Hallie and Eric had a long 3-year journey to conceive their son. Along the way, previously undiagnosed conditions PCOS and Hashimoto’s are identified. Hallie eventually decides to seek out complementary therapies in her pursuit to conceive such as acupuncture, which seems to make a big difference. She conceives on the first IVF transfer and immediately seeks out doula support and an OB who specializes in endocrinology. She also dives into research to develop her preferences. Though she desired an undisturbed, low-intervention birth, she ends up needing an immediate induction at 38 weeks due to preeclampsia. Despite this not being the preferred path, she still has a positive experience because of the birth team she so carefully chose. Hallie also shares about working with an infant care & feeding specialist as well as a mohel for their son’s bris ceremony.
Resources:
It Starts with the Egg by Rebecca Fett*
Like a Mother: A Feminist Journey through the Science & Culture of Pregnancy by Angela Garbes*
Slope Wellness - acupuncture and more
Szilvia Nagy at NYP LOMA - specializes in endocrine issues
Evidence Based Birth - Babies Are Not Pizzas by Dr. Rebecca Dekker*
Birthful podcast - Adriana Lozada
Your Pregnancy & Childbirth Month to Month (ACOG book)*
Flower of Life chiropractic (Park Slope)
Catherine Collis, catherinecollis44@gmail.com- Infant Feeding & Care Specialist
Sponsor links:
East River Doula Collective (find a doula, attend our free “Meet the Doulas” event)
Birth Matters NYC Childbirth Education Classes (Astoria, Queens and virtual)
*Disclosure: Links on this page to products are affiliate links; I will receive a small commission on any products you purchase at no additional cost to you.
Episode Topics:
Infertility journey - learning
Going to reproductive endocrinologist at RMA - discovered PCOS and Hashimoto’s/hyperthyroidism
Dietary, supplement and lifestyle adjustments - CoQ10, melatonin, Vitamin D
3 retrieval cycles due to PCOS - 1st transfer was their son (Jordan)
As soon as she’s pregnant, she seeks out doulas and an OB who specializes in endocrine issues
Reading and research in pregnancy
Turning breech baby with chiropractic, acupuncture, Miles Circuit, Spinning Babies techniques
38 weeks - routine NST, high blood pressure, concern about preeclampsia and gets sent to triage
Checking in for induction, calling Eric to have him pack a bag and take care of the dog
Starting induction with Misoprostol
Cook balloon (same thing as foley)
Getting epidural
Great nurse (Emily)
Hep lock being most painful
Trying all kinds of positions
Cook balloon comes out and they suggest breaking her waters, she declines
They discover that her water already broke
Pitocin starts, they use judiciously
Topping off epidural numbs legs more than they were earlier
Starts feeling expulsion reflex, baby’s at +3
Pushing on her side, having to self-advocate and have doula help with this to push in preferred position
Pushing felt more like a huge relief, feeling her son moving down through the vagina
Support is the most essential thing for a positive birth experience, including her 40 hour induction…everyone should hire a doula!
Having her parents’ help at first
Having an infant care & feeding specialist - specific examples of newborn care in the moment education
Mohel Moishe Friedman and their son’s bris - done more for cultural reasons and done in the synagogue
Final thought: Be sure to plan for a well-supported birth
Interview Transcript
Lisa: Hi, Hallie, welcome to the show. Good to have you here today.
Hallie: Thanks so much for having me.
Introduction
Lisa: I would love for you to please introduce yourself, let us know how long ago you gave birth and just any essentials you'd like to share.
Hallie: Sure. My name is Hallie Brooks. I live in Park Slope, Brooklyn. I'm a Special Ed teacher at an elementary school, and I had my baby four weeks ago tomorrow. He will be one month old tomorrow. It's crazy to think that I have a one month old lying right next to me.
Lisa: Especially when people share their stories so soon after birth, I'm especially grateful because I know that you're in the trenches. I know you're exhausted, but the nice thing is it's fresh, right?
Hallie: Yeah.
Lisa: So hopefully you'll remember more details than you might later on.
Hallie: Yeah. I remember the whole thing pretty vividly, so I'm very happy to share.
Took birth class
Lisa: So Hallie, you took class with me in I think, back in January.
Hallie: Yes, end of January.
Lisa: It was all virtual because I think that Omicron was still a thing.
Hallie: Yes, we had planned to do the third session in person at your home and then Omicron was spiking, so we stayed virtual. But it was still an incredible, incredible class,for both my partner and for me, and was really just this culmination of knowledge and learning that I had done and really helped prepare me for the birth that I had, which wasn't the birth that I had planned on, but was wonderful, nonetheless.
The conception
Lisa: Look forward to hearing all those details, but before we jump into the birth story, could you please let's back up to, I think, the conception journey.
Hallie: So, my husband and I like to joke that we made a baby in a laboratory and yes, we like to say it the German way, we're like, we cooked you up in a laboratory.
Lisa: Oh, I love laboratory.
Hallie: We wanted it to be funny for him. So Eric and I started trying to get pregnant three years ago. And after about nine, ten months of trying, we realized based on our age and some other things, because we were in our early thirties at that point that something was going on.
PCOS
Hallie: So we sought help from my OB and she ended up referring us to a reproductive endocrinologist at RMA. We ended up going through IVF. We found out that I had multiple infertility factors, so I had polycystic ovaries and went my entire life without knowing this because I used oral contraceptive pills for a long time, I had an IUD. And so thinking about my menstruation cycles was just never something that I needed to think about because I went on birth control when I was in high school, initially because I had migraines and it was sort of to help regulate hormones around that. And then with my dance and theater schedules and going off to college and wanting to be super safe, I just stayed on birth control for my entire adult life.
So I never thought about how that impacted or didn't impact my fertility. And I also don't have any of the other classic symptoms of PCOS, including the skin and hair and diabetic challenges that a lot of women with PCOS face, I didn't have any of that.
So it was quite a shock to find out, oh, your ovaries are hoarders and when you think you've been ovulating, you actually haven't been.
Hypothyroidism/Hashimoto's
Hallie: And then in addition to that, I found out that I had hypothyroidism, and when I took the antibody test, found out it was actually Hashimoto's. And through this process, like fired all of my previous doctors, because my OB could have very easily done a blood test or a physical examination and looked at my ovaries and said, oh, this is what's going on, and this is a very easy thing to treat. Or my general practitioner, whenever they were running blood work every year at my annual physical, my thyroid was always within the healthy range of adults functioning, but it was suboptimal for fertility. And so nobody in those practices said, while this is a healthy number, this is a woman of reproductive age, perhaps we should talk to her about this number.
Lisa: This is such a little-known thing in allopathic medicine, I feel like, from reading that I have done on hormonal health and thyroid imbalances and fertility, yeah, the ranges, they need to adjust the ranges, like you're saying.
