In this episode, Adriane shares her very unusual fertility journey story of IVF as well as her subsequent distinctive choice to give birth to her first baby at home.

Adriane is not only a mom of two, but is also a babywearing expert, postpartum doula, breastfeeding counselor, and the former owner of a baby boutique in Greenpoint, Brooklyn now called The Wild. She’s also a great storyteller.

She’ll share her 2nd IVF and birth story later on the season as we begin the series on fertility journey challenges.

Episode Topics:

Elimination communication
Babywearing
How Adriane got interested in birth
Fertility journey, discovering her husband had a rare infertility condition, ultimately doing IVF with friend as donor sperm, working on first try
Exercise, swimming in pregnancy
Hiring a doula
Hiring a homebirth midwife
The psychological shift toward parenting and relationship
Going to the movies the night before going into labor
Partner does acupressure for her, and same night she goes into labor
Doula comes over
Laboring on toilet, needing to lean back to slow things down
The intensity of pushing
Bonding after birth
Early babywearing challenges
How they decide to share or not share that their son isn’t her partner’s biological son
A bit more on the fertility journey coupled with choosing to give birth at home

Resources:

Adriane Stare - @ado_stare - babywearing info & classes
Elimination Communication: Early Potty Training *4 Easy Steps (YouTube)
The Diaper-Free Baby: The Natural Toilet Training Alternative by Christine Gross-Loh (book)*
Go Diaper Free website & book by Andrea Olson (Elimination Communication)*
Birth as an American Rite of Passage by Robbie Davis-Floyd*
Becoming Us by Elly Taylor*
Sponsor links:
Birth Matters NYC Childbirth Education Classes (Astoria, Queens)
Birth Matters Online/On-Demand Course

*Products on this page are paid affiliate links; as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you.

Interview Transcript

Lisa: Welcome to the Birth Matters Podcast. Today I have Adriane Stare with me. Welcome.

[00:00:08] Adriane: Thanks, Lisa.

[00:00:10] Lisa: Why don't you start by introducing yourself and letting us know where you are in your parenting journey, as well as--you do some birth-parenting related work, so I would love for you to share about that as well.

[00:00:23] Adriane: Yes.

[00:00:23] Thank you. My name is Adriane Stare. And I'm turning 40 this year and I have two boys. Damien is age 10 and he's turning 11 this year and I have his younger brother, Lorne, who's seven. And we live in Brooklyn and we go to school in Brooklyn. I professionally am a, a certified babywearing educator by trade.

[00:00:51] And for many years, about eight years, I owned a retail shop and class space in Brooklyn that was all about baby wearing and it was called Caribou Baby. And then it was Wild Was Mama. And I sold that business two years ago. And since then, I've been doing full time postpartum doula work in addition to my babywearing work and lactation education.

[00:01:18] Furthermore, I have a deep passion for anything related to pottying, cloth diapers, elimination communication. If you haven't heard about that, it's something I care about and I do lots of consultations for families surrounding those topics as well.

[00:01:32] Lisa: I love that. I did a little bit of elimination communication with my second baby.

[00:01:37] Adriane: Yay

[00:01:38] Lisa: Such a wonderful way to tune into your baby and to learn their communication cues. And

[00:01:44] Adriane: I know. No one ever tells you how fun it is. No one actually tells you that pottying can, you can take it from being this expensive, annoying, messy, yucky thing to something that's actually fun and exciting.

[00:01:57] And all the benefits you get from that, like, as a person, and I think reframing that for folks is one way to sort of inspire them to give it a try.

[00:02:07] Lisa: That's great. And back to the baby wearing boutique and classroom space that you owned and sold--now that's called The Wild, and the whole time I've been teaching, I promote that business to my students.

[00:02:19] Whenever I come up to the baby wearing topic, I always say, "There's this great place." Over time it changed names, as you mentioned, Caribou Baby, and then Wild Was Mama and now then The Wild. So that's such a wonderful resource for, you know, has been in the past few years and now continues to be a great resource for expectant parents and new parents.

[00:02:40] So you said, can you talk a little bit more about the consults that you do?

[00:02:44] Adriane: Yeah, so, as a postpartum doula, certainly I work with new families and I bring my baby wearing work in to those households either separately or through the work that I'm doing with them. And baby wearing on its own I do in class form. So I teach new parents in group settings. I do this at The Wild, my former store, which is like my family and home for my classes, which is amazing. And expectant parents can come and join and it's so nice to have a place to touch and feel and try on carriers and really learn about them.

[00:03:16] And if you don't get that experience, a lot of times you're sort of approaching the idea of baby wearing or, you know, the purchase of a carrier from a guessing standpoint, right? You're going by features and what the manufacturer tells you it's going to do or not do. But the class is an opportunity to really sort of explore lifestyle.

[00:03:34] And what's going to match with you. And if you can use something you already own. Questions like that. And a lot of questions come up as you're even watching it. So you get all those answered. And I feel like couples, families can really make decisions on the spot and you know, it feels good to sort of check those things off your list.

[00:03:52] I also teach professionals. So this is one of my favorite things to do. And this sort of started because in the store I would have babywearing trainings for my staff, right. These were like three day long extensive trainings. And it's not just, "How do you wear a wrap?" or, you know, "What's a ring sling all about?" It was really about understanding sort of the postpartum world of families and helping retail staff that I hired -- who, most of whom did not have kids of their own. Some of them had some doula experience, others, none - - helping those folks really understand where families were coming from so that you could really truly help them. Yes, we were a sales boutique. We were selling things, but with babywearing like, oftentimes if someone was on the fence about something, it would be encouraging them to come back another time and sort of sit on that decision a lot more, or for a longer period of time, because longterm customer relationships are built on trust.

[00:04:51] And you want someone coming back into your store, happy with their baby in a wrap that you sold them, instead of feeling like you were just pushing a product that you said was going to be great for them, but they weren't really connecting with, so really, teaching retail staff to understand the nuance in helping someone versus just selling someone something that you like, or that seems easy for them on the spot.

[00:05:13] And that was my absolute favorite thing to do because I am a birth and baby wearing geek and my retail staff are geeks. Right. We all care about this stuff deeply and want to talk about it and do it all day. And teaching doulas and lactation consultants and anyone really in the birth and perinatal world about baby wearing. It's like I'm teaching my best friends. We all are just constantly learning and researching and we want the evidence and we want the history of babywearing and we want to talk about, you know, issues of appropriation and racial justice, like we want to really take, we have a different lens that we approach sort of topics that we learn about.

[00:05:55] And so I get to talk about all my favorite sort of geeky parts of babywearing with folks. And it's great. So that's like an all day training that I do. For professionals. And I'm trying to figure out a way to bring it online during COVID, but half of the class is really so much trying and touching and learning that I'm having to think really creatively about how to break that up.

[00:06:17] And then on top of that, I do one -on-one consults for families. So, this is really the best. It's just anyone who has babywearing questions and needs help with anything. Can, you know, FaceTime me or Zoom with me, and they get not hands-on help -- from a distance. I do do this in families homes during times where we aren't so socially distant. But online it works so great.

[00:06:43] I'm really able to see and watch people and what they're doing and make recommendations or help with troubleshooting. And then I have all my own carriers at home. So I can really show you on the screen, what it looks like. And because one of my principles of teaching is not using my hands to help people -- and I let people know that I'm not doing that. Studies show that when you help people with breastfeeding or chest feeding or other types of technical support that you're doing for families, they feel most helped when you use your words to help them. Even when it gets sticky and hard and they have to try something five times, when they get it on their own, they feel truly, truly helped and they feel competent. And that is the way that I approach babywearing. So doing it on a screen mirrors a lot of what I do when I'm there with you in person.

