand so, yeah, my recovery was
(46:10):
pretty rough.
Thank God, my husband's momcalled my brother when I was
going into surgery and was like,hey, you need to get here.
She might not make it.
And so my brother and his wifegot on a plane that night and
they were in the hospital at 730am the next morning.
I mean, I gave birth at 930 pmand they were in the hospital at
(46:32):
730 am the next day and thenthey stayed with us for a week.
My husband's mom was there fora week.
So we had a lot of support Ibarely had to get.
I also had the most amazingdoula and she did a ton of like
postpartum cooking and checkingus and we have all the best
friends and family.
So that was amazing and I'm soglad that I had support and we
(46:54):
already had a ton of mealscooked and I tried to do first
40 days in a lot of ways just tobe nourished and stay warm and
all of that.
But yeah, I was waddling andbleeding a lot and my husband
was changing me and it waspretty bad and then I ended up
getting really constipated.
Here's another little nugget ofinformation for you guys
(47:18):
Lactation balls are not thatgreat.
They can cause horrificconstipation.
No, the oats and the yeast areknown to make you extremely
constipated, which I did notknow, and they actually don't
really help lactation.
I talked to my lactationconsultant about this.
If you wanna follow her, she'sMilkmasters on Instagram.
(47:42):
She's the smartest woman I'veever met, anyways.
So I was doing these lactationballs crazy.
I ended up getting reallyconstipated and I was so
constipated one day I pushed sohard I think I already had the
prolapse, but I made theprolapse so bad and then I ended
(48:04):
up in the emergency room acouple days later.
I was in so much pain I hadwhat is it called when the stool
is stuck Impact Impacted.
Yeah, I had like impact.
So basically, I had a bunch ofpoop stuck in my stomach.
I couldn't poop, I wasextremely constipated and I had
a prolapse and so I was feelingtissue come out of my vagina and
(48:27):
I was just in extreme pain, andso that made the healing so
much worse, and I'm stilldealing with the healing from
the prolapse.
But yeah, it was really brutal.
So there's just like a lot ofthings compounding, literally
and figuratively on top of eachother and at the same time I got
back into movement prettyquickly.
(48:48):
I love working out.
I worked out my whole pregnancy.
I've been an athlete my wholelife and so I was in the gym
three or four weeks postpartumjust like stretching and moving
and that felt really good for meand just making sure my
nutrition was good and I was ina really good place.
Ro was actually sleeping reallywell I think co-sleeping went
(49:09):
really well for us until she hither four-month sleep regression
and then she basically was upevery one to two hours until two
weeks ago.
She slept 11 hours two nightsago.
Speaker 1 (49:23):
Praise.
I was very scared.
Speaker 3 (49:25):
I thought something bad happened.
Speaker 1 (49:26):
Yeah, when you wake up in a panic, I'm still asleep.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
I'm like looking on the monitor, crazy person.
But yeah, and so that afterfour months like four to seven
months I had a really badpostpartum depression, really
bad anxiety, really horrible,terrible thoughts, and yeah,
that was a really scary time andit was really amazing.
(49:51):
Again, my husband is sowonderful.
He it was a couple of dayswhere I was being a total psycho
bitch and I was like screamingto him and just being really
irrational and kind of out ofcontrol and it's just not how we
are.
And at first he was like thefuck, like why being like this?
And kind of yelling back at meand it was the whole thing.
(50:11):
And then he came to me oneafternoon.
He's like, hey, this feels alot like IVF.
And I was like does, and Irealized like my hormones were
just so out of whack and I wasso tired that it was just
crushing me.
And so I immediately reached outto our birth coach, emily
Stanwick, and I was like, hey,this is what's going on, I'm not
(50:35):
okay.
And so we talked througheverything and she was super
supportive and I just startedsharing with other people what I
was dealing with and it wassuper validating because so many
moms obviously deal with thatand it just really helped for me
to realize that I wasn't crazy.
And then I was going through,obviously, exhaustion and then a
huge hormone swing and shiftand all of that, and so I came
(50:59):
out of that around seven, sevenand a half months and I've been
pretty stable since then.
I do have a hard time.
I had got my period back ataround four or five months as
well and I do notice that aroundmy period I do feel those like
intense hormone swings more thannormal, but other than that I
feel pretty stable and I'msleeping more now.
(51:21):
So that's been really helpful.
Speaker 2 (51:23):
That's good, and sleep will give you a good mind
fuck for sure.
And you didn't even sleep atall during your tail end of your
pregnancy Exactly.
I am so surprised, I don't know.
Wow, I don't think I could havefunctioned or lived and look at
you Thanks.
