Before we dive into today’s podcast, I want to insert a disclaimer, which is something I don’t normally do, but I feel like it is necessary for this episode. While this story is my redemption birth, I also know how it feels to have all of your birth story dreams stripped of you and mourn the loss of the experience you thought you were going to have.
There are traumatic events in both of my births, so I want to make sure that you’re aware of the following topics so you can make a decision to continue listening or not. I talk about things like preeclampsia, HELLP syndrome, medical emergency transfers, swallowing meconium, and NICU stay, just to name a few.
I truly believe that this was meant to be my story, and God always provides.
He wants me to share it with other moms, to let them know that they’re not alone, and to help others should they ever face the same circumstances in the future.
If you’re curious about how my birth experience went the first time, I do have a podcast episode with extensive details that you can listen to.
I’ll make certain references within this episode, but the focus will be more that I was super naive to preeclampsia and HELLP syndrome until it hit me like a ton of bricks in my 36th week of pregnancy.
My First Pregnancy
My dream of having my midwife help me deliver my baby in her birthing center with the twinkling lights, the birthing tub, and more were essentially ripped from me at 39 weeks.
My blood pressure went through the roof. I felt awfully sick, and she immediately sent me to the hospital for blood work.
When I went in, I had no idea that the next time I would be leaving the hospital would be with my baby. I was diagnosed with HELLP syndrome and was told that my blood platelets had dropped to 83,000.
For reference, they track your platelets on a sliding scale of a 140,000 to 400,000. So 140 on the low end. And anything 50 or below could lead to maternal death.
So, when they told me they had to get the baby out, it became a medical emergency. Did I end up with a little Pitocin to kinda get things going? Yes. But I was able to still have an unmedicated birth. Deny all vaccines for my daughter and bring my little miracle home.
So in the whole grand scheme of things, that’s a happy ending.
Sometimes we don’t get the outcome we want when it comes to our birth preferences, but that’s why they’re called preferences and not musts. And I encourage you to accept the fact and give yourself grace that you can mourn the fact that things didn’t go as planned.
And knowing that is what has led me to working towards having the redemption birth of my dreams the second time with this baby.
High-Risk Pregnancy and Anxiety
I’ve shared on social media that this pregnancy was very different than my first. First of all, I worked until almost the bitter end in the hot South Florida heat teaching golf. I’m super grateful for my level of fitness and the array of supplements I took throughout because doing that is definitely not for the weak of heart.
Towards the end, I knew it was time to kinda pack up my clubs, so to speak, when I was having my members break their own bunkers. I was like, alright. It’s time it’s time to close-up shop.
You know, and secondly, this time around, I had a toddler to run and chase after. That alone just hits different.
I know when you’re a first time mom and going through pregnancy, everything feels new and it’s overwhelming and it certainly is. I’m not discrediting that. But the level of tiredness that comes with being pregnant with a toddler is next level.
Like there’s no getting around that. And while you know what’s to come, so you don’t necessarily unless you wanna do things totally different. I didn’t wanna do things totally different.
You know, I was very confident with my decisions on, you know, vaccines. I was very, I had all the equipment, so to speak.
I didn’t have to research the best crib. I mean, heck. My kids don’t use cribs. We cosleep anyway. So that that went out the window. You know, all of that information, I didn’t have to dive into.
But the ignorance that came with not knowing what motherhood was to bring the first time was a lot better than knowing what’s to come. You know, because I was a high risk pregnancy this time around.
Frequent testing and glutathione shots
And I had to be tested a lot. And by a lot, I mean a lot. Towards the end of pregnancy, I was going to get glutathione shots weekly. And in hindsight, I wish I had started that sooner.
I started taking them biweekly at the end of my second trimester and then, and into the beginning of my 3rd. And then once I hit, like, 35 weeks, 36 weeks, I was getting them weekly.
And I ended up delivering it just over 41 weeks. So I was a pin cushion when it came to needles.
And I had basically a VIP status at Quest Diagnostics. Okay? But there was this unspoken stress that hovered over me throughout pregnancy.
