Birth Matters Podcast, Ep 103 - An Endurance Athlete's Desire for an Unmedicated Birth (Part 1)

Jessica learned about midwives and doulas in a college class, which planted the seed for her desire once becoming pregnant for an unmedicated birth. As a runner, she made connections between how empowering and satisfying running a race can be to her desire to have an unmedicated birth. In this episode, Jessica shares her story of alternative conception while planning a wedding, switching care providers twice to find an ideal match with hospital midwives, hiring a doula and educating herself all with the goal of achieving the unmedicated birth she very much hoped for and was able to achieve. This is part 1 of a 2 part birth story, and fun sneak peek for the next episode: you’ll hear details of how her son was born en caul (with the amniotic sac intact).

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Episode Topics:

  • While engaged, decided to start trying because they were in their 30s and felt like time was of the essence

  • Started researching fertility but a lot of it was anxiety-producing

  • See reproductive endocrinologist - recommended start with IUI

  • Took a pause in trying to conceive via IUI for their civil ceremony wedding just to enjoy 

  • One day, wanted to try again – requested Letrozol in addition to trigger shot

  • It works - she’s pregnant! and she does a triathlon

  • Switching from one OB to another early on

  • Deciding to hire a doula

  • A dad friend convincing her husband that hiring a doula was a great idea & investment

  • Really wanted an unmedicated birth

  • Birth class helped foster conversations as a couple

  • Didn’t have any nausea/morning sickness, but had food aversions and had much less energy

  • Week 16 was planning a belated wedding party, during the Delta surge

  • Were planning to share the pregnancy and did a gender reveal cake at the party, revealing they were having a boy

  • Interviewing for a role in California while pregnant, Don starts studying for the CA bar exam, had leg surgery, they got Covid

  • She gets the position at work

  • 3rd trimester - feeling misaligned with provider because all of her conversations about her preferences met with, “well, maybe…” and all the potential other ways things might play out

  • Going to doulas asking what her options were, Christine & Jaime recommended pursuing Metropolitan

  • Got a midwife on the phone - Lindsey Mayo, who tells her to come in anytime, didn’t even need to make an appointment

  • Went there, got a long tour, spent time with the midwife listening a lot and Jessica wants to switch providers

  • Don not on board due to the NICU lower level

  • Working up until the last minute

  • On April 2, went to Rockefeller State Preserve

  • Her mom had predicted April 3 (40w4d), and she was right

  • Woke up with contractions, hadn’t noticed Braxton-Hicks before so wasn’t sure what it would feel like

  • Had bloody show and was excited

  • Woke up Don, timed a few contractions

  • They went back to sleep

  • Don makes oatmeal for her, they go back to sleep

  • 9am, she’s up for the day and texts the doulas, learn Jaime will attend

  • 10:30am very first intense contraction started

  • Vocalizing in response, low gutteral moan

  • Calling mom briefly

  • Kept eating, PB&J, laid on a towel

  • Tried tv and jazz music, both annoying, just needs quiet

  • Don starts a “nesting attack” and cleaning lots

  • Contractions getting really frequent and intense, leaning over furniture

  • Don calls hospital to give them a heads up and coordinates with Jaime (in another room)

  • Jaime is going to come to apartment

  • Jessica has a thought that if she didn’t put pants on soon to head to hospital, she wasn’t going to be able to do it

  • Jaime heads to them, they decided to leave as soon as Jaime arrived

  • Has 2 contractions in lobby

  • They lived on an open street on 34th Ave – street packed with people, Don goes to get car in garage and leaves her alone, she cries

  • Gets into backseat and kneeling in the car

  • Arrival at hospital around 4pm, doula Jaime helping her get to triage

  • Triage cramped and uncomfortable, being asked tons of questions

  • Being asked for her birth plan multiple times

  • They tried multiple times to administer hep lock but had troubles, so they postponed it

  • Once admitted, doesn’t remember a lot besides positions - standing leaning over bed

  • Midwives recommend she switches to ball, Don was sitting on it

  • Squeezing Don’s hand and Jaime’s hand - they were glad they took off rings

  • Midwife kept saying, “Let the pain melt.”

  • Anesthesiologist came, they did hep-lock

  • Don left water bottle and snacks in car, so Jaime gave Jessica applesauce packets to eat

  • She rests in bed with peanut ball, doesn’t feel good for her

  • 10cm, feeling a lot of pressure

Interview Transcript

Lisa: Hello Jessica. How are you doing today? 

Jessica: Hi, Lisa. So good. So glad to be here. 

Lisa: I'm so thankful that you're willing to share today. So, Jessica is a former student of mine. I actually think you first came to us through our doula collective, right?

I think you came to meet the doulas. 

Jessica: Yes, that's right. 

Lisa: Yeah. And I was reviewing my notes and it looked like you had heard about me initially through just getting a doctor list from a friend, maybe a former client of mine, I think?

Jessica: That's right. 

Lisa: And then somehow came to the Doula Collective and then eventually came to my classes.

And you hired a doula in our collective, right? 

Jessica: I did, yeah. Christine Gibson and Jaime Lewis. And Jaime was there with us on the big day. 

Lisa: Nice. Which we will hear about soon. But backing up, do you wanna just introduce yourself a little bit? 

Jessica: Sure. My name is Jessica Evans. At the time that I was pregnant and having our son, Jamie, I was living in Jackson Heights, Queens in New York City, but now living in San Jose, California.

And I work as a fundraiser professionally and I gave birth about seven and a half months ago.

Lisa: Great. Thank you so much. So let's start with your conception journey, if you'd like, and then go on into your prenatal journey and the ways you prepared for becoming a parent. 

Conception Journey

Jessica: Yeah. Oh, I mean, what can prepare you, right? My husband and I were an engaged couple. During the Covid Pandemic, we got engaged, and being in our late thirties understood that having children was important to us.

And, that time was not exactly on our side. So we weren't in an immense hurry to try to become pregnant, but also felt we know that this is what we want, we know we're gonna get married, so we might as well start getting educated and start trying. And we did that even before we actually got married.

Which, sort of having had a Catholic upbringing, I never thought that was gonna be me, but it felt like Covid in a way helped throw all those rules out the window. So we felt pretty empowered to just go for it. And, at the beginning of the journey of trying to conceive, I was a little bit apprehensive.

I knew that my mom had some trouble with miscarriages and I'm an only child, and I think that was not necessarily my parents' preference, but it's just the way that it worked out. And so even though I hadn't really had a doctor examine me for any infertility factors, I just was mentally worried that I might have a difficult journey.

