Birth Matters Podcast, Ep 76 - When Your Mom is an L&D Nurse

Astoria resident Eileen chose her birth place on Long Island because it was where her Labor & Delivery nurse mother works and had relationships that would lend themselves to things going as well as possible and having her preferences honored. She also did all the things to prepare as best as possible for a healthy pregnancy and birthing experience. Today, she shares the details of a surprisingly long and intense 36-hour labor which included thinking her water broke early on, laboring a long time at home and at her mother’s house, going to be checked and advocating to not be admitted too early. Eileen also shares how she managed to transition into postpartum after a less-than-seamless discharge from the hospital following what she calls “poop trauma”.

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Episode Topics:

  • Learning she was pregnant May 2020, one month after getting laid off from work during pandemic

  • Constant heartburn

  • Thoroughly prepping -- lots of reading following IG accounts, listening to BIRTH MATTERS podcast, intentional nutritional choices

  • Choosing to give birth in a hospital because she has [encephalitis “just in case”

  • How background as an actor helped her in labor

  • Choosing her mom as labor support

  • BIRTH STORY:

  • Opts out of cervical checks at 37 weeks but then at 38 weeks asks for it

  • Cervix not ripening at 38, 39, 40 weeks

  • On way home from 40w1d appointment, decided to have spicy foods

  • Loses mucus plug in evening

  • Next morning around 5:30am feels a pop — seems like water breaks

  • Chooses not to call, has bloody show around 6:30pm, then contractions start

  • Try to stay in bed, husband’s running around packing

  • Early labor activities - making brownies, watching tv, walking, etc.

  • Comfort measures that helped - leaning on husband, slow dance, birthing ball, didn’t like lying down, vocalization

  • 7pm call doc at 5 min frequency (but not consistently -- she wishes they stayed home longer

  • Went to hospital a little later, get checked, 2-3 cm, leave hospital and go to mom’s house. No one mentioned membrane rupture.

  • Had affirmation cards and audio hypnobirthing recordings

  • At mom’s house, showered, tried to sleep, used ball (11pm-4am)

  • Went back to hospital around 4am

  • Uncontrollable shaking in legs

  • Around 4cm when admitted

  • Got epidural because of shaking and to get some rest, they watch THE SOUND OF MUSIC (as her sister had in labor, too)

  • Starting low dose pitocin, feeling starts come back

  • Using peanut ball

  • Gets a bolus around 6-7cm

  • Everyone but husband leaves room and things really ramp up (transition)

  • Traditional pushing in hospital, but still felt calm

  • Husband loved the look on Eileen’s face seeing baby

  • Affirmations:

    • My body is safe, my baby is safe

    • My body knows how to birth this baby, my baby knows how to be born to me

  • Sense of calm

  • Daughter hadn’t pooped, so they *almost* kept her in the NICU but discharged Eileen, until she pooped right as Eileen was being discharged

  • Final reflections

Interview Transcript

Lisa: Hi, Eileen. How are you?

Eileen: Hi, Lisa.

Lisa: So glad to have you. Thanks for taking the time, especially in the throes of early parenthood, to be with us today.

Eileen: Of course. No problem.

Lisa: Can you just take a moment to introduce yourself? Let us know how long ago you gave birth and what neighborhood you live in. Maybe if you want to share what you do for a living.

Eileen: Sure. So my name is Eileen. I live in Astoria, New York. I'm originally from Long Island. I gave birth to my daughter, Fiona, six weeks ago tonight at 10:00 PM. And before I was a mom, I actually was a musical theater performer and theater professional for about 10 years, left the business and forayed into corporate recruiting. So I did that for about two years. I was laid off because of Coronavirus (womp womp) but am now obviously the happy mom to Fiona. I did return back to work for a short time during my pregnancy. And now I'm just focusing on motherhood.

Lisa: Six weeks. And you told me you're just about to go for your checkup in like three days or so, right?

Eileen: Monday morning.

Lisa: I hope all the healing is going well.

Eileen: Yeah. Okay so far. A little bit better each day.

Lisa: Glad to hear that it can, it can take awhile, right?

Eileen: Yeah no, at first it was obviously a lot of soreness and things like that. I had a second degree tear, so definitely sore, pain, achiness, and just feeling very sleep deprived, not unusual. And now I think it's more subtle, but still like a little bit of soreness and just like feeling, not quite like I have the same body. I think that's starting to become more noticeable, like, oh, this is a body that I might need to take some time to attend to and rebuild.

And even six weeks out, I need to keep resting, keep doing gentle stretches, kind of like be slow as I get back into working out. I'm a pretty active person so, baby steps. Yeah.

Lisa: Well, so backing up, can you first kind of share a little bit about how your pregnancy went? Was it uncomplicated? Were there complications that developed, as well as what are the various ways that you prepared for this journey into parenthood?

Eileen: Yeah, so I found out I was pregnant in May of last year. Pretty much like in the thick of the pandemic. And it was about one month after I lost my job because of the pandemic.

So the timing was, it was just like, oh my gosh, all the life always happens at once, so it was definitely one of those moments. But we had been trying for a while and we were really ready for it and excited when I did get pregnant. I had a very uncomplicated pregnancy. I'm really fortunate.

I had terrible heartburn my entire pregnancy, not just at the end, started at about 10 weeks. And that was again, small problem to have, but that was definitely the hardest part of my pregnancy was the acid reflux and the heartburn, especially towards the end. I felt like there were times where I didn't really want to eat, and I knew that I needed to be getting healthy foods into my body, and there were times where I just didn't feel like it. So that was a little bit challenging and definitely towards the end, that was something that was really wearing on me.

Lisa: And did you find anything that helped at all?