Am I gonna make it to the end?
Are my blood levels improving?
Are they dipping again? Again?
Did I remember to tqake my pills?
I mean, it was just a nightmare adding parsley to all my shakes, creating liver, ice cubes. It just hovered over me like this black cloud.
And I kept wondering, like, am I doing all this prep for nothing? You know, like, am I gonna end up in the hospital anyway? Like, the enemy really can creep into your head and really start making question yourself and your body and your decisions.
And that added so much unwanted stress to a time that really should have been blissful, and I should have been, you know, more focused on appreciating even more than I was.
I was appreciating my time with, you know, my oldest daughter, but at the same time, it was just looming on me. And it was it was just filtering into my other relationships with my husband, my family.
Stress and Anxiety During Pregnancy
- Questioning if the preparation was in vain
- Fear of ending up in the hospital
- Negative thoughts and self-doubt creeping in
- Unwanted stress overshadowing a potentially blissful time
- Struggling to appreciate time with older daughter
- Stress affecting relationships with husband and family
It was not the best. I’ll be real with you. But I am happy to report that my blood work did maintain status quo towards the bitter end which is what ultimately led me to having my home birth.
So all of that work was not for naught. It paid off. And in midwifery, you have to deliver before 42 weeks. So that was another ticking time bomb looming over my head.
You know, if you go into labor the day of 42 weeks and then you end up delivering at 42:1, that’s not an issue.
But if you don’t start the the process on week 42, legally, they in the state of Florida, at the very least, I know this is the to be true, you cannot, birth at home. You have to go to the hospital.
Trying various methods: massages, walking, tea, pedicures, intimacy, dates, yoga.
So when I tell you I was doing everything to try and get things, quote unquote, moving, I’m being real. Okay? Multiple induction massages, which are not for the faint of heart either. They are not relaxing by any means. They’re quite painful.
Because they’re targeting your IT band, your ankles, your Achilles. I did multiple ones of those. I walked them all, which was hysterical, by the way, because I didn’t realize how many people actually do this for regular exercise and fitness until I’m walking the ball and I see people, like, walking with hand weights in their hands.
I was dying laughing. Red raspberry leaf tea, getting pedicure, being intimate with my husband, eating dates, yoga exercises.
I mean, I did it all. K? So when my midwife checked me at 40 weeks plus 3 days, there was no progress.
I just felt so defeated. And over the next few days, I continued to do some of the, quote unquote, tricks. But finally, I just resigned myself to the fact that this baby is gonna come when the baby wanted to come.
And my midwife and I, we discussed, couple days after she had checked me.
So she came over, I think, like, on must’ve been Thursday or Friday. And then we she’s we spoke on Sunday and she’s like, listen, you know, I’m concerned.
Like, if you’re gonna have this home birth, like, you gotta make sure you’re in the right mindset.
I’m starting to feel like there’s a lot of pressure around you and, you know, is this is the right environment, you know, yada yada yada.
And we began discussing the fact that, like, if the baby didn’t come by Friday, you know, that following Friday, I was most likely gonna have to go to the hospital to be induced.
And that caused a lot of friction between Nick and me, You know, while we both went through our experience with our daughter, you know, in the hospital, his experience is certainly different than mine, you know, the one who actually pushed out the baby, but I digress.
He’s concerned about my health and he’s concerned about, obviously, the baby. And it’s easier to say to someone, well, just do that again.
It worked out great. And it’s like, yeah. Well, that’s not what I want to do again. And, yeah, it worked out great, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
And when you know what it feels like to go through an epidural free Pitocin birth, It’s intense. It’s hard. It’s painful. There’s no breaks.
Like, you’re not super willing to go through it again if you don’t have to. And I was trying to make him understand that. But also, to his point, I might not have a choice. So I was just kinda stuck between this rock and a hard place.
My best friend gave me the best advice: Talk to the baby to encourage labor progress
And on Tuesday, that’s when I turned so 2 days after, like, this big discussion, I turned 41 weeks. And I reached out to one of my best friends to pray for me because I was just at a loss.