[00:07:28] Lisa: I love it because that's actually what I've been hearing a lot from lactation consultants and postpartum doulas about this virtual work that we've entered into much more so than we might have been doing. Many birth professionals weren't doing any virtual work.

[00:07:43] And now it's really interesting hearing these great benefits of just from the get, go, not touching them, telling them like you're saying verbally what to do. There's such a huge benefit in it. And so that's been a surprising you know, silver lining, so to speak, I guess, of the virtual support is, like you said, studies show that that's going to be more useful to them than getting in there and doing it for them.

[00:08:07]Adriane: No one's hiring you as a consultant to show them how you can wear their baby. Right. They're looking for confidence to be able to do it on their own. The same is actually true for doula work. The motto of postpartum doula work, which is what I do, which is after the baby's born, is, work yourself out of a job, right?

[00:08:25] You're teaching folks not to become dependent on the skills that you have to care for their baby, but so they can develop their own skills to care for the baby. So sometimes it feels a little bit like tough love when folks are suffering through an experience. but that is having a baby. It's a little bit tough love. And having someone to sit by your side and cheerlead you and remind you what you're doing right, and show you where you could make changes that is worth its weight in gold. And I think in this quarantine world, I'm personally, in my own work with my own clients, starting to see a divide between folks who hired me as a doula who are trying to build these skills and work to that point and people who really had a vision of a doula as someone who comes and holds your baby for you while you get rest and makes the meals and does the really hands-on thing, certainly doulas do it all. But the folks that I'm still really working deeply with are the ones who know that the cheerleading counts for something and know that that constant information and feedback and skill building is worth so much.

[00:09:23] So I'm still working with those folks a lot.

[00:09:25]Lisa: That's great. And I just want to mention that I took one of your workshops a few months ago, I guess. It's been a while, but not too long. And I loved it so much and I really highly recommend Adrian's -- different ways of working with her.

[00:09:39]I'm really hoping to take a longer workshop for birth professionals with you at some point, like a longer series. there's so much to learn from your expertise on all of this. So please seek her out if are interested in baby wearing. Baby wearing is such a great way to bond with your baby. It's so just beautifully biologically appropriate to have your baby on your body. You can speak better to the benefits than I can, but it's just such a beautiful thing. And to have someone to really learn from can really build your confidence.

[00:10:09] Adriane: I think you said it perfectly. It's true. All those things.

[00:10:13] Lisa: Great. Well, was there anything else about your work that you want to just share right now, before we start journeying into your pregnancy and birth story?

[00:10:21] Adriane: Nope. I think you covered it all. If you are interested in finding me, my Instagram's pretty active. It is @ado, which is my nickname, A-D-O, underscore Stare, which is my last name. S-T-A-R-E. And that gives you a real taste for how I approach babywearing.It's in sort of a fun and informal way.

[00:10:42] Yes, I have, you know, 10-plus years of experience, but it still remains one of my passions. I'm very enthusiastic about it. And I get excited about all sorts of little things, that maybe you do, too. But it's fun to watch. And I have tutorials, I have babywearing minutes or one minute babywearing videos, so one minute or less sort of little tutorials on things that I find interesting or fun.

[00:11:03] I have new ways to wear wraps that you might not have considered. I review carriers that my clients are asking me about that they need to sort of understand more in depth. And I do longer tutorials about how to nurse or, or chest feed in a carrier, all sorts of different topics. So that's a fun way to find me.

[00:11:24] And then of course my website is just my name, adrianestare.com. And that has links to sort of my larger packages of services that I offer, and my classes. And you can see what's upcoming.

[00:11:37] Lisa: Wonderful. Thank you so much. And I'll be sure to link to those ways to connect with you on our show notes.

[00:11:43] Adriane: Thanks.

[00:11:44] Lisa:. Well, do you want to talk a little bit about, conception and or your pregnancy and the ways that you prepared for birth in the journey into Parenthood?

[00:11:54] Adriane: Yes. and it's so interesting to start our conversation off with all the birth work that I do now, and to think that none of this would have happened... Well, maybe it would have, right? Birth work has that sneaky way for us. Anyone who works in this field knows that if it's a calling for you, you find your way to it. And in the oddest ways and times, but it's like a bug that bites you at some point in your life, then you get into it.

[00:12:19] For me, having my first child in 2009 was just a major life changing event that sort of changed the entire course of my life and really gave me an opportunity to dive into this work in a way that had only sort of been simmering in the background for so long. And this was my chance and my excuse.

[00:12:40] So before I became pregnant with Damien, which was in the fall of 2008, I was already interested in birth. So I always say that my birth journey started, when I was about 18 years old and I took the most fantastic undergraduate class called The Sociology of Reproduction, which was taught by the head of my Soc Department at the University of Vermont.

[00:13:05] And she was a huge birth geek. And she taught a variety of birth classes and sort of under the umbrella of sociology and women's studies and her class had panels of midwives, doulas. And what an opportunity for someone who's at age 18 and just sort of coming into their womanhood to really learn about what birth in America looks like.

[00:13:32] And we were writing critical essays, you know, Robbie Davis Floyd "Birth in America," like, really deep texts. And still to this day, three of my friends who were in class with me are somehow involved in birth work. And I say that this was the stepping point. The teacher's name is Robbie Khan and she has her own birth books out there. And she was big on linguistics and language. Anyway, I could go on and on and on, but that's where my real passion started. And I knew that when I was older, I would be involved. Maybe I would be a midwife or I was definitely going to have kids. I was so inspired by the whole process, the beauty of birth, and sort of horrified at what birth in America really looked like and curious and passionate about the history and all the changes that we could make and sort of the hope and the inspiration for how it could be different.

[00:14:21] And I carried that with me in my pocket for a long time. And I went through a variety of jobs in the nonprofit industry. And, I went to graduate school for public policy and management. And during all that time, a good friend of mine who owns Birth Day Presence, which is a birth hub for childbirth ed, like you, Lisa, and also a doula agency, was hosting Debra Pascali-Bonaro, who is, a major teacher in the world of childbirth education. So I took my doula training course from one of the greatest doulas at that time that I knew. And I just thought I was taking a cool workshop because I was interested in it. But when I got to the training, I realized that everyone who was there was training to actually professionally become a doula right then.

[00:15:09] But I had just committed to a job and accepted an offer to work for the New York City Office of Management and Budget as a policy analyst. Talk about the other side of my brain, right. Numbers, spreadsheets. Love all that, and so I wasn't pursuing a career in it, but I was just so passionate about it that I couldn't not take this course.

[00:15:29] And fast-forward a year or two later. I had taken a couple of births when I first started that job. I remember having to like negotiate with my boss, and if anyone knows the Budget Office of New York, such a interesting environment. It's very much blue and gray and cubicles and not really a lot of women in my analyst department, predominantly male and it's just a very conservative type of person. So, no yelling or shouting, not, like, a whole lot of personality. And here I was trying to, like, sneak out the back door to, like, go take on some birth clients, to, like, see what it was like. I had this whole hippie side of me and it just was such a clash that I think back on it now. And it's so funny.

[00:16:13] So I took a couple of births, both were, hospital births and both ended in Cesarean birth. And I learned so, so, so much. and I also learned that that is a big commitment and I wasn't ready to throw everything I had just, you know, I just gone back to grad school.

[00:16:30] I wasn't ready to be a full-time doula. And for me personally, I know it's not the same for other doulas, but I really felt like I needed my own experience under my belt before I could dive into that world. Because there was so much I didn't know, and didn't understand, and I felt very green and novice.

[00:16:45] So my husband and I married in 2006 and we were pretty much trying to have a baby from the moment that, we got married. And I was only 26 years old. So I say only 26 because very few of my friends in my circle had gotten pregnant. We were sort of pioneers in this front, in the marriage part, especially. And we tried for -- I want to say a year. And it wasn't a surprise to me that it was taking us so long because, I thought I would struggle with fertility. And I thought that because it took me a very long time to start menstruating when I was young and my own mother had struggled. So it was sort of part of my expectation of my own body. So I was doing acupuncture and I was really sort of investigating my own reproductive health at that time and I wasn't in a rush per se because I was young and it wasn't like I was, you know, turning 45 and trying to have a baby really quickly.