Speaker 1 (51:44):
He's back.
We actually just interviewed amom who she has a support group
for moms in that four to sixmonth period Because she said
it's just, your hormones arejust all over the place and
(52:04):
that's the time where peoplestop checking in on you.
Speaker 3 (52:08):
Yeah, so, yeah, that's interesting that that all
happened at that four monthmark, totally yeah, and I think
that's why it's so important tojust be OK with asking for help.
We have really good friends,their baby.
He was born and he was blue andnot moving and ended up in the
NICU for 10 days and now he's onoxygen, he's home, he's doing
(52:31):
great and he's not sleeping andit's just been a really really
hard month for them.
And I keep reaching out to herand I'm like ask for help, tell
me if you want me to come overand hold the baby while you
sleep.
I will come over and cleanwhile you hold the baby.
Just ask for help.
I said it will make you crazyand you are not crazy and you
(52:55):
need to be OK Sending out yourSOS signal to all your people
and be like.
You guys need to show the fuckup right now.
This is not OK and I don'tthink that we're good enough at
doing that of being like yo guysall hands on deck, I'm not well
, like I'm not well.
And it's not just aroundpregnancy, I think it's just
women in general.
We're not good at asking forhelp.
(53:17):
We're not good at saying likethis is not OK.
I need you to physically behere, get on a plane, fly here,
show up at my house and takecare of me because I'm not OK.
And I've just realized that isthe most profound thing that you
could do for someone is to showup for them and to basically
barge into their house and belike, no, I'm here.
(53:37):
And I wish that more people hadthat and felt that, because I
think we'd all have a lot bettertime healing and feeling
supported and feeling whole andnot going down these paths that
make us just feel wrong and badand crazy.
Speaker 1 (53:53):
Yeah, yeah.
I feel like our generation isdefinitely like getting better
at asking for help and justtalking about all these things.
So it's going to be reallyinteresting about Gen Z and Gen
A, like hopefully they will beable to talk about their
feelings better in general.
Speaker 2 (54:15):
Yeah, yeah, so scary.
Yeah, I had a really hard time.
I feel like a lot of peopledidn't really show up for me on
Baby Number Two and I was justtalking to Liz about this Like
there were very minimal peoplewho actually showed up for me on
Baby Number Two.
It's like the excitement justisn't there.
(54:36):
The second round, and I wasn'tOK and I felt like I was just
screaming until some blank heresometimes.
So, yep, I love your attitudeabout that.
Keep doing that.
Make sure you have that forBaby Number Two too, if you
decide to go that way.
But yeah, I feel like that'soverlooked.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
Yeah, and isn't it crazy?
Because, from what I hear,going from one to two is insane
so you would think that morepeople would show up when
there's more tiny humans to takecare of.
Speaker 2 (55:10):
I know, I know I didn't feel that way.
Yeah, I don't know.
I feel like I have to kind ofprocess this after we get off
too, I don't know.
But thank you so much forsharing a lot of that, do you
(55:36):
like?
Speaker 3 (55:36):
how are you feeling now, 10 months postpartum, and
yeah, I feel like I reallystarted to feel like myself
again around nine, nine and ahalf months so pretty recently
and I run my own company.
I have 13 people on my team, Ihave a lot of responsibility,
I'm the breadwinner of ourfamily and I think that I didn't
(55:59):
take enough time off maternityleave.
I basically went back to workafter six weeks and I swear to
God I will never do that again.
I'm saying four months on thenext one.
Speaker 2 (56:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (56:10):
So I learned a lot, but I'm really feeling like
myself.
I feel like really good in mybody.
I'm still dealing with theprolapse.
I just started this amazing newpelvic floor program.
I've come a long way and Istill feel the tissue and want
to do a lot more strengtheningbefore I get pregnant again, but
(56:32):
I feel physically so strong andso clear and I feel like one of
my superpowers now isregulating my nervous system and
it feels really nice because Iwas never good at that and I
feel like my daughter has beensuch a catalyst in me really
owning how powerful I am and theabilities I have to navigate
(56:55):
hard things and to make surethat I take care of myself,
because that's a directreflection of how I'm taking
care of her and how I can showup for her.
And I mean you guys know this,when you have kids it becomes
your why for everything you doand there's so much more on the
line, and so I feel like she'sreally called me forward in
(57:16):
being the best version of myselfand owning my power and being
unafraid to go after things anddream big.
And it feels really good and Iknow that I'm in my purpose as a
mother and so it's really coolto be able to continue living my
life and building this companyand going after my dreams and
doing things that really matterto me and really connecting
(57:38):
deeply with my husband andcontinuing to grow our
relationship, while also beingreally present for her and
present in my body.