Like, I was starting to feel really, really upset. And she made one of the best suggestions that, quite frankly, anyone, around me made.
And she said, Maren, I want you to talk to the baby. Talk out loud. Let them know it’s safe to enter the world. That you can’t wait to meet them. That they have a big sister that’s gonna love on them.
And that’s what I did.
And later that day, my midwife came over to check on me again, and she was shocked that in a matter of less than 4 days, I had made such progress.
Now some people will say, oh, you know, don’t don’t do cervical checks, blah blah blah.
And I’m very you know? I don’t think everything in life is so black and white. Okay? I do believe that you shouldn’t go to extremes. I don’t believe it’s necessary to to be checked all the time.
And quite frankly, I didn’t have my first cervical check until just a few days prior when I was already over 40 weeks. You know, a lot of people start getting cervical checks when they’re, like, 36 weeks. No.
We never did that. But to make such a blanket statement that I see a lot of these women on social media doing, like, I didn’t do blah blah blah, Or I didn’t do I did this.
It’s like yeah. But it’s it’s not so simple, homie. So we did do another cervical check when I was 41 weeks when she came over.
And at that point, I went from her not even be able to find my cervix a few days earlier, right, because it was back, tilted back, to now I was 3 centimeters dilated.
Trusting My Midwife and Choosing a Membrane Sweep
When my midwife offered the option of a gentle membrane sweep, I felt a mix of nervousness and hesitation. I had heard various horror stories about this type of induction, which made me quite tentative about the procedure.
However, as I often say, not everything is black and white. Many negative experiences with membrane sweeps occur under standard Western medical care, where they may be performed aggressively before the body is ready. My situation was different.
I had immense trust in my midwife and knew this was a better alternative to being induced with medication at the hospital a few days later. I had been there and done that, and I wasn’t eager to repeat the experience.
To my relief, the membrane sweep performed by my midwife was not painful at all. My body was prepared for it. She was gentle and not invasive, and when she finished, I couldn’t believe how straightforward the process was.
It was a reassuring and positive experience, and I felt more confident moving forward with my birth plan.
Labor Initiation and Early Stages
She’s like, yeah. Now she did warn me that I was probably gonna have the baby that night, that evening, or the night.
So it was super important to rest, stay hydrated, and be well fed. Right? You need the energy. So that’s what I did. And I a 100% made sure that I loved all my little girl a lot, knowing that it was our last night together as a family of 3.
We went to bed around 9 o’clock after reading our stories, and I did start to feel some cramping. But I went to bed knowing that I needed rest.
And then around 2:30, I got up to go to the bathroom, and I was woken up by a contraction. And I was like, okay.
I have a really high tolerance for pain, and it wasn’t like something that doubled me over.
Maybe it would for some women. I don’t know. But I just knew, like, okay. We’re kinda we’re moving in that direction.
So I contacted my birth team to let them know where I was at, standby, because, you know, they’re all on call at this point, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
And I just wanted them to kinda know where I was at because one of the hardest parts about midwifery or being a doula or a birth photographer is the timing of it all.
And I know that the members of my team, like, they’ve been on births that have been, like, 17, 22, or even close to, like, 30 hours. God bless. Okay?
And it’s so important for you and for the sanity of your birth team to understand your body. And it’s wild to me to just know that there are women out there who aren’t in tune with their bodies.
And I truly blame the medical field for the lack of education on it. Because from their perspective, you know, standard western medicine, they’re just like, yeah, whatever. Let’s let’s call it a day, do a c section.
You know? There really isn’t an incentive for them both time wise and financially to promote natural vaginal births. And the fact of the matter is is that when women don’t know what to expect, they might be really quick to jump the gun.
Like, I’ll never forget with with my first child being in triage and a girl was only 1 centimeters and, like, she’s asking for an epidural.
And I was like, oh, honey, you got a long way to go. You know, there’s that side of it.