[00:17:45] And about a year and a half had gone by and my husband went to get his own reproductive health checked out. And it turns out that he is what's called azoospermatic. So he doesn't have any sperm which is sort of a rare occurrence and not something at all that we were expecting.

[00:18:02] And it wasn't about improving his health or, him having, you know, low motility or, you know, weird sperm or things that could change. It was really him just not having any. And, it wasn't really understood why, but that was sort of a huge relief, and when I share this story with people, I share this fact because I think that when someone's sharing a struggle with fertility, it's often assumed that that's a sad thing or a bad thing.

[00:18:31] And for us, knowing that there was actually something up meant that our entire sex life was improved. All the pressure of trying to conceive was taken off of the plate for us for a moment. And it felt like we had our relationship back and we had choices you know, were we going to adopt. And for us, it was like a big turning point. And so he actually had a surgery. They thought maybe he had, a, blockage or some sort of duct clog, in his testicles that was causing this to happen. And there was no way for them to know unless they did a surgery. And the surgery was, you know, one day it was outpatient.

[00:19:13] And we opted for it because if we could conceive naturally after that, we would have been happy for that. But, the doctors at the fertility clinic-- basically when we opted for the surgery, they said if they did find sperm I would have eggs ready to fertilize at the exact moment they found sperm.

[00:19:33] So I had to go through IVF regardless of whether they found sperm or not, for the chance that they did that they would be able to, impregnate my egg and make a baby. And it was sort of like we had to decide on the spot, that we were going to do this. And, in addition to that, they said, what's your plan B, what happens if we go in and we don't find sperm? Because most people are having a donor backup at that moment. And I, he and I had sort of been like, "Well, if we don't find anything, maybe we'll take a pause and really decide what we're going to do. It's a big decision." They were like, "This is a lot, this is a big experience to go through." I had luckily insurance that was paying for it, but it's a lot on your body to go through IVF at any age. And they're like, "This sort of a big deal and you're going through a surgery." They were recommending that we had a plan B set to go, and we make that decision now. So, we can take advantage rather than, you know, freeze eggs that were not fertilized, which, I think do not have the same statistical chance.

[00:20:35] It just, everything gets harder if you sort of put that off, but if you can freshly fertilize an egg right off the bat, that's your best chance. So, we had like a couple of weeks to decide what we're going to do. They were handing us catalogs of sperm donors, and that felt sort of weird to us.

[00:20:54] And we're in a whole new category of thinking that we were not anticipating at all as a new couple, and it didn't feel right to us to ask a stranger. But then we knew that if we were going to ask someone to donate sperm, it would be what's called a known donor that our kids would have the option of having a relationship with them.

[00:21:12] And we didn't want anything to be sort of like shrouded in secrecy. We wanted everything to be sort of transparent and clear. So I said, if there was ever a person I was going to ask to donate, it would probably be Greg's best friend, Uncle Jim. We call him Uncle Jim now; he's just Jim. And Jim is sort of salt of the earth, best college friend of Greg's.

[00:21:34] He was the worst man at our wedding, which is really the best, best man. We had a best man and a worst man. And, you know, he had a, a girlfriend of a long time who very unfortunately passed away young from skin cancer. And he comes from a huge Irish Catholic family. His mom teaches women's studies and still has booklets of her beautiful birth and like her crowning head of a baby. She's just really wonderful. And his dad was, they both worked in the church, but they were also like peace activists, just a great family. And he's very good looking and he's smart and creative. And he would be the only person who could handle this sort of ambiguous relationship.

[00:22:21] And Greg agreed that that was the only person that we would feel comfortable asking. And we asked Uncle Jim, and he was honored. He was honored in this way, which makes you realize that the only response that you could want and ask for. And that's really the only response there is. Like, it wasn't about contracts and figuring out the nitty gritty.

[00:22:44] There wasn't a lot of pause. It was just, you know, the fact that we were asking meant the world to him and that made it feel even more right. I'm going to cry talking about this. So, of course, the fertility clinic looking at a very young couple who's asking their friend for sperm thought we were crazy.

[00:23:00] And we had to, like, pass a psych evaluation from the psychologist on staff to make sure we knew what we were getting into because if you make a decision like this, it can cause a lot of legal ramifications and problems later on, particularly because Jim didn't already have kids of his own.

[00:23:16] It was a lot going on, but we felt very confident in it. And we knew that maybe that wasn't the way it was going to be forever, but certainly we trusted our gut. And we said, really, this is the only, the only option that we feel comfortable with and more so over sperm from someone we didn't know, I don't know it was this big thing.

[00:23:36] And we said, "We're going to ask Uncle Jim." He came down to New York City, Greg accompanied him to the fertility clinic. And I think Greg, even like gave him the smut magazine or whatever that he used to make the sperm that have now become our babies, which is like a super sweet story to tell, that they went together, that they're bonding over this. And I mean, just, don't I have the most amazing husband, too? Who's so involved in this, like it's just given us this whole new relationship. It's almost like this third person or this third family. I just feel very lucky that all of this went down the way it did. And so in a pinch; there was lots of red tape to jump through, to get Uncle Jim, to be able to donate sperm in, like, certain states and how long it had to quarantine for. It was really a whole research and learning. And anyone who's gone through fertility journey knows every day, you're learning some new thing that you have to do or how it's going to work.

[00:24:34] And we found a special clinic that was able to take fresh sperm and not quarantine it. We didn't have to go through a traditional sperm bank because we knew the donor. That's basically how it went. So, fast forward, my husband undergoes his surgery and did not have a blockage and they're not able to find anything to work with. And that was, that was a hard moment. That was a sad moment for us. Because we knew it was a possibility, but in the moment, just sort of understanding that, but we had made the decision and Uncle Jim's sperm was right there. And so all along they were timing an IVF cycle for me to sort of match this so that my eggs were harvested the day after Greg went through surgery.

[00:25:15] So we're both having our own surgeries in this fertility clinic. Sort of, not really. IVF isn't a surgery. Sorry. But it is sort of an invasive harvesting at the end. And because I was so young and because I didn't have any fertility struggles of my own, it was just an insane experience, just lots of eggs and, you know, ovaries that felt like the size of grapefruits.

[00:25:35] Like, I tried to dance at a party and it was, like, painful and, you know, having to go in every morning, commute to, like, the tip of Brooklyn, and get my blood taken and get shots and get out and then make it to work on time. And not being able to tell anyone at work or anyone that I was going through this, it was the biggest experience of my life, and so isolating. Because I had no one to share it with. And I'm a big sharer, as you can tell, it helps normalize my experience for me. And I also feel like it's valuable to other people who are also feeling isolated in their same experience.

[00:26:13] Lisa: Absolutely.

[00:26:13] Adriane: It was a total trip. It was a total trip. So this whole thing was going on for, you know, a few weeks or a month.

[00:26:20] And then they harvest my eggs and they fertilized the eggs, a lot of them did really well, and it came time to put them back inside of me, to see if they would implant and they wanted to do two. And I said, "Absolutely not, because I want a home birth. And I don't want to have twins and risk it." And they, you know, they were calling me "Adriane Dare" instead of Adriane Stare, which is, like, so mocking and lame in retrospect, but I just didn't want to risk it. And that was my decision. Because you know, the birth experience matters too.

