Lessons From My Third Home Birth (Episode 449)

Full Transcript: Episode 449

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Welcome to the Fertility Friday Podcast, your source for information about the fertility awareness method and all things fertility. I’m your host, Lisa Hendrickson-Jack. I’m the author of The Fifth Vital Sign and the Fertility Awareness Mastery Training Workbook. I’m a certified fertility awareness educator and holistic reproductive health practitioner with over 20 years of experience teaching women to connect to their fifth vital sign through menstrual cycle charting, balancing hormone health, and optimizing the menstrual cycle without hormones. I have been consistently outspoken about hormonal birth control over the past two decades and its impact on fertility and overall health because you have the right to know how your body works and how artificial hormones disrupt that natural process. I teach women’s health professionals how to utilize the menstrual cycle as a vital sign in their practices, and I host live coaching programs to help you achieve optimal fertility and health because it’s important to have healthy menstrual cycles regardless of whether or not you want to have babies. I’m also a wife and mother of two beautiful boys and a brand new baby girl. This podcast is designed to empower you to take full control of your cycles, your fertility, and your overall health, and I’m so excited that you’re here with me today.

In today’s episode, I am sharing some lessons that I learned from my recent birth experience with my daughter. I think it’s a great way to reflect at the end of the year and also to celebrate eight full years of podcasting. So without further ado, let’s go ahead and jump right in.

Well, as I sit down to record this episode, I am four months into the postpartum phase. I had my daughter in the summer, and she’s my third child for those of you who don’t know. And so I thought it’d be a really nice opportunity to share some of the lessons that I learned from my third birth experience. And so I think the first thing that I wanted to talk a little bit about, because I think it’s also helpful in these reflections to think about how to handle these situations, especially if you yourself are thinking about having a baby maybe let’s say next year, or you’re thinking about it ahead of time, or maybe you’re pregnant right now and you’re thinking about how you’re going to prepare for everything. So this is one of the reasons why I share my reflections and experiences, because I think that there’s a lot of pieces of it that can help you on your own journey.

So the first thing, a lesson that I learned, and this is something that is interesting how it played out this time — so although I’ve gone through the experience of birth three separate times, each time has been a little bit different. And so the first lesson that I would say really kind of shone for me is that preparation does pay off. And so in my case, the preparation wasn’t necessarily perfect. I didn’t have all the time in the world to do every possible thing I wanted to do, being a busy mom with two children running around. My eldest son is 10 now and my youngest son is seven. And so between them and family life and also the behind the scenes work that I’m always doing with clients, the FAM practitioner program, and also my group programs and all those great things, there’s not endless time to do every possible thing that I wanted.

So for this first takeaway and lesson learned — preparation does pay off — and I would say especially in my case, being busy with life and all those things, I think the key for me was to focus on the most important things. And because I didn’t have the time to do every possible thing under the sun, I really did have to prioritize what was most important. And so what’s most important for you is likely possibly different to what was most important for me. So in my case, what was most important for me was to actually take time to prepare meals ahead of time. That was something that I prioritized, and ironically this was the first time I was able to do that.

When I reflect back on my first son’s birth and my second — with all three actually of my children, they were all born two weeks ahead of time. So with menstrual cycle charting, I was able to know when I was ovulating, so I was able to identify as close as possible my conception date, and so from that perspective the due date I’m confident is fairly accurate. So with my eldest son, I didn’t have any reason to even suspect that he would arrive early. So I was just thinking he would arrive around the time that he was due, around 40 weeks. I was kind of thinking that’s what would happen. And so I remember at that time I took off, maybe three or four weeks, I can’t remember exactly. I think it was probably three weeks. So I remember I took off three weeks before he was due and I thought that that would give me three whole weeks to do a whole bunch of stuff.

I remember what I ended up doing in the first week was I had purchased some things to make sure I had everything I needed. We had the crib, we had clothes washed, and cloth diapers. So I had organized all of that, bought all that stuff. And I had bought some washable postpartum menstrual pads. So I felt like I did a lot of preparation. I had everything in the house, so to speak, and a bunch of stuff washed and all that kind of stuff. But I did go into labor two weeks ahead of time. So all of my babies were born at 38 weeks. From that respect, I mean in a way we were ready, but in a way there was a lot of other things that I would have liked to do. I would have liked to organize the baby room and all that, but he came and the crib wasn’t set up and all that stuff. But ironically, when you have a newborn, a lot of that stuff doesn’t necessarily get used right away, so it was mostly fine actually.

But one thing I hadn’t done is I hadn’t prepared any food ahead of time or any of that kind of stuff. So a lot of that fell on my husband to help me. And even with my youngest son, it was similar. We were more prepared, definitely more prepared in a lot of ways for him because I knew that there was this chance that he would come two weeks early, which he did. But I never got around to cooking a bunch of food. So I think in his case I had the food in the house though. I had bought a bunch of specific things I wanted — a lot of bone broths and supportive nutritious food after the birth. So I remember having that in the house and being able to do a lot of crock pot meals, which was really easy, and that did help.

So with the birth of my daughter this time, I really wanted to prioritize that. Similar with my other two births, actually this time we did have the crib set up, and similar to the other times, clothes washed, diapers ready — all that kind of stuff was prepared. And so those are things that I didn’t necessarily do really far in advance, but they were coming together during the month before. And I would say the month before, so I guess I would be six weeks before the due date, because given that I had two previous children come at 38 weeks, I definitely had to plan for 38 weeks as the possible due date because obviously that had happened in my case already.

A lot of what we did this time was similar, and I knew what would be important and all of that kind of stuff. So everything that we needed, we had on hand. And potentially this time we were more prepared because instead of waiting till the last minute to kind of do all that stuff, I certainly had gotten a lot of stuff ready ahead of time. So I think in the two months leading up to my daughter’s arrival, my husband and I basically were ready. We had everything washed, everything was out, we used a bassinet for the first month or so, so we had that all set up and everything. So we were good.