There’s also the IG influencers who are trying to tell women at birth isn’t painful. Like, there’s just so much misinformation out there, and I just think if women,
a, knew their bodies better,
b, had the right tools to labor and deliver properly, and
c, knew that it was gonna be painful, but the pain is temporary.
I just think that, truthfully, there would be more natural vaginal births.
Self-care measures: eating, hydration, and electrolytes
I really believe that in my heart. So all that being said, I took that time to buckle down and labor by myself for a bit.
So from 2:30 AM till about 4 AM, I walked around my house, I breathe through contractions, I was swaying my hips, I was doing my yoga moves.
Because I’m literally by myself in the dark. My husband, my daughter, and my mom, they’re all sleeping and I didn’t wanna disturb them because there’s no need to I could handle this.
And I didn’t need any distractions, quite frankly. K? I ate my beach bar, my banana, and I had my electrolytes. I was also trying to go to the bathroom and unload, if you will, as much as possible.
I did see a little bit of my mucus plug come out, but nothing compared to my first birth where I saw that come out days before she even was born. It’s so wild that each birth experience can be so different. Seriously.
So around 4 AM, I woke up my mom, and I texted my doula and bird photographer because both of them had a little bit of a drive to get to my house that they should start making their way. And I stayed with my mom, and we we talked.
She was helping me get comfortable. She was giving me head pets, which was my favorite thing, like, since I was a kid. And she was greeting Tina and Paulina when they arrived.
And my doula, Tina, she arrived around 5 as I was pretty much entering, like, active labor at that point. And I have said this on multiple podcast episodes.
I cannot stress the importance of having a doula enough, and I’m forever grateful for mine.
Tina immediately set up her diffuser full of essential oils. She was helping me with counter pressure points through contractions, timing my contractions, switching me up with different moves and positions to help move the baby down, and she was the voice I listened to through everything.
As soon as the contraction began, she was immediately, boom, by my side. And this is another sidebar. Like, I find it so crazy that I see these Instagram reels where chicks are filming themselves giving birth, and they’re, like, talking and shouting through contractions.
And it almost seems like a performance piece. Like, I swear. I’m not kidding you. And I just I don’t. I can’t wrap my head around that because I personally when I’m in this zen mode, I don’t talk to anyone but my doula.
Like, literally, for most of the birth experience. Like, this time, I can’t even really remember Nick being there. Like, I’m not honestly, until, like, the end.
Initial Labor Challenges and Sensation of “Zen.”
Now granted, we have a toddler, so, like, that was a main gig for him and my mom, making sure that she was distracted. But I’m just I don’t scream. I don’t talk. Like, these women who have, like, their kids surrounding the tub, like, no. I can’t.
I just breathe. I do groan through the contractions, which I guess is kinda primal like. But I’m making sure that I’m keeping my face relaxed as possible because the tension and the distraction delays things and and honestly can make everything worse.
So in the back of my head, I knew that my daughter was gonna wake up around, like, 7 or 7:30.
So I’m laboring. We’re keeping my midwife informed. She’s getting ready to pack up all her stuff and and come my way.
We did have a little bit of a hiccup where I was asking my mom for something. I forget. Oh, honey sticks because I believe it’s so important to have your, like, little bursts of energy on hand.
And by accident, she knocked over the liquid vitamin k, broke everywhere, which I needed that day.
So she was, like, beating herself over that. And, like, me being tough love me, I’m, like, after she, like, brought it up, like, how bad she felt for the 3rd time, I was, like, don’t bring it up again.
Or, like, just don’t be in the room. Like, that’s how very direct I am. I knew we would handle it, and we did. And sure enough, my doula, she was all over it because her daughter gave birth a couple weeks before me.
So she was in the process of getting the vitamin k to me. So I wasn’t a worry by any means.
And I just like I said, I just didn’t need the distraction. Like, let’s focus on the task at hand and we’ll handle that problem when we need to, and it did get handled.
So I could start to hear my daughter start to stir and that’s when my contractions were like, now I’m entering the the transition period, so to speak, where I can’t really talk through them.