And so I decided to start trying naturally and, let a couple months go by and wasn't having any success and was getting a little bit stressed out. And so when I get stressed out, I like to turn to resources that help me feel more knowledgeable. So one of the things that a friend had recommended was, The book called, It Starts With the Egg, which I know has been mentioned on this podcast before.

Lisa: Yes. 

Jessica: By Rebecca Fett. 

Lisa: It's on my reading list. I haven't gotten to it yet, but I really wanna read it. 

Jessica: It's a good one. It's, I mean, in short, it's a book that talks about the environmental factors that can have an impact on fertility. And it's not an area that I think has been studied enough, but Rebecca Fett is a researcher and brings that lens to the topic and recommends a bunch of lifestyle modifications, like getting rid of plastics, for example, stop heating up your leftovers in plastic takeout containers and stop using your mostly plastic coffee maker, which hot water courses through.

And she also recommends avoiding things like scents and perfumes and all with the idea that you can make these choices and impact, positively, the quality of your eggs, especially as, for me, a woman over age 35. And it can make you crazy doing all of that stuff. You know, I remember going to a doctor's office and the hand soap in the bathroom was scented and I was like, this hand soap is the reason I'm not going to get pregnant this month.

Lisa: Oh, no. 

Jessica: A bit of an extreme mentality. I had to watch myself and try not to slip into that kinda black and white thinking. I also started doing some acupuncture, with a provider in my neighborhood, and I did it even though I would lay there and be bathed in a pool of sweat because I don't really like needles, and everyone's like, oh, acupuncture is so relaxing.

And I was like not having that experience at all, but I still thought this is something that I've heard people recommend, so I should just try it and maybe I'll get used to it and it'll get better. And it did. I also got some advice from people and, it's all anecdotal I think, but that maybe after ovulation I should curb my long distance running.

I have run four marathons. I do triathlons in the warmer months. And it's a really big activity that really fills my cup. It helps me manage my stress, it structures my time, it makes me tired at night and sleep really well, and feel super energized in the morning. And it just has so many positive benefits for me, and I just love it. And that advice got stuck in my head and I was nervous about doing anything that might negatively impact my chances, especially as month after month went on and nothing was happening. So I incorporated this idea of, after ovulation, I wasn't running as hard and I wasn't running as long, and sometimes I wouldn't run at all. And looking back, I'm not sure that was the right choice, but at the time, it felt like a sound decision. 

Reproductive Endocrinologist and IUI

Jessica: Anyway, after about maybe six or seven months of trying and not getting anywhere, we decided to go to a reproductive endocrinologist at Weill Cornell. We saw Dr. Pak-Chung who was ready to help, and so his recommendation was that we start with an IUI, and I had joined a bunch of groups online, which I would recommend people do, but again, with caution. It's women talking to women. It's not necessarily the expertise of a medical provider. So you have to make your decisions around that carefully.

But it was really helpful for me to learn about all the different options in terms of having a procedure like an IUI done and the option to, for example, add in medications that might help stimulate egg growth. And, just increase the chances by whatever small percentage. So, when working with Dr. Chung, we did one IUI, and it wasn't successful. And so my husband and I, we were slated to have a civil wedding ceremony in June. This would be June, 2021. And we decided, let's just take a pause. Let's just focus on this happy time in our lives, and just to focus on the wedding, and just enjoy, let's just enjoy, and take some of the pressure off ourselves.

And maybe that's the best thing we could do right now, especially after the first failed IUI, because our understanding was that we would maybe do a couple of IUIs and then we would move fairly quickly into a conversation around IVF. And I had done some egg retrievals right around the time I first met Don because I had just turned 35 and was dating and I didn't know I had just met my future husband, so I just wanted to put some eggs in the bank just in case.

So I knew how difficult it was to do all the hormone injections and the retrieval procedure. 

Lisa: I went through that with a very close friend of mine recently, and I could not believe how intense it was. 

Jessica: Yeah. 

Lisa: And very emotional too, at least for the person I was supporting. 

Jessica: Yeah. It was for me too, especially because the first round I only got four mature eggs and that was a complete shock.

Lisa: Oh no. 

Jessica: Yeah. So I had to do it all over again. So it was just, it was wise, I think, to take that break. And the following month we were not planning on going back to Dr. Chung. Like I said, we were just on pause. But on a whim, I just woke up one morning and was like, I think, I don't know, I feel ready to do it. It was nice to take a little break. Do you wanna just, are you okay with it if I make an appointment and go in and start doing the monitoring appointments? 

And I had advocated for the use of Letrozole in addition to a trigger shot, which would just, from my own research and reading these Facebook groups, perhaps help, and just add a little twist to what we had done the first time, which didn't work. And Don was super supportive, so we did it. And I just had a totally different mentality, I think, because I didn't have any expectations.

I just decided at the last minute to try this, so if it works, great, if it doesn't work, great. And actually I also gave up on the idea of not doing my normal exercise routine. 

A Positive Test

Jessica: And, so probably about 10 days after ovulation I was scheduled to do the New Jersey State Triathlon, which I've competed in so many times over the years, it's just a favorite of mine. 

Lisa: Oh, cool. 

Jessica: And so, yeah, I went out and I did the race and it was like three hours of pretty hard racing, and it felt amazing. And that afternoon we went to a friend's house. They had just purchased a new house and I had a big glass of Sancerre, which tasted so good on a hot summer day.

And then that night I was like, well, I think it's been kind of about the right number of days. I wasn't even like counting the days down in terms of like when I could take an early pregnancy test. I'm just gonna see, And I was so shocked to see that the test came back positive.

I was pregnant. In fact, I didn't even believe it. I showed it to Don and he was like, yeah, I don't believe that. Like it's not real. Try it again in the morning. And part of why we were a little skeptical was because, I believe it's the use of the trigger shot, can create a false positive on the pregnancy test. Cause it includes some of the same, I'm not remembering the details at this point cause it's been a little while, but. 

Lisa: Sure.

Jessica: It can trigger a positive result that is not really positive. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Jessica: And that had happened to us at some point earlier in the process, so we were a little bit skeptical and wanting to be very cautious and guarding our emotions at that point.

Lisa: Sure, yeah, that makes sense. 

Searching for the Right Provider

Jessica: But it was real, and we were really excited and I had a couple of follow up appointments with Dr. Chung, instead of going directly to an OB, because he wanted to just continue to do some monitoring. And so he did some transvaginal ultrasounds and was like measuring the size of this little blob on the screen- turned out to be our son, Jamie- and doing blood work and just wanting to make sure that everything was good. And it was. And so at that point we began the transition to finding an OB. I didn't really have an OB at that time, actually, I had been with a group provider in Manhattan and changed insurance during the Pandemic, and they were not in network any longer.