And what was different this time was that by the time we were that kind of week before 38 weeks — so 37 weeks period of time — a lot of that stuff was already done. And so one of the things that we did do is I bought all this meat. So in my case, I bought all this ground beef and I bought a whole bunch of liver, and I made a giant batch of lasagna. And when I say giant batch, it just means that I made, instead of like a normal Pyrex dish size, I made like a giant one that would be equivalent to maybe three lasagnas or something like that — three normal-sized lasagnas. And so I cooked all this meat.

So for me, I like liver and I season things really well with my West Indian background and stuff like that. And so I don’t recommend this to clients. I recommend that for all my clients who are not necessarily seasoned liver lovers — if you pardon the pun — I recommend for them to sparse it out a little bit more. So I usually say one part liver to four parts meat or one part liver to five parts meat. But in my case I did about 50/50. I did that because I can tolerate it, because I like it, because we’ve done it before, and also because I really wanted to prioritize postpartum nutrient repletion.

If you go back and listen to my previous episode where I share how I prepared for pregnancy, you can hear more about how I planned for pregnancy. And a big part of that was nutrient repletion and eating certain foods to support that kind of building up nutrition before conception took place. And I continued those strategies throughout pregnancy. Of course, some of those days in the first trimester where I was really nauseous, I wasn’t eating the best stuff. But that’s where preconception planning comes in so wonderfully because if you’ve taken some time to do those things before you’re pregnant, then you can still rely on those nutrient stores during those early days if you do experience nausea or vomiting when you’re in that first trimester and you’re not necessarily able to eat the best.

But once baby is out, in the postpartum phase, I like to really just dive in and really focus on that. I found that to just be very, very helpful for me. Helpful for my energy levels. I’m thinking of the breast milk and wanting to get as much of that nutrition in there as possible and also just replenishing myself. Because having gone through this three times, I know how big of a task it is for your body to create a human and how nutrient-intensive that is. And with two other children and all the things going on in my life, I really need to prioritize my own healing and nutrient repletion and all of these things so that I have energy, mental focus, acuity — all of these things — so that I can encourage my healing and have the energy I need to take care of the kiddos.

So back to those lasagnas. We made this giant batch of lasagna, and like I said, I made it with 50% liver. I had this giant pot, I cooked all this meat, I had this giant pot of meat, and I made this lasagna and it was great. And also part of the reason it had to be so gigantic is because again, it’s not just me — there’s five people in the house now. So my kids eat like adults. So in order for me to make sure that I’m going to get this lasagna for it to last for a little while, it has to be gigantic. So it really worked out.

And then we also made chicken legs. I think that’s what we did — something like that where my husband bought a bunch of drumsticks, chicken drumsticks, and then we just kind of also did that. And also I had purchased a whole lot of stuff for soup and things like that. So I feel like with this pregnancy there was more preparation happening, and part of it was because now with two kind of grown children that have activities, and she’s born in the summer, they had summer camp. And so again, a lot on my husband to be doing drop-offs and pickups and all this stuff.

And with me, basically the plan is that I’m not going to be able to make supper during those first couple weeks after I give birth to a baby. I’ve learned — the way my house is set up, three floors — I’ve learned that I can’t be going up and down the stairs. I actually need to basically just be bed-bound for the first couple of days and to be able to really relax at least the first week or so, to have no actual demands on my time, no requirements of me to do things, so that I can heal and rest.

So that was the plan. And so all the things I could have prioritized, this time the food was the top priority. It’s not to say I wouldn’t have had something to eat — there’s always ways to get food, you can always order food or you can make something — but I wanted to make sure especially during those first few weeks that I had the most nutrient-rich food that’s pretty easy to freeze, easy to heat up, that kind of thing, so that it really wasn’t that big of a task for me to be well nourished.

So it worked out really well. We did end up having, like I said, the equivalent of probably three lasagnas, and it was freezable. And ironically, this whole lasagna-making situation happened during the few days before my daughter was born. And so she did actually end up coming basically right at 38 weeks on the dot. So I don’t know what it is with my body, with having this little internal timer — I don’t know — with the duration of my pregnancies, but that’s how it played out.

So that was something that was really, really helpful for me. And for all the things that you can do — all the cute decorations and all of that stuff that you can do ahead of time — if there’s one takeaway that I would share with you, it is I do feel that the meal prep is more practical. If you have a time situation like a time crunch and it’s like, okay, do I make the crib and prep the baby room, or do I make food for myself? I’m a little bit biased but I would probably go for the latter, because again, when you have a newborn, it’s been my experience in my house that the newborn doesn’t go into the baby room that day. So there’s still time after you have the baby if need be.

I think you see my point — some of those things aren’t necessarily as urgent as you think, but the food thing is urgent because you got to eat. And so that was really helpful. That was the first time we were that prepared, because like I mentioned, there’s five people in my house and my boys eat like adults. It didn’t last as long as it could have — there did come a point where I kind of started hoarding the lasagna for myself and not letting them have as much of it — but it did really help us out. I think that it ended up lasting for somewhere between one and two weeks. And we would kind of alternate the giant batch of chicken drums with the lasagna, and then like I said, there were other options as well. So we made some of those Instant Pot soups and stews for the collagen and nutrient repletion, all that good stuff, intermixed with regular dinners when my husband would have time. He would still be able to make a different dinner so that we could save some of these for the times that we really needed it.