Yeah, so things feel reallyreally good now and that's
really exciting.
Speaker 2 (57:52):
That's awesome.
I can see the glow in your face, so.
Speaker 1 (57:59):
Sorry.
What kind of things do you dofor your mental health?
You talked a little bit aboutregulating your nervous system.
Tell me more.
Speaker 3 (58:15):
Yeah, I mean, I feel like meditation and breathwork
has been really important for me, and also I just really try and
pause a lot.
I have been a very anxiousperson, very controlling and
perfectionist, and so thosetendencies, when you're really
tired, come back, and they comeback really strong.
(58:36):
And so I think that one of thebest things that I've learned to
do is, when I feel like areaction that feels really
emotional or just kind ofirrational, I try and pause and
be like what's going on rightnow before I respond, and that's
really helped me sort of noticelike, okay, what do I need in
(58:59):
this moment?
Because that's a veryirrational response to this
thing, and so what do I actuallyneed?
And so then I'm able to checkin with myself and realize, oh,
I have not had a long time inthree days.
I need to go and take an hourfor myself and go for a walk or
workout or take a bath or callmy girlfriends and just catch up
(59:21):
.
I need to do things for me, andso I think that's been really,
really helpful.
And then also asking for helpand allowing my husband to be
the parent and take care of herdaughter and show up like he was
so incredible, and he stilldoes this from time to time when
I need it.
But in the beginning, one ofthe best pieces of advice we got
(59:43):
was that he takes the baby inthe morning for two hours while
I get really good restful sleep,and that was huge for me.
It was usually the best sleepthat I was going to get and I
was uninterrupted, and then Iwould come out and he would have
breakfast ready for me and itwas incredible.
(01:00:05):
And so I think continuing toallow him to show up for me as
much as possible in that waywhether it was cleaning or
cooking or going to the grocerystore he knows that I need help
and I can't do everythinganymore because I have to worry
about a little person who can'tbe carted around all the time.
And even tomorrow I'm going toPilates at 7 am, so he's going
(01:00:28):
to have Ro for two hours in themorning.
He's like I'm so happy that youget to go to Pilates and I
didn't ask like, hey, can I go.
I put it on the calendar and Iwas like so you're watching Ro
for two hours and then the nannywill be here and then you can
do what you need to do, and thenalso having help like having a
nanny has really, really helped.
She's here five days a week forsix or seven hours a day.
(01:00:53):
I try and get all my work donethen so that I can be present
with my daughter before andafter, and then obviously I'm
with her much of the night.
Not as much anymore becauseshe's learning to sleep, oh God,
but I was up every hour withher for 10 months.
So, yeah, I think that's beenreally helpful too.
Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
That's awesome, I love that.
Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
So where can our listeners find you?
Speaker 3 (01:01:18):
Yeah, I want Instagram at KellyTMore and our
website issoulfireproductionscocom, but my
DMs are open.
So if anyone has questions orwants clarification on anything,
I'm totally here to help andany resources that I can provide
.
Speaker 2 (01:01:36):
Thank you so much for sharing your story.
I'm happy that I heard more ofit, because I guess I just
didn't get to the pepper.
There's so much more.
Speaker 3 (01:01:48):
Thank you, thank you guys, for having me.
I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (01:01:51):
Thank you, we'll see you next episode.
Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
Thank you for joining us on this episode of the
Golden Hour Birth Podcast.
We hope you've enjoyed ourdiscussion and found it
insightful and beneficial.
Remember, the Golden Hour BirthPodcast is made possible by the
support of listeners like you.
If you appreciate the contentwe bring you each week, consider
leaving us a review on yourfavorite podcast platform or
(01:02:16):
sharing the show with yourfriends and family.
Your support helps us reachmore people and continue
creating valuable episodes.
If you have any questions,suggestions or topics you'd like
us to cover in future episodes,we'd love to hear from you.
You can reach us on our website, www.
Goldenhourbirthpodcast, orconnect with us on social media.
(01:02:38):
We value your feedback and wantto make sure that we're
delivering the content you wantto hear.
Before we sign off, we'd liketo express our gratitude to our
incredible guests who joined ustoday.
We are honored that they trustus enough to be so open and
vulnerable.
We're grateful for their timeand willingness to share their
stories with us.
If you're interested in takingthe conversation further with us
(01:03:00):
, join us on our Facebook group,the Golden Hour Birth Circle.
We'll be back next week withanother exciting episode, so be
sure to tune in.
Until then, stay golden andremember to take care of
yourself.
We'll catch you on the nextepisode of the Golden Hour Birth
Podcast.
Bye.
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