Eileen: I was taking Pepcid every day, poppin' Tums right and left, Mylanta. I did a couple of more holistic things. Actually Juliana Mitchell, prenatal yoga instructor, suggested hot water with lemon. And it's counterintuitive, but it actually did provide some relief and drinking coconut water instead of regular water. Also a lot of relief. Cause regular water was coming up a lot, actually still is, I'm kind of waiting. I'm like, is this gonna go away? Yeah, so we'll see. But yeah, the coconut water over regular water was helpful too. So I had the regular over the counter stuff and then I also did a couple of more holistic things.

Lisa: Yeah. And there's not one thing that works for everybody and one of the things I've learned from nutritionists is that sometimes that can be the result of too much acid and sometimes it's the opposite-- too little acid. And so what works, it's going to depend on if it's too much or too little.

Eileen: Interesting. Yeah.

Lisa: Yeah. Hmm. So what else about your preparations for this journey?

Eileen: So I was unemployed and had lots of time, a wealth of time. My sister and my mother would say too much time to get ready. Cause I'm definitely a preparer, right. So I wanted to take all the classes and read all the books. So I have my list here.

I did prenatal yoga. I did prenatal massage. I did prenatal workouts. I was walking regularly. And like I said before, listening to your podcast, which was great, listening to positive birth stories was super, super helpful for me. You tend to hear a lot of traumatic stories. So for me, it was really wonderful to listen to particularly positive hospital births.

Lisa: And may I ask, did you find the podcast before you took class with me or as a result of. It's okay if you don't remember.

Eileen: I think it was before, cause I follow a couple of doulas on Instagram. So I think it was the social media. I said, "Oh great. She has a podcast, that's also the person who I want to take classes with." So it was kind of like a social media connection thing.

Lisa: Gotcha. And you took classes earlier than most people do, which...

Eileen: I did, I was eager.

Lisa: ...I loved. So you started at the end of September and you didn't give birth till January, right?

Eileen: Yeah. January 22nd. Yeah. So it was a little bit early. Again, I was eager to do it, had a lot of time on my hands.

In hindsight, I think I would take it a little bit later because I wanted the information fresh in my mind. I found myself like pulling up the textbook a lot and being like, "Oh, what did she say about that? And checking my notes." And so it was an amazing class. I wish I had taken it completely in my third trimester, I think, just so that it was fresh in my mind. I think I lost some information that I would have loved to have. Couple of books I read Ina May Gaskin, I read Birth Without Fear by January Harshe, I read a hypnobirthing book, which I liked, but I will say that the tone of the book was very like, "Hospital births are bad," and it was just cast in a little bit of a negative light. And that was a little tough for me, cause I was like, well, I'm giving birth in a hospital, so while these techniques are helpful, kind of the tone of the book was a little, just a little one sided, I think a little biased in my opinion. And then Breastfeeding Made Simple also. So those were the books that I read. Focused a lot on nutrition, eating healthy foods. I had a list of essential foods that I wanted to make sure that I ate-- avocado, salmon, lots of spinach.

There were a couple of eggs, there were a couple other things and I kept a list up. So anytime I was doing grocery shopping or preparing my meals, it was kind of right in front of me and I couldn't ignore it. So that was good. Towards the end, I was drinking raspberry tea and dates as well. The dates, I kind of did it and I kind of didn't, I like, I had them and I made little energy balls with the dates and I was kind of popping those, but did I eat enough to actually have the effect that they're supposed to have in ripening the cervix? I have no idea.

Lisa: Well, and that study was so small to begin with that, like it's far from proven and everyone has latched onto it.

Eileen: Yeah. Right. And red raspberry tea and then of course taking your class, that was the other big one.

Lisa: And I wanted to ask when you mentioned all of the nutritional aspects, do you remember where you got that information on the great pregnancy foods.

Eileen: I think I followed a few people on Instagram.

There's a great prenatal nutritionist she's out of California and I followed her account and she was really great. She did a lot of myth-busting and things like that. So that was really helpful. So her account was great. It was funny because when I was trying to get pregnant, the nutritional suggestions were very similar. So it was kind of just a continuation of that.

And it really, there was nothing like rocket science about it. For me, it was just about eating real food. Not so much processed food. Lots of fruits and vegetables. In my first trimester, when I was super queasy, I didn't get any morning sickness where I was vomiting, but I was very, very queasy at times and little to no appetite at times, but I was able to eat in the morning and I would eat like yogurt and berries and peanut butter in the morning and get that in.

So I was like, I'm getting the calories in. So that was really helpful. And then the rest of the day I couldn't eat anything but like plain pasta and toast. So yeah, the nutrition, it just felt like a continuation. And again, just focusing on whole foods, healthful foods, nutrient dense foods.

Lisa: That was the term I was about to say nutrient dense.

Eileen: Yes. Yeah. And then, like I said, my pregnancy was really uncomplicated and other than the heartburn, that was my big complication.

Lisa: That's a long, long time. Goodness. Most people just have it for a shorter window of pregnancy.

Eileen: And someone said everyone was like, oh, that means your baby is going to have hair. And I was like, "I'm Irish and fair-skinned; my baby is not going to have hair." And sure enough, she had hair. Crazy.

Lisa: Oh, wow. How about your choice of birth location?

Eileen: Sure. So my mother is actually a labor and delivery nurse at a hospital on Long Island. So because of that, I decided to stick to using that hospital and using the practices available, who have privileges at that hospital. And the reason I chose my care provider, my OB GYN was because of my mother's knowledge and relationship with that practice.

She knew all of those doctors, has worked with them for a very long time. And I also actually have I have a VP shunt; a shunt drains excess fluid from the brain to manage hydrocephalus. And we wanted to be really careful about making sure I was in a hospital setting just in case. It was very low risk, but it was a just in case situation.

And one of the reasons why we chose the doctors that we chose was because from my mother's experience, they're all excellent surgeons. So in the very rare instance that I would have had to have a C-section she really trusted those OBs as surgeons. So that was the reason why we chose the hospital because we knew my mom would be there.

We knew that she would have a certain amount of control over the situation, which was good. Who's in the room who did my epidural which I was on the fence about my whole pregnancy, but ultimately ended up getting. And there were just things that we were able to control because it was my mother's floor where she worked.