So all in all I would say that was something different this time around. And the preparation really did pay off because I really was able to get that nourishment right off the bat, and it tidied me over for those first couple weeks where my body really needed to heal after birth. I was able to relax during that time. I was able to rest. And I did spend several days basically not really coming out of my room. Not because I was — for anyone who hasn’t picked this up, I didn’t explicitly say it at any point here, but all three of my children were born at home. So I just kind of forgot to mention it, and probably because it’s so normal to me because I’ve done it all three times. But so all three of my children were born at home. And so with that in mind, that means that I gave birth and then I’m already in my house. So then I was able to just kind of hang out in my room with baby for several days without having to go anywhere.

We did that with midwives. We used the same group of midwives with each birth. Although that’ll come to my second point — each birth was not the same. So the midwives, at least for those first several appointments after baby’s born, they actually come to you. So all of this was very helpful for me to be able to rest and restore at that crucial time immediately after birth so that I was really able to just relax. And that wouldn’t have happened without the preparation.

Preparation pays off is lesson one. And it’s not just preparation for quote “all the things” — it’s preparation for the things that are most important. And for those of you who have given birth before or have had a baby before, who have young children and you’ve gone through this, then you may identify a few different things that were really important for you. But I think that sometimes the things we think are most important aren’t necessarily most important. And the things I would say that are most important are kind of like those survival things — having someone there, whether it’s having a parent or a sibling or a cousin or friend who’s able to be with you for a few days and support you, or your partner who’s able to be with you for a few days. Whatever you need, it is good to have people there. But again, it’s not just about having a person there — it’s about having someone who is down to do work and to basically give you that practical support that you need. So it’s not useful to have people who require you to do things for them. It’s helpful to have people around who are able to do things for you, to take care of mom.

Okay, so I’m going to move on to the second lesson that I took away from my most recent birth experience. So the second thing is, and I think this was a really interesting kind of brought to my attention again, I guess you could say — each birth is different. I think that after having gone through birth two times, not that I felt like I knew everything and knew exactly what to expect — I mean, I did know a lot of what to expect and I have been through this twice, and we did prepare and there was a lot of things we were able to do this time that we didn’t even know to do the first time around. And so I felt quite prepared. But each birth is different. And that has been my experience.

My first birth experience was in many ways quite different to my second in how the labor kind of progressed and what it felt like and all of that kind of stuff. And the third birth was different to the first two. So with the first birth — and I’ll link in the show notes if anyone wants to hear my birth stories for the first two — I did a podcast episode on the Doing It at Home Podcast that I shared in great depth the whole birth experience of baby number one and two. It was interesting when I was sharing my birth experience for myself because my youngest son is seven and so it’s been quite a few years. And when I was thinking back, I realized there were some details that were a little bit fuzzy. But generally, you will hear the whole thing. So I’ll make sure to link that if you want to go and listen to that.

But briefly, the birth of my first son — like I said, all three came two weeks early — and so I wasn’t necessarily expecting to go into labor at that time. And I remember the contractions started and they were quite far apart, and I didn’t even know they were contractions because I had a history of painful periods in my 20s and things. And so I’m having these fairly light contractions at the very beginning of this process, and I thought, okay, maybe these could be Braxton Hicks.

And what happened with my first son was that there was a very steady and slow progression that was kind of textbook in a way. It’s kind of what you would expect if you’ve taken any birth classes. I remember when I had these conversations with my midwife and she told me at what point I should be calling her, and she would talk about how the contractions were going to start to get closer together and you should time them and all that. And so with my first son, it was very formulaic. It started quite far apart, and then they progressed slowly and gradually. So it was 20 minutes apart, then 15 minutes apart, and then it just gradually — it was just very orderly, I suppose you could say.

So looking back, it did progress quite gradually. So at first I didn’t know I was in labor, but then I did because they were coming regularly. And then they would gradually get stronger. They started out lighter and easier to manage and then they got more difficult to manage. But it was all very gradual. There was this gradual unfolding of birth until I got to the stage where I was fully dilated, and then it transitioned from contractions to the feeling of having to push.

So that was my first experience of labor. And I kind of thought before I had my youngest son that that would be how it would be. With my youngest son, it was a bit different because the contractions were not orderly and formulaic. So it wasn’t like they were 20 minutes apart and then 15 and then 10. The contractions would kind of come and they started to get more intense. And they were a little bit more sporadic. They did start to come with more frequency though, but it just wasn’t the same. So it wasn’t this gradual unfolding — it was just a different kind of process with my second son, although I still knew when to call the midwives when the contractions started to be a lot more intense and they started to come more frequently.

So with the third baby, with my daughter, I would say it was very different. My experience of it was very, very different. Towards a week before she was born, throughout the whole third trimester, I was getting very, very kind of obvious Braxton Hicks. I must have had Braxton Hicks in my previous pregnancies, but I can’t remember really noticing them and really thinking too deeply about them. So what it felt like in my case was just like a tightening that is not painful. So my whole abdomen would contract and I could touch it, it would feel hard, but it wouldn’t feel painful or anything. It would just feel like tightening. It almost felt like the baby was moving, but this time it was very noticeable.

So I would notice it. It wasn’t painful, but it was like a muscle contracting. So I would definitely notice it. And there were times when it would feel a bit uncomfortable — not because it would hurt like a contraction, but maybe if I had some gas, then that would be like not the greatest time to have this muscle contraction. And sometimes I would have to kind of change positions or just get up because — not because it hurt, but just because it would definitely feel a certain kind of tightening of the muscle.

And so this was happening in the third trimester and it just got progressively more consistent. So I was having these many times a day. I remember sometimes I would eat dinner and then it would feel like the baby was stretching at the same time, and who knows, but it was very noticeable. Noticeable to the point that I was looking it up and I was talking about it a lot. And so during the last week before she was born, I was getting these Braxton Hicks very frequently. And by that time, I’m really big and I can feel the baby moving around and I can feel the weight of the baby on the cervix. She was head down and I could feel the weight of it. She had dropped, I guess you could say.