So, I was starting from scratch and looking to form a relationship with someone. So Dr. Chung's office gave me a list of providers. So I just called around and I knew that I was gonna be due at the end of March, 2022. And nobody had any openings somehow. It was, I didn't even know to expect that it would be a competitive landscape.

I felt, isn't it supposed to only be when you're trying to put them in daycare or preschool that you have to get in really early and then it's competitive? So that totally caught me off guard. I remember going on a trip somewhere and like crying in the airport because I couldn't find a doctor who would take me.

I finally wound up with a doctor, an OB, at Weill Cornell on the West Side of Manhattan. And, I went to her, I think two times and was like, this is not my person. Just did not get a good feeling, we didn't connect, she didn't ask me any questions about me as a person. So, that was an unexpected sort of hiccup in the process.

But, my husband actually wound up doing some Googling and by chance found another Weill Cornell OB, also on the West Side, who I went to go see. She had openings available, she was younger, not saying that's why she had openings available, she just, I dunno, was newer on the scene.

And so I went to see her and the first conversation that we had, she asked me, what do I do professionally and how's the pregnancy been so far? And how are you feeling about everything? And so I just felt like I was talking to a human. So that was a good improvement. 

Lisa: It's nice to be treated like a human, right?

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. Especially with big change, 

Lisa: A low bar, isn't it? 

Jessica: Yeah, kind of, yeah. 

Lisa: But at least that's an improvement from the prior doctor. 

Jessica: It was, yeah. That prior doctor, I came away thinking I'm gonna be giving birth with this person, or maybe someone in her practice, but if she's representative of the other doctors in her practice, I'm going to be like, at my absolute most vulnerable in her care. I just couldn't see my body physically like opening up, literally opening up

Lisa: Yeah. 

Jessica: In her presence or someone like her. 

Lisa: That's some great awareness that you had a lot earlier in pregnancy than a lot of people do. A lot of people don't really think ahead to what a vulnerable space we're in and how we need to have people around us that we trust really a lot and feel respected and heard by.

Yeah. I love, I admire that you have that awareness. 

Jessica: I would give credit to a class I took in college, on women's health and it was taught by, I believe, a certified nurse midwife, who I think also had a law degree. So she had a really interesting-- 

Lisa: How interesting. 

Jessica: --combination of experiences and perspectives and the truth is, going all the way back to that class in junior year of college, I really had an interest in home birth.

Finding a Doula Team

Jessica: But as a first time, birthing person and also taking my husband's perspective into account, because he's part of the equation, that did not feel like a totally realistic option for us. Perhaps under other circumstances, if we had been a little bit younger, if we were not living in a one bedroom, 800 square foot apartment, if we had more time in advance to educate ourselves around all the benefits and the risks of not only home birth, but the benefits and risks of giving birth in a more medicalized setting, maybe we would've considered it.

And I'm still crossing my fingers that we might for baby number two at some point. But I, at least Lisa, to your point, had this awareness that the choice of provider really mattered. And,that in part drove my desire to hire a doula very early on. So yes, that's how we connected with you was coming to a virtual Meet the Doulas event, through the East River Doula Collective, which was amazing. And we really had a really difficult decision in front of us because it was such a great format for meetings, a whole slate of doulas. And I felt almost right away, at least half of them, I would've felt really comfortable having there with me and being my advocate.

But at the end of the day, we felt that Christine and Jaime were the right fit for us, and were so thrilled to have them on our team. So that was actually one of the earliest decisions that we made, I think, in the pregnancy. That was probably around the beginning of the second trimester that we did that.

Lisa: Do you happen to remember how you heard about doula care? Doula support? 

Jessica: It was probably in that women's health class maybe. 

Lisa: Yeah. Okay. 

Jessica: Yeah, I think so. I bet there was like a day in class where we learned the difference between a doula and a midwife.

Lisa: Ah, I love it. 

Jessica: But I will say this,I'm only one half of the parents, right?

Don is a big part of everything. I could tell from even before we conceived that Don and I were gonna have a very egalitarian approach to parenting. And so I really wanted his buy-in on decisions that we were making together. And one of the most important things when it comes to the decision to hire a doula was, a friend of ours had recently had their second child, and we were out having some drinks with them. This is before I was pregnant. And, we really adore these friends, but one of the hallmarks of them is that they do not spend money frivolously. They are very frugal people and we really respect them for that.

But it's just something that really stands out about them compared to everyone else that we know. And, the guy in this couple, Mike, was talking to us about how much it costs to hire a doula. It's not a cheap endeavor, and he said that it was the best money that he and his wife Kristen had spent and they did it for their first child and they happily did it again for their second child.

And Mike was actually the voice of explaining to my husband, Don, all the benefits that come with having a doula and sort of the advocacy that you get and the extra support that you get and helping make the decision about when to go to the hospital and even just having someone there to text or call in the days and weeks leading up and also afterwards.

So it was very unexpected that a guy friend of ours was going to be the one who really kinda sealed the deal in terms of our decision to make this investment for ourselves. 

Lisa: I love that. What a great, really convincing source. 

Jessica: Yes. 

Lisa: Rather than me, the childbirth educator and doula, of course I'm gonna be like, everybody should hire a doula, but hearing it from a fellow parent, and especially one who's frugal, but decided that was a smart investment and on the other side of it felt like it was a really smart investment.

Ah, I love that. I love that. That's great. Wish I could have heard those conversations. 

Jessica: I mean, I was just sitting there just smiling because I had already drank that Kool-Aid, but I could see someone who has less knowledge of what does it mean to give birth in a hospital, and the range of decisions that happen in that setting and the degree of control you do or don't have and I guess one thing I haven't mentioned, that was really also driving the decision around a doula, as well as the provider that we chose, was I really, truly wanted an unmedicated birth.

And in retrospect, I feel like what I'm supposed to say here is that I acknowledge that situations happen that make that impossible, and lots of people who want that as their birth journey don't get it. But I couldn't even really truly accept that. I wanted it so badly, and I felt like I was going to exert every last bit of control around it to try to get it.

And so having a doula there was part of my strategy. And taking your class was another big part of that strategy because we really needed to know things about coping with pain and discomfort and just preparing for the possibility that it was gonna be 24 hours or more, and making the decision about when do you go to the hospital, and all that sorts of stuff that I don't think either of us really, truly knew the answers to.