[00:26:54] And so they put the one fertilized egg back in and it worked on the first try. And that became Damian. Pregnancy with him was, I mean, I could have written a blog post every day. I almost started a blog called The Joys of Pregnancy, which would have been sarcastic. Because to me, there was just so much weird s**t that happens. Excuse my language. Every day, it was like, "Oh my God, what's this new thing that's happening that I'm learning about?" I imagine it's still that way for anyone who's been pregnant ever. It's like, the way your body is changing and just the crazy little aches and pains and things that are happening that you never imagined.

[00:27:35] Like, the summertime was coming on when I had him and I got what's called the mask of pregnancy, which is like, melasma where your face skin darkens. And it almost looks like you're wearing a mask. And I was like, "Oh my God," everyone tells you how beautiful it is to be pregnant, but for me it was, like, all these weird things that were making me feel and look not how I wanted to. And I don't know about you, Lisa, but I had, like, visions of myself in the little summer dresses being pregnant, but I had such bad feet swelling and cankles that there was no way I was getting in sandals.

[00:28:06] I was like 100% in, like, running shoes, which means I had to wear jeans and it was summer. And I was like, "Oh my God." And I put on so much weight. That's how my body likes to carry babies. I think I put on, like, 70 pounds, which for my frame is quite, quite a bit. And I, yes, my feet grew with both pregnancies and all of my shoes, I had to get rid of them and get new shoes.

[00:28:27] No one tells you that's a big investment. You know, my beloved Frye boots that I had been wearing for, like, 10 years. I was like, "Oh, those are gone." They stayed big, yes. They didn't go back

[00:28:37] Lisa: Same here. Yup. Yup.

[00:28:39] Adriane: Yeah. I'm a size 10 now. So...

[00:28:42] Lisa: I'm a 9 and a half. Yeah.

[00:28:47] Adriane: All those little things. But they're sort of funny too, you know, it was a crazy wild ride, but I had a very -- I would say -- healthy pregnancy. I was working. I found it incredibly hard to find after work physical activity for myself. Like, I wanted to do prenatal yoga, but finding an after work, prenatal yoga class for pregnant working people was like -- I was working in Tribeca. I had to take the subway to a part of Brooklyn that was not convenient for me to get to, just to get that time slot in. And I was like, "Really? In New York City, this is the way it is?" And it's because services for prenatal folks at that time, were either based in Manhattan or they were just not given the priority time slots, right? Because they didn't have as many people, they weren't as well attended or it's just more niche. So, I found that I had to sort of travel around for my own physical health. I love to swim. That was really the only way that I could move my 220-pound body around in space.

[00:29:47] The joy of getting in water and feeling weightless. And then the sad reality, when you get out of the pool as you feel your own weight again, like, what you're dealing with. But that was really the only way I could move my body. to the extent that I wanted to. So I would seek out little, prenatal swim classes, which were really awesome.

[00:30:05] Lisa: Those are harder to find. I would think those are harder to find than prenatal, yoga, even now.

[00:30:08] Adriane: Oh, that was very hard to find, but there was a great space in downtown Manhattan that was offering them.

[00:30:13]Lisa: Good.

[00:30:14]Adriane: And that was, really amazing. I, connected with a doula very early in pregnancy who is just someone -- she actually owned, like, what I'm going to call a natural baby store, which is sort of similar to the store that I opened, but on a much smaller scale. She closed it right after my son was born, but she was also a doula.

[00:30:33]Her name was Stephanie and we got her right away. One interview, one and done. And, Jada, my friend who owns Birth Day Presence was our birth photographer. And I got a recommendation from a home birth midwife through her, Valeriana Pasqua-Masback, and she was our home birth midwife. And we went to her home in Chestnut Ridge, New York, which is across the George Washington.

[00:30:57] She had a cute little cottage and we went and did our appointments at her house in her backyard. That really made me difference for my prenatal experience. Right. All of my long appointments in her beautiful birth studio with extended appointments, to be able to ask all the questions that I wanted, was really amazing.

[00:31:15] Lisa: I think in past episodes we've talked about being visited in your home for prenatals. So, it really just depends on a home birth midwife and their style and their setup as to whether they come to you or you go to them. But whatever the case, you're usually getting a lot more nurturing time with them than we get in our traditional maternal healthcare system with OBs.

[00:31:38] Adriane: Absolutely. And it was an appointment that we looked forward to every month. Because it was a break. It was like, we set it in the calendar, my husband and I went out for it. We had a car at that time, so we would not have been able to do it without that, but because she lives so far away, she only reserved like the last appointments of our last prenatal appointments to be in our home. I would have loved in-home appointments too, but I will say that this was sort of like a little adventure that we took, on like a Sunday afternoon, once a month. Or once every couple of months or however long it was, and being in someone else's space, it's sort of like when, if you're someone who practices acupuncture, or if you've had any sort of consistent -- you know, if you go see a certain massage therapist that you like, like when you enter that space, if you've been going consistently, there's something about entering their space that sort of puts you in a mindset of relaxation.

[00:32:27] And I find that that same sort of effect happens when you go into your midwife's space. It's like, this is a time for you. It's not a time in your home where you are, like, looking at your dishes. It's, like, all about sort of focusing on the birth experience and it centers you in this way that is very therapeutic.

[00:32:47] Lisa: Is Stephanie still doing doula work now?

[00:32:49] Adriane: She left New York and I haven't been able to find her online and I hope that she is doing some sort of birth work. She's amazing.

[00:32:59] Lisa: I just wanted to ask in case she was here locally, I would list her information.

[00:33:04] Adriane: Yes. Yes. Stephanie Watson Campbell. If you're out there, say hi, I think about you a lot. And I have great pictures from our birth together. Our birth, right. She was so involved.

[00:33:17] Lisa: Any other ways that you prepared for birth, or do you want to move into the birth story?

[00:33:23] Adriane: Birth preparation was just me really sort of connecting with my team and keeping my body moving and healthy. It's so interesting. I was reading back on a journal, you know, in preparation for this interview, I was reflecting on my birth stories and I'm a journaler and I didn't do a lot of journaling in pregnancy. And a lot of my sort of stuff that I was working out, honestly, was about, my own relationship, with my partner.

[00:33:50] And I think that's so common for other people, which is why I'm mentioning it. Which is, you know, especially being a younger pregnant person, the first of my friends, I was coming from a lifestyle where I was going out a lot and I was drinking and you know, we had a really social lifestyle and we were in a position where all that really ended.

[00:34:07] So, in reflection, in reading those entries, it seems like a mental health shift for me happened in my first pregnancy. Yes, I was working a lot and staying healthy, but I was also sort of coming to terms with what it meant to be spending more time alone and nesting. I know that that comes easily to a lot of people, and this is a time for them to really relax and take long walks.

[00:34:31] And I think if I had a baby tomorrow, I would be doing a lot more, like, centering, meditation. Like, I would be doing totally different things during pregnancy, but then I was really sort of dealing with what it means for our relationship. What does it mean for us to share time together?

[00:34:47] What is it going to mean when the baby comes and work's going to stop for me? Like, it was other sorts of things. And then there was the physical. And I didn't really know. And it's crazy to not know. And I reflected on that, too, in the entries, just for someone who likes to know and likes to do a lot of research, how can you prepare for something that you just have no idea how it's going to go.

[00:35:09] And so I really threw myself into a lot of research, to keep my mind engaged in something. I mean, I was nesting in a different way and really learning about setting up my household for the baby. And I think a lot of it paid off because I still care about a lot of that stuff. So clearly that's, like, what my mind likes to do to organize. What cloth diapers am I going to have and how many? And some people are like that. And if that's you out there, call me, because I can help you with those decisions.

[00:35:41] But that's really it. And then, birth happened. Two days before my due date. You want to move into that?