And the whole thing — by the two days before I actually had her, I was totally miserable. It was uncomfortable. Every time I would get up, I was just not comfortable at the end there. I didn’t know it was the end though. I was like, oh man, what if I have to go through two more weeks of this. So that’s the backdrop here. So that was quite different this time because I don’t recall the Braxton Hicks, those kind of warm-up tightening. And from my understanding, this is how the uterus prepares for birth and it’s part of your uterus kind of strengthening itself and all that. So there’s a purpose for it. I just don’t recall in the other two pregnancies feeling as uncomfortable in general. I did feel uncomfortable, but I feel like this was another level of uncomfortable.

So I remember even the day or two before she was born, there were still a couple things I had to do. I remember having to go to the store and buy something, and I was just getting out of the car and kind of slowly walking and feeling — yeah, it was just uncomfortable. I remember people would see me and be like, oh man, you look like you’re about to go, and I was like, oh well, technically I have two more weeks, so we’ll see what happens.

And so what happened was there wasn’t this clear delineation into labor. In some ways, I think in my mind there’s a difference between active labor — when you actually get to this point where the contractions are very strong and they’re coming a lot more frequently — versus the preliminary stages when you may have very sporadic contractions that are less intense. And so at some point, it went from these Braxton Hicks to actual contractions. At some point.

And I think the night before she was born — so the previous day or whatever — I started to have, in retrospect, these were contractions because it did get to the point that they were uncomfortable. And they were, but they were coming pretty sporadically. They were coming every 45 minutes or an hour or whatever. I wasn’t really able to sleep that night. So that meant there was basically almost like a 24 to 36 hour period where I hadn’t really slept that much. I might have had naps in between. That was different because I was basically uncomfortable with these uterine Braxton Hicks tightening situations and just generally kind of uncomfortable, moving into this labor part, without necessarily having that clear delineation.

And this whole time, I was kind of like, am I really — is it really — and so at some point it did cross over. But the difference was that it wasn’t this gradual progression. However, I was having sporadic contractions during the day before she was born. And so sometimes I would have one, and it was interesting — when I would lay down and try to relax, they would come more quickly. And then I would get up and they would kind of go away. I would walk around. And so I remember thinking to myself, is this really labor? It’s not so consistent. They’re happening and then they’re not happening and then they’re happening and they’re not happening. And that was really different.

And so one of the things that was really different with my daughter’s birth was that I didn’t really fully — the whole time I was wondering, is this really it? Because I would have some contractions and they would be so strong some of them, and that’s why I called the midwives, because they were very, very strong. I’ve done this before, so you have some of these contractions and it feels like, oh my gosh, this baby’s coming right now. So based on the intensity and the history of delivering quite quickly, I called them. So they were there.

But it was interesting. So what was different about it was that I was never really confident that the baby was coming. I kept questioning if I was really in labor or if I was really progressing. Because although the contractions were getting stronger very consistently — so I definitely was progressing — I didn’t have this kind of every-five-minutes pattern. I would have these long breaks between the contractions, and that would make me wonder if it was really progressing, even though it was. So I just didn’t know that sometimes birth presents that way, especially when it’s not your first child or after multiple children.

After the fact, my midwives kind of said, oh, sometimes it happens. It would have been really helpful if they would have told me that during and reassured me. This birth was different for that reason where the contractions presented differently. I was progressing although I didn’t know I was progressing, whereas I felt like with the other two times I knew I was progressing.

And I think the big thing was that the contractions were sporadic, spread apart quite a bit. They were still getting stronger, but sometimes I would have a lighter one. And so I didn’t have this kind of formulaic gradual crescendo, if you will. So the whole time I was doubting it. And it’s unfortunate because in retrospect I could have enjoyed those breaks between contractions and rested up and just been calm and relaxed. But instead I was a bit stressed and I felt like I wasn’t progressing.

And so I remember having conversations and the midwives were like, oh, maybe you should sit on the toilet, go to the bathroom, that helps. And they were even giving me signs that maybe it wasn’t progressing by telling me things like that, which wasn’t helpful at all. And then after the baby came relatively quickly — so they arrived at about 10, the baby was born about 1:30 in the morning. So that was about three hours after they arrived. So obviously I was progressing and it was happening. But they were even giving me the impression that it wasn’t progressing and giving me suggestions for how to make it progress more quickly. And I think it was because I was having these long breaks between my contractions, even though when I had the contractions, they were so, so, so intense at that point because I was progressing.

And so anyways, that was a bit different. And I would say that with all the preparation — when I talked about my first point of how preparation pays off — I mean having gone through birth before, having a plan for how to manage the pain at home, the different breathing activities I was doing and all the different plans, we had a birthing tub, and my husband and I had gone through this before. And I asked him to do certain things, and I did make certain requests of the midwives for support. And it all played out a little differently than how I would have liked it.

There was a lot of things that went really well with my birth being at home and being uncomplicated. Everything did go smoothly from that respect. But there were certain things that I was hoping to have — certain support I was hoping to have during the birth. And for whatever reason, my experience with the midwives this time was not as positive as the other two. And I think it was just because they were, as an organization, going through some changes. So I didn’t have the consistency of care that I had with the other two births.

So with my other two births, I met every midwife on the team pretty soon into the process. I had relationships with them moving forward, so I kind of knew everyone on my team. The way they do it is you would have a team with about three midwives on there, and you would have your appointments with everyone throughout your pregnancy with the different members of the team. And then you would be able to have all these conversations and share your wishes and ask all your questions. And by the time that you’re in labor, someone comes to the door that you’ve met before and that you know and who knows you, and you’ve really had the opportunity to make your requests known.