So that was a big part of it. And in addition to educating us, it sparked a lot of conversations for us around this goal that I have and what can we do to try to maximize the chances that I would successfully have an unmedicated birth? And,what would happen, how would I feel about it, for example, if it didn't pan out that way and could I make peace with it, which, in all honesty would've been difficult. Spoiler alert, I had my unmedicated birth, so. So, fortunate that I, unlike a lot of people, was able to basically have, for the most part, the experience I was really hoping for.

So I feel super lucky in that regard 'cause at the end of the day, it is sometimes just luck of the draw. 

Lisa: Yeah, there's definitely a lot of luck in it. There is also a piece of strategically hiring your provider like you did, strategically hiring support like you did, educating yourselves like you did.

So it's both, for sure. 

The Pregnancy Journey

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. In terms of the pregnancy itself, the first trimester didn't look at all like what I was expecting. I did not have any nausea, I had some food aversions, which felt really strange because I had been on basically a year and a half long journey of really healthy eating.

I had lost quite a bit of weight and gotten really fit, in the months leading up to becoming pregnant. So the fact that I couldn't even look at a salad anymore, which was like just my regular lunch salad every day. I just, ooh, couldn't, I needed pasta and bread and lots of processed brown and white food and like the rich, colorful diet I was used to I just couldn't do it at that time.

Lisa: That resonates. 

Jessica: Yeah, and also, I just lost all my energy. Like taking naps in the middle of the workday sometimes. Cause I was working from home, which is just so not me. And, I was still running, but I really slowed my pace down and shortened the distances that I was going, because I was just wiped out all the time.

And, during the first trimester was when we started the conversation about potentially moving to California because there was an opening for a position at the organization that I work at. So at that point it wasn't a stressful conversation, it was so hypothetical but it was a thing that was coming onto the horizon as a possibility.

And although we had had our civil wedding ceremony in June, we decided to try to get everyone together for an actual, big wedding celebration. This was during the Delta wave of Covid and before Omicron became a thing that we were talking about. So that was set for October, which would've been in week 16 of my pregnancy.

So I was basically planning a wedding while just running on absolute fumes every day in the first trimester. 

Lisa: Oh goodness. 

Jessica: That was kinda tough. 

Yeah. By around week, I think, 10 or 11, I started feeling my energy return, thankfully, and we made the decision that we would tell all of our wedding guests at the wedding that I was pregnant because only a handful of close family and friends knew at that point.

So that was gonna add an exciting twist. And I had my OB's office call my cake baker and tell them that we were having a boy, but I didn't know that, and so we had the wedding cake that we cut at our wedding ceremony, have blue icing on the inside. So when we cut our wedding cake, we pulled the slice out and there was blue icing.

And that's how we and everyone else at the party found out we were having a boy. Those gender reveals are a little bit tricky in a way because gender's a construct and all that. 

Lisa: Right, right, right. 

Jessica: It was still fun and I'm glad we did it. The video was really fun. The band was playing Sugar Pie Honey Bunch while we were cutting the cake, and so that's like Jamie's song now for us. 

Lisa: I love it. 

Jessica: Harkens back to Motown. I grew up outside of Detroit, so anyway, that was fun. And then things just got more and more stressful as the pregnancy went on.

The pregnancy was totally fine and boring and every prenatal visit I had was very quick in and out and everything's fine. And I was feeling increasingly good as the pregnancy went on, but I was, interviewing for the role in California and, knowing that it was likely that I would get it, Don made the decision to start studying for the California bar exam so that he could be prepared to move, of course with me and transfer his career as an attorney from New York to California.

And since he had last taken a bar exam, I think like 12 or 13 years earlier, that was not a pleasant experience for him. And he had leg surgery and then he had an infection, and then we got Covid. And so there was just a lot of stuff piling on. And at the end of the second trimester, I got the job, which was exciting and brought a whole new set of decisions that we had to make about where are we going to live.

And Don was like, okay, I'm really studying for the bar now. This isn't hypothetical anymore. This is happening. And so– 

Lisa: It's amazing to me that you took birth class given all of those things you were juggling. And I remember when you signed up, you shared some of that stuff and I just was like, oh, wow. They have a lot going on. 

Jessica: Yes, it was a lot. 

Lisa: You got through it. Yay. 

Jessica: I do remember, I hope Don won't mind me sharing this. About a week before my due date, Don confessed to me that he did not remember anything from class. And he was like, can you give me like a cheat sheet or a crash course?

Like I don't know what's coming and I know it's coming really soon. 

Lisa: I get that. Yeah, that's understandable. 

Jessica: Forgive him for that. 

Lisa: Yeah. yes. 

Jessica: Just drowning in all those acronyms that lawyers have to memorize in order to get through. 

Lisa: And remind me, was your class all virtual? 

Jessica: It was. 

Lisa: Yeah, I thought it was okay.

Jessica: Yeah. 

Lisa: And that's even harder to just stay engaged for birth classes. 

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. Every class we tried sitting in a different location, like what would be more comfortable, and he's got his post-op leg on pillows and ice packs and yeah. But it really gave us an important foundation, I'll say that.

And, he did great when it came time for him to be the supportive person. Like he just nailed it. So. 

Lisa: That's what matters. 

Trusting Her Gut and Changing Providers

Jessica: Yeah, when we rounded into the third trimester, this would've been like January, February, March, of 2022, I started hearing this little voice in the back of my mind that I just was not sure I was with the right provider, and I had already made a switch. So I felt like, what do I do with this feeling? Do I, how do I even switch at this point? It feels really late. I've done all my prenatals with this person, but the reason that I started having those doubts was all of the conversations that I had with her about my wishes to go unmedicated, to not even come into the hospital until pretty far along in the labor process, to decline fluids in an IV if possible.

Just the deeper I got into the details, the more I heard her say, well, maybe, but, we should also prepare you for the possibility of an induction. We should also prepare you for the possibility of Pitocin. We should also prepare you for all these possibilities that, yes, okay. those are possibilities.

But she would say it in a way that was in response to me expressing my goals and my wishes. And it started to feel like instead of being on the same team, we were on opposite sides. And that I was having to argue for my vision being like the legitimate, official vision of what this experience was gonna be.

And that just didn't sit right with me. And that was a scary place to be because I truly was like, I think I thought it was too late at that point to go to a place like Central Park Midwifery. We had a call with them months and months earlier, but they weren't gonna take me on at that point. 

Lisa: I'm sure that they were fully booked. Yeah, they book up pretty far in advance. 

