Being discharged from the NICU…the best feeling in the world!
Today, Mila & Shawn share their baby’s pre-pandemic, premature birth story. In the weeks leading up to Mila’s labor, the couple had been chosen to be on the tv show HOUSE HUNTERS. However, Mila’s water breaks at 36 weeks before they even finish shooting the episode. While Mila, who had done a lot of work to reduce her anxiety and build trust in the birth process, had hoped for an unmedicated labor, the way things play out induction and then pain medications ended up being needed. They share how Mila pushed for 3 hours, and just as things were headed for a c-section, Shawn asked if the vacuum was an option because Mila really wanted to avoid a surgical birth. So, a vacuum was used to assist with the delivery. Then they explain how baby went to the NICU for 6 days due to some breathing issues and needing phototherapy for jaundice. Mila discusses the helpful early breastfeeding support she received in the hospital, and also shares already preferring to having an out-of-hospital birth attended by a midwife and a doula for the next time around.
Episode Topics:
Moving 3 days before water breaks at 36 weeks
Mila’s addressing clinical anxiety during pregnancy
Physical limitations in pregnancy being challenging, comparing self to others
Filming House Hunters at the end of pregnancy but not getting to finish due to water breaking early
Water breaks the evening of her first commute home from Manhattan to Long Beach
Doctor tells her to come on in to the hospital
Starting induction with Cytotec administered orally
Eventually moving to pitocin
Using nitrous oxide, which doesn’t help
Getting epidural around 4am
Fully dilated, pushing for 3 hours
Vacuum assisted delivery
Coneheaded, cyanotic baby -- Shawn remembers this is normal from class
Due to breathing issues, they take baby to NICU
Phototherapy and keeping their son in NICU for about 6 days, commuting from Long Beach
Getting great lactation support at hospital, pumping to feed baby while in NICU
Wanting to work with a midwife & doula for a home birth or birthing center next time around
Tips: breathe, stay positive, choose joy, ask for help, embrace the chaos, partners: be supportive
Resources:
Your Anxious Mind During Pregnancy (Birthful Podcast, Ep. 245)
Expectful app (meditation for pregnancy and motherhood)
Spinning Babies & specifically, asynclitic position (see a picture and description)
Sponsor links:
*Disclosure: Links on this page to products are affiliate links; I will receive a small commission on any products you purchase at no additional cost to you.
Interview Transcript
Lisa: Welcome to the Birth Matters podcast. Today, I have Mila and Shawn. Welcome you guys.
[00:00:05] Mila: Thank you so much for having us.
[00:00:07] Lisa: We're doing this interview about two weeks into the stay-at-home orders with COVID-19. So I'm not sure when this will air, but we'll see if you're listening when you're still home or not. How are you guys doing today?
[00:00:21] Mila: Hanging in there trying to work remotely and balance having a three-and-a-half-month-old, but so far so good.
[00:00:27] Shawn: Yeah. Hanging in there is an appropriate phrase.
[00:00:30]Mila: Day by day, hour by hour.
[00:00:33] Lisa: And do you want to share maybe where you live and what you do for a living?
[00:00:37] Mila: So we live in Long Beach. We are freshly, Long Islanders. I'm originally from Queens from Astoria, Queens, and now we're just trying to get used to living in the suburbs. And we are both attorneys and we do work in Manhattan. I work for the city of New York and he works for the state. He's assistant attorney general.
[00:00:57] Shawn: Yes, I'm not the attorney general. And we actually just moved to Long Beach. We got into it shortly before our little guy was born
[00:01:06]Mila: Three days before.
[00:01:08] Shawn: Yeah.
[00:01:08] Lisa: Oh my goodness. I cannot imagine. Wow. That's a lot.
[00:01:15] Well, yeah. Right, right. And do you feel like now, now that it's three and a half months, do you feel like you're kind of coming into a new phase at all?
[00:01:23] Do you feel like a lot of people at like around three months on the other side of that fourth trimester, so to speak, feel like, okay, now we feel a little more human and less like all the time over night and all that. How's it feeling for you now?
[00:01:37] Mila: I'm used to having him in my life now, so I've accepted recently that he's here to stay.
[00:01:43]He's not just like a house guest. He's, he's a permanent addition to the family. And yeah, it's just, it's kind of like, you know, we've established a routine, I think now, so now that we're out of the fourth trimester, I'm kind of like a little more easy going with things and a little more, just it's become more of a routine, which is good.
[00:02:03]Shawn: I think the move actually helped in that regard because it was two big changes at once with the baby and, you know, moving. And, we sorta now settled into that a couple of months in we're now in our routine, we're in our new place with our addition to our life. And I think we're a little settled in now.
[00:02:21] Mila: Yeah.