So this time unfortunately, they were just — I think they were having different staffing changes and turnover or whatever. And so I felt like every time I went to a meeting, there was a new person. I had this one midwife who I actually met with several times and she was really nice and we had a lot of great conversations, but she was moved to another team. So then I’m 30 weeks pregnant and I go into my appointment and there’s a new person that I haven’t met. And then I see her twice, and then the next time there’s a next person that I’ve never met before.

And that was my experience this time. And then when I went into labor, the midwife on call was someone who I’d never met. So the woman who came and delivered my baby was wonderful — she’s really nice and everything — but that was the first time I actually met her. And so that was very different. And I had some requests that were really important to me, and because we hadn’t had this rapport and relationship, some of those things didn’t happen. And they were very critical for the most crucial point of time, which is when you’re actually pushing baby out.

And so my experience at birth this time — I just didn’t feel like I had as much control over it. I didn’t feel supported. Like I said, I was experiencing a different progression of labor than I had before, and I did not end up having — I would say in my own words — the kind of experienced midwifery care that I had previously. So with my first two births, I had two very, very experienced midwives that had attended so many births. I actually have an interview with the midwife who delivered my second baby, and she was — yeah — she was young in the midwifery world, but she was also trained by midwives who had tons of experience. So she was very experienced. So in my first two births, I had these midwives who had just been so experienced, they had been through it before. They were so reassuring, they just had it in the bag. And so I was able to really feel so confident. If I had a concern, then they were there to be like, oh, this is what you do, or this is normal, or whatever.

This time in my birth, I did have a concern because I wasn’t sure if I was progressing. And during the birth itself, I was not told anything that was reassuring. I was basically given the impression that I wasn’t progressing and told what to do to try to make myself progress more, when meanwhile I was progressing. And after the baby was born, then I got all the, oh well, sometimes it is different and sometimes with the third birth you do have a kind of different pattern of contractions, and yeah, sometimes you get these kind of long breaks. But that didn’t happen during the birth. So I’m just sitting there — I know a lot about the menstrual cycle and charting, but believe it or not, I’ve only ever attended my own births. So I don’t actually have a big backstory of how differently births can present.

So in this situation, unfortunately, although the birth went well and she was born well, I think that there was more kind of physical trauma to my body than needed to happen because I didn’t get the support that I needed at the time. Okay, so that’s my complaint.

So the point is — each birth is different. And you can plan as much as you can and do everything you can and even have experience, like in my case, of previous births and kind of knowing what to expect to a certain degree. But each birth is different. Each baby comes into the world in a different way, and you really can’t plan for everything. So all you can do is your best.

I think most people — depending on who you talk to — there’s so many different situations where births don’t go exactly how you had hoped, or things take a turn and that kind of thing. So I think that’s very common. And one of the things I often say to clients is that this is one of the ways that it’s kind of like your transition into motherhood or your initiation into motherhood. When we have these types of challenges — whether it’s a challenge to getting pregnant, which obviously no one expects that to be a possibility, or whether it’s a challenge for how the pregnancy itself goes, if there’s certain complications or things that are different to what you thought, and then there’s the birth itself where many of us have a specific birth plan — we have an idea of how we want it to go. Sometimes we’re able to have most of those things in place and other times the birth goes completely different to how you would have expected.

So I was actually really upset in the first couple weeks afterwards. I just didn’t feel as supported as I had been. And I had a conversation with the midwife and we talked it through, whatever. But in the end, I guess where I’ve come to with it is that again, it’s an initiation into motherhood. You just cannot control everything. And no matter how much you know, how much you read, how much you’ve been through certain things before, you still have to go through the process, one way or another.

And what was really amazing was that even though the actual birth itself didn’t go exactly how I had hoped, it was still overall a wonderful experience. I was still able to birth her at home. I did have essentially the birth I wanted — there were just parts of it that I wished I wanted to change a little bit, pieces of it. And I think maybe it’s because I took for granted how supported I had been in the first two and just was unprepared for the kind of differences.

And it could also be partly post-COVID. There were certain things that were different. The appointments were different. My children, my husband couldn’t attend the appointments. There was all these rules and that kind of thing. So part of it could be like the post-COVID era of birth and how things were really different. And the focus was more on the safety as opposed to the care of the woman as a person and how she feels — it was more of the safety around the COVID.

I mean, I didn’t feel like I was that affected by the post-COVID stuff, but on the other hand, I think that did play a role into it. Because I had been with the same midwives with all three births. I feel like there was a distinctly different feeling even within going to appointments. They don’t have a waiting room anymore, you wouldn’t see anybody. And you wouldn’t necessarily expect to during the post-COVID times, but having had two previous babies with the same organization, they used to have a library, a lending library, where you would go. And they used to have sessions, group sessions — that was one of the things that we did with the first birth where my husband and I were able to attend a group session where they did a presentation and he was able to have all his questions answered and he was able to attend every appointment and all of that. And none of that happened this time. So my husband did not attend one appointment with me.

We ended up buying a fetoscope so that the kids could — the fetoscope allows you to hear the heartbeat. So we — it’s not easy though, I had to have this thing on my belly and listen and figure it all out to find the heartbeat. But we were able to do that because I wanted them to be able to participate. But they were not able to attend one appointment. And there was no more lending library, and there was none of that. And I didn’t even see anybody when I would go into the appointments because of the changes. So it was just a different experience.

And upon reflection, I think that it just speaks to some of the challenges that many women may have experienced during the kind of post-COVID era, where my experience was fairly gentle because I was still in my house and all of the people were able to be there. That was one of the reasons I chose to have my first child at home, before there was any COVID, 10 years ago. With this time, it was especially important to me to have a home birth if at all possible because I just can’t imagine the possibility of not birthing with my husband there.