Jessica: Yeah. And it was gonna be like another $6,000 I think that just we hadn't planned for. So that was when I was really glad that we had Christine and Jaime because I can't remember if we texted or called them, but we reached out and said, Hey, this is how I'm feeling. What advice do you have? 

And immediately, I think it was Christine who jumped in first. They were like Metropolitan Hospital. It's a public hospital. It's in East Harlem. I knew right where it was. I used to live one block around the corner for several years. Loved living in that neighborhood.

It's run by a group of midwives. They have an OB who's there in case there needs to be an emergency C-section. But, these midwives really know like what you're saying to your OB and feeling not heard about, they are going to hear you in the way that you want to be heard and they're going to respect what you want.

And so why don't you just go, just take a visit. And at this point it's about week 38 in my pregnancy. 

Lisa: Oh my goodness. 

Jessica: It's kinda late. 

Lisa: You could be in labor. 

Jessica: I could be in labor. Yeah, kinda any day now. Could be. I was definitely starting to feel some like, shooting pains in my groin and like a lot of increasing pressure and heaviness and that belly was looking pretty big.

And, when I had consented to go in and get I think weekly, Lisa, what are those things called? Where you go in and you get like the hockey pucks put on you? 

Lisa: The non-stress test probably. 

Jessica: Yeah. 

Lisa: Monitoring the baby, being sure they're doing okay for around half an hour or so, on the monitor. 

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. I had consented to go in and do those just to make my OB feel like I was like a team player, which is so stupid.

Lisa: Yeah, the fact that we have to do that to convince someone to not induce us or intervene is frustrating. 

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So, I remember calling Metropolitan Hospital, of course, being a big public institution, even just working my way through the labyrinth of phone numbers was a little bit difficult, but finally I got one of the midwives on the phone.

It was Lindsey Mayo, God bless Lindsey. She had some choice, negative things to say about other hospitals which I won't repeat. But in expressing that, she, off the bat, well, she also cursed. So she made me feel really comfortable. 

I don't even know if she intended to do this, but she made it super clear that if I were to consider coming to Metropolitan, it's like a different world, in terms of how I would be treated and how my preferences would be respected. And she's like, why don't you just come in like anytime?

I was like, don't I need an appointment? Or? She's like, no, just literally just roll in any time, we're here all the time. So Don and I went on a Sunday afternoon, and this is the thing I couldn't even believe was happening. We spent almost an hour there. We were given a tour, and then we had one of the midwives just sit with us and just answer any question that we had. And she was in no rush to get up. 

Lisa: Amazing. 

Jessica: It was probably the time that we spent with her was the length of three or four of my prenatals that I had and those were like official appointments, right. Insurance was billed and I had a copay and all that stuff. And this is just her on her own time, just making sure that we had the opportunity to feel good about making this big decision very late in the game.

So I didn't even need to like, yeah. By the time my seatbelt was buckled in the car, I was like, okay, this is where I'm giving birth. 

Lisa: Yes. 

The Bagel Conversation

Jessica: And I think Don had a couple of hesitations because Metropolitan only has a level three NICU and we had a friend who's a, his specialty is in like pediatric emergencies and he works in labor and delivery suites. And he was like, I would never ever allow my partner to give birth at a place that didn't have a level four NICU which is the highest level. And I know that Don, right, he's coming into this identity as a father and he's thinking about me, his brand new wife and- 

Lisa: Protecting. 

Jessica: He wanted us to be safe and okay.

And we had this conversation that we now refer to as the bagel conversation. We went out for great bagels on the Upper West Side, while we're still sitting with this decision. 'Cause at this point, the door's open, we could go with the OB that I had been seeing. She didn't know we were up to trouble in terms of looking around and considering other options.

Or we could go to Metropolitan. Cause at that point you just walk in the door in labor and they will take you, it's a public hospital so they aren't gonna turn you away. And Don was really afraid of this idea that he might be having bagels for one, if something terribly tragic happened. And I felt like, oh no, the risk of that is zero. My biggest fear is like that I'm gonna get a Pitocin drip and I don't want it, and then that's gonna lead to a cascade of interventions. Then I'm gonna wind up on the operating table and I don't want that. He's over here in a completely different head space feeling worried about what if Jessica doesn't survive this experience.

And both of those perspectives are valid. And I was trying to do this dance of acknowledging how he felt. And also I felt crystal clear that I wanted to be with the midwives at Metropolitan. And so I really give him credit for coming around and doing what I think he felt was perhaps, a riskier decision in some regards and also the right decision.

So we basically soon thereafter agreed, okay, when it's time to go, we're gonna go over the Triborough Bridge and we're gonna go to Metropolitan. We're not gonna go to Weill Cornell. So, that was the decision. 

Lisa: Can I say something real quick there on, when you gave those two viewpoints. I would love to just give my own perspective on how I was hearing that and how I think maybe listeners were hearing that. The perspective you were sharing, I just want to point out that there's so much more depth to just the words that you said in terms of I wanna avoid a Pitocin drip and this and that. But where my mind went was what we see happen so much when someone's birth goes very much not according to plan, and they had very high hopes of it going a certain way, was that then they have all this birth trauma and then you feel, I hate to say dead inside, but just to compare the concern.

'Cause so many people might hear that and be like, well Don, like he is concerned about the physical life of you and the baby. But, the mental health life, our wellness, our mental wellness is also everything. And so I, what I think I'm hearing is that, a lot of your hopes were around protecting your mental health and having this be as positive of a memory and treasured of a memory as possible.

Correct me if I'm wrong on any of this, I'm very much editorializing. 

Jessica: Yeah, no, you're totally right, Lisa. I felt a certain amount of entitlement, and I'm reluctant to use that word, but that's how I can best express it, that my experience mattered, birth matters. It's not, and I know not everyone agrees with this, but a healthy living baby and a living birthing person, that's not the ultimate outcome. That is not all that matters. 

Lisa: Absolutely.

Jessica: And it doesn't always have to be an either or choice. 

Lisa: Absolutely. 

Jessica: We can raise the bar for the experience that birthing people have. And we should, we really, we should just expect more. 

Lisa: Yep. That's why I'm doing this work. Absolutely. I named my business Birth Matters. 

Birthing Mindset

Jessica: Yeah, that's right. Exactly right. I didn't mention it, but I immersed myself in reading a lot of books around, natural childbirth and home birth.

I'm actually forgetting some of the authors, but maybe you can include some of those in the show notes. They just, reading the empowering stories of settings and providers who normalize a physiological birth was really empowering to me. And I also maybe can pause and share here that as a marathon runner, I'm not a stranger to spending hours, many hours of my life by choice, coming up and confronting pain and discomfort and the also the mental struggle as well as the physical struggle of enduring that for a purpose that feels righteous and satisfying and empowering. 