So I didn’t want my daughter to see me like that. And, also, she’s the type that when she sees me, like, she’s all in.
But she she just wants to know where I’m at, and she’s very, very connected to me. So I just didn’t want her to even see me, And she just stayed with my husband and my mom.
They distracted her with breakfast. I mean, the kid never gets screen time.
She got more screen time that morning than she probably ever gotten in her life. And we timed it so that when my midwife, Jen, who my daughter has been, you know, thick as thieves with over the last, you know, 36 weeks, so to speak, I knew that if she saw Jen, she would understand that mommy was in the house and that something was happening.
So I was like, Jen and my daughter, like, they can’t see one another. Okay? So my mom and husband took my daughter out for a walk, and that’s when Jen came into the house.
I know some people are totally okay with their kids being there for the birth, but I just I just personally wasn’t. I didn’t want the distraction. I didn’t want my daughter frightened. And like I said, she’s very in tune with me.
So I didn’t want her worried about me. Like, what’s happening, mama? You know? So once they were out of the house, that’s when I made the move from the back bedroom into mine and Nick’s bedroom for the birth.
Labor began moving very fast – I’m actively transitioning
And that’s when things started to go very fast because I was in full blown transition phase, which in hindsight, my midwife, she’s she’s just shocked by it. She’s like, you never would have even known it because you were walking around.
You just you couldn’t tell. And we had originally planned on setting up the birthing tub in our room, and I truly believe God was watching over us that morning.
I had been asking Nick to try the hose and the setup for it to hook up into our shower for weeks to make sure it works. K? I did. My dad did. Do you think he did? No.
But like I said, God was watching us. And so my team was blowing up the tub.
Nick came back to the house. The the hookup wasn’t working. The the hose wasn’t reaching, but that’s because it wasn’t getting enough pressure. Like, you couldn’t fill it up.
So then he decided to fill up our bathtub, which is just right down the hall. It’s connected to our master bedroom. Filled that up, but then it was too hot. My midwife’s like, oh, no.
That’s too hot. So we were waiting for it to cool down. And at that point, like, it it was becoming more distracting, and also I was past the point of return. Right? Like, now I’m, like, 9, almost 10 centimeters, going fast, and I couldn’t even get up.
God’s Intervention and the Final Stages of Labor
In the midst of the chaos, I truly believe God’s intervention was at play. As everyone scurried around preparing the bath and handling various tasks, my doula Tina was right by my side, helping me through each contraction.
I was lying on my side, immobilized by the intensity of labor. Even when they informed me that the bathtub was ready, I felt incapable of moving. I told Jen, my midwife, that I didn’t think I could make it down there.
Jen needed to check my progress, and despite my calm demeanor, which masked the fact that I was in transition, she found that I was already centimeters dilated, with the baby in stage 1 of my pelvis and ready to go.
Unlike many women who exhibit signs like vomiting, shaking, or feeling overwhelmed, I remained composed. However, I did experience some of these symptoms during my first Pitocin birth, where I trembled and expressed doubts to my husband and Tina.
Given my advanced stage of labor, Jen was concerned that moving to the bathroom might stall my progress.
So, we decided to stay put and continue through this transformative experience as a team.
It’s Go Time! Baby is Arriving Earthside
So she said, are you ready to push? And I was like, what? Ready? I felt like we had just gotten into my bedroom, like, it just I don’t know. Like, everything was happening so fast.
And the next contraction, I could feel my body doing its natural reflex to push. So we determined that when the next one would come, that it was go time because she had also checked me because she asked me if my water broke, and I said no.
Because I knew what that I know what it feels like to have your water break. For me, it’s never been like this slow trickle. It’s just like, boom, like a balloon, and she could feel that it hadn’t.
And then next thing you know, the next contraction happens, and my water did break, but it felt different.
Like, I knew something was up. It it didn’t feel right. My midwife, to her credit, remained calm. And she just said to me, I need you to push. Like, I saw it in her eyes. And I couldn’t tell at the time what it was, but it felt like there was blood coming out with it.