If any of you are listening and did have babies during this time and did face those kinds of challenges — whether it was limits to who could visit you in the hospital, or whether someone could attend your birth or not, or having to choose between your partner and your birth worker, or whatever the case is — I can certainly empathize with that. Not because of the birth itself, because I did have — fortunately, I always say I couldn’t do without the husband being there. But the experience of my appointments and their kind of internal changes, whatever they were going through, it was very different, and I didn’t feel as supported. Even though I did have midwives, and of course you would think that would be this blissfully wonderful experience.

And just to kind of close that all out, as I move past the second point — to kind of add insult to injury, the very final meeting, the kind of six-week discharge appointment — there was another face again. And it was interesting because at the six-week discharge appointment — the baby’s six weeks, and I go in and whatever — I walk in and there’s a new person. And it was interesting — it was a fun conversation. She was really, really sweet. And she actually knew the midwives — since it has been so long, both of the midwives who delivered my eldest and youngest sons, they don’t work there anymore. They’ve kind of moved on to other opportunities. But the one person who I spoke to in that six-weeks discharge appointment, although I had never met her before, she was really good friends with both of my previous midwives. So we had a lovely conversation, which was ironic because I don’t think she actually checked me or anything. That’s how I feel — like even that, it was such a lovely conversation, I don’t think she actually physically checked me or anything. I feel like that all just slipped through the cracks because we just had this lovely conversation and whatever.

Even that just kind of adds insult to injury. I saw a different person almost every single appointment, and so that was one of my gripes. Okay, but the point of kind of bringing the second lesson to a close was that each birth is different. So even though I had been through it before twice, I still was not prepared for every possibility that could happen. I don’t think anyone’s ever prepared for every possibility that can happen, but it is something to keep in mind. You can do everything you can. And I think you should do everything you can to prepare ahead of time. You can read things, you can listen to people’s birth stories. You can talk to your midwife, doctor, OB. You can talk to friends. I think there’s a point at which it could be not so helpful if someone has had a really negative experience and people can really scare you because they can tell you their kind of horror stories and that kind of thing.

So I know that when I was preparing for my birth, I never watched videos of birth that are scary. I would always find kind of hypnobirthing videos of women at home in their tubs and quietly breathing through their contractions and stuff like that. Be careful what you expose yourself to. But either way, the point is that it’s different. Even someone who’s been through birth many times — and not myself, like even someone who’s been through birth more times than myself — and even for someone who’s a midwife, right? Like maybe you haven’t had your own baby but you’ve actually delivered other babies, or you’re a doula and you’ve supported all these women. But it doesn’t matter. Having that experience is good. It’s good because it can help you in a lot of practical ways to prepare, but you still have to go through the experience.

Okay, so I’m going to move on because there’s still two more points, and I’m going to try not to talk for more than an hour here. So the third lesson — and this is something I know from previous births but it did come back with a force — is the importance of self-care postpartum. Like I said, this birth was different. And what I’ve alluded to is that I felt like this birth was a bit more kind of physically traumatic. So not like it was necessarily emotionally traumatic as much as it was physically.

The specific piece of it that was difficult for me was that my ejection reflex is very strong and I have a hard time controlling it. So at the very end stages of labor where I feel that — for anyone who has listened to birth videos or who’ve talked to women who’ve given birth without epidural or whatever — your body at some point may have this ejection reflex where your body starts to expel the baby and it starts to — these very strong pushing, the urge-to-push situation, comes to light.

In my case, with my first baby, I had that experience where I basically pushed him out in like one or two pushes. Like that was it. And it hurt. And so that was something with my second birth that I had extensive conversations with my midwife, who was amazing. And we had a whole birth strategy for how to help me to control that and minimize it. And one of the ways that she was doing that was through counter-pressure.

So with my second birth, although she did come right before he was born, because he did come fast, she still got right in there. She directed me for how to position myself in the birthing tub so that she would have access, and she made it a priority. I had told her that that was important to me and she made that a priority. And so with the second birth, she gave counter-pressure. Counter-pressure means that she put her hand — when the baby was crowning, so when the head starts to come out — she put her hand around the perineum area and pushed back. So that instead of me feeling like I was just going to push this baby out in one shot, she would push against that, and so the baby’s head was able to gradually stretch the opening. And although it doesn’t necessarily feel the greatest, it’s still a much more gentle experience of birth, in my personal experience.

That’s what I wanted with birth number three, and I didn’t get it. And I shared with you some of the reasons why. I did not get that — there was not that great communication because there was always a new person. I didn’t even meet the midwife who delivered the baby before she came that day. She’s also — I think there was like a practical problem because she’s very short. And so she tried, but she was so short that the position I was in, she would have fallen in the tub. So she tried. And we had a conversation about it — like I said, the first midwife, she directed me, she told me where to stand and where to be in the tub so that she could have access. And so this is something that could have been arranged.

But the reason I’m sharing this is because since I didn’t get that counter-pressure, my daughter came out in basically one push. And that might sound like a lovely thing to anyone who’s never given birth, but if anyone has given birth vaginally and felt it, you know that that probably sounds like the most horrible thing ever — to actually push one time and have the baby come out in one push. So it’s very painful and very traumatic to my vagina.

So with this case, postpartum — in addition to just the general recovery and just the general stuff — I did end up seeking support from a pelvic floor physiotherapist and getting everything checked out and being given exercises and different things to do to support just healing postpartum, things like that. And that could happen anyways — I mean, who knows — but I feel certainly not getting that kind of pressure and not having the ability to control that kind of delivery scenario, it didn’t help the situation.