And there is an inextricable link in my mind between my identity and experiences as a marathon runner and a triathlete,and knowing that this was the kind of birth I was hoping to have. That it's the same part of me that found poignancy and a beauty and meaning in that experience that someone else might consider to just be awful. And why would you do that, and why would you subject yourself to pain? For me, it just carries intense, vast meaning, and it's part of who I am.

Lisa: I'm getting so many chills, I love it. 

Jessica: Yeah. Thank you. And I can say, like, sort of transitioning to my birth story, Lisa did an incredible job preparing me for what my head space would be like in those final hours of giving birth. And there was not a lot of coherent thinking. I'm jumping ahead here a little bit, but there was not a lot of coherent thinking.

But for anyone who has run the New York City Marathon, they will understand when I say I kept thinking to myself, am I at the Willis Avenue Bridge yet, which is around mile 19 or 20 of the race. And for most runners, that's where the going starts to get tough. And I just kept thinking, I wonder if I can turn and ask Jaime, who's the doula there with us, but she won't understand what I'm saying when I say, am I at the Willis Avenue Bridge yet?

Like she'll think I, I've kinda lost it. And, like no one knows when this labor's gonna be over. It's gonna take its own course. But I just, I kept envisioning myself on the road in the New York City Marathon and just, I don't know, it just, that was how I pictured my own experience at the time.

And, the parallels shocked even me and I already came in thinking, oh, these two experiences, they originate from the same place and maybe there's gonna be some overlap. That's how I think about it. It was complete one-to-one overlap in the two experiences. 

Lisa: Yeah. Yeah. The strategies, love it. 

Jessica: Yeah. Pacing myself, understanding like preserving energy and knowing that the hardest part is yet to come and that there's going to be this amazing finish moment. Yeah. All of that, so. 

Lisa: That's great. Yeah. Wonderful. Well, do you wanna go ahead and start from the beginning of your birth story? Unless there's anything else you wanted to share about? 

Beginning of Labor

Jessica: I don't think so. I was due on March 30th, and my plan was to keep working, I was working at home, up until, basically like the last possible minute so I could preserve all my maternity leave for actually being with the baby.

And as the due date approached, I was really trying to get out and walk more. I had become a little bit sedated. It was the dead of winter and it was really cold and I just hadn't been getting out and getting as much exercise, but I felt like walking might just help the baby kind of drop a little lower into the pelvis and be good for me and be a distraction.

So Don and I started taking the car out and going on really beautiful walks. So we walked through the cherry blossoms at Flushing Meadows Park. We walked along the waterfront in Long Island City at Gantry State Park. And then, on April 2nd, we went for a beautiful walk at Rockefeller State Park up in Westchester.

And, I just remember it was starting to feel like Spring and my jacket was too hot and there were these, like, flowers blooming on the trees. And I just thought, oh, I'll never experience Spring the same way again. I'm about to have a baby. And it felt like the whole world was having a baby, like with all the flowers blooming and trees budding and it was just so beautiful.

Lisa: And my mom had this prediction that I was gonna have the baby on April 3rd. And I, I don't know where that came from. That was uncharacteristic of my mom to say something like that. Maybe that got in my head and influenced me 'cause it turned out she was right. Wow. 

Jessica: Yeah. 

Lisa: That's really cool.

Jessica: And so we went on that last walk at Rockefeller on April 2nd and around four in the morning, the next morning, so Sunday morning, I woke up and it felt like I had a period cramp. And I had not had any Braxton Hicks contractions. I had no idea what a contraction felt like. I just was so curious, honestly. And I was hoping to have some Braxton Hicks contractions just so I would know. Cause the suspense was killing me, and I think I was a little even disappointed. I was like, oh, this is just like a period cramp. This is so boring. 

Lisa: And I'm sorry, I missed, how many weeks are you at this point? 

Jessica: I was 40 weeks and four days. But it was different from a period cramp 'cause it would start and build and hit like a high point and then within a few seconds start to subside.

So I remember waking up and being like, I'm noticing this, but I don't wanna check the time. I just wanna, just see what's going on and try not to think. And one of the big takeaways from your class was that, if possible, try not to engage the thinking and analytical part of the brain too much, that doing that can actually impede labor.

And once I had a sense that this might be labor, I was like, let's go. I don't wanna do anything to slow it down. And, so, I didn't wanna even look at my phone to see words or see the time. I was like, I'm just gonna let my reptilian brain lead right now. But you know, after 10 minutes or so, I think it got the best of me.

Yeah, I didn't last very long. I saw it was 4:30, I went to the bathroom, and I saw like the first little bits of bloody show and I was so excited. 

Lisa: I'm glad you were excited instead of scared 'cause so many people when they see that are like, oh, is this normal? I don't know. Even if you heard it in class that it was normal, it can be like, oh, bleeding. That's not normal. But yeah. Great. 

Jessica: I figured after we crossed the 40 week mark like that it's gonna be safer, yeah. So I think I woke up Don and maybe we timed a few contractions, but he was really smart and said, I think we should try to go back to sleep. Like we could have a really long day ahead of us.

Labor Intensifies and Calling the Doulas

Jessica: So we did, and then I think I woke up again like an hour and a half later and he made me a bowl of oatmeal and I ate it in bed and we actually, we went back to sleep again after that. And I think around 9:00 AM I was up for the day. I couldn't sleep through the contractions anymore. I texted the doulas and that's when they were like, okay, Jaime's on call, so Jaime's gonna be your doula.

I was like, okay, great. We're gonna have a doula named Jaime and a son soon named Jamie.

Lisa: Oh, right. 

Jessica: That's not gonna be confusing at all. And they were like, you can time the contractions, but don't be obsessed with that cuz for the reason that I mentioned, like it's just, what is it gonna do, 

So just keep in touch. And I actually, I wrote my birth story down five days after having Jamie. So I have some of these details, which I've forgotten, but I'm looking at it right now to remind myself, and I wrote down that at 10: 30 in the morning, the first very intense contractions started happening.

And that's when I started doing some vocalizing to get through the contraction. I think it, I mean, it helped me, but I also wanted to have a way to tell Don to signal to him what I was going through. And so I would do this like low, guttural type of moan, and I would increase the volume as the intensity increased, and then like my voice would also taper off with the contraction.

So he would have some way of understanding within the contraction, then across contractions, as I got louder and louder gradually over the hours that, like where I was from an intensity standpoint, because I already was at a point where it wasn't super easy to talk and communicate. I called my mom to tell her I was in labor and it was a very short conversation.