Sorry. This is a TMI podcast, but it it just didn’t feel I felt like a like a big clot.
And I was worried because, obviously, with my health and and the platelets, like, that could go south real fast with hemorrhaging. So turns out that it wasn’t just the water breaking, it was blood.
Yes. I was accurate on that, but it was also meconium, which is the baby’s poo. So this baby had to get out ASAP.
And as I’m pushing on my side and feeling the ring of fire, if you know you know, I heard a cry. And I was like, what the heck was that?
I literally thought it was my toddler. Like, you know, because when babies cry, it means they’re out.
So it couldn’t possibly be this baby. Nope. That was wrong. It was the baby. Her head…
well, hello, hello. It’s a girl.
Her head wasn’t even fully out. Right? So it’s like the top half of her head and, like, her bottom, her bottom lip was still inside, but her top lip was open and she was crying.
And I asked my midwife, like, what it looked like from her perspective, and this is what she said. She said, meconium and blood came out along with your poo, meaning mine.
She’s like, which is usually firm during labor, but it wasn’t. So, typically, when you are preparing for birth, like, when you’re trying to go to the bathroom, like, you’ll see a lot of women will get, like, diarrhea.
They’ll throw up. Like, it’s their body emptying out. Well, mine didn’t do that until, like, the bitter end. Thanks.
So you had lots of poo. You had blood. You had all of this stuff, and it complicated things. And I know it’s weird for people like, what? You poo during labor? Like, everyone does, ladies.
You just probably don’t know about it because if you were in the hospital, they cleaned it up so fast and they didn’t tell you or you didn’t think about it, like but it’s just a natural reflex. It’s it is what it is.
Discovery of Complications: Blood and Meconium
And from a midwife’s perspective, I was on my side, and she said that my butt kinda sank into the mattress.
So my water broke and it made a puddle, and then the baby’s head came out almost immediately after water broke and more meconium fluid and blood was coming, and her face was in the puddle.
So at that point, Jen, my midwife, said, flip. Get on your hands and knees. So I got on my hands and knees. I’d lifted my right leg like I was a dog on a fire hydrant, and I kept pushing to get her out.
And the reason why I had to flip is because we had to get the baby’s face out of all that fluid. And when I was turning, that’s when the baby gasped and she swallowed and then cried and then swallowed again.
So things were, like, all flowing in her face. K? Now my midwife saw this.
Like, everyone’s kinda watching me, helping me flip, but my midwife was watching the baby so intensely and and thank God.
Because what she did is she was keeping the mouth closed by keeping pressure on her chin until the shoulder started coming, then she moved both hands to catch her.
The photos that my birth photographer have of this, like, that she captured, they’re wild. There’s a reason why she’s been in National Geographic before. Okay? And from there, everything became a blur.
My husband who remember, he didn’t know the gender. He didn’t even realize that we had another little girl for about 2 minutes until, like, I said something. He was like, wait, what? Because I could tell he wasn’t relaxed.
I was doing my best to stay present, but I was crying, obviously, knowing that we had finally birthed at home. But something just didn’t feel right.
And my midwife put her on my chest, and I’m holding her, and she had so much vernix on her.
It was so much more than my older daughter, which, you know, circling back to how I had her at 4 one one, it makes sense. Like, she needed to be in there because typically, when you go that late, like, there isn’t a lot of vernix on them.
She was a big baby. She was 9 lbs, 2 ounces, 21 and a half inches, but she’s very delicate. And I really believe she needed to be in there a lot longer than my older daughter who came at 39 too.
Emergency Measures and My Midwife Calling 911
And so we’re trying to pink her up, so to speak, but she wasn’t pinking up. Like, she had a little bit of pink on her back, and she was starting to get some, but around her mouth, it was blue. So that’s obviously lack of oxygen.
And I looked at my midwife and she’s like, we need to call 911.
And I want I want everyone to know this because I know immediately as soon as I say this, people are gonna say, well, you shouldn’t have had the baby at home.