So in this particular scenario, the healing, the kind of importance of taking time to take care of yourself postpartum was brought up in a different way. So generally speaking, even though that was the case, I still did generally heal quite quickly. I do think that there’s a huge piece of this healing conversation that happens even before you’re pregnant and through pregnancy — supporting your body through nutrition, making sure that you’re doing everything you can to eat collagen-rich foods so that your body can have those healing nutrients to really support the development, stretching of the uterus, and your skin, as well as the healing postpartum.

So I don’t want to give the impression that I didn’t have a good experience with healing because I did. I mean, within a few weeks I was feeling pretty good, walking around. But I would say this time around I did need a little bit of extra support. And that was something too that I think is important. You can plan for as much as you can.

I think part of that planning should be to think about potential additional supports that you may need. And so one of the supportive persons that you may want to consider having, even if you have a list of possible practitioners when you’re still pregnant that you might have to draw from — so I’ve shared many times that I’ve had difficulties breastfeeding with my children. All three of them were born with a tongue tie. And in my case, that resulted in painful latching and feeding. And so having a lactation consultant — someone, maybe you do a little bit of research before you have the baby and you have somebody that you can call on if you need to have that supported, or you just plan ahead and plan to have that appointment and visit as part of just the postpartum strategy.

So that’s something that I think is helpful. In my case, knowing about these local practitioners — the local postpartum physiotherapist — was really helpful so that when I found myself needing that additional support, I was able to just look at my list and make the appointment and get the support that I needed.

So I think that it is helpful to really think about what you may need postpartum. I knew that what I would need would be a couple of weeks where I really don’t have to cook anything or do a whole bunch of stuff. So I did what I could to have those supports in place and to have the help that I needed in the home, as well as doing as much as I can to prepare so that I could just rest.

I still did a little bit of work during that time, but what I did was I really cleared my schedule for the most part. So the meetings that I took were actually with my FAM practitioners. And so I had support in the home and I was doing one 90-minute call a week with the full option to cancel if I had to. So I actually organized my schedule so that I didn’t have to do anything if I wasn’t able to. And if I hadn’t been able to make that one 90-minute call the one time a week during those early postpartum days, everyone was kind of on standby if I needed to cancel. And actually, one of the things I did was I scheduled guest speaker sessions for those times so that I wouldn’t even necessarily have to be on the call if I couldn’t be.

Everyone does this differently. Everyone doesn’t necessarily have a business where they’re working for themselves and all that kind of stuff. Especially in Canada, I think most women are able to take off at least a little bit of time. But I guess the key point of this is to really think about — even if this is your first baby — when you’re having your very first baby, it’s really easy to overestimate what you’ll be able to do. You just don’t know. It could work out that you’ll be able to do all the stuff and whatever, but you do want to just plan for not being able to do anything for basically three months minimum.

So I think that it can’t be understated how important it is to prioritize taking care of yourself and really thinking through what you’re going to need. Because often we get really caught up in the baby room and all of that kind of stuff, the decorations and all that. But what really happens when you give birth is that you are incapacitated for a period of time. You don’t necessarily know what’s going to happen. You don’t know if there’s going to be any challenges or complications or issues. And so it is a good idea to really just think in your mind — like, what if I couldn’t do anything for three months? What would that look like? And would I have the support I need in place to be able to function if I really couldn’t do a whole lot for that period of time? And hopefully you don’t need to have that experience. But if you plan for it, then if you do have a bit longer of recovery or a bit of a challenge for the first week or two or whatever, then you have the ability to overcome it.

So the importance of taking care of yourself postpartum — both physically in terms of resting and getting enough sleep and not doing anything, not throwing in loads of laundry, just not having to do all that stuff. Nutritionally, to be able to actually have the nutrition you need to support the healing process. Emotionally, to be able to have any support that you need emotionally, whether it’s your friends, family, or if you actually need support from a professional. As well as, again, physically — if you do have any type of physical challenges post-birth. And it’s not necessarily immediate. So when I decided to seek support from the pelvic floor physiotherapist, it wasn’t like the next day. It was within the first three months — I think within maybe month three or something like that that I decided to seek out that support.

So either way, it is really important to think about those things and to put these things in place. And there are places in the world where having a supportive appointment and assessment done by a pelvic floor physiotherapist is just part of what’s expected. It’s just part of the standard of care. I’ve heard that that’s how it is in European countries. So even making that kind of a plan in your mind of having that as something that you’re going to do in general as part of your self-care postpartum isn’t necessarily a bad idea.

All right, so the last lesson I wanted to share with you is basically — you’ll get through it. And so this is something really interesting. I found that this time around, I knew — I had a lot of knowledge going in, experience being the third baby. I obviously had a lot of systems in place. And even when certain things didn’t go exactly as planned, I still had contingencies to make sure that I was supported and that I could foster my healing and recovery and all of those things.

So I feel like overall, I was really prepared for everything that unfolded after having my third child. I feel very fortunate for that. But even with all of those plans in place, like I said, everything doesn’t always go as planned. And even though I knew what birth, the process, is like and what it feels like and what happens, and what happens after the baby’s born, and I’ve been through the challenges before with breastfeeding — in my case because of the specific challenges I had with the tongue tie issue — and I’ve been through the sleepless nights and the challenges there and feeling tired and sleep-deprived, I felt very equipped the third time around to handle these challenges.

I felt that — even though I knew what was going to happen, I still had to go through it. I still had to experience it. So even though I’ve been through this before and I had the experience of having painful latching for the first several weeks with both of my children because of this tongue tie that we had to get released, I knew what I needed to do this time. So I was able to jump on things a lot quicker, and I was able to shorten the duration of the distressing period of time. But it didn’t preclude me from having to go through it.