Lisa: Yeah. That's nice. And then with your background as an actor, do you want to speak at all now? Or you can just weave this into your story or both. How did that play into your confidence or your preparation or the way you labored?

Eileen: Yeah. So I had a feeling that it would, from the very beginning, I knew that a lot of the tools that I had learned in acting training, voice training, even just being a long time yoga student I knew that that, or had a strong feeling that that would really help me once I got into labor and delivery. 'Cause with that just comes along a lot of body awareness and a strong sense of what relaxes the body. So for me, the singing, I know that singing kind of vibrates muscles that no other action does like actually phonating. So I knew that that was going to be helpful in, I knew that I was probably gonna lean towards that.

Same thing with yoga. I knew like doing different poses and things like that, that that would be therapeutic during my pregnancy and during my labor and delivery. And with acting like, I guess just a sense, and this is yoga too, but just a sense of of mindfulness was really helpful and being able to truly kind of like scan the body and know how to let go. That was a big part of acting, training, finding your neutral. Things like that. And that's all again, that the, that sense of body awareness was really helpful. And when I talk about kind of my birth story too, I can kind of say all the different comfort measures that I used and how those kind of connected to the acting and the singing and all that too. Yeah.

Lisa: And then, so you chose to give birth where your mom and your sister work. Did you choose for one or both of them to, well, actually in COVID times, you probably wouldn't have been able to bring both of them, I'm guessing, but but did you choose one of them to be labor support for you?

Eileen: Yeah, so my mom was with me most of the time in addition to my husband.

Lisa: And was that just the totally logical choice? Like, didn't really take much consideration?

Eileen: So, a little bit of background about my mother too. So she didn't become a nurse until she was 40 and then had four kids. So she went back to school at the age of 40. She had been a stay at home mom for all that time, but when she was having her own children and this would kind of place us in like the late eighties, early nineties, when my brother and I were born, she actually volunteered at a local nonprofit called The Mother Center on Long Island.

And she would lead support groups. I remember this as a child, like being sent upstairs cause mom had like the women coming over and it would be the support groups of women talking about postpartum before postpartum was a thing or named. And so it's something that my mother obviously always had a passion for, and then she turned that after she had her own children into her career.

So she became a nurse and became a labor and delivery nurse. And I think that that was all really intentional. It's just, I always it's something that I kind of realized as an adult, like, oh my gosh, she was doing all this work while I was a kid and creating those like safe spaces for women to talk about these things, which I think is just amazing.

Lisa: Oh, I love that background. I knew she was a labor and delivery nurse, but I don't think I knew the extent of that. That's wonderful.

Eileen: The other thing I wanted to say was that I knew I wanted her there because she knows what happens in the hospital to birthing women or birthing people. And she was almost going to be like, I felt like she was going to be my guardian a little bit, like the bouncer, the person at the door, if someone, a doctor came in or somebody came in and was like, "Let's break her water." She'll be like, "No, we're not doing that."

Right. And it was great to have her there because she really knew what I wanted and knew all of my wishes and everything. And my husband was there too. And obviously he was there to advocate for me as well. But because my mom was so closely connected, again, with these people in that particular place that gave me a lot of reassurance that I could kind of trust how the process was going to go.

Lisa: Mm. It sounds like you guys are really close.

Eileen: Very much.

Lisa: I love that. Yeah, because some people do choose to have a parent (most often a mother, but not always) with them through labor and -- or a sibling or a friend and it's so important to think through the dynamic in that relationship, not just the dynamic, but also their energy surrounding the idea of birth. And I could see some labor and delivery nurses or other medical professionals not being quite peaceful, the peaceful presence that you need. Right. They, especially when it's your own, your daughter. Yeah.

Eileen: Yeah I want to clarify, too, that my mom was not my actual nurse. She was there as my support person. In addition to my husband and then my actual nurses were her good friends. So my nurse that took care of me for, I was there for a long time, one full 12 hour shift was one of my mom's really good friends. And then my nurse for my actual delivery came to my wedding. So again, like people who, you know, family, friends, people who I really loved and trust. So that was really great too, that my mom was able to kind of make sure that the right people were there for me.

And same thing with the my anesthesiologist, I got like the head of the department to do my epidural, which was practically painless, I have to tell you, which I know is not everyone's experience, but I kind of had, I had the guy. You know?

Lisa: Oh, nice. Nice, great. Well, is this a good time, unless you have anything else to share about prenatal prep whenever you'd like to launch into your birth story, feel free to do that.

Eileen: I don't think so.

Lisa: So if you'd like to start wherever, it makes sense if that's the last few weeks or the big day.

Eileen: So the last few weeks I went to my 37 week appointment. And I said, you know what? I don't want my cervix checked. So, I felt like I was like taking a stand by not getting my cervix checked; I didn't. And then by the time I got to my 38 week appointment, I was like, "Check me, I want to know. I want to know if something's going on," because even during those last few weeks, I started to feel a lot of pressure and definitely it felt like things were happening. So I was getting really encouraged by that.

And kind of, I wanted that proof and that validation. So 38 weeks I was closed. 39 weeks closed. 40 weeks. Fast foward to 40 weeks and one day, still closed. And I was so frustrated. And I know that dilation does not determine when you're going into labor. So like rationally, I knew all of that, but I think when it came down to it, you're eager.

You want things to be going on. One of the most important things for me going into my labor and delivery was I wanted to go into labor naturally. So I also started to get kind of anxious at this point thinking if I go past my due date. Cause I know that the practice that I chose induced at 41 weeks, so I was very very conscious of that, knowing that I really wanted to go into labor naturally. So I was getting a little bit anxious. So on the way home from that last appointment at 40 weeks and one day I was really frustrated and I said to my husband, "I want like a good comforting meal. I want one of my favorite foods, which I had been avoiding my entire pregnancy, which is Pad Kee Mao from the Thai restaurant up the block.

Lisa: That's my favorite.