[00:02:24]Lisa: I can't imagine that you were even unpacked when you went into labor, right? No way, three days?!
[00:02:30] Mila: I mean, I thought I'd have another two weeks, or at least another two weeks at a bare minimum. And I was just like, you know what, I'll take my time unpacking. I was heavily pregnant.
[00:02:39] I was waddling around and I'm like, you know what? Time was not of the essence here. Like, let me wait until the weekend at the very least. The weekend rolls around; boom, my water breaks. The following week, the baby's home. And yeah, I was just, you know, recovering from birth while unpacking, while taking care of an infant.
[00:02:59] And it was a little intense those first few weeks.
[00:03:02] Shawn: Yeah. The goal is to have his room set up before he was born. And obviously that wasn't the case because he surprised us came a little early. So his room was just boxes when we ran off to the hospital. So that was fun.
[00:03:17]Mila: All I had was the bedside bassinet, and I was like, you know what?
[00:03:20] As long as our bed is set up and as long as the bedside bassinet is set up, we'll figure everything else out. Pretty much we just started from there and built off of that.
[00:03:28] Lisa: Wow. Well, backing up a little bit. Do you want to share how your pregnancy went and any different ways that you prepared for this journey into parenthood?
[00:03:38] Mila: Yeah. So I have always struggled with anxiety. I had a diagnosis of generalized anxiety and panic disorder a couple of years back. And I struggled with panic attacks over the years. So once I got pregnant, I was like, all right, this is not gonna fly. Like I'm not gonna be pregnant whilst having this, this situation, this condition, and you know, anxiety never goes away, but you can work on it. So I have been working on it and I think throughout my pregnancy, I kind of just learned that I decide my mindset, right? Like my mindset is like, it's up to me. I wake up every morning and I can choose to feel positive feelings.
[00:04:20] I can choose to feel joy. I can choose to look at the bright side of things, basically. So that I probably pretty much just, you know, probably started when I got pregnant that I was practicing a lot of mindfulness and I was practicing a lot of just like, you're in control, you dictate the terms of your brainwaves or whatever.
[00:04:43]And yeah, I just, throughout the pregnancy, I really just focused on maintaining good vibes, positive attitude. And thank God I had no like episodes throughout the pregnancy and, you know, knock on wood. I'm feeling pretty much the same today. Like, it's been all really positive. Whatever momentum I started during the pregnancy has pretty much kept up, and I couldn't ask for anything more.
[00:05:09]And I think that was just such a huge struggle throughout my life. And now it's, I don't want to say it's under control cause you know, it can rear its ugly head at any point in time. But I think I've kind of learned to live with it. I've kind of learned to manage it and you have no time to like stress and have anxiety when you're dealing with a baby anyways.
[00:05:28] So, so yeah, I think it's pretty much more or less controlled at the moment.
[00:05:35] Lisa: Do you mind my asking, were you seeing a therapist during your pregnancy?
[00:05:39] Mila: I was, yeah. I was seeing a therapist. And at a certain point I stopped because I was just like, this isn't really doing it for me anymore. I might start back up again.
[00:05:49] But I think, you know, when I realized that I sorta had like my emotions under control, decided that I could put a pause on it.
[00:05:56] Lisa: Sure. Yeah. It sounds like you had gained some really helpful tools that were helping you manage it. Good to know. Other things about pregnancy?
[00:06:06] Mila: Yeah. I mean, I know he, he's always like a control freak and tries to maintain control over everything. And I think he kind of like, was able to go with the flow a little bit more.
[00:06:20] Shawn: Yeah. I mean, I think you've kind of gotta, that's one that you have to understand; you can't control everything. You know, you have to kind of, sort of make peace with that and live with that.
[00:06:28] And I think my mindset during the pregnancy was sort of to get out of the way and make her as comfortable as possible and reduce her stress as much as I could. And be helpful, not be a burden, you know, in any way. And I'd like to think I succeeded in some way.
[00:06:48]And you know, obviously, going to your class was very helpful, for the both of us. Definitely for me personally, there's a lot that you touched on that I had never heard before. I had no idea I was going into this completely blind. So that, that was a big help.
[00:07:02]Mila: I remembered the very first class. I think you asked something like, you know, what would you like to get out of this or something? And I said, right, that day I was like, I need to figure out a way to get my anxiety in check. And I think just like learning about the entire birth process and really knowing what to expect, just really, really helped with that.
[00:07:23] And there's something to be said for just understanding what your body is doing and understanding every aspect of this crazy thing. And I know one of our activities that day was writing down words that we associated with labor. And one of my words was like frightening or something and like, I think toward the end, it was a little less frightening and more, I think you said something like, look at it as an adventure instead of some of the scarier, like something that's positive and like that's what you have to do, you know, take the negative and turn it into something positive.