[00:35:49] Lisa: Yeah. Well, I just wanted to highlight what you were mentioning about reflecting on your relationship with your partner. I just think there's a lot of wisdom in that and in, specifically, really nurturing that relationship in this journey into parenthood, because It gets harder once you have a little one, you know? And that's something that I really focus on in birth prep classes is just really trying to plant seeds, to start conversations to help really deepen and strengthen that connection. As well as prepare for birth, of course. So thank you for sharing that.

[00:36:24] Adriane: It's different, right? Like now that we've been through it twice, and also now that we're in, you know, he's in his forties and now that we're just a little older and we have, you know, nearly 15 years of being together. I think the relationship does change, obviously, but not with the drastic-ness... Is that a word drasticness?

[00:36:46] Lisa: Sure, let's go with it. I love to make words up.

[00:36:48] Adriane: The drasticness that you get with that first kid. It's just so much and it continues, right? That isolation that I was feeling. I think it started for me in pregnancy and it definitely continues into the postpartum. For people who are having one partner who 's working outside of the home, who also needs to tend to their own self care or needs to go out with her friends or needs to play music or needs to sort of engage in that hobby to feel like themselves outside of work. It can really divide a couple, divide a family where -- and I was home with the kid most and didn't really feel like I could leave in the nighttime, even if I wanted to, or had another hobby that I could engage in. I was really feeling not good about taking space. And so that isolation that you see in postpartum for me really started in pregnancy.

[00:37:38] And I think it took a while to really work through that. We don't have so much work to do on that anymore. So, if I was pregnant tomorrow, it would look really different for me. And I think that the relationship change is so important. So, thank you for saying that.

[00:37:52] Are you familiar with Elly Taylor?

[00:37:54] Lisa: I was just thinking of her. Yes. Yeah. I love that. And I love Gottman Institute and Baby Makes Three. I've considered, I think both of those books have done trainings to become an educator for those programs. And it's something I'm passionate about. So yeah.

[00:38:11] What did you want to say about Elly Taylor?

[00:38:12] Adriane: I took a little workshop with her for professionals and she obviously runs workshops for parents, who are expecting to help them sort of lay out some groundwork for the changes that are coming up. And what I like about it is that she breaks it down into, like, eight categories or 10 categories or something like that. And when you take it in, you're like, "Oh yeah, really everything about our household is changing." It's, you know, financial it's, it's all the ways that things are changing. And I see things just giving some attention to it, and communicating and talking through some of it really helps keep, like, a glue between you and your partner, because there's so much of this already, the separation between you and your partner. There's so much of that. Everything about having a baby drives you apart in so many ways, but what she emphasizes is that there's timing after a baby comes where you can really glue back together tightly, if you have a good foundation for communication, and to take advantage of those times. It might not be two weeks after the baby's born. That might not be a great time to like, reconnect with your partner. Because so much energy is going into the baby. But there are sort of these natural windows where you come back together naturally as a family and you come back even stronger than before.

[00:39:32] And it's almost like if you break a bone, I think that this has maybe been disproven, but at least when I broke bones -- when I was little, I broke many. I'm very klutzy. When you break a bone, they say a lot of times it heals stronger than before because the bone forms, like, a glue and basically it calcifies. and I think it just becomes bigger, is what happens. Right. But I love that idea that even though it's hard and like, there is some natural driving apart that happens, but that it's in service of you coming together even stronger afterward.

[00:40:02] And I think that it helps you have more empathy for your own relationship, as you're going through that, right? Like, when you see you're not connecting and that you're isolated, knowing that that's normal and that you're going to come back and have a time where you really can come back stronger together, I think feels very optimistic to me and very inspiring. And it makes it sort of like a silver lining in like, just what is a natural process of couples.

[00:40:29] I recommend her book to my clients all the time, because I think if you want to do work on your relationship or you're worried about it, now is the time, in prenatal.

[00:40:38] Lisa: Absolutely. And I'll be sure to link to her book in the show notes. Wonderful. Well, let's go into your birth story.

[00:40:45] Adriane: Yay! Okay. So, I was planning a home birth. We lived in an apartment in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, I was planning on having a tub of water. My husband is a drummer, musician of all trades, that we had a basement floor attached to our apartment, which was like part of the reason why we chose it because he played, he would go down there and play the drums. So, we sort of set up a birth space in the basement. And it was very dark. It had only a little bit of light coming in through some, like, above-ground windows. And it seemed like a natural cave- like place where one might want to have a baby.

[00:41:23] Lisa: I was thinking "birth cave," when you said that.

[00:41:25] Adriane: Total birth cave, and it had a water source down there, so we could fill the tub up. Right? It's the logistics.

[00:41:32] Lisa: Very important.

[00:41:33] Adriane: It was a really old building. So the walls were very thick. Like brick, concrete walls. So I wasn't as worried about, you know, the noise, but that was on my mind, definitely, like, the noise that we were going to make in a home birth in the city. Right? Planning a home birth with neighbors around. You're just a little more self aware and self conscious. And I think that can sort of take you out of your birth cave focus that you need.

[00:41:56] At least for me, I don't like being like distracted, like, when you're in such an intensely, physical, some painful experience, you need to be able to really focus inward, and worrying about what other people are thinking is the last thing I wanted on my mind. So I felt okay there. And I was happy about that.

[00:42:14] And, I stopped work, I think, like, a few weeks before the baby came. I didn't want to work right up until the last day. It was summertime. He was born on July 14th, so it was hot and sweaty and, like, riding the subway was insane. I was just too big too. I was really big and uncomfortable.

[00:42:35] So the commute I was ready to ditch. I was having, like, rashes, like, under every boob and between every leg and armpit, like, because I was wearing my jeans and my sneakers. So it was not a pretty end of pregnancy. And I just wanted to be like laying around like a whale at home with air conditioning, like blowing on all the parts of my skin. I took off and I wanted to nest a little bit, and not think about work, and really focus on what was going on at home, and if we had everything that we needed and, it was July 13th, which is my best friend's birthday. And Greg and I went out to see a movie, right? Get some AC.

[00:43:15]We were seeing Bruno. Sacha Baron Cohen. it's very funny. And we went to like a late nighttime movie in Manhattan. I don't know why, but then I remember that the theater was so steep and the seats were so tiny and like here I was at almost, you know, due, any second. And like, I was trying to like, get into this, like tiny, this tiny seat and like this, what do they call it? Stadium seating. Right? And we had popcorn and it just, like, rested right on top of my huge belly. And we, like, squeezed ourselves in the seats and we were watching the movie and it was so funny.

[00:43:52] It's like at one point Sacha Baron Cohen, or Bruno, it's like this big penis was like, swinging across the screen. And like, I was laughing so hard, I was laughing so hard at one point I was like, "Great, I'm going to go into labor if I laugh any harder than this, I'm going to go into labor." And it was just this really cathartic sort of therapeutic experience of just, like, full laughter at one of the world's greatest comedians and, like, just unexpected to sort of do on the night before you're going to have a baby and not know it, right? And we got home and Greg was sort of giving me a massage, and like pressing on my acupressure points that might induce labor. Because I was ready to have that baby.

[00:44:36] Anyone who's been through IVF or fertility, you'll get this, who's listening. Your pregnancy feels like it takes forever oftentimes, because it doesn't just start when you pee on a stick, find out that you're -- it's like the conception process alone feels like it's taking too long and it's, like, months and months and months of planning. Finally, there is, you know, implantation and then there's, by the time you find out you're pregnant, you've been going through like months of this.

[00:45:03] And then you have to survive the pregnancy, right? And like, you're worried about miscarriage and, like, all of the stuff. So, it felt like it had been taking a year and I was just ready to have this baby. I was not walking well, my feet were so swollen. And I think it was that feeling of, like, "I could have the baby now."