Eileen: So good. So I said, "You know what? Screw it. I'm having the pad kee mao." And it was so spicy. I was eating it and I am not one that subscribes to old wives tales. I feel like I'm a pretty practical person and I'm not even kidding you. Cause people were saying, try spicy food, try spicy food.

I'm like, if one more person tells me to try spicy food to go into labor, I'm going to lose my mind. I'm not kidding. I'm not even kidding you. I ate the spicy noodles. And I went into labor a few hours later. I'm not, I wish I was kidding, but I'm totally not. It totally worked.

Lisa: Why do you wish you were kidding? Cause that's exactly what you were hoping for.

Eileen: Because I kept getting annoyed when people were saying it, I was like, all right. All right. Like it was one of those. Yeah. Like, it sounded like cliche, almost one of those things that you say to a woman who's trying to go into labor. So whatever. Ate the spicy noodles.

So I ate it, I think in the afternoon, just out of pure frustration, I just wanted comfort food. I saw my mucus plug. So I was like, "Okay, I think that was it. Let's see what happens. So that was in the evening. And then the next morning I had really bad insomnia during my pregnancy too.

I was usually awake between like 3:00 AM to 6:00 AM. So I was on the couch. It was about 5:30 in the morning. And I heard a pop in my abdomen and I was like, "Uh, that was weird." I went to the bathroom and I had like a gush of fluid and I was like, "Oh, my goodness was that my water breaking?" So I go, I wake up my husband and I said, "Hey, Eddie, I think I think my water broke," and he like sprung into action.

And I was like, "No, no, no, wait, we're good. I need, we need to make sure that this is really what happened," because I also know because of the care provider that I chose, if my water broke, they wanted me at the hospital pretty much immediately. But I also know that your water breaking doesn't necessarily mean that labor is definitely going to start right away.

And so I knew, again, I knew all of these things and had all of this knowledge which was really helpful, but then we were struggling for the next few hours say, "Well, do we call the doctor? Do we go to the hospital?" So there was like this little kind of struggle we had. And my mom was saying like, just give it a few hours, I called her obviously right away.

Lisa: I was wondering what her opinion would be.

Eileen: So I called her and she's like, "Just wait it out and make sure that things are really happening first." So I waited it out. So after that happened, I lost kind of like a little bit of that fluid.

And then I had like the bloody show, like unmistakable. I knew what it was and I was like, "Oh wow, things are going down." And then I started to cramp. So that was great. We got back into bed for a little while, still going back and forth. Do we call the doctor? Do we not call the doctor? I was like, "I'm not calling the doctor. I want to make sure that this is really happening first." So ultimately we decided not to call which was the right way to go because then I really started contracting, so that was great.

Lisa: How many like how long do you remember how long that was after approximately your water broke?

Eileen: So I'm not sure if it was my water breaking. That was the other thing. So what happened was there was like this little gush of fluid. It was like a trickle and it wasn't like a big dramatic, "Oh my gosh. My water definitely broke."

Lisa: That's the most confusing kind, right?

Eileen: Totally. So again, it was like, I wasn't sure. I was like, was it my water breaking? Was it not my water breaking? But I had the bloody show and then I started cramping pretty soon after that. So that was at about probably 6:30 in the morning. I had the little pop about 5:30, definitely the bloody show around 6:30-7, and then started cramping soon after that. So we tried to stay in bed for a little while, but I think we were both kind of anxious.

And my husband was like getting the bags together and I was like in bed, just trying to be like, "No, we're supposed to be relaxing. We're supposed to go back to sleep. Lisa told us to try and go back to sleep." Which was,

Lisa: "You're not even supposed to be awake, partner."

Eileen: Exactly, like was so not the case.

Lisa: It's hard experientially, right? Because there's this excitement of like, "Is this it?"

Eileen: So I was cramping. I was cramping. My husband started timing immediately, which in hindsight was a little bit of a mistake. We were kind of focusing so much on the timing of the contractions. But I ended up being in labor the whole pretty much the whole day and early labor.

And one of the great things that I took from your class was I made a list of early labor activities that I could do. And a few of the things that I did was I went for walks around the neighborhood. I made brownies, which I called my sister when I was in labor. And she's like, "You're not going to make brownies." And I was like, "I'm making brownies. You watch me." So we went over to the grocery store. I made brownies.

Lisa: Were you planning to take those to the hospital? Or was that allowed?

Eileen: No, no, I did, yeah. What else did I do? I tried to watch some TV for a while. I think I did close my eyes at some point, but definitely the walking, when it was really starting to get a little bit more intense. Those are the things that I was doing, kind of like the distraction activities, right? So going for walks, doing the brownies, we had a couple of meals in there somewhere. That was what we did during the day. And then when it really started to get intense, that's when kind of the comfort measures started to come into play.

And another thing we kind of, we wrote down everything. Cause I, I kept having this feeling when I was pregnant of like, I'm going to prepare so much, but when the time really comes, am I going to have my wits about me enough to remember all these things and to do all these things?

And the answer was a hundred percent yes. I felt like I used probably 90% of what I prepared as comfort measures during my labor.

Lisa: That's remarkable.

Eileen: So it was really exciting for me after the fact. I was like, "Oh my God, I actually did all that stuff." It was great. And I was so happy. So the things that really worked for me was leaning on my husband, the slow dance pose.

I was on the birthing ball for, I think, a full 24 hours. That was essential for me. Oh my goodness. I was on that thing the whole time. Lying down was not great. I tried some side-lying; not really working. And then vocalization and visualization were huge for me as well. So my background as a singer kind of came into play and I was mming, ahhing lots of like open vowel sounds through most of my contractions. As soon as it really started to hit and I really started to feel it and it got more intense, I was vocalizing and I was vocalizing until I delivered my daughter. So that was really great too.

Lisa: And did you just know because you were so well-prepared and because of just your knowledge and your background, did you always stay in a low kind of guttural or mid to low range?