And to that, because I know my husband even had that thought. And he spoke about it with Tina, my doula, as well as my midwife. And they’re like, no.
I believe that being at home saved my baby.
Like, it would have been worse because in a hospital, once you’re 6 centimeters, you you can’t move. Right?
I was able to flip and move and and get her out of that dire situation. And, yeah, you could say, well, you would be immediately in the hospital to, you know, extract all the fluid, but at the same time, it would have been worse.
And I know plenty of people that have given birth in the hospital had the same experience, and their kid spent weeks in the NICU. And and sadly, I even know someone whose child died.
We were able to do things that I would have been inhibited from doing in the hospital.
Not only that, the other thing that I want to stress is that when you are thinking about doing this and you are vetting your birth team, specifically your midwife, cause that’s the one who’s ultimately delivering your baby, you need to make sure that that midwife is not prideful.
And Tina, my doula, told my husband that she knows, and they’re midwives in our area that she will not work with because they’ve had this happen before.
They haven’t called 911, and the baby has ended up dying because they’re so afraid of it going on their record or, like, people doubting the home birth experience.
Oh, well, you had to transfer to the hospital. Blah blah blah. And they think more about themselves and the life of the child and, and ultimately the mother.
And I’m so grateful for my birth team for not being like that and and always being concerned about me and and my baby.
So when my midwife, Jen, said to call 911, I knew that she was making the right decision. And EMS was there, I swear, in 5 minutes, I’m sitting there, and Jen’s getting the blanket for the baby, telling Nick he’s gotta go the hospital.
She’s cutting the cord, clamping it, getting the baby ready to go so that as soon as EMS is there, they can go. Now mind you this whole time, the baby has been attached to my placenta, so she’s still getting oxygen. And she was pinking up basically everywhere except around her mouth.
And my doula went with Nick to the hospital. I wanted to make sure that he wasn’t alone and that he had support. I had support at home from my midwife, her assistant, my photographer.
Obviously, my mom was in the other room with my toddler. So I had more than enough support.
I needed to make sure that he had support with him. So Tina followed him to the hospital. And, you know, Jen had she knew to make this call because she tried to take some of the liquid out, but she could hear it in the baby’s lungs.
And she’s like, we need a stronger tool to get this out, which is why we called 911. So they leave.
So I have these, like, 4 strapping EMS guys come into my room where there’s, like, blood and poop everywhere.
They’re looking at me like, oh my God. What is this you know what show? They they take Nick away with the baby, which as you can imagine was very difficult, for me.
And in that interim, I had a second degree tear. So my midwife is sewing me up. It was not great. Now mind you, I had a second degree tear with my daughter as well. So there is some scar tissue down there.
So she’s sewing me up. And they get to the hospital very fast. They bring her immediately to the NICU.
NICU involvement and refusal of certain medications
And it’s funny how these hospitals work and and not that Nick didn’t know what to say or do, but it just helps when you have, like, your doula there in support, you know, as a team.
They immediately wanted to give her vitamin k and said no. They wanted to give her formula, which I also was not thrilled about. You know?
It wasn’t necessary in my opinion. I mean, it was under an hour that she had been born. Like, this wasn’t days. And let’s be real. Like, she was also getting tons of food from me.
She she’s not starving. So what I did while I was getting sewn up by Jen is I started pumping. I had colostrum. Tina, my doula, drove back to my house, and she met her son to get the vitamin k drops because my roommate didn’t have vitamin k drops.
And she brought the vitamin k drops as well as my colostrum to the baby. So we avoided all of those things. She, you know, was there.
And then once I was all cleaned up, showered, yada yada, said goodbye to my daughter, you know, loved on her.
I got something to eat, packed up some things. You know, for me and Nick, I went to the hospital. So they drove me to the hospital, my midwife and her assistant. And when we were there, I was reunited with my baby.
I was able to nurse her. And after about she was probably in the NICU about 3 hours. They discharged us to a recovery room.