[00:45:19] And I say that I notice it sometimes. Like in the store, when I used to help clients or families, like, it's that switch where you're sort of like, you could have the baby, but you're still okay being pregnant. And then you're like, "No, I want to have the baby now. I would do any -- like, I would do anything to have the baby right now. Like, having the baby outside of me would be easier than having it inside of me for one day longer." And that's how I was feeling. So I was like, "Hit those acupressure points when you're massaging me, Greg." And he did, and we went to sleep and I woke up at about five in the morning with some cramping feelings and went to the bathroom and I thought maybe I was constipated. I got back in bed.

[00:46:03] I felt even more cramping feelings, like, a half an hour later. So, I got up to go to the bathroom and I felt like a little wetness in my labia. Just a little, and I, it felt like I was going to have my period, and that sensation of feeling like you're going to get your period feels very wrong during pregnancy, to anyone's body. It feels like you're going to lose the baby. But of course, being due, I was like, "Oh, well, maybe this has to do with labor." And so I had some traces of blood in the toilet paper after I peed, and I thought to myself, "Okay, I'm going to try and go back to sleep. And if anything else happens, I'll tell Greg when it's like a more reasonable hour. But then I had like some major cramping. I went to the toilet and I passed what's called my bloody show.

[00:46:49] And I was like, "Okay, well, labor's starting." So I told Greg, and nobody could go back to slee p. He took a shower. He was like up and cooking in a frenzy, making like a huge breakfast that I very much regretted eating later. I took a shower. I was feeling sort of excited.

[00:47:05] I washed my hair preparing for a whole day of labor. I had all my tools for, you know, how we were going to labor all day. But contractions were sort of coming quickly after I passed that mucus plug, and I was, like, breathing through it and I ate this big breakfast -- I'm pretty much vegan now but this was back when I ate cheese and stuff, and Greg made some, like, cheesy eggs with ham and basil, and toast with butter, it was just such a rich big breakfast.

[00:47:33] And I drank what's called a labor-ade that my midwife made me make, which -- it was basically a margarita, like, it had so much salt and lemon.

[00:47:45] Lisa: Sign me up. That sounds good.

[00:47:47] Adriane: No, you would think, but it was, like, so much acid. And I had reflux already. I was, like, full to the brim of, like, margarita and, like, eggs.

[00:47:56] The contractions were really coming quickly. And it was like, "Are these supposed to be this quick?" And we were timing them. And they were three to six minutes apart consistently. And I was like, "Whoa!" And all of a sudden I started getting really irritated by, like, noises in the kitchen. Just that little irritation. If you're someone who's having a baby and you have a very crampy period and you get just irritated by little noises or smells, it was that sensation. I was like, "I got to go be alone." So I went to the basement and I was like laying down on, like, a couch down there and just trying to, like, sort of meditate and breathe through.

[00:48:29] I'd done some hypnobirthing preparation. I forgot to tell you about that. And I took a home birth childbirth class. I took it with Natashia Fuksman.

[00:48:37] Lisa: She was my doula trainer.

[00:48:39] Adriane: Oh my goodness. So I was practicing my breathing techniques from my hypnobirthing class and just trying to be calm.

[00:48:48] Greg called my doula. She came over, and I took a shower. She gave me like, a massage with some essential oils while I sat on a birth ball and I sort of was starting to zone out, like, I couldn't talk during contractions.

[00:49:03] She's getting me into a good groove. She's not irritating.

[00:49:07] And when I say she's not irritating -- sometimes, when my husband was with me, I was feeling a little disjointed. Like, I was trying to find a rhythm in my breathing, and with his touch, and we weren't totally syncing up. And I was preferring her touch and her guidance with my breath.

[00:49:22] And I think maybe I knew that I would feel that way, but having an experienced doula, like, that is one of the things they offer you. They really know how to sync up with you in labor. And she was doing that for me, she was really following my lead and she was touching me in sort of a smooth way that wasn't jarring at all.

[00:49:38] And we were vibing and I started getting uncomfortable. And so I took another shower, and then I was sitting backwards on the toilet. I was sitting on the toilet, but, like, bending over the back.

[00:49:52] Lisa: I love that one. I always show a picture of that in class. Yeah.

[00:49:55] Adriane: So you have a place to put your arms and put your head down when you're sort of tired but the splaying of the toilet forces you to keep your legs open and it's sort of relaxing. And then I started getting, like, sick to my stomach, right? I was like, "I'm going to puke." All I could think of was like labor-ade and cheesy eggs. And so my doula brought a bowl for me on the back of the toilet.

[00:50:19] And I basically threw up everything. I felt so much better. and I was throwing up because the pain was so intense, right? It's like that deep period pain that makes you nauseous, but times more. But clearing my stomach I feel like was the first way for me to, like, sink deeper into labor. Because I had nothing in there anymore, right? I was making more room for baby by throwing up. And I just felt like I could really go at that point. And so active labor was like kicking in big time and I had to sit the other direction on the toilet, and I was leaning backward. I was tipping my head backward, the entire labor, because the pressure was too much. He was coming so fast. And I didn't know if it was a boy or a girl at this point. But it was such a fast and furious labor that I felt like lifting everything up and back off of my cervix was the only way for me to slow it down.

[00:51:10] Because I was literally shaking. My stomach was shaking. and my muscles were contracting so tightly, they were almost convulsing. And I was doing all my deep breathing to sort of relax what was feeling like this, this tensing. And I think that that was my body's natural way of, like, slowing it down and pacing it for myself.

[00:51:29] Lisa: I love that you're saying this, Adriane, because you're helping me process my second birth. I've never heard anybody talk about needing to either stand straight up or even bend backwards a little bit. I had a similar thing in my second labor. It was coming so fast and furious, like you're describing, there was a point in my labor where I had to stand up straight. I could not lean forward like normally had been instinctive for me. Thank you so much. I'm so happy to hear somebody else having a similar thing and explaining why you think that was. Because I've never been able to figure that out for myself. And I think that really resonates, what you're saying.

[00:52:04] Adriane: Well, a lot of the birth positions that you're taught are really about being on all fours or bending over, and, like, even on the birth ball. When Stephanie was rubbing my back, even the bending over on a birth ball onto a couch was too much. So instead I was standing up holding on to, like, the banister of the staircase and rocking, like, everything was really pulling back. And I think that I was, subconsciously lifting his weight off of my cervix to try and pace something that my body needed more time to go through. It was just too much. And it's not like you're thinking," Oh, I need more time." It's like, "Holy s**t, I can't stand this. This is the only position that feels a little bit better."

[00:52:44] Lisa: Yep.

[00:52:45] Adriane: You're doing what your body needs to do so you don't, like, tear your whole self open. I mean, I was just hanging on by a thread and that was it. So I was really all the way bent backward. I have a picture. Hopefully I can find a picture to send you of me fully arched backward over the toilet with my huge belly and my gigantic, nearly nursing boobs. And I was having just a, wicked contraction, like a huge, crazy active, like, probably heading into transition contraction and my doula was in front of me talking to me. And all of a sudden, my water exploded. Like someone had taken a hammer to like a really taut water balloon. It was an audible pop, and it ejected from my vagina all over my poor doula's yoga pants. She was wearing these black yoga pants, it was like from the waist down, I just covered her in amniotic fluid.

[00:53:41] And I was like, "I'm so sorry." And she was like, "That's why doulas bring the second pair of clothes."

[00:53:48] Lisa: Exactly. We are prepared.

[00:53:49] Adriane: She was prepared. This was not her first rodeo. It was so surprising to me, though. And thank God for a doula who, like, could normalize this for me and also who had new pants. So I didn't feel bad.