Eileen: Yeah, for sure. I think that was just what felt the best again. And I think that comes back to the body awareness and just doing what felt instinctual. So yeah, that was just like low open vowel sounds and a lot of Mmm'ing.

So we were home in Astoria... around the time, I guess it was about like, then it was about 7:00 PM. We ended up calling the doctor, which the contractions were like averaging five minutes, which I think was one of my mistakes is that we really needed to wait until they were consistently five minutes.

We called, they said, "Go to the hospital." I said, "Let's wait a little bit longer after I hung up the phone," and we ended up going to the hospital around nine o'clock. Now here's where my mother had working there helped a lot. She had called ahead and knew who was going to be checking me in and checking me, the resident who was there at the time. And she told the resident ahead of time that I didn't want to be admitted if I wasn't far along enough. So, got to triage. Being on the table, by the way, and when they had to put the monitor on during triage was rough during contractions, that was one of my most un-favorite parts of my labor.

I was laying on that table. I was like, "This is horrible. I gotta move." Because the rest of my labor, I had pretty much been upright and that was working for me. So all of a sudden I had to lie down. I was like, "This is terrible."

Lisa: Many nurses are pretty insistent on like, "you need to be on your back in triage," for whatever reason. I mean, cause they think they can get the best read on the monitor and everything in the position. And then that shift in energy of going to triage and suddenly being in this more. I don't know how private or quiet it felt at your birthplace, but at least like in New York City hospitals, it's just a big energy shift. So it can just feel like, like, "What just happened?"

Eileen: It wasn't too bad. It was felt pretty private, which was good. We were kind of right outside the nurses station and it was just my husband and I in the room for most of it. Oh, and the other thing I wanted to talk about was the car ride.

Cause I know that you had spoken about your own car ride to your birth. And the one thing, so we had about a 30 minute drive from Astoria to the hospital. We ended up in the car a few times, because when I got checked in triage I was only two to three centimeters and I was like, "Aaah, so mad."

They were like, "Trust me, you will know." And the resident was great. She had recently had two babies herself and, because my mom had called ahead and let her know kind of what my intentions were, she was like, "Listen, we can admit you now, but you know what that means." That was kind of the conversation and that meant more interventions and things like that.

So we called my mom and we had already had this plan B in effect, but we ended up going to my mom's instead, which was 15 minutes from the hospital. So we got back in the car. So I used headphones during the car rides and I was listening to some hypnobirthing meditations like early labor and they were affirmation heavy.

So that was really helpful for me. So it was spa music and great affirmations. I also had affirmation cards, the Mama Natural affirmation cards, which I loved, they were great. And I use them during my pregnancy, too. Like before I went to bed, I would like read a few each night. And that was a good way to kind of get them in my head so that I could draw on them later. And again, I totally did, which was great.

So we went to my mom's. I went down into her basement. She was making us snacks. She was really taking care of us in a big way. During that time, and I was there for about five or six hours continuing to labor, I was able to get back in the shower.

I was able to continue on the birthing ball. We tried to sleep a little bit, tried to doze, but I couldn't really lie down. So that didn't really work. So I kept bouncing on the ball, leaning on my husband, leaning on furniture was helpful too. And walking back and forth across the basement.

Lisa: With the ball, given that you traveled among more than just two places. Did you have to, like, or did your husband have to deflate it partially? And then,

Eileen: Oh no, we put the ball in the car, we put it in the back of the car. Oh yeah. We got, when we found out we were pregnant, we got an SUV so--

Lisa: Oh great.

Eileen: --It went in the trunk with us. Yeah.

Lisa: Very nice. And also another question when you went to triage, did they tell you that your water hadn't ruptured?

Eileen: I don't think they checked at that time. I think it was more about the dilation. She checked the dilation. She knew I wasn't as far as I wanted to be. And then we had that conversation. So she didn't check if my water had broken at that time. It ended up getting checked the next day the doctor came in and was an actually it hadn't broken so

Lisa: Interesting. Yeah. The reason I'm asking that is a lot of people, at least in New York City hospitals, if it's confirmed that the water has ruptured, they would have more trouble advocating for themselves to leave.

Eileen: Right. So it hadn't. So that was like the big mystery was solved later on. So we went back to my mom's, so we were really at my mom's from probably 11:00 PM until I think we headed back to the hospital around four o'clock in the morning. So that was when it was getting really, really intense. And one of the most challenging parts of me for my labor was when my legs started to shake. This was hormonal, I believe. And also because I was on that birthing ball and upright and had been for almost 24 hours already.

Lisa: That's a lot.

Eileen: Yeah. So my legs were shaking uncontrollably. So the contractions were getting more intense. The legs were shaking. I was like, I surrender, I surrender. Let's go back. So we got back early morning. I was admitted around five o'clock. I believe I was about four centimeters when I was admitted. They had already, also done my coronavirus test when I was there the first time.

I got a lot of the paperwork and stuff out of the way. So when I came back, I was able to get admitted kind of really quickly and get settled in my room. So I was able to get back on the birthing ball. I didn't get the epidural right away. I said, I want to try to get further along. So I labored probably for another two to three hours.

And then again, "I surrender, I surrender," my legs were shaking uncontrollably, and I kept saying, I was like, "I need the epidural." It wasn't so much about the pain of the contractions as it was, I felt like I needed a break from the shaking because the legs were so bad. So that was kind of my biggest motivation was like, "I gotta lay down and I have to rest."

So my mom had really good advice and always gives this advice to anyone is, "Epidurals are great, but they're simply a tool and they're not the be all and end all. And they certainly don't always take away all the pain and there's pros and cons. So it's a tool." So I was able to rest. So I rested throughout the morning on the epidural. The pain started to come back.

Oh, and this was the great thing. My last contraction before I got the epidural, that's when my water broke. So I was very excited that my water broke naturally. Yeah. So once we I got the epidural, I rested, we watched a movie, we watched The Sound of Music. Which was very nostalgic for me, loved the musical theater.