[00:07:55] Like, yes, you can view it as the scariest thing in the entire world, or you can view it as like the coolest, most amazing thing in the entire world and you know, yeah it hurts, but it's also an experience. I think you just have to view it in that light. So that definitely helped.
[00:08:14]Lisa: Anything else about the pregnancy, or do you want to jump into your birth story?
[00:08:19] Mila: What else about the pregnancy...
[00:08:22] Shawn: All the chocolate wafers that you ate? That was part of it.
[00:08:27]Mila: I just, it was so humbling to like lose control of my body in a sense, like, not, you know, it was controlled, but like, I was always used to just like, you know, walking everywhere.
[00:08:40] I'd walk all day long, go to yoga, go to the gym, like be as active as, you know any new Yorker, like working in Manhattan and living in Queens. it was just humbling when I couldn't even walk like a couple of blocks toward the end of the pregnancy. Like I would like literally get out of breath walking up a flight of stairs to my subway.
[00:09:00]I think that's like a really big part of it. It's humbling, but you accept it and you work through it and you don't push yourself, most importantly. And I think I just really had to learn, like, this is my new normal, this is my current reality. I couldn't jog.
[00:09:14] Like I used to jog, you know, a couple of times a week. Absolutely could not do that. I think I just had to accept these are my current limitations. This is what I am able and not able to do at the moment. You know, couldn't do any yoga, like very basic stretching I could do, but could not do like a full yoga class by any means.
[00:09:32] And I know a lot of people can. So it's also really humbling to understand that like Susan or whoever, just like, you know, your friends who are like, yeah, you know, I did power yoga until the day I gave birth. I was not able to do that. I wish I could have, but I couldn't have. And like you just kind of accept your limitations.
[00:09:52] I did what I could, I walked up until the day I gave birth, maybe like a half a mile a day, as opposed to like a couple of miles that I was used to. But you do what you can. So like, I think it's just a really big part of it is acceptance, and positivity. And you just kind of go with the flow and hope and pray that one day you do get back to the normal state of things.
[00:10:16]Shawn: You will. Everyone...but yeah, you will.
[00:10:18]Mila: What do you mean? I think I did.
[00:10:20] Shawn: Okay.
[00:10:21]Mila: I'm back to being able to do the physical activity that I was limited in doing for a long time. You don't think so?
[00:10:32]Shawn: 110%.
[00:10:33] Lisa: It needs to be gentle. Yeah. I love that. There's so much wisdom in that to really be gentle with yourself in this time of life and after birth, too.
[00:10:41] We historically have just seen too many celebrities like looking svelte right after birth. And it gives us these unrealistic expectations. And to ease after you've given birth, we continue to continue to be gentle with ourselves. Cause healing, you know, while we at the six week appointment usually are told, yeah, you're all healed.
[00:11:01] That's actually not really true. Yeah. The visible healing has mostly taken place for most people around six weeks, but you're still in many ways healing for like that first year. So to ease back into the physical activity and all of that is a wise thing.
[00:11:15] Mila: Yeah. Not to rush it just don't rush it. Cause that's how injuries happen. You know, you can't be injured while you're caring for a teeny tiny human.
[00:11:23]Lisa: Great. Well, you want to give a little background about the days or weeks and the move, leading up to going into labor?
[00:11:29]Shawn: So we actually, aside from moving, we were selected or we were filming House Hunters the reality show. Mila watches all that stuff and she was very excited about doing
[00:11:40]Mila: I was so excited.
[00:11:41]Shawn: House Hunters and I reluctantly agreed to have the application submitted and then we were actually selected and, yeah.
[00:11:50] And she told them. You know, hey, by the way, I'm like, whatever it was at that seven, eight months pregnant,
[00:11:56]Mila: They pushed it. The problem was that they pushed filming like by four weeks.
[00:12:00] Shawn: Right, right. So it was supposed to be done in October. They were supposed to be done in November. And then finally, I think our first day of filming was December 6th of 2019 and, they do it like it's staggered over four or five days and you go to different houses and condos and what have you. So our first day was December 6th and we were supposed to I think, what was it? He was born December 8th that was supposed to be--
[00:12:26] Mila: We had a house tour that day.
[00:12:28] Shawn: Or he was born on December 8th and, December 7th, which was a Saturday.
[00:12:32] We were supposed to film again and, Mila's water broke that morning. And she had called or texted or emailed the producer and said, you know,
[00:12:40] "Hey, so my water broke--"
[00:12:42] Mila: " we're not going to show up today."