In my mind I had hoped that we would have some final words of encouragement or support and I couldn't do any of that. It was just like, mom, I'm in labor. Like I gotta go 

Lisa: Bye. Here comes the next one. 

Jessica: Yeah. and I kept eating. Don made me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and I laid on a towel and we tried to watch some tv and you had recommended maybe we put on like a silly movie or just something, like the comfort food version of, TV or movie entertainment.

And I didn't wanna have really sound around me. I tried listening to some jazz and I was like, this jazz is so annoying. I needed just quiet. I was just getting into a zone where I needed quiet. So I was laying in the bed, in the dark bedroom with the door closed, for a little while.

And I heard Don go into our closet where all of our cleaning supplies were. And he had his own, I think, nesting attack. He needed to mop the kitchen floor. I think he vacuumed, maybe. 

Lisa: I've never heard the term nesting attack. I love it. 

Jessica: Well, cause there was all this commotion out there and I was a little bit annoyed by it.

Lisa: Oh yeah. You're like no sound. 

Jessica: Cause I just, I wanted quiet and calm. And then I could smell like the spray of the Swiffer liquid on the floor and was like, just smelled obnoxious to me, but I was like, he's gotta do his thing while I do my thing. It's really, it's cute. You'll laugh at it someday. So, we started timing contractions again around two o'clock.

And they were a full minute long and they were like two or three minutes apart and it was getting really intense. I was up on my feet, I was bent over at the waist leaning on any kind of furniture I could find. For some odd reason, I couldn't put my left heel on the floor. Like I was standing up on my tip toes.

Don't know why. Just kinda remember that weird detail. 

Lisa: That's very interesting. Yeah. 

Jessica: Don called the hospital and just let them know, we might see you guys pretty soon. And they were like, cool, come on whenever. And, he coordinated with Jaime and he took your good advice to go in another room so that I didn't have to hear all the logistics and just again to try and protect my brain and that need that I had for quiet and... 

Lisa: Nice.

Jessica: Yeah, so he arranged for Jaime to meet us at our apartment. And we thought, we'll see at that point when we need to go to the hospital, but. I didn't have pants on at that point. I was wearing like a big disposable diaper thing, just like riding with it.

And, I remember thinking I'm at a point where it's gonna be really difficult to put pants on and if I don't get pants on and get out the door pretty soon, I don't think I'm going to be able to. The contractions were coming very quickly and they were very intense, and so Don was actually in the middle of heating up food.

Like he had said, I wanna order some delivery. And I was like, we don't have time for delivery. That's gonna take an hour. I don't think I have an hour left in me. And so he was heating up some chicken wings that we had ordered from the night before and honestly, when we got home from the hospital three days later, there were chicken wings in the microwave. 

We never ate those. It became very clear quickly that I needed to get the pants on, let's get the bags. And like as soon as Jaime gets here, we're gonna put her in the car and we're just gonna go. I couldn't wait any longer. So, we made our way downstairs and we lived in a co-op building, so we had to go down the elevator.

Leaving for the Hospital

Jessica: And I remember having two contractions in the lobby of our building. They were so fast, I was only able to walk like a short distance before another one would happen and I needed to bend over cause that was just the position I was getting comfortable in. And then I made it out through the front door and I'm bending over and we lived on an open street on 34th Avenue in Queens, which was just this project that developed during Covid to give us and our neighbors more open space. And I had been a volunteer with it for over a year and just helping, putting out the barricades and taking them down. So it's a Sunday, it was warm, it's springtime. The street was packed with people and I'm there like, just moaning really loud and Don-- 

Lisa: Probably a bunch of people around here you know.

Jessica: Yeah, we definitely saw a few neighbors and Don's like, she's fine, she's fine. And I was like, I'm not fine, I'm so hot. And I was wearing a mask. Cause we were in our building and we were masking in the elevator, in the hall and everything at that point. And, I remember feeling like I might rip somebody's head off if they looked at me the wrong way.

I was just in a kind of fragile state. And Don, he had to go out the front door and onto the sidewalk and then, Into the garage on our building to bring the car out. And for whatever reason, I wanted to spend as little time as possible in the car. So I wanted to walk and walking felt good for me.

So I wanted to walk to the garage and then get in the car once Jaime got there, which was like any minute, but Don left me, just out in front of the building and he like ran to get the car and I was so mad and I started crying cause I wanted to walk to the car. What difference does it really make?

But I was so mad at him. 

He didn't know. Anyway, Jaime came, she sat in the front, I got in the backseat and was kneeling. We have an SUV and I was like kneeling over the backseat with my belly hanging down and I felt like a dog, kinda like draped over the back and my head's in the back of the car and I'm looking out the back, window and we're driving over the Triborough bridge and they put all the windows down cause I was like dripping in sweat and I was so hot. And, Jaime walked me up to the fourth floor at the hospital and she was just so nice cause I was really moaning really loudly.

And she just kept saying, don't worry, she's totally fine. She's in labor, but she's doing good. We're just gonna go up to the fourth floor. And she just, like, warded everybody off around me and got me up there. We went into triage and that was the most difficult point because they had a sense of who I was, but they didn't really have my medical records.

I had tried to send them over, but there were about a million questions about the prenatal care I had received. I was asked for my birth plan. Like eight different times, which in retrospect, I should have been thanking every single person, but I was just so annoyed like stop asking me for this. 

Lisa: I'm about to give birth. 

Jessica: Yeah, it was just really intense.

And that room was so teeny tiny and some listeners may not know that in my triage room, there was barely enough room for three adults and a suitcase and we had all of that. And,also the bed that they put me on was in an upright position and it was a really short bed, so it was almost like a chair. There was no place to put my legs up and out. I was like curled on my side and just super uncomfortable and getting peppered with questions. I definitely was not the nicest to one of the nurses and she smelled like cigarettes and I think I was really just sensitive to smells and sounds. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Jessica: So I encouraged them to ask Don questions cause I think you had said try to deflect, let someone who's not in labor do the talking if possible. 

Lisa: Although with those medical questions, often they insist that it has to be you, right? So that can be super hard in the intensity of labor.

Cervical Check and Labor Progression

Jessica: Yep. It was. Oh, finally they were like, would you like a cervical check? And I had not had one my entire pregnancy. I just felt like there was no point having one. I didn't wanna risk getting an infection. I thought that-- 

Lisa: Good for you. 

Jessica: Yeah. And that was, a wake up call because it was very unpleasant.