I remember kind of like singing along quietly and that was really, really relaxing for me. So that was great. And it was funny because my sister had also watched the Sound of Music while she was in labor for her first child too. So we called them and we were like, we're watching Sound of Music

Lisa: That's a long movie.

Eileen: It is a long movie, but it was perfect, because it was--

Lisa: Did you make it through the whole thing?

Eileen: The whole thing. Well, I can say I was like, in my head I'm like, "by the end of Sound of Music, maybe I'll be six centimeters. That would be great." I remember like thinking in my head, like trying to mark it. And I think by the end, I don't think I got checked again until it was like change of shift.

I didn't get checked all that much while I was in the hospital. Again, probably good that my mother was there because they kind of let me be. I didn't have a lot of doctors coming in kind of saying, "Maybe we should do this. Maybe we should do that. Dah, dah, dah." That wasn't really part of it.

So I was on the epidural. They did put me on Pitocin and they were kind of gradually upping it. They started it really low. Oh, and during the epidural, they were switching my positions with the peanut ball. I had a nurse who was my mother's friend. And so I was every so often changing position, which was great.

I remember also I was trying to do some ujjayi breathing from yoga while I was on the epidural. And I hated the feeling of the epidural just cause I felt like I couldn't do anything. It felt very restricting, so I didn't love that part of it. I knew that was going to happen though; I was kind of prepared for that. And kind of doing some more like active breathing helped me feel a little bit more in control, I guess, when I felt like I couldn't move my legs. Okay.

Lisa: And did you have a push button with the epidural?

Eileen: No. Nope. Where does that bring me to, I'm trying to think. So around change of shift. So things were getting more intense. I did end up getting a bolus as well, which I was like, should I shouldn't I should I just ride this out? Because the pain was getting pretty bad at that point. And I can't even remember why I think the nurse kind of said like, don't wait for it to get too bad.

Get the bolus. You can rest again. At this point I had been in labor for, we were coming up on 36 hours. It was pretty long. It was really long; I had a really long labor.

Lisa: That's like twice the average length of a first labor.

Eileen: So, I was kind of resistant because I knew the epidural and the bolus would slow things down and I didn't want to do that.

Or in some cases it slows labor down. I was so exhausted. I was just kind of like, "Okay, let's do it." So they gave me the bolus. And then my legs were numb again, which I was annoyed about again. But I remember, I think I was six or seven centimeters at the time, so I really felt like I was getting into it.

And I was like, "All right, we're almost there. Let's just keep going." The bolus did not last long. All of the sensations for me came back in a really big way. The contractions were really intense and I had what my mother called, like a hotspot, which was a spot in my pelvis that the epidural did not help. I felt the entire time during, before and after contractions, that was not going away. So I had that pain to deal with.

Lisa: Was there ever any question about the baby's position?

Eileen: No, what I did know though, I was on my back as the bolus was like starting to wear off. I remember one of my legs, I was starting to get the feeling back.

I remember looking at my mom and my husband and just saying like, "I have to get off my back." Like I knew instinctually, I have to get up. I have to get upright. So I had this big moment where my husband and my mother and me-- in my head, I was like, be strong, Eileen, you can do this. We had to lift-- I wanted to get up and lean over the back of the hospital bed.

And that was something that my mother, encouraged me to do. And I was like, all right, "Dig deep. Eileen." Cause my legs were numb. I literally had to use just my upper body strength to get myself up. And eventually we did it. I pulled, got my whole body up. And then, my mom says, even now she's like, that's what brought the baby down.

Like, because I was able to get upright because I was able to get vertical, use gravity and I was able to move my hips back and forth again. So that was kind of like my big moment. Then once I laid back down again, I remember the room kind of cleared out a little bit. It was just my husband and I, and the contractions got back to back really intense.

And I knew in my head, I was like, this is it. This is, I knew it was happening. And that's when things got exciting. Yes, it was very intense and painful and all of those things, but I knew that things were happening. So I felt so much more motivated and it almost like reinvigorated me.

So then at one point the contractions were back to back. No one was in the room except for my husband and I, and I was screaming. "I need help. I need help." And my mother came in and Eddie was like, "She's saying she needs help." And my mom was like, "That's what we were waiting for."

Lisa: Transition.

Eileen: Transition. So again, I had such a great team and so much support and so much knowledge and expertise and, so I was suffering, but they're like, "That's what we're waiting for, that's great." They were kind of excited. I did vomit a lot. So my lovely husband was catching that for me. But again, I knew from taking your class, I knew the markers, so while I was experiencing it, and it was not the most pleasant thing in the world, that was encouraging. I knew when I screamed, "I need help." I was like, "I think this is what they were talking about." And when I started vomiting, I was like, "Yes, this is--" so my rational mind was still kind of taking stock of what was going on.

So then my doctor came in for my delivery. That was the other thing. Because working with the OB practices, you don't always know what doctor you're going to get. It depends on who's on. And again, because of the personal relationship he did come in. My mom's friend who was there for my delivery, she was the one who directed me on kind of more like the casual pushing. And I was still upright at that time. And she was helping me push and start to kind of move things along.

And the doctor showed up. They broke the bed. I knew it was going down. I felt the ring of fire. It was all happening at that point, but I was excited at that point. I knew the doctor did come in and it was very traditional hospital pushing and breathing, which at that point, I didn't care. I just felt really motivated. And I was like, "I will do whatever you tell me. Let's get this baby here." Because again, it was getting exciting. So I was pushing, they were counting to 10, but it was still a pretty calm atmosphere, I would say. I wasn't being yelled at. I didn't feel like there was a lot of pressure being put on me and they were letting me wait to feel the pressure before I started pushing.