They did make us stay overnight, which, you know, makes me laugh because the thing that they kept testing her for wasn’t even the thing that brought us in.
Right? So they extracted all of the fluid from her lungs. She had clear lungs. She was great. But she was being tested for glucose because she was a big baby, which is ridiculous.
And the poor little thing has so she’s not even 2 weeks old, and she has the little blood scabs from how many times they pricked her heel.
And I eventually, like but after the midnight one, I said to him, I was like, can we just be, like I knew I could also check myself out, but I was, like, trying to play nice because ain’t nobody got time for them to, like, be calling CPS or anything like that on you.
So I was like, you know, can we leave tomorrow? I said, because what we brought her in for, she’s cleared and you’re not like, and she did. She did throw up some more amniotic fluid throughout the night and she but she was fine.
Leaving the hospital – finally – and going home
Her lungs were good and she passed all her tests. I was like, can we leave? And fortunately, they did let us leave. I think it’s more so that they needed our room.
They did give her, you know, her hearing test and all those things that my midwife would have done anyway, but we were there, so we might as well get it done by the hospital.
And we were able to go home. And my midwife came over that night, and everything was great.
And I have to say, like, you know, was it a scary experience? For sure. You know, no one wants to have their baby taken from them within 10 minutes of the baby being born.
But, ultimately, that’s what saved her life. And I’m very grateful that that was our experience because I still encourage everyone, if you can, to have a home birth. I don’t regret any of it at all.
She’s here. She’s beautiful. She’s healthy. She’s strong. I’m great, you know, and having a midwife to take care of you.
I mean, my midwife is here every week. You know, if you’re in standard care, you’re not gonna see a doctor for 6 weeks. You know, she’s taking care of me and, you know, even one of the stitches we had to remove a few days later because it was irritating scar tissue.
Like, she’s she’s my go to if I have a a problem or a question, and you don’t have that luxury when you’re in standard care. They send you on your merry way. And so I encourage you to have a birth team like this.
Encouragement for Home Birth
I encourage you, I know it’s scary, especially if it’s your first, to consider a home birth. If you can, and you’re mentally prepared and supported by your family, you should do it because it is beautiful. I believe that’s why everything happens so fast. In perspective, I do birth quickly.
My first child was born with Pitocin, and active labor was basically 2 and a half hours. This one, no Pitocin, although I did get a shot of Pitocin, it was like a milliliter after I gave birth because we had to get the placenta out.
It was already starting to detach, and since I don’t do RhoGAM, we didn’t want any blood mixing, and we didn’t want me to hemorrhage. So, I did have a tiny bit of Pitocin, but that was after the fact.
I believe that’s why I also labored so easily at home. Active labor until I gave birth lasted 5 hours. None of this 20 or 30-hour nonsense.
I had the tools, the resources, and the team to support me through this, and I encourage you to seriously look into that and invest in it because it’s worth its weight in gold.
It really, really is. So, that’s my birth story.
My RhoGam Rebellion – A Personal Journey Challenging Modern Medicine Norms and Practices
I’m obviously gonna be sharing more and more as I enter this phase of being a mother of 2 girls and all of that that comes with it. But I wanted to make sure everyone knew, like, what what had happened because I did I did disappear for a little bit.
And, you know, I know when I tell people, like, even when I FaceTime, some of my friends are, like, wait. Why are you in a hospital? You’re supposed to have a the baby at home.
You know, I know people were worried. And then they start thinking, like, the worst. Like, what happened? Or, you know, it’s the there’s always the I told you so people. And it’s not like that, at all.
I’m very I’m very grateful. I’m at peace with what has happened, and I truly believe that everything in my life happens to me for a reason, and God’s always there to support me and to take my story and share with others.
So that is what this was about. And if you have any questions for me, please don’t hesitate to reach out. I’m an open book, and I just appreciate all of the love and the prayers that we got throughout everything. Pregnancy, labor and delivery, postpartum.
I can’t thank you enough. So thanks for tuning in, and I’ll catch you next week.
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