Hallie: Yeah, because my thyroid was like, I think it was like 3.4, 3.5, something like that, which is as long as it's under 4, that's a healthy thyroid, right? But you can't get pregnant if it's over 2.5.
Lisa: Mmmm.
Hallie: My reproductive endocrinologist sent me to a medical endocrinologist, and there was a lot of back and forth. And for my first round of IVF, my thyroid was not well-managed. It would go from being over-treated to the point where it was in the Graves' disease area, back up to like full-blown Hashimoto's. And at one point they thought that I had diabetes. I didn't, my A1C was affected by some of the steroids I was on.
But in any case, there were multiple factors of infertility. There was something going on with my pituitary gland before my transfer, all this stuff.
Hallie: But the amazing doctors at RMA in Manhattan, and the nursing staff there, everybody there was so knowledgeable and supportive and in the end, we did three retrieval cycles, froze some embryos and we did one transfer and that was Jordan.
And it took a year. It was a long and arduous journey. I don't know if the mental and emotional toll was greater than the physical toll or if they were equal, but some of the things that really helped me during IVF was, in addition to going this very medical high intervention route, I also started to learn about other ways to boost fertility and other ways to be healthy in terms of like pregnancy health and pre-pregnancy health that I hadn't really considered before.
Sought alternative ways to boost fertility
Hallie: So my whole life I've been science, medicine, and I still feel like science and medicine are so important, but I also know that there are other types of science and medicine.
So I started going to acupuncture, which was so transformative for my physical and mental health. And I really do think that the two acupuncturists that I work with are the ones who ultimately got me pregnant. The day of my transfer, I went pre-transfer and post-transfer, and then a week later, the acupuncturist was like, I just went for my weekly appointment, she checked my pulse and she goes, did you like run here? Were you running late? I was like, no, he told me not to do anything that elevates my heart rate for the next two weeks. And then I googled that right after, it was like, oh this could indicate that you are pregnant. And I walked in for my next appointment the following week and she goes, so tell me your good news.
I was like, you knew that I was pregnant. And she goes, it's out of the scope of my practice to say anything, but when you feel that pulse you know. She's like, plenty of people come in here without that pulse, and they are in fact pregnant, but when you feel it, you know it. And she's like, but I couldn't tell you that, that's not what I do. And acupuncture really helped me feel like I had even more control. Because there are so many factors that are out of your control when you're doing these really heavy interventions and you're taking these crazy hormones that you have to stick an inch and a half long needle into your tushy every day.
But I would stick an inch and a half long needle into my tush every day for the rest of my life for Jordan.
How she found her acupuncturist
Lisa: And do you mind my asking how you found your acupuncturist?
Hallie: I literally Googled acupuncture in my neighborhood, and found Slope Wellness. So like I said, I live in Park Slope Brooklyn, Slope Wellness is an incredible wellness facility in our neighborhood. They have massage therapy, I think they have Reiki. They have lots and lots of different just wellness options, and really great acupuncturists.
I think anybody who's struggling with infertility ought to see an acupuncturist because traditional Chinese medicine has existed far beyond the field of reproductive endocrinology and obstetrics, right? Obstetrics has only existed since the late 19th century. Reproductive endocrinology, I could be wrong about this, but I believe it started in the 1970s when people were like, oh, we should probably help people who are infertile. But traditional Chinese medicine has existed for centuries, like literally hundreds and hundreds of years and helped people get pregnant.
Lisa: Yeah. And I've heard so many stories similar to yours of just that, there are certain acupuncturists who seem to have a real gift with fertility.
Hallie: Yeah, and I'm so happy that I found them and that they were able to be part of my journey. And what was funny is, the acupuncturist that I started with, after my second retrieval, she said to me, Okay, I'm actually going on maternity leave. I didn't even know she was pregnant, she wore like loose fitting scrubs. And she's like, I just want you to know that my baby is also the result of IVF and acupuncture. And I was like, this gives me so much hope that the person that I've been working with is also doing this. And she's now a close personal friend of mine. And another acupuncturist I worked with in her absence was also like incredibly knowledgeable and knew that I was pregnant before I did.
Extra things to do to help fertility
Hallie: So, I think there are so many things that we can do for ourselves that feel comforting and that are meant to boost our fertility in so many different ways. You don't just have to do everything your doctor says. I also, in addition to going to acupuncture, I read Rebecca Fett's book, It starts with the egg, and put myself on a diet, cleaned house of plastics and not like a lose weight diet, like a don't-eat-canned-food, because there's BPA in cans and consider limiting gluten if you have Hashimoto's thyroid. Which I did all of that before my transfer and it was great.
And also she talks about supplements, because she's like, there's no way you can get every nutrient you need from the food you're eating. So taking things like Co-Q10, melatonin, upping your vitamin D, because nobody gets enough vitamin D. When I spoke about that, I asked my reproductive endocrinologist, I was like, can I do these things? He's like, it's not going to hurt you, but we don't have data on that. And I was like, oh, here's this microbiologist, I think she's either a microbiologist or a neuro biologist, she's some kind of Rebecca Fett, It starts with the egg, she's a PhD person, brilliant woman, highly recommend anybody who's going through infertility to read that book. And what she says is highly researched and really can make a difference. And so it showed me that independent research can sometimes move a little bit faster than the labs that I was working with at RMA. Even though again, the embryology lab there is incredible. They know what they're doing so well, but there are other things you can do to feel a sense of control as well.
Lisa: And does RMA, I'm guessing that stands for Reproductive Medical Associates?
Hallie: Yes. That's the reproductive, sorry about that.
Lisa: All these resources, you're mentioning so many great, juicy resources that I will list and link in the notes.
Three retrieval cycles
Hallie: Great. So, we did three retrieval cycles. Like many people with PCOS, I got a lot of eggs, but a lot of them were immature. So I had to do three cycles to retrieve. We did one transfer and that was in June and that was Jordan.
Decided to work with a doula
Hallie: And immediately, when I found out I was pregnant, I knew that I wanted to work with a doula.
I knew that was a really important part of my pregnancy and birth journey. Because again, I had so many medical interventions that I wanted to work with a birth worker who had more traditional knowledge. And I say traditional because doulas and midwives have existed for centuries and obstetrics has existed for like 150 years. So to me, the traditional midwifery and doula model is more traditional. I keep saying that word, but it's true. Because of the risk factors, because the things that led me to need to do IVF were also things that led to risk factors in my pregnancy, I had to work with an obstetrician. And I specifically worked with an obstetrician who specialized in women with glandular disorders.
Her obstetrician
Hallie: And I'm happy to share her name, she's Szilvia Nagy at Weill Cornell. She's incredible, I love her. She is so open to hearing her patients and what they want. And so when I told her I wanted to work with a doula, she's like, cool, I'll send you the name of mine.