They said, "Okay, when you feel it, that's when you should start pushing." And that's how we got the baby out. So it was a 36 hour labor, but I think I only pushed for about 45 minutes to an hour, which was not so bad. And they made sure that I opened my eyes when my daughter came out. I didn't know if it was going to be a boy or a girl. We kept that a surprise. So that was really amazing. And something that my husband wanted me to share. From his experience, he was saying that that was really the most profound moment because he was kind of watching this all happen and I was pushing and then he saw the baby and he saw me and he saw me see the baby, which was one of his favorite moments. He's like, "I'll just never forget that. Just the look on your face." And he felt it was a really profound experience for him too, to kind of be there and be so involved and be right next to me throughout it.

Lisa: In terms of finding out if it was a boy or girl did your doctor identify that?

Eileen: I think so. There are some details that are a little bit like muddled for me and I believe it was my doctor who said it.

Lisa: I was just curious if you had like birth preferences on that. Cause some people say, I want my partner or husband to say that.

Eileen: Yeah. I did ask Eddie at one point. I said, "Do you want to say it?" And he was like, "Well, I don't care." I was like, "All right, then we'll just let it happen in the moment. We did ask for the delayed cord clamping. And my doctor too, throughout all my pregnancy, like he knew my intentions, and something I took from your class too, which was yes, have strong intentions, but then you have to kind of let those go and let birth happen because it can be very unpredictable.

Did I think I was going to be in labor for 36 hours? Definitely not. But I just had to roll with it and kind of surrender to the whole thing and take it moment by moment, contraction by contraction. That was another great thing that my mother kept saying to me, she was like, "If you get in the shower and even if it gets you through two contractions, that's two contractions more, two contractions closer."

So just kind of staying in the moment and you have really have to just roll with it. It was really. Incredible that way. Cause I'm a pretty like type A in-control kind of person. And it's not that kind of experience at all.

Lisa: Nor is parenting, right?

Eileen: Oh, I'm learning that big time.

Lisa: Right? That's a big, hard lesson for many of us type A people. Were there specific affirmations that you especially latched onto, things you were thinking about through this journey, especially being so long.

Eileen: So a great one is, "My body is safe. My baby is safe." That was a perfect one for me.

And one that I took from Juliana Mitchell's prenatal class is, "My body knows how to birth this baby," and, "This baby knows how to be born to me." So those affirmations were good for me in helping me feel confident and in helping me trust the process, even though there were a lot of things happening, because I had prepared and I had these affirmations kind of top of mind, I felt like I was able to just trust the process and let it happen.

Lisa: I had a question about pushing. So you could feel pressure with the epidural. Were you able to feel the urge to push?

Eileen: Yeah, a bit. I think I will say by the time I was in transition and then started to push, I felt like I was feeling everything. It felt as close to an unmedicated birth as I could have gotten.

Lisa: Yeah. When you said the ring of fire--

Eileen: Contractions were so intense. Oh yeah. I felt the ring of fire a hundred percent. Again, that hotspot would not go away. I could feel the contractions and all of those sensations. And I think maybe the urge to push was the one thing that maybe the epidural was taking away from a little bit. Cause I felt like sometimes I was feeling it and sometimes it was hard. In between the contractions though, I was staring up at the ceiling trying really hard to stay relaxed, to stay in my body, to stay in the moment because there's a lot going on, right. And I remember just like staring at the ceiling and trying my best to regulate my breathing, keep myself calm.

One thing that I was really happy about too is like at no point, did they say like the baby's heart rate is going down or the baby's in distress, we have to get this going. None of those things were ever said to me. I was so,so glad for that.

Lisa: It's fairly common.

Eileen: I know. Because of my mother, I know.

Lisa: Your mom has probably told you, yeah.

Eileen: Well, that's the other thing was the low amniotic fluid. So they induce all the time. Cause they say there's low amniotic fluid. So again, I came in armed with all of this knowledge, from my mother, from you. And from all the other preparation that I did that just kind of helped me anticipate some things, but again, other things weren't expected, 36 hours of labor were unexpected.

So yeah, and again, I went in not sure about the epidural. I was like, I just kind of want to see how I do. But ultimately it was just those shaking legs that made me give in. I couldn't do it, but it did. It gave me the rest and I was able to push really effectively when it came down to it. So maybe I did need that rest. I have to kind of look at it that way.

Lisa: I would think so with that long of a labor, I mean, at 20 hours, I was feeling super exhausted and about to ask for the epidural.

Eileen: Right. During my pregnancy, I kept saying, I'm open to the epidural. I'd love to go unmedicated, but if I have a really long labor, I'll get the epidural. And then that's what happened.

Lisa: Yeah. It sounded like a necessary tool in this circumstance.

Eileen: A hundred percent, a hundred percent.

Lisa: Then anything you want to share about meeting your baby, initial bonding and breastfeeding?

Eileen: So they brought her right to my chest. Great thing about my mother's hospital, they're all about skin to skin, rooming in, all of those things are kind of made top priority. So she was put directly on me.

They had a little bit of a concern. She wasn't quite crying as loud as they wanted her to. So she was kind of showing some signs of like sluggishness. So they took her to the table to kind of check her that way. And then also her shoulder was a little they said she almost had a shoulder [dystocia]. Which was, I think when the shoulder gets stuck and they get injured in some way, I can't remember. My mom just kept saying like, we just want to make sure it's not the shoulder. And again, this was a group of people who I trusted with my life, literally. In the moment I was like, just make sure she's okay.

I was so exhausted and so relieved and so excited that she was here, that my daughter was here, that I just wanted to know that she was okay. So they did kind of have to take her away a little bit. My mom was very cognizant, like, "Bring her back, bring her back," because she knew that I wanted the skin to skin right away.

They do one hour skin to skin, they make sure that that happens. I did get to breastfeed right way. And it was just a good feeling to have her finally there physically. I was so exhausted. The moment is a little bit muddy in my mind to be honest. But I remember feeling a great sense of calm. So more so than this, like, elated happiness. I would call it like a really wonderful sense of calm that she was there. She was healthy. She was on me. She was with me. And that was the biggest thing that I remember feeling. And then we went to the maternity floor. So this is a long story, very short.