It was, for people who maybe have experienced assault, I could understand why that would be very deeply triggering and problematic. But I was told I was somewhere between six and a half and seven centimeters, which kind of explained why I was in the condition I was in. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Jessica: I was quite happy to hear that news.

Lisa: Oh, good. 

Jessica: It was like a little bit of empirical information to help me process what I was experiencing. And I was really proud of myself for waiting that long to show up to the hospital. 

Lisa: Absolutely. 

Jessica: The plan is working, like I have three centimeters to go. I think at that point it was probably around four o'clock and six hours later Jamie was born.

So, I mean, things were really happening fast. They tried to give me a Hep-Lock which I agreed to as long as nothing was connected to it. And I was just really swollen. So they tried three times in the triage room and they couldn't find a vein. And that honestly, was as painful and unpleasant as the contractions themselves.

And I was so glad when they were ready to give up, they were like, let's just move her into a room. She doesn't want it anyway. I feel like at an OB-driven hospital that probably would not have been allowed. but maybe under the care of midwives, they were willing to come back to it at a later time.

So that was cool. 

Lisa: Yeah. I think you're right. 

Yeah. I brought my own gown. I never put it on. I brought a different bra to put on, never put it on. I never put on hospital socks. I gave birth in a pair of running socks. I don't know how any of that happened, but I think I just chalk it up to the fact that I was so far along and like already in transition when I arrived that-- Nobody expects you to.

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. It was the chaos of the moment and I couldn't talk at that point to be like, Don open my suitcase and then this packing cube, I've got like my cute little gown that my mom sent to me. No. Yeah, none of that was happening. 

So I got out of the triage room and into the labor and delivery room and I don't really remember from moment to moment what was happening. I just remember some of the big sort of shifts in my position. So I started in that room leaning over the bed, standing up and draping my chest over the bed.

And at a certain point there was a midwife student who was primarily assigned to me as well as a labor and delivery nurse. And they were like, you're bent over so far, this might not be the best position for helping your labor progress in terms of helping the baby descend more into the pelvis.

And, how would you feel about maybe transitioning to get on the ball? And I was having a lot of back pain. but I said, okay, I'll try it. And later I found out that they were like, where is the, where's the ball? And they're looking around. My husband was sitting on the ball. So they had to get him off the ball so I could get on the ball.

Lisa: Excuse me, sir. 

Jessica: Yeah. And then I just sat on it and they were like, oh no, hold on. We need to put like a pad. And I was like, okay, I don't know. I don't know what's going on. Jaime and Don both tried to squeeze my hips and apply pressure and I just didn't wanna be touched.

I needed one thing, which was I needed to hold someone's hand. So I held Don's hand, and when Don needed a little bit of a break to go to the bathroom, whatever, I held Jaime's hand and that was it. And I was super thankful for your advice not to wear my wedding rings. I felt really conflicted about that because they're so special to me and I couldn't imagine having this big life moment without and we were newlyweds and not having this jewelry.

But I'm so glad we listened to you because someone's hand would've been bloody, probably mine, maybe Jaime's, maybe Don's. So it was a good decision. 

Lisa: Oh, good. 

Let the Pain Melt

Jessica: Don left his wedding ring, we didn't even bring our jewelry to the hospital and I'm so glad. And, the nurse was with me. I will say I was still just relying on vocalizing to manage the intensity.

And she also, she used this phrase that, I don't remember now, but I wrote it down and she, the phrase was, let the pain melt. And she just kept saying it over and over, and something about that worked for me. she would just say it as the contraction was building, let the pain melt. So I just let it, I would just focus on it's going to melt away.

Just ride it out cause it always does, it always goes away. And then you're back in, you're back to zero, even if, just for a minute.  

Lisa: Can I just make a comment on that phrase, I really like that a lot and what occurred to me is that sometimes people in labor will start to get, in the intensity of where you're talking about, the time in labor you're talking about, will get so tense just because, it's just challenging that then it makes it start feeling like the contractions are lasting longer than they actually are because we're holding so much tension.

And so I love that idea of letting the pain melt, of riding that wave, like saying goodbye to it and just releasing all that tension, any tension that might have developed during that intensity so that we're not experiencing more pain or intensity for longer than we need to, right?

Jessica: Yeah. 

Lisa: Yeah. Thank you. I love that phrase. 

Jessica: Yeah, me too. The anesthesiologist did come in, I was probably nine centimeters at that point, just guessing. And she did put a Hep-Lock in my hand. She got it on, I think the first or second try. So it wasn't terrible. And they didn't hook me up to an IV.

They were super respectful of every last wish that I had.

Nice. And the only other time I got mad at Don was he left my water bottle and my snacks in the car. We had prepared that I was gonna hydrate on my own and eat during labor. And the hospital had said that they were okay with that as long as we didn't go and shout it through the halls,so. 

Lisa: Be a little quiet about it. 

Jessica: Yeah. Just be subtle. I was like, no problem. I can't even talk. But Jaime had some apple sauce packets in her purse, so I had some of that. I'm on the yoga ball, I'm bouncing. At a certain point, someone said, she's looking kind of tired.

And I didn't feel particularly tired. I was not thinking like, when is this over? I mean, I was curious like, when will it be over? But not I can't do this anymore. I never got to that point of I can't do this. but they, again, like a nurse or someone in the room suggested maybe we should try and get her in the bed, and they asked me, how would you feel about getting in?

You don't have to lay on your back, get on your side and maybe let's try the peanut ball. So, we did that and I was having trouble with the peanut ball. The way it was positioned in my legs, I was having to work to hold it there instead of just relaxing. And I couldn't express that with words. I was having to exert too much energy doing that. 

Lisa: I wonder if the size wasn't quite right for you. Maybe. 

Jessica: Maybe. Are there different sizes? I didn't know that. 

There are. Yeah, there are, and not every size is right for, I mean, there's so many different positions as well as everybody's size is different and so. It felt really big. So yeah, it was pretty uncomfortable and like I was laying on my right side and had my left hip on in the air, and I've always had some hip issues running and so it was like, I dunno, cranked open, felt like the jaw of my hips was open kinda wide and, 

Lisa: It also could have had to do with where the baby was. I don't know if anyone was evaluating the station of the baby. Because where we wanna have that ball, it might be between our knees at a certain point in labor, but at another point in labor, we'll wanna have it down by the ankles with inward rotation. And so that's another possible factor. I don't know, but just, a possibility. 

Starting to Push

Jessica: Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. And I'm not sure because I only had one other check and it was at some point after trying the peanut ball cause I was having a lot of pressure and we were communicating about that. And so they did one more check and I was 10 centimeters.