Found doulas
Hallie: I didn't end up working with that doula for cost reasons. And we ended up finding the doulas that my husband and I worked with through a very close personal friend of ours. Their names are Sarah-Grace and Beth. And I know that they're part of your East River Doula Collective, and they are the ones that led me to you and your birth class with Birth Matters and this podcast. But I knew that a doula would be part of my journey because I wanted to work with somebody who had attended births and had seen alternatives to what medical models could provide. And at that point, I didn't really know a ton, but I knew that I wanted to work with somebody who cared about data and science and evidence, but not necessarily like would regurgitate what an OB would say.
Because again, when I did exactly what my reproductive endocrinologist said in my first retrieval, I found that my results weren't as great as my second and third retrieval, when I did what the acupuncturist also said to do and what Rebecca Fett's books said to do. So I wanted somebody who could act as a balance for that. And throughout my pregnancy, I continued to do acupuncture and work with my acupuncturist as well on dietary and lifestyle things, which I know my doulas were really excited about as well.
So we reached out to Beth and Sarah-Grace, we talked to them and one of the first things I asked them was, how do you incorporate data and evidence into your practice? And they're the ones who led me to you and Rebecca Dekker from Evidence-Based Birth, who I'm obsessed with now. And, oh, I forgot the other book, I read Babies Are Not Pizzas. I forgot that I read that book. I didn't finish it because I had Jordan before I finished it.
Lisa: Which for listeners, that is Rebecca Dekker of Evidence-based Births' memoir.
Hallie: Yes. And I remember saying to my mom at one point, she was like, well, when you're in delivery, I was like, he's not a pizza, I'm not delivering him. And she was like, you need to calm down.
Resources for evidence-based birth
Hallie: So I asked them like, how do you incorporate evidence and data and science into your practice? And they said, there are so many resources out there, they talked about Rebecca Dekker, they led me to her podcast, to your podcast, and another really great podcast hosted by Adriana Lozada, Birthful. She's great, too. They recommended a bunch of books and one of the first things that they send you when you sign up with them is a list of childbirth education resources.
And so, in addition to listening to your podcast, I also knew that I really wanted to take your class because it's informed by Evidence-Based Birth and it's really comprehensive. So my husband and I signed up as soon as we knew we could, as soon as there was a good timeframe for that.
And so Eric came to class really not having researched much, and was really looking forward to listening to you as an expert, knowing that he could trust everything that you said.
And I came having read lots of books and listened to lots of podcasts. The three podcasts really were just on my daily rotation.
Books she read
Hallie: And then I also read, my OB gave me The ACOG book and I like skimmed that, towards the end of my pregnancy I read Babies are not Pizzas and unfortunately, I haven't finished it yet. And then the two other books that I read were, Expecting Better by, I think her name is Emily Oster and Like a Mother by Angela Garbes. And Like a Mother, I think is one of the best books I've read, period. Not just for birthing people or people interested in the birthing world, it was empowering, it was beautiful, and it was so relatable. And one of the things that she talked about, which made me feel even more confident about the class that I took with you and working with Beth and Sarah-Grace, was that she talked about a midwife, I don't think it was Ina May, I think it was a different midwife who did some research on women feeling satisfaction from their birth stories.
And she talks about how this midwife predicted that women who had shorter or less painful births would have higher satisfaction than women who had longer, more painful births. But in the end, she found that women who had support and felt supported and felt heard and had somebody, if they couldn't advocate for themselves, had somebody who could advocate for them, those were the women despite long, painful labors who felt the most amount of support. So it was really affirming, and I knew that I would have that and it calmed me down and the anxiety around birth.
A book she didn't like
Hallie: The other book that I read was Expecting Better by Emily Oster and I actually found that book incredibly not helpful. All of my friends read it. I think it's like one of the most popular pregnancy books on the market.
Lisa: And a lot of doulas don't like it.
Hallie: Yes, and so when I was talking about that with Beth and Sarah-Grace, were like, oh, we hate that book, that's how we know we're going to work well with somebody. Because she isn't, you know, a person who works in the birth field, I believe she's an economist or something like that.
Lisa: Yep. Or works in something with finance maybe, I don't know. And she doesn't have a research background, right? She does journalism, which requires some investigation and some research, but she doesn't have a background in like actual research in the way that Rebecca Fett does, as somebody with a PhD, or Rebecca Dekker, again, as somebody with a PhD. And Rebecca Dekker's whole thing is she does all these meta analyses on current research, it's literally what she does for a living.
Hallie: And so this economic journalist, I was like, what you're saying is actually not as research-based as you think it is, and also like quasi-harmful, I think to people. So I was like, this is, I'm not even going to bother with the end of this book because I just don't feel that it's significant or helpful in any way to me.
Lisa: Yeah, I think the one thing about that book that doulas do like, is that it sends people looking for a doula. Because there is that one thing that we do like.
People love it though, a lot of people love it. I was so happy to have you share a dissenting opinion, because not all books are for all people, you know, with any book.
Hallie: Yeah. I knew that Beth and Sarah-Grace really were for me because they talk so much about Evidence Based Birth. And then once we signed up for your class, I knew it was going to be so informative and so helpful.
Testimony for Lisa's Class
Hallie: Eric learned like everything about labor from that class, what to expect and what to get his mind wrapped around while I was in labor.
I came to your class feeling like birth is the most powerful and like bad-ass thing that a person can do. And in all of the learning that I had done from you and from the podcast and the books, I had hoped for an unmedicated birth, which I think a lot of times when people say that and they go to a high-risk doctor, the doctor's like, that's unique.
I really, I wanted to let my body do something that it was designed to do. And then of course, it didn't do that because my body wasn't doing the reproductive thing that it needed to do, and it was designed to do on its own. Why would it cooperate with this?
Hallie: So one of the most powerful things for me in your class was, I knew in the back of my head there was this chance that I wasn't going to have the birth experience that I had hoped for. I wasn't going to labor at home for the majority of it and go to the hospital and not have an epidural, be able to move around. I knew that was possibly not going to happen.
So in your class, I really focused on laboring techniques, pain management, comfort techniques, but also positions. Positions were something that I really, really wanted to focus on in your class, especially non-lying down positions with an epidural. Because again, even though I didn't want an epidural, there was this voice in the back of my head that said you might not have a choice in this because if you have to get induced, you're not going to really have much of a choice in terms of epidural.
Lisa: It's a harder road to go down, yeah.
Hallie: There are people who do it without epidurals, but they're few and far between, and it takes a lot of willpower. And I didn't even get to the point where it was like, no epidural feeling Pitocin contractions. Like what, when we talk about the birth story, there was no way I couldn't get an epidural because they had to use a Cooke Balloon and I wasn't dilated, and there was physically no way to get that in me if I didn't have an epidural.
Lisa: Because the cervix has a lot of nerve endings in it.
Hallie: So, in your class, I was really looking at all the different positions that I could be in, both with and without an epidural, and thinking about what I could do to manage pain but also to get my baby in a great position. And during your class, I was 32 weeks and my baby was still breech.