She hadn't pooped and they wouldn't let her go home until she had pooped. I had been discharged. She had not been. My best guess is that they needed the room, which was not told to us, but in coronavirus times I think their rooms were limited. So the pediatrician said, "I can't let her go until she poops."

And she had an a 48 hour window. Which we were told. And we were kind of in this situation where we were saying like, well, should we give her a little bit of formula just to make it happen so we can go home. We wanted to go home so bad. I remember that too. We just wanted to get out of the hospital. We wanted to go home and enjoy our baby and just start our lives together. And this poop thing was just like holding it all up.

Lisa: Poop, baby, poop!

Eileen: Can you imagine? Can you imagine? So ultimately, we thought we had the 48 hours. At about 40 hours a resident came down and said, we have to take her to the NICU and then asked me if I wanted to choose between formula or donor milk. And I was like, wait, "What? What are you talking about?" I was like, "I'm breastfeeding my child. I don't know why you're giving me this," and I was a mess. I was emotional. I was crying. And one of the great things that I took from your class was just advocating for yourself. So in that moment, I was really proud of myself because I felt like I was able to challenge this as much as I could in the moment.

I was asking a lot of questions. "Why am I not allowed to breastfeed? Is there anything else I can do?" I was really trying to push back and to make sure that me breastfeeding my child --and us, obviously, not getting separated from her for too long-- it was of top importance in that moment.

So ultimately what happened was they had to admit her. We were literally on our way down, my husband and I were devastated because I knew in my gut that my baby was healthy. I knew that there was nothing wrong. I just knew, and I'm not kidding you, Lisa. We got down there and I was sitting in the parent lounge in the NICU crying and the nurse runs in and says, "She pooped, she pooped," in the nick of time. They were literally about to admit her. They were this close. Like, I feel like it was like a click away, like one thing in the computer and they wouldn't have been able to let her go home just based on liability and hospital protocol, right. So she pooped.

Lisa: You've never been so happy for a poop in your life.

Eileen: Never in my life. I was like, "Oh my God, I have poop trauma now." And I was in a puddle on the floor when they told me that she pooped, but the nurses were great. They let me go into her immediately. I nursed her. And then they had us like out the door within 20-30 minutes,

Lisa: What a relief.

Eileen: The biggest relief of my life. I cannot even explain to you. And it was frustrating. So I will be writing a letter. I think it was a combination of coronavirus protocol because the mothers are only kept for 24 hours now which used to be 48 hours. So if the 48 hours, it never would have been an issue, had I been able to stay for 48 hours.

So I think it was a combination of that. I think it was a combination of liability. Yeah. And I think it was just a lot of protocol and coronavirus stuff that just ended up with us potentially being separated from our daughter, which was really, really frustrating. Again, I had such a great labor and delivery and then the next 48 hours were kind of rough.

Lisa: And was your mom here at all in the postpartum?

Eileen: Yeah, so she was she came up to the maternity floor for a few hours, so my husband could go home and sleep and shower. So she was with me. And then at the time that we actually were walked down to the NICU right before she pooped my mother was coming in for her shift.

So my mother was at the hospital. So as soon as pooped, it was amazing. My mother materialized by my side, which was exactly what I needed in that moment, obviously, was my mom to be like, "Oh my God, can you believe," I'm like crying now thinking about it. "Can you believe that this all just went on?"

And so she was there when we got walked out, too. So it was like a really intense moment. And I'm really fortunate that my mother was right there with us, with me and my husband, because we had been through it at that point, like through the wringer emotionally and everything.

Lisa: Right. Well, so I think we're over the time that you had allotted. Do you want to wrap things up?

Eileen: I mean, I would just say, cause I know like part of what you asked me to prepare was advice for expecting parents and that would be to prepare for the after also just as much as you prepare for the labor and delivery. Cause that's a big event. So I think naturally it's easy to like really focus on that piece of it. But shit really hits the fan when you get home, like we had three days of like this lovely bliss and you're kind of on this high, you have this new baby and like, I felt so in love with her and so in love with my husband. And I'm like, "Isn't this amazing?" And then shit hit the fan. And you're taking care of a newborn who won't stop screaming. I just found out that she has reflux that might be linked to her tongue tie and all this stuff is going on. And she's been pretty unhappy, which is sad, but just all these things happen, then she wasn't pooping again and I was panicking again cause she wasn't pooping and then I finally read that breastfed babies sometimes only poop once a week. And I was like, oh, I wish I, I wish someone had told me that that would have saved me a lot of grief.

Lisa: Well, lactation consultants say it should be one to four in a day. But with all these things, there's such a huge range of normal and that's where it can be so frustrating because if your baby isn't within that normal, like normal, normal range, like if there is some bigger normal range.

Eileen: Right, something my husband and I kept saying to each other directly from your class was variations of normal. There are huge variations of normal. And that's when I think with infant care and newborn care those first few weeks, you have to keep that in mind because they're not going to follow the rules. My mother said to me, two days ago, "It's an infant; there are no rules. You do whatever works and you take care of your baby the best way you know how.

Lisa: Yes, that's good advice.

Eileen: Yeah. Just by nature, I'm like a rule follower. Like I want things to fit into like what they're supposed to be and the guidelines and things like that. And little Fiona just doesn't want to do that. So, huge lesson. Huge, huge. Definitely this has all been a big learning experience. A lot of patience and just learning to kind of roll with it. And at the end of the day, like my baby is healthy, my baby is safe. Again, my body is safe, my baby is safe. All those affirmations still kind of helping me along the way and along this whole journey because there's so much that you can't control.

Lisa: So true. Eileen, thank you so much for taking the time again, especially so soon after birth, it's lovely to reconnect with you. And I do hope we can actually meet in person someday.

Eileen: I know, I hope so.

Lisa: We're neighbors right? .

Eileen: Yes. I know. And also, I really felt like I wanted to do the podcast because like I said, I listened to your podcast during my pregnancy and it was so helpful to me, it felt right to pay it forward and share my own story.