I still — unfortunately, I don’t know what it is — but I still had the similar experience with my daughter. She had a tongue tie, and we had to seek support for that and have it released. It was the same as the other experiences. So the positive was that I had gone through it before, so I knew right away — within I think within 48 hours, I knew very, very quickly that this was an issue. We identified it and we sought support and handled it. So I think that the positive was that we were able to jump on it and find that solution and get the support we needed quicker because we were able to identify it. But it didn’t mean that I didn’t have to experience it. It was two to three weeks of a very challenging, painful breastfeeding experience.

So the positive thing was that with my daughter, I was able to actually move to the place where breastfeeding was comfortable and natural and easier a lot quicker than with either of my other children. Everyone doesn’t experience pain, and it’s not normal to have a lot of pain — so I hear most lactation consultants say. But in my case, I did experience quite a bit of pain with all three. And I remember with my first son, the pain just continued. I felt like it was painful latching for a couple months. With my youngest son, it was not as bad or as pronounced, but it was still uncomfortable for several weeks until it got to the point where it was fine.

And there is this point — at least for me — even though it was painful at the beginning, where it just doesn’t feel like anything and it just is so easy and baby latches himself or herself and everything just works fine. In all these cases, it wasn’t my child that was suffering. They were able to get enough milk and they were growing. The problem was me. So they were doing it at my expense, and it was just extremely, extremely outrageously painful experience for the first couple weeks. And that was again because there was a problem, not because that’s how it’s supposed to be.

But with my daughter, the positive was that we were able to identify it sooner and we were able to organize ourselves and get the support we needed so that the duration of this challenging time was less. And there were a few of those kinds of things where something would come up and it would just be really, really hard for a week or two, but I was able to address it as soon as possible because I kind of knew what to expect.

And so I guess what I’m saying is even though I had all the tools to overcome these challenges, it didn’t mean I didn’t have to go through them. So I still had to go through those difficult periods of time. So the first challenge was breastfeeding, and again, it was very, very difficult and painful to the point that I would be so tense because I was anticipating this pain that I think it gave myself additional issues with my back. And I had to go to the chiropractor and stuff like that. So it was very challenging, but it was short-lived. And again, I have the supports I need to kind of go through and deal with those kinds of things.

And so now, now that I’m in month four, things are going so smoothly now. The breastfeeding issues are long gone. She’s — it’s all fine. There’s not any intense pain with breastfeeding at all. Occasionally with latching, I feel like she just has a really strong suck reflex or whatever, but we’re past all of that real challenging difficulty now and just into the normal phase. And breastfeeding is really easy. It’s going without incident at this stage, now that we’ve gone through the challenge at the beginning. And she’s sleeping really well now. There was a couple of months of lots of wake-ups and sleepless nights and Zombieland, and we’re past that now. She’s sleeping really well. She’s doing really well.

So I guess it’s interesting because going back to the point — you’ll get through it. And regardless of what your experience is like with some of these issues and how long they take, what is interesting is that when you reflect back after your baby is four months old or six months old or nine months old or a year old or 18 months old or 10 years old — what is very apparent is that when you’re in those moments, it feels like it’s so challenging and it feels like it’ll never end. I had so many of those moments where in the middle of the night, you’re thinking like, oh, this is never going to end. And it does. You’ll get through it. There’s life on the other side of this. Your child will not always be an infant. Your baby will not always be waking up every hour. Eventually you’ll be out of that stage. Your baby won’t always be in diapers.

And so it’s a very interesting thing. And I feel like this third experience of bringing a baby into our home has been just kind of a reminder of that — where you can plan, you can know things, but you still have to go through it. You still have to go through the experience. But there is life on the other side, and you will get through it. And before you know it, like in my case, before I knew it, she’s already four months old. By the time I release this, she’ll be five months old. So by the time I release this, depending on when you listen to it, in January of 2023, she will be six months old. If you’re listening to this in the future, then by then she’s already however old, however many years you’re listening to this down the line.

So yeah, I think a little bit of encouragement for those of you who are going through this process — you will get through it. It is helpful to prepare and to do everything you can. And I think the preparation doesn’t mean you won’t have any challenges. It just means that you’ll be able to get through those challenges with a bit more grace, and hopefully you can shorten the duration of some of the worst of it.

So I am going to stop it there. I’ve really enjoyed sharing all of these little experiences and tidbits. Hopefully you’ve found this to be helpful. Hopefully it helps you along your journey. And some of these insights that I’m sharing with you with my experience — I know that a lot of my clients and fans of the show and longtime listeners appreciate these types of episodes where I share a little bit more about the personal side of things. So I do hope that you’ve enjoyed it.

So just to do a quick recap — the lessons that I learned, although I did spend a ton of time going through some of these: preparation pays off, each birth is different, self-care postpartum is just essential, so key, and you’ll get through it. So that’s a summary of this kind of got-to-be-a-bit-long episode.

If you enjoyed this episode and you can think of someone who you think would enjoy it, I would love for you to share it. The share link is fertilityfriday.com/449. I mentioned a couple of other episodes that I’ll share alongside today’s episode, and so you’ll find that at the show notes page at that link. And also if you’re listening in your podcast player, you can kind of scroll down and you’ll see the notes in there with the links.

So with that said, I hope you have a wonderful New Year. I hope you have a wonderful 2023. I wish you many blessings in this year. I hope that you’re able to achieve your goals and enjoy what this new year has to offer. And of course, I want to thank all of the longtime listeners. I know there’s a few of you who’ve been listening for a really long time — not necessarily the whole eight years, although there are some of you — but I know there’s many of you who’ve been tuning in and joining me for these episodes for many, many years. So I just want to say a special thank you to the Fertility Friday community. You are all amazing and you’re the best. I love this community that has grown up around this work, and I really appreciate all of you for supporting Fertility Friday, supporting me and the work that I’ve been doing all these years. So with that said, as always, until next time, be well and happy charting.