Needing a chiropractor
Hallie: And I remember talking to you about like, what else can I do? And you recommended going to a chiropractor. And I found the Flower of Life because of you. So I booked an appointment with them and within a week, my baby, or maybe two weeks, I think, because at my 34 week appointment is when they checked his position and he had flipped.
Getting the baby into position
Hallie: So between the acupuncture, the using the bladder point, between a chiropractor and all of the Spinning Babies techniques that you and Beth and Sarah-Grace led me to, and I did this like Miles Circuit for an entire weekend, like literally every two hours, cause I didn't leave my house, all those things, but Jordan flipped.
And again, to me, it's this balance of the doctor being like, you don't have to worry about that 'til 36 weeks, and the traditional birth workers being like, actually you should get your baby and head down position as soon as humanly possible, and these are all the things you can do. And if you do these together, it has a 98% success rate.
Hallie: Sure enough, it did for me. But I really paid attention to learning about like baby station and baby positioning in your class. So making sure that the baby is not sunny side up. And also learning about like where his head can go, learning about like where his head should be, especially like the stations. I think it was like position, station, location, Thinking about how to get him in the best position for labor, even during labor, were things that I really focused on, and that Beth and Sarah-Grace followed up with, for me during my actual labor.
So Jordan turned head down, he was on my right side, but still like facing the side, not sunny side up. So I was like, okay, well maybe I can avoid a C-section, maybe I can avoid an induction.
Increased monitoring
Hallie: But like I said earlier, the things that lead a person to IVF often lead a person to having a high-risk pregnancy. So Hashimoto's and polycystic ovaries definitely create risk factors. Doing IVF in general, you have to have more increased monitoring.
So I had imaging at every appointment. I went every other appointment to have growth scans with an MFM. And my age was also a factor, because in the middle of my pregnancy I turned 35 and I asked my doctor, why do these things make me high risk? And even she, as knowledgeable and wonderful as she is, wasn't really able to give me a concrete answer.
She said like a lot of medical professionals do, we don't know, but there's a correlation between IVF babies and small for gestational age babies. There's risk factors related to placenta for women over 35. And it just, it showed me that there are so many things that the medical profession doesn't prioritize, and doesn't feel like they need to know the answers to, because women's health might not necessarily be the priority. I read a lot about inductions because I was scared of an induction, but also knew that my doctor wasn't letting me go past my due date. She was like, if you haven't had this baby by Saturday March 5th, the next time I'm in the hospital, I'm inducing you because of all these various factors.
And I wasn't thrilled with that, Sarah-Grace and Beth were not thrilled with that, but it also wasn't the hill that I wanted to die on. There were other things that were so much more important to me, like not pushing on my back and protecting my perineum and not having Pitocin at a certain point, not breaking my water.
There were other things that I wanted to prioritize, than like avoiding an induction. And everything that Sarah-Grace and Beth told me about inductions, ended up coming true.
Non-stress test
Hallie: So, at 38 weeks on a Thursday afternoon, it was Thursday, February 17th, I went for my routine, my two-week growth scan and then followed up with my routine non-stress test, that everybody does at 38 weeks, everybody gets a non-stress test.
And while you're doing a non-stress test, you have the hockey pucks on your belly and you have a blood pressure monitor. So they're monitoring the baby's heartbeat and they're monitoring your blood pressure.
And Jordan looked great. The nurse came in and was like, his heart rate is rising and ebbing and flowing exactly the way we want to see it, but the MFM does want to talk to you.
So Dr. Fong came in and she again reiterated that Jordan looked great, but she said that my blood pressure was really high and she was worried about pre-eclampsia.
So, she's like, it's probably nothing, it's probably just that you were anxious or hadn't had enough to eat or drink, which can happen, but I want to send you to Triage for more monitoring. So I went upstairs to Triage and they continued to do a fetal heart beat monitoring with blood pressure for myself. They also took blood and urine.
And the nurses were like, yeah, his heart rate's fine, your blood pressure it's high, but it's not like crazy high, but it's still like teetering on pre-eclampsia, but you'll probably go home soon. And so I texted my husband to be like, Hey, just letting you know this is happening, it's completely nothing.
Pre-eclampsia
Hallie: And about an hour later, they came back and they were like, actually your blood and urine analysis came back and we're going to induce you because you have pre-eclampsia.
Lisa: Oh.
Hallie: In all of my conversations with Beth and Sarah-Grace, they were like, the one thing we don't mess around with is pre-eclampsia. Like, if you have pre-eclampsia you're getting induced, and that's it.
Lisa: Yes, yeah. That's a more black and white, necessary induction.
Hallie: The great, the thing that was comforting to me in that moment was, both Beth and Sarah-Grace said this and the hospital staff said this, Jordan was okay, right? Like, the risks were to me. And if we let risks for me go untreated and longer, then it becomes a risk for Jordan. But in that moment, Jordan was not at risk of anything. The cure for pre-eclampsia is not being pregnant anymore.
Lisa: I was just about to say that but you beat me to it.
Hallie: Well, that's what everybody in the hospital said.
And I felt nervous at that point because I was excited to meet Jordan, but I know how medical birth can be when it's induced at a hospital. I'm going to talk about how great my nursing staff was and how like pleasantly surprised I was with them considering it was a hospital, but there were elements of this that were just like so highly medical.
So I texted the group that was Beth, Sarah-Grace and my husband, and was like, Hey, this is happening. Beth immediately called me.
Non-negotiables
Hallie: She walked me through like, okay, she's like what are your non-negotiables? And I was like, well, you know from day one I'm not pushing on my back. Lisa said, you can push on your side, if you have an epidural, you can push on your side. If I can get on my hands and knees and somebody will hold me, I want to do that. She's like, cool, that's one non-negotiable. She's like, you need to tell them, don't break your water, and I was like, right, okay, I have to remember this. Do not break my water.
Do not, no AROM, no AROM.
Lisa: You're rehearsing together.
Hallie: Yes, and I remember Sarah-Grace saying, under no circumstances, are you to be in a semi-reclined position on your back at any point. And Sarah-Grace is a bit more like forceful with how she words things, and she's like, if somebody tells you to do that, you get it in writing that you do not consent to this.
Lisa: She takes nothing for her client.
Hallie: And I love that about her. I love that about her. And I also love that Beth has this very like, go with the flow personality. And Beth is the doula who attended my birth, and I think having Sarah-Grace as the person who like, was constantly texting me pictures of positions and the induction cheat sheet.
Lisa: I was wondering, I was betting you got that wonderful cheat sheet.
Hallie: Yep, it's great. But I loved that Sarah-Grace could do all of this, like very forceful, very powerful stuff to help me self-advocate while I didn't have anybody there. And then the person who was there when I really needed comfort, had a very comforting personality.
So I think the way they yin and yang together is fantastic.