[00:54:04] But as soon as that happened, my mind, having studied all of the stages of labor and being so ready for it, was like, "Oh no. Now birth's really going to kick into gear." Right? Because now that that water has broken, all the pressure of my baby is really going to be, like, weighing down on the cervix. That's what my mind was telling me. And so, transition started. And the only way that I could take transition was standing up in this, like, little bathroom in the basement. I'm holding on to a towel rod for dear life. Right? I was holding on and I was doing really great vocalizations, just deep, deep, deep, loud contractions, resonating in this tile bathroom. It was so loud. But I feel like this is my transition spot. I was like, "Okay, I'm in a place where I'm, like, holding on for dear life." That standing up was the only way I could do it. Just like you said. And it was like, I needed all of the power of my legs to be able to stabilize me.

[00:55:04] It was like I was riding a crazy wave. It was fast and it was intense. And as soon as my doula saw that happen, she was, like, texting all the people, like, midwife knew I was in labor, but she's like, "Everyone better get over here." And Jada came with her camera and my midwife showed up around 11, 11:30 in the morning, and they had already started filling the tub from earlier, but my midwife didn't want me to get in the tub until she got there. Because she wanted to see me first. Because sometimes the warm water can slow down the labor. And I remember being so frustrated about that. I was like, I just want to get in the water. This is excruciating. I just went through transition standing up, g*dd***it. I want to get in the water. But Stephanie put me on the bed, lying down on my side -- another method of slowing down, if you're in a fast and furious labor is to go, like, lay down. Like, no more gravity, it's too much. So I lay down, I remember just feeling so sorry for myself, just, like, whimpering and whining my way through those intense contractions and my stomach had started to quake. And I didn't remember this until I reread my birth story, but my stomach with the contractions was really shaking. Like a car, like a manual car that you're driving that you're, like, pressing the clutch and it's like just too loose, and the car starts shuttering. That's how my stomach felt. And I remember thinking, "I need to relax more. I need to relax more. My stomach's seizing because it's just like, I'm not allowing my body to relax." And so I was using the only tool that I used the entire labor, which was my hypnobirthing S breath You learn different breaths during hypnobirthing, as a way to, like, slow down your breathing, get oxygen in and also stay calm. And the S breath sounds like this: "sssssss". So it takes all your air and it makes like a hissing snake noise, and it elongates your breath. So, because it was so long, I was able to do it for entire contractions.

[00:57:02] And I found that I was able to sort of relax that quaking and shaking a little bit. And I thought that I was doing the right thing, but it turns out that was my body trying to push the baby out. So perhaps if I was, like, giving into that, I would have been having a baby right in that moment. I was really thinking that something was wrong with me, but really my body was ready to push because I was feeling like I needed to poop all the pushing feelings were happening. And my midwife came. She took a look at me and checked in and immediately I was in the tub. And I was feeling much better in a tub of warm water. My husband was in there with me. I was practicing sort of starting to push, because of that shaking and quaking and the baby would descend and then go back up.

[00:57:47] And I know because my midwife give me my very first vaginal exam in the water. And he was, like, one knuckle away. And she encouraged me to reach inside and feel how far away he was as well, as a means to inspire me. But I remember feeling just like very sort of put off by that. Like, I felt inside and I touched his head, and indeed he was one knuckle away. But just feeling your baby's head, it was sort of like this squishy rubber ball. I did not want to feel it. I was like, "Okay. I felt it. I know he's there. That feels weird. Back to pushing." And after, like, half an hour or an hour pushing, his heartbeat felt good, but like, she thought maybe I wasn't pushing very effectively. And so she wanted to get me out of the water because maybe I was too comfortable and it was slowing it down. I was like, "Too comfortable?" She said maybe gravity would help. So we should be in a standing or squatting position.

[00:58:40] So on my way to try and get out of the tub. Which was so hard. I mean, even these micro movements of getting yourself in and out of a tub, it feels like you have to, like, take three contractions just to prepare for the moving of your body. I'm talking about it like it was no thing, but I remember right after it happened being like, "Whoa, that was the hardest thing I've ever done."

[00:58:58] So in trying to get out of the tub, I ended up in a squatting position in the water. And my doula was supporting me under my arms from behind with both of her biceps, sort of linking under my armpits so I could lean back against her. And my husband was in front of me, sort of. So I had an eye contact with him. And I stayed there because I couldn't really get out of the position, frankly.

[00:59:21] And I took some contractions and my midwife was like, "That seems like it's working for you." But it was honestly so painful and hard and just, like, overwhelming that I wished I didn't have to stay in that position. In that position, the pressure was so much that I thought that the baby was going to come out my butt and rip my a**hole. Excuse my language, but that's what it felt like. I had no understanding that it was actually true that the baby was going to -- their head was going to turn and come out my vagina. I just didn't believe it because, it was just the most incredible pressure. It felt like I had like a watermelon or like a bowling ball, something so huge and heavy resting right on my rectum.

[00:59:59] And it's just a hard place to trust. Don't want to trust that it's all going to be okay if your whole body's going to rip open in the wrong places. But, alas, people have been having babies out of their vaginas forever. So I had to trust, and I was pushing and he was descending and I remember pushing his head out. I was trying to actually get out of the water and my whole back was arcing upward with the intensity of that push. And my midwife said, you know, "Back down in the water." And it sort of refocused that, and his head came out and then he still wasn't out. And I remember everyone was like, "His head's out! His head's out! The baby's head is out." And I was thinking like, "Yeah, but why is all of his body not out yet?" Because the only thought I had was, "Now come his shoulders, and the shoulders are bigger than the head." Or at least they felt like they were going to be. It was a big push and it was very painful and out he came like a slippery little seal and he sort of floated underwater into my husband's hands.

[01:01:04] Amazing, right? And if you look at a video of my birth, which we have some, you'll see one of these contractions sort of in the tub where I'm doing this S breath and I'm on sort of like hands and knees a little bit, like, in the water. This is before I've gone in a squatting position and I'm doing this S breath, and you can hear it sort of shaking in my breath, like "ssssssss."

[01:01:25] And that from outside, it looks so beautiful and calm, right? It's this image we have of beautiful home births being so peaceful. It really was peaceful. Internally, it was the worst contraction of the entire birth. That was my worst contraction, but I was managing at such a deep level. Inside, in my brain, it was, I say it was like Braveheart. I was like Mel Gibson. I had like the blue paint on and I was like being drawn and quartered. And it was like the internal experience compared to the optics of it from the outside both together the same thing and completely different. Amazing. Right. Anyway, baby came out, they put him on my chest. I could see he had a really swollen, big ball sack. So I was like, "Oh, it's a boy." You know? And I was so surprised. I didn't think he was going to be a boy. So there's nothing like that big surprise. If you're considering not knowing the sex, you don't get that opportunity again. It's like, life's greatest surprise ever. It was really exciting. I highly encourage you to consider it. It was really fun. And, he was on my chest and we sort of got out of the tub. I had to birth the placenta almost immediately on my way to get into bed.

[01:02:38] So someone I think stuck a bowl underneath to catch the placenta. We put it in a plastic bag. I went to a bed that we had set up down there in the birth cave. And I just like sat there and tried to process the intensity of that experience, which was not at all anything I could ever have imagined. It's like when people take mushrooms, they just like say, "Oh yeah, I just took some mushrooms," and then you do it, you're like, "No, this is a big deal. Like, I have no attachment to reality right now."

[01:03:08] It's not just like you casually do drugs that are hallucinogenic. Birth felt like that to me, I was like, "People just do this every day, but the magnitude of the experience on any one individual situation is just, like, not at all brought to the forefront, I felt." For me, I was like, I had no idea it would be so intense. And that fast and furious labor was like a lot for me to contend with. But we got him weighed in a little sack by my midwife.

[01:03:36] Lisa: I love that pouch.

[01:03:38] Adriane: That little pouch they put your baby in. They hang them by a spring. And, he was really skin-to-skin with me for the next, like three days. We got him latched and he was feeding right away.

[01:03:48] And like, I remember my husband and I just passed him from person to person. For probably 72 hours. Because we didn't really realize we could put him down. That's how fragile it is to have a new person. And especially if you don't know what you're doing or don't have anyone around telling you, right.