Lisa: I also love hearing that you were in touch with both of them, because I sort of assumed that it was more like whoever is available is going to come, but then the other doula wouldn't be really connected on a communication level.
Hallie: I knew at that point because of the group text and who called me in the moment, I knew that when I eventually had my doula come to the hospital that it would be Beth, but Sarah-Grace was like a very active part of this. And when I'll talk about like actually doing the laboring positions, I'll go into the details from Sarah-Grace.
Called her husband
Hallie: So the first thing that happened was I called my husband, after I spoke to her, I called Eric and was like, Hey, you need to leave work, because he was in his office, he goes to his office on a Thursday, it's like the one day a week that he actually goes in. I was like, you need to go home, you need to pack a hospital bag, you need to drop the dog off and come meet me. Because, as I mentioned earlier, I'm a public school teacher. This was the week before February break. I am a very superstitious Jewish lady and we don't prepare for baby. We don't even say Mazel tov or Congratulations when somebody is pregnant, you say B’sha’ah tovah, which means, in a good hour, like you don't acknowledge a pregnancy, you acknowledge a baby.
So we had literally like nothing in our apartment. We'd like taken a few things, borrowed from a friend. We had picked up a bassinet and stored it at a different friend's house. But like, I was like, okay, at 38 weeks, I can start to prepare because I will have a healthy baby. I'll use February break to like cook a bunch of freezer meals, pack my hospital bag, get things in order in my apartment. And that just never happened.
So I said to Eric, I was like, go into the dirty laundry, these are the sweat pants I want, go into the dirty laundry, these are the pajamas I Because I wore them and I was like, I don't want to like deal with finding other things. I'm just going to wear dirty clothes in the hospital, I don't care. Get the 10-foot phone cord, please. He threw a bunch of stuff, get these snacks, in that snacks, put them in the bag.
So he does that, we drop off our dog with our friends who have the bassinet, and he meets me at the hospital. My phone, I think had like 9% left on it.
Lisa: Just in the nick of time.
Getting packed by 36 weeks
Lisa: Before you go, on I just was wondering as you were sharing that Jewish superstition, I was aware of that but I had never connected the dots to ask myself in my teaching, is that really insensitive of me when I am like, be packed by 36 weeks, be sure you're doing this.
Hallie: No. Not at all.
Lisa: Just I always want to be sensitive to different religious and cultural beliefs and different things to always be honing the teaching in a way that's creating a safe space for as many people as possible.
Hallie: I think that, like, I listened to you, I was like, oh, you know, Lisa says be packed by 36 weeks, I'm just not going to do that. I can't bring myself to do that. And there also, like there are Jewish folks who are far less superstitious than I am, right? I think it was confounded by my infertility journey. And it's something that I talked about with Sarah-Grace, especially like my biggest fear was that I would go through all of this, I would have lived the life of a pregnant person for three years because of my infertility treatment and still not go home from the hospital with a baby. And that was like a crippling fear that Sarah-Grace really helped me work through. She was like, and Beth too, Beth was like, every single one of our clients goes home with a baby. She would go, some of them go home with two. (laughs)
Lisa: Thank you, thank you for entertaining that question.
Hallie: Of course, I just hadn't wrapped my head around it.
Husband arrives at hospital
Hallie: So Eric arrived at the hospital at seven o'clock and at 7:30, a nurse and a PA walk in. I'm in my hospital gown, they put wireless monitors on me cause I was like, I am moving around. Okay. great. They gave me the first round of what they called Miso, which I think is like the same thing as Cervidil, to help me. Yes. To help me dilate and to help me efface because my body was like in no way, shape or form ready for labor.
No dilation
Hallie: Jordan was just like, Hey guys, I'm still cooking. My cervix was like, yeah, he's cooking, oven doors closed, like no dice.
So we did that, I sat for 30 minutes while it like absorbed, and then I walked around my laboring suite for four hours and watched a bunch of Friends on TBS.
Hallie: And then at midnight, the same PA and wonderful nurse came in and checked my cervix, no change, maybe slight effacement, but definitely no dilation. They gave me another round.
They came back at four o'clock in the morning. And again, maybe slight effacement, no dilation whatsoever.
Cook Balloon
Hallie: And that's when they said we want to use a Cook Balloon because we know you want to avoid using Pitocin. And that's one of the things in Sarah-Grace's induction cheat sheet, you know, hold off on Pitocin as long as you can, do manual dilation first.
So the PA was basically like, I can either give you Pitocin now, or I can manually dilate you with a Cook Balloon. But if I do that, she's like if I could get like one finger in there, like half of a centimeter, we could do it. It would be uncomfortable, it would hurt, but we could do it, but you're at nothing, and your body will reflexively close up to me if we don't give you an epidural.
Decided to get the epidural
Hallie: So I decide to get the epidural and I will say, of all the different catheter and cord and things coming out of me, that was actually the least uncomfortable. I forgot to mention that when they brought me to the birthing suite, I was on the phone with Eric and they were going to do the hep-lock. And I remember looking at the needle being like, that is huge, I have collapsing veins, you need to use a butterfly.
Heplock was painful
Hallie: And the nurse was like, oh honey, this isn't a blood draw, and she just jammed it in my hand. And I was talking to Eric and I literally screamed.
And I will tell you, out of the whole labor and birth process, that heplock was the singular, most painful part of the entire experience.
Lisa: It often is for a lot of people.
Hallie: More painful than feeling Pitocin contractions, more painful than like feeling myself crowning, feeling the heplock was the worst.
Lisa: I don't know if I've heard it described quite that extremely, but wow. Yeah.
I'm sorry that you had that.
Hallie: Anyway. Anyway, so the epidural, it ended up not being so bad. They were able to get the Cook "baby" in.
Incredible nursing staff
Hallie: And even with all of the wires coming out of me, I had an incredible nursing staff. So shout out to Emily, wherever you are, who once I got that epidural in and I was like, starting to dilate, I was like, okay, I want to use the peanut ball, I want to get into these positions. My nurse Emily was like, yeah, let's get you on your side. Let's get you on your hands and knees. Let's get you leaning over the bed. And even though I was confined to the bed, I didn't have to be stationary.
And I looked at all the positions that Sarah-Grace was texting me because I was like, okay, show me pictures, how can I do this? And Sarah-Grace, in the middle of the night texting picture after picture, you can do this with a peanut ball on your side, you can do this with a peanut ball leaning forward, get into a throne position, use a squat bar, lean over the back of the bed. So Emily and the other nurse, there was a nurse that after the 12-hour shift was over, another team came on. That nurse was great too. So at that point, I did eight hours of just the Miso and then another four hours to make it a full 12 on the epidural, like actually moving around with the balloon. And then another 12 hour shift came in. And I was moving and moving. And the nurses were really amazing with it.
And at the end of that shift, there was like a nurse supervisor who came in and I, my nurse was with me, she was like rubbing my back, but I was leaning over the back of the bed, like my elbows and arms were like draped across the back of the bed, and I was on my knees. And every time the monitor said I was having a contraction, I had to like sway my hips, and then I could stop when the contraction stopped.
The nurse manager was like, hey, you shouldn't be doing that. And the nurse was like, no, I'm here, I'm not going anywhere. The hospital's empty, we were literally the only people there at the time.
Lisa: That's unusual.
Hallie: Yeah, it was. It was bizarre, there was no one there so the nurse was with me the whole time. And the PA came in, she was like, well, I want to check you and like, see how the Cook Balloon is doing.
Cook Balloon comes out
Hallie: So this is like, probably 16 to 18 hours into this induction. And I sit down for the cervical check and the Cook Balloon comes right out.
Asked to break her water
Hallie: She's like, oh, you're at like four, four and a half centimeters. Let's break your water.
And I was like, full-stop, no, that is not happening. And they were like, things will progress so much faster. And I was like, oh, but if you break my water, if you break my water, that's when the clock starts. And that's when induction starts to fail, and that's only going to see at C-section territory.
And I wanted to avoid surgery at all costs because the recovery is terrible. I know that for people who have infertility, it can affect later pregnancies. And I also just know, like, it's hard to hold your baby with an incision in your stomach. I did all this work to flip my baby, I don't want to have a C-section after I did all this work to flip my baby.
Lisa: Makes sense.
Hallie: Like I paid a lot of money to acupuncture and to chiropractors and to herbalists and all this stuff. I was like, no, please don't.
Lisa: Fully invested in vaginal birth.
Hallie: But I had also been waiting for this point, like so, so long, that they were like, all right, but you're going to be here forever. And I was like, if I'm here forever, I'm here forever. So she gives one more check and she's like, oh, wait a minute, maybe your water already broke. And she's feeling around, she's like, it feels wet and I can kind of feel his hair. And then once she took her hand out there, it was like this gush.
Water broke
Hallie: And I was like, oh, she was like, oh good, okay, your water broke on its own. And I was like, yay. So I called Beth and I was like, my water broke. And she goes, I'll be there in two hours.
Two hours later Beth shows up. It's the middle of the night at this point. So basically, we're all exhausted, we've done all the things on the cheat sheet, and this is when they're going to give me Pitocin, and this is when I need somebody to like, help me understand what's going to happen with Pitocin.
So there's all these like blood pressure cuffs and monitors on me, and I'm really worried about how a ton of Pitocin, like nurses and hospital staff with the best of intentions can just like blow past recommended amounts of Pitocin.
And that was something that Sarah-Grace was really wanting me to be cognizant of. And thank God at Weill Cornell, Lower Manhattan, that wasn't the case. They were very strict about how much they could administer, and there were points in time where they backed off on it. They were we've given you all we can give you, we can't give you more. And I'm sure at a different hospital, they would've been like, let's move this along, let's give you some more.
And the nursing and PA staff at LOMA were like, no, we actually are going to back off. And if it takes a little longer, it takes a little longer.
Epidural wears off
Hallie: So it's like 2, 3, 4 in the morning going into Saturday at this point. So I've been in the hospital since five o'clock on Thursday. We've been all through Friday and now it's overnight into Saturday morning.
And my epidural wears off, which can happen, it becomes less effective over time. And so when the epidural gets topped off by the anesthesiologist, instead of helping to manage the pain of the Pitocin-induced contractions, it just made my legs completely numb.
And so anytime I wanted to move, Beth would have to come over and like physically move my legs for me to get onto the peanut ball or to roll onto my side to the other side. '
Lisa: Because earlier, it sounded like you had some mobility. You had some feeling in your legs.
Hallie: In early labor prior to breaking my water, prior to the Pitocin, I could feel everything. I couldn't feel the contractions, but I had complete feeling in my legs and my back, but nothing hurt.
And as the epidural went on and on, it became a, less effective and b, affected parts of my body that I didn't want it to affect. So I lost, and every time they would top me off, right? Because I would say, I'm in pain now I'm feeling this Pitocin contraction.
And learning from you, Pitocin doesn't cross the blood-brain barrier. You feel those contractions without the endorphins you get from natural oxytocin. Plus I couldn't move. I remember my husband saying at one point, can you imagine doing this without an epidural? And I was like, well, if I didn't have an epidural, it would have been because I didn't have Pitocin and I would have had these endorphins going, I would be able to move, I would be able to move through the pain, but instead, I'm confined to this bed. And it was really painful. So every time they would top me off, my legs were numb.
Saturday morning
Hallie: But I got through it. It's six o'clock Saturday morning, and the one doctor who I didn't love, the only doctor in this practice of six doctors comes in and reintroduces herself. And she's like, you're having this baby while I'm on this shift, like that's going to happen. The PA checked my cervix at that point, and I was nine centimeters.
And they were like, we'll be back in an hour or two. I was delirious at that point, I was tired from not sleeping because, how do you sleep with all these things attached to you and in pain?
Expulsion reflex
Hallie: But I remember lying on my left side, looking at the monitor and sort of talking with Beth and saying, I can feel my expulsion reflex, I'm pushing, there's nothing I can do not to push. And she was like, cool, live in that.
Lisa: But you were still pretty numb from the epidural?
Hallie: No, my legs were numb, but everything in my belly and abdomen, like I could feel, which was, according to Beth, a very unique situation.
I could feel the expulsion reflex. I could feel myself pushing without trying to push.
So at that point, I think I was in transition because they told me the baby was at plus three. And I could feel the descent. I could feel him coming down and myself pushing without really intending to, but I also, and I remember this from your class, like people in transition, just get like weird.
Like, they go to this weird place and it’s hard to know what's going on. I just remember being like delirious and out of it and like kind of half asleep, but also pushing on my side and just doing that for a little while.
Ready to push
Hallie: And it felt like 10 minutes, but an hour and a half later, the doctors and PAs and nurses came back and they were like, all right, you're ready to push.
And I was like, I've been pushing for as long as you guys have been away, I've been pushing. And so the PA said, all right, get on your back. And I remember this doctor saying to me in my one meet-and-greet appointment with her, that everybody pushes on their back, that way we can see, and that way we can, you know, avoid shoulder dystocia and things like that.
That's how we are trained.
And I was like, no, I'm on my side. I'm pushing on my side. And the PA was like, we're really worried about shoulder dystocia. And Beth said, if you have a concern about shoulder dystocia in the moment, she can always turn back to her side, or to be turned back from her side. And I was like, Yeah, but I'm pushing on my side. So I pushed out my side, and later Beth was like, your baby was two weeks early and like measuring small average, like average, it's nothing to be concerned about, but on the smaller side, there was no way he was going to have shoulder dystocia.