[01:04:04] Because within two hours or less, my midwife and my doula had like rounded up all the laundry, thrown it in the washer, heated up pieces of lasagna that we had in our freezer for like our post-birth food, fed them to us, and, like, left.

[01:04:22] And it was me, my husband, and a newborn. And so, like, I had to go to the bathroom, which is a big event after a birth. I had to, like, slowly pass the baby to Greg, figure out how to get to the bathroom, then get back. And like, no one actually knew that we could lay the baby somewhere. I don't even think we had any place to lay the baby. Didn't have a crib or we didn't have a bassinet or really anything like that, because we were planning to co-sleep with him.

[01:04:45] It was just like -- we finally moved upstairs to where natural light was, the next day at some and, realized we could put the baby down on the bed like, if he was sleeping. But you couldn't really leave the room. Because you had to go and check on him like five or six times during whatever you were doing.

[01:05:01] Lisa: Of course.

[01:05:02] Adriane: We were so close and like so attached for those first weeks. Really, I didn't ever want to put the baby down. I felt like it was, he was too far away if I couldn't hear him or see him. So that's how we lived. And, I had practiced some babywearing during pregnancy. I went to a store that is not too different than the store I actually opened.

[01:05:24] Metro Minis it was called. It was a baby wearing store on the Upper East Side. And they had classes just like the ones I used to offer. And I took one when I was pregnant and I got a stretchy wrap called a Moby and I put it on using the manufacturer instructions. Because I didn't remember anything about how I was taught to wear it in the class. And it was the hottest thing I've ever worn. And I had a baby who wanted to be on me all the time, but sort of was fussy and particular about how he was worn, and I wasn't having success with it. So the only time I took a stroller on the subway, for maybe my entire life, was to get a new carrier from Metro Minis when he was, like, a few weeks old.

[01:06:02] And I ended up getting a Mei Tai. That's how we got around. I had a kid who didn't love carriers at all. Every time I put him in one, he cried and was fussy and, but he still needed to be held because if he wasn't being held, he was crying and fussing.

[01:06:14] And so we learned very quickly how to use lots of different carriers and combine walking, sucking, feeding, and soothing all together to keep this baby happy. And so people would say, "Oh, is he like, colicky, or whatever?" And I would be like, "No, he's not," because we were able to, like, figure out how to meet his needs," but reflecting on it, I was like, "Oh, we got our soothing game on really quickly with him. And he was diagnosed at a very young age with actually OCD. So, a lot of these like intensely anxious behaviors, he exhibited from the time he was a newborn.

[01:06:47] And that was tough for me because I was this person who was like, "I'm having this natural home birth with no interventions, like, pretty textbook, let's call it "perfect" birth experience from the outside, right? -- There is none, right? It's everyone's journey -- But not a lot of complication in my birth experience, and certainly so much skin-to-skin, so much attachment, all these things that I couldn't have controlled if I wanted to, it was just instinctual to provide them to him. But, it's not like all those things equal a calm, well adjusted baby. You're also just born with your kid that you're born with. But I remember that being really hard for me in those first months and that first year, like a lot of people wanting to tell you that it's something that you are doing as a parent that's causing your baby to react a certain way.

[01:07:31] It took having a second kid for me to really give myself freedom from that, that people's judgment of, my parenting style or what I was, or wasn't doing, because my second son is totally different. Same parents, same parents, same carriers, same amount of wearing, same amount of breastfeeding, whatever you want to critique and saying it's causing a kid who's, you know, the way they are. And I think for my whole family too, everyone relaxed after that, too, they're like, "Oh yeah, you just have a kid who's an individual. And they have their own needs, and they have a lot of attachment to you because they are your kid. Not just because you're breastfeeding them all the time or you're wearing them too much in that carrier, or..." I don't know.

[01:08:15]That was sort of a hard adjustment for me during the postpartum period. Wanting to reclaim this, experience, parenting him that I felt like was a little bit murky, with a non natural fertility journey. Right? Wanting a home birth. Wanting, you know, not a lot of intervention. Wanting, breastfeeding and for things to feel so instinctual. Coming from a place where we had really begun our fertility journey, like, you know, in a doctor's office with surgeries and chemicals and, giving myself permission to have both of those experiences and not have shame around that.

[01:08:52] And to really do my best to share my fertility journey with everyone. Because what I realized is that every time I share my IVF story, particularly in the early days, you know, people would say like, "Oh, he looks just like Greg!" and I would just be like, you know, "We have a donor for this baby. Greg's not actually biologically related to our infant." And people would feel so bad, right? So embarrassed that they assumed, and then they'd feel sad for us. And I'd be like, "No, it's cool. Like, I'm sharing with you because when you become pregnant, you're going to remember this story, or when you're having a fertility journey -- or when your sister is having fertility struggles, like, my openness about this will teach you things now that you're going to find are very difficult to find out, like, anecdotally from people.

[01:09:35] But I very quickly found out that it made people feel very uncomfortable. So, Greg and I had to dial back our sort of openness about fertility for other people's sake, because it made them feel a little bit -- they didn't know what to say, right? So now we sort of share it selectively, or we're much better about, like, when and how we open up about our journey with folks. But I make it a point to share it always, because if you're out there and you're hearing this, and if any of this is like what you're going through, hopefully it resonates a little bit and you don't feel so alone, and you don't feel like you have to hide it.

[01:10:06] And it can be a beautiful experience, too. And it can feel complicated. You can feel shame, you can feel joy, right? You can have a medical experience and also want a very sort of, natural nonmedical one for yourself in other ways.

[01:10:22] Lisa: That's the beauty and the challenge of life, isn't it? How complicated everything is in the coexistence of what seem to be contradictory things.

[01:10:30] And I'm so grateful that you're so open and forthcoming with your story, because we need that. So many people feel so isolated in that journey when there are fertility struggles. I'm hoping to do a whole series of different stories specifically about trying to conceive and alternative modes of conception. And so maybe this will be a bridge into that series, both sharing birth story, as well as the fertility journey. So I thank you very much for sharing and I'm hoping to have you back again to share your second birth story at some point, if you would like to share more.

[01:11:05] Adriane: Yeah. Another fertility journey. A frozen fertility journey.

[01:11:10] Lisa: Ah, so different from the first one?

[01:11:13] Adriane: Right. Not as easy as the first one in a lot of ways. And so this one, probably to someone who's been like going through many rounds of IVF is like, "Oh my God, I wish!" So, I get that, but it looks different every time. And also, you just reminded me, like, that story of medical intervention to like, home birth experience. You don't always see that sort of trajectory, for folks. To want to then, like, after you've used sort of the medical system for so much of your pregnancy itself or to get to that part, to then sort of switch entire modes of care I feel like you're relying on other people to tell you how to do it or that your body can't do it, right? That's the message that fertility struggles, like, they get into your brain, that your body is not good enough. Can't do it on its own. Isn't doing it naturally on its own. So you need help from other people to be able to get through this experience. So to reclaim your own power and belief in yourself that you can do this in a way that you want, that feels right. And if that's at home, with a doula and a home birth midwife, then, like, you can do that, too. And you can sort of change that trajectory. Like, I don't think you see that all the time. Hopefully this story helps people realize that, too -- that you can.

[01:12:27] Lisa: Absolutely. Thank you for planting that seed of that idea, that possibility. That's beautiful.

[01:12:33] Adriane: Definitely. Well thanks for letting me share with you today, Lisa.

[01:12:37] Lisa: Absolutely. Thank you. I appreciate your taking the time and let's try to reconnect to have another chat. I'd love to hear more about your second birth story. All right. Have a great day. Thank you.

[01:12:49] Adriane: You too. Bye.

[01:12:50] Lisa: Bye.

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