So I'm on my side and I'm pushing, and I can still feel everything, which apparently is very unique, because the epidural had moved down to my legs, but I was on my side and I was pushing. And the nursing staff was like, you're having a contraction, you can push. And I was like, I am aware and I am already pushing, you don't need to tell me when to push. Like, I know when I need to push, I'm pushing when I feel it. Which again, it was so unexpected because I had thought, oh, you get an epidural, you'd have to have coached pushing, you can't feel anything. They tell you when you're having a contraction, you push when they tell you to push.
But I, even with that epidural, could feel my expulsion reflex, I could feel the contraction, and I just knew when to push.
And then another thing, one of the PAs was like, hold your breath. And I was like, nope, not holding my breath. Like, would you hold your breath while you're pooping? NO. I'm going to push on my side, not holding my breath. And I could feel myself crown and I could feel him working his way through my vagina. And I kept thinking, is there a lot of blood, am I ripping?
Feeling Relieved in Pushing
Hallie: And I could feel everything, but it wasn't like, at that point, it was not this crazy pain that I was expecting it to be. It was actually a huge relief, like with every push, with every movement of him coming out, it was this huge relief to know that I was making progress and that I wasn't going to have those crazy contractions anymore.
And not that it, it didn't feel good, but like, relief is the only way I can say it. And in talking with Beth at my postpartum meetings with her, she said that it was a first for her to have somebody who had an epidural, but could still feel the expulsion reflex and didn't need coached pushing. And I really didn't need any coaching.
At one point, somebody, it could have been Beth, it could have been a nurse or a PA said, hold your leg, like grab your own leg, even on your side. And at one point, when he was like getting closer to his eyes, somebody said, you might want to hold your breath a little bit to push a little bit harder.
Only pushed for 30 minutes
Hallie: And at that point I did, because like, I really wasn't pushing hard enough, but because I had control, because I had sensation, I only ended up pushing him in that active pushing phase for about 30 minutes. And most of that was like, just spending time getting his head out.
No stitches
Hallie: By the time the rest of his head came out, it was like one more push. And I think because I had control, I think because I had pushed on my side, that's my crowning achievement of my whole birth story. And my perineum is intact. No stitches in my perineum.
Lisa: Yeah, fantastic.
Hallie: Then Jordan was here and it was beautiful and perfect and wonderful.
Lisa: And I'm wondering if, do you think that the different, sounded like you worked within the limitations that you had given the induction at all. It sounded like you stayed as active as you could, and you tried a lot of different positions. I mean, do you think that helped baby to be that much lower when you started pushing?
Hallie: Yes. I think that everything that Sarah-Grace and Beth and you taught me and the resources that you guys gave me were all the things that led to him being in a fantastic position, which I was shocked about, because he really like gave me a run for my money my whole pregnancy. He really wasn't being cooperative with positioning during the pregnancy, but because of how active I could be, even with an epidural, even with an induction, the actual quote "delivery" part, and again, I hate saying delivery because as Rebecca Dekker would say babies aren't pizzas, but the actual physical birthing part was that much easier. So to me, it's like, if you put this investment in, if you try to do the things you've been educated to do and take ownership of your body, you can achieve the things to make that whole process that much easier.
Lisa: Love it. Thank you for sharing all of that. So where do you want to go from there?
Meeting her son
Lisa: Want to share any of what you were feeling, the emotions you were feeling at that point, meeting your son?
Hallie: I was elated. It was the happiest I've ever been, because I had this person that I've wanted forever, this person that I dreamed about for years and years. And he was finally here and we got to have a golden hour. He was on my chest for the whole time. And I got to just like stare at his face for the whole hour and feel really amazing.
We both had some complications, we both had fevers right after he was born. I had some blood clotting, they were worried about hemorrhaging, so we stayed in L&D a little bit longer than we otherwise would have. And he immediately started, we both had like severe edema. I looked down at my foot at one point and it was so swollen.
Hallie: And his birth weight was 6.8, but within like a matter of hours, he was down to 6.3. And then there were concerns about him like losing too much weight and with like feeding. But he had the immature latch like many early term and pre-term babies do. But in the end, nothing besides the fact that he was here mattered.
Like I said, birthing is the most badass thing a person can do. We literally grow people in our bodies and push them out. And I feel, I just thought, I was like, oh my God, I did it. I did this thing that I never thought I would be able to do.
Lisa: With the fever that you mentioned for both of you, were there any, like, there was no separation of the two of you?
Hallie: They let me have that full hour, and then after the hour, they took him to the side and there was like a place in the side of the room where they could do everything. But they did, they kept us in that delivery suite for five or six hours before moving us to postpartum and maternity.
Lisa: And did they do any antibiotics on either of you?
Hallie: They might have, and I don't even remember at that point. I had lost a lot of blood and was really tired, and when I was trying to nurse at one point, I did actually pass out. But apparently, that's like, not uncommon. Like when I woke up, I spoke to the nurse and she was like, Oh my God, that happens all the time. You have nothing to worry about. Like, we knew, don't worry. I was like, okay.
So, I'm so thankful for the nurses there. And even though I was delivered by this doctor that I was nervous about, I was able to advocate for myself because I was educated on how to do so through incredible doulas, including yourself.
And so that's why I think every birthing person should have a doula because, especially if you're a first-time pregnant person, you can learn and learn, but in the moment, it's so helpful to have a coach there. And there were moments where, like, I really don't know if I would have been able to advocate for myself because of how tired or delirious or just like inexperienced I was, and having somebody who could say to me, is that what you want to do? Do you need help with this?
It goes back to what Angela Garbes says in her book. I had a long and painful experience, but I loved every second of it because I felt supported. And I knew that I had a team of people who cared about me and who cared about my baby.
Hallie: And I would have a 40-hour induction all over again, if it meant having Jordan.
Postpartum
Lisa: So beautiful. So would you like to share a little bit about your postpartum support that you had and your early postpartum journey?
Hallie: Sure. So we had planned to work with a woman who I thought was a postpartum doula. It turns out she's a certified infant care specialist, but we had found her through a close family friend, and knew that we wanted support, we were going to need support after Jordan was born.
But because he was two weeks early, when we contacted her to say like, Hey, this is what's happening.
She was like, oh no, I'm currently with another client.
So in the end, it ended up being okay because my parents were here for like 10 days after Jordan was born. And after my parents left, that's when our infant care specialist came. So her name is Catherine Colace and she would join us overnight.
So she would show up around 7:30 and she would support my husband and me through understanding the best ways to take care of a newborn.
So my understanding of a postpartum doula is that they sort of care for the mother and provide a lot of support around like helping the mom have sort of like things that needed to be done in the home, with cooking, maybe some laundry and cleaning, making sure the mother's health is exactly where it needs to be. Whereas an infant care specialist attends specifically to the baby.
So she helped with, so like taught me how to sanitize bottles, because at that point Jordan's latch was still really immature. He had a severe tongue and lip tie, which was corrected the week earlier, but he was still learning how to reuse the fine motor of his mouth. So his latch was really inconsistent.
So she helped with like, bottle-feeding. When I needed help with some nursing stuff, even though she's not a lactation counselor. And I've seen three different lactation specialists at this point, and nursing is going better, but she also was able to say things like, make sure you're relaxed because if you're tense, he's going to feel tense.
So lean back a little bit more while you're nursing. She showed Eric a better way to change a diaper. She was like, make sure that it feels like it's swaddled around him this way, and she like showed with some of the fabric, things that like, I wouldn't have even thought of. She showed us a different way to swaddle the baby using blankets or using like the Velcro swaddles.
She just showed a lot of really helpful things. She taught us how to give our kid a bath. Like nobody, you know, we were like youtubeing, and like, how do you give a baby a bath? Because like I said, we're Jewish, so he had a ritual circumcision. The Rabbi was like, you need to bathe him, just squish the water around to help the wound heal after a certain point. And she showed us the best techniques for doing that.
Hallie: She showed us great techniques for like soothing him without using a pacifier, and she helped us sleep, right? So when he would finish a feeding and needed to be changed and soothed, she would do that so I could go back to sleep. And it was really helpful in learning how to establish a routine for him and get him on not a schedule, but like a routine -- eat, wake time, sleep.
But also like some basics around care for him that we just wouldn't have otherwise thought to seek out.
Lisa: Nice.
Hallie: Yeah.
The Bris
Lisa: Do you want to share anything about the bris?
Hallie: Sure. Rabbi Moshe Chaim Friedman is the number one Mohel in New York. He is a character. He comes with his own swag. He literally, he like brought us a bag that has his name on it, a onesie with his name on it, gauze pads with his name on it, a pacifier strap with his name on it, a fan with like, he's a character. But he also spoke beautifully about what it means to have a bris, and what it means to our family. And when we took Jordan to his pediatrician three days later, the doctor was like, oh my God, this is the fastest healing penis I've ever seen.
Andhe really helped us with like knowing how to properly care for the wound to expedite the healing process. So a bris is a ritual circumcision that Jewish people do. It comes from the Bible, Muslims do it for the same reason, it's a covenant between Abraham, the descendants of Abraham and God. And that's the religious reason. Culturally for me, because I'm a bit more connected to my cultural faith and my spiritual faith. But for me, it's a connection to my community and my heritage, and it was never a question that we would have a bris, we always knew we were going to have a bris. We were fortunate enough to be able to have one in our Synagogue with some family and friends, because COVID was in a very stable place. And again, Rabbi Friedman did an amazing, amazing, amazing job.
Lisa: How did that feel emotionally for you? You know, I think having a baby who's eight days versus like one day is a little bit better, because their immune system is a little bit more up and running. It was something that I don't think I was prepared emotionally for pre-bris and walking in, I was like, (inaudible). And then it happened and it was okay. I didn't look.
Hallie: I am like irrationally phobic of blood, it's like a thing. The doctors, even at the hospital knew. So I didn't look. Jordan cried when it happened, so I was aware it was happening, but then was soothed pretty quickly. He also, like, it was two days after his tongue and lip tie release. So he wasn't nursing at that point anyway, I was bottle feeding him. So there were moments where he was calm because I, it happened and I shoved a bottle in his mouth and he ate and he was okay.
I also think that there might've been a little bit of Manischewitz on somebody's finger at some point, Manischewitz is kosher wine.
Very low alcohol content, very high sugar content. But like it's, you know, the rabbi dips his pinky and some Manischewitz and it calms the baby down.
I was happy that we didn't do it in the hospital, that we could make a celebration of Jordan and connect to our culture and our faith and celebrate the family and friends this first milestone in his life.
Hallie: But I do understand why people are sometimes just like, I just want to get it over with, I want it in a medical facility. But I've heard stories of doctors not doing as good of jobs as mohels, because when you think about OBs or pediatricians or urologists, they do so many things. Circumcisions are an afterthought. With a mohel, all day every day, all they do is circumcision.
And I actually have a friend who I worked with who's Muslim, who had her OB do her son's circumcision and it got botched. And she had to find a mohel who worked outside of the Jewish community, who would work with members of other faith groups, which many of them do, who would correct her son's circumcision.
And it's funny, the original OB that I went to, it wasn't her, but it was in the same practice, and I remember this friend, everybody that I work with at one point went to this practice. The practice has since like shifted and a lot of their doctors have left, but four years ago everybody went to this group.
Hallie: And I remember this friend saying to me, if you get pregnant and you have a boy, don't let anybody in their practice touch your son's penis. I was like, well, we're Jewish, so we wouldn't. And she was like, oh, I have a good mohel for you.
Lisa: Nice.
Hallie: And she's Muslim.
Lisa: That's great. Yeah, it was interesting to learn recently, we had a mohel come and talk to our collective on Zoom call and share about his work. And he got really specific with the tools he uses and he was explaining why this is better to use and why it heals better. And I just was like, oh my gosh, there's so much to learn on this topic. And I was so glad to just learn from his expertise.
Hallie: And you said that Moshe Friedman was on your list of mohels, right?
Lisa: Yes, yes. Absolutely.
Hallie: So we actually found him from the same friends that found Beth and Sarah-Grace for us.
Lisa: Nice. Great.
Hallie: We basically just copied all of them. So it was like, oh, you guys are Brooklyn-based too, what do we do for this pregnancy thing?
Lisa: That's great. Thank you for sharing about that.
Diaper changes
Lisa: Were diaper changes tricky at first? I've heard from another client on the podcast about, felt a little at first with the gauze and everything.
Hallie: I was expecting it to be very tricky and it really wasn't because of the way he taught us to. So apparently, his technique is different than a lot of others. We only used gauze for one day and you make like a Vaseline helmet on the gauze rather than like wrapping it around the wound. And so the gauze never actually touched him. It just like held the Vaseline in place. And we only had to do that for a day.
And so it was a lot less terrifying than I was expecting it. I was expecting like bloody gauze for days, and it wasn't at all. There was never really any blood that I had to see, thank God.
Lisa: That's good to know. Thank you.
Anything else to share?
Lisa: All right, well was there anything else that you haven't gotten to share that you'd like to share before we wrap things up for expectant parents or new parents?
Hallie: I think I'm just going to reiterate that like, create a support team, get people with you, whether it's your partner or a doula. And I highly recommend that you get a doula or take a really great childbirth education class, educate yourself in other ways. But take control of your pregnancy, take control of your birth in any way that you can, and create support for yourself.
Hallie: And even if you have this beautiful idea in your head, know that it's going to go different. But if you have somebody there who can support you, whether that's your partner or a doula or a midwife or a really great OB, your birth will be your own. And it'll be beautiful no matter what.
Lisa: Thank you, Hallie. It's been wonderful to see you and your family.
Hallie: Thanks for having me.