[00:12:44] Shawn: No, I think you just said my water broke and the producer responds by like, "well, we're here at
[00:12:49] Mila: the house--"
[00:12:52] Shawn: And you know, it was sort of like, "I don't know if you really understand what I'm saying? You know, we're not, we're not going to make it; we're going into labor." So there was filming, trying to film a reality show while she was eight months pregnant.
[00:13:06]Lisa: You know what they're thinking? They're thinking. Ooh, good drama. Yay, show up. Come be on camera while you're in labor.
[00:13:14]Shawn: The one day we did that was like, sort of the focus. That was the main thing.
[00:13:18]Mila: They're like, are you feeling like you're gonna give birth today? I was like, "No, I'm fine. Why?" And now I realize like they really wanted like my water to break, like while they were filming.
[00:13:29]Shawn: It was also a lot of like they were talking about, they wanted us to talk about having the new baby, being pregnant, what's it like being pregnant and looking for the new houses.
[00:13:38] What's it going to be like when you move in with the new baby, what are your plans for the baby room? So that was like the hook, I guess, for the episode. So we're doing that and then we're, we're actually moving. And then of course the baby came a little early.
[00:13:51]Lisa: Wait. So you were moving into a rental?
[00:13:54] Shawn: Oh, sorry. We should probably explain how House Hunters works. So, this is how the sausage is made. Apparently I didn't know this, those shows.
[00:14:02]Lisa: Uh-oh, industry secrets.
[00:14:04]Shawn: Yeah. I don't think I signed a nondisclosure.
[00:14:07]Mila: No, you did.
[00:14:08] Lisa: You probably did. It's okay. Maybe you can't go into that.
[00:14:11] Mila: I mean, you can give the general idea that you have to have your condo or house already purchased prior to filming. Cause like, why would you film anything if you don't know whether you're going to close on a unit? So we had purchased the condo already and then we started filming. They're like, oh, well, you know, when we film, the condo has to be empty, obviously.
[00:14:35] Cause it looks like we haven't moved in yet. So we had all of our boxes in the condo. Like we had, we hadn't unpacked yet, but we had moved everything in and we literally moved all of our boxes outside. Just to like a storage area in the building to film the episode.
[00:14:52] Then we moved all the boxes back in after we filmed. So
[00:14:57] Lisa: No wonder your water broke.
[00:14:58] Mila: Yeah. Right, exactly.
[00:15:00]Shawn: And of course, of course, I just had her do all the heavy lifting and I just sat there and, you know, drank a coffee while she did it. No, but so, we did that, we were doing the House Hunters thing and then we actually moved I think it was December 1st,
[00:15:14]Mila: December 3rd we moved.
[00:15:15] Shawn: December 3rd, we actually did the move.
[00:15:18]Mila: The fourth we filmed.
[00:15:20] Shawn: Something like that. But in any event , we had just moved in and then her water breaks on the sixth, like three days into living in the new place. And so it all happened very quickly.
[00:15:29] Mila: Yeah.
[00:15:30] Shawn: Yeah.
[00:15:32]Mila: The baby was not a fan of my plans of--
[00:15:38] Shawn: yes.
[00:15:40] He did not respect, he did not respect that timeline.
[00:15:43] Mila: He does not like timelines.
[00:15:44] Shawn: Because, we thought this would be fine because he was supposed to be born around Christmas and he decided that he was not going to adhere to that. And he came early. So...
[00:15:54]Mila: And I was really careful. I just want to note that I was very careful throughout the move.
[00:15:58] Like I wasn't lifting stuff or anything like that. But I think the stress of the move itself, plus like, you know, when you spend eight hours a day just folding clothes and putting it in boxes that also kind of takes it to toll on you emotionally.
[00:16:12] So. I don't want to say that like the stress caused my premature labor, but you know, I can't rule that out necessarily. So yeah. I don't want to like put the blame on myself or anything like that. But, I mean, I don't know. I don't know if it would've gone down that way had I not moved right before.
[00:16:32] So I guess we'll never know though, you know, it is what it is. He's here. That's all that matters.
[00:16:37]Shawn: He's healthy.
[00:16:38]Mila: He's here and he's healthy, he's the light of our life. So yeah.
[00:16:46] Lisa: So, do you want to back up to the water breaking and what happens next?
[00:16:51] Mila: Yes. So I got home from work on a Friday , it was my first day commuting from Long Island to Manhattan, and I was like, this commute sucks. I feel like crap. Like I do not feel well. I got home at like six o'clock, seven o'clock that night I went to sleep super early, like 7:00 PM. And then I wake up 12 hours later and I am soaking wet.
[00:17:21]Shawn: Like 6:00 AM?
[00:17:23] Mila: Yeah, 5, 6am, I wake up, the bed was soaked and I was like, this is totally not my water breaking; impossible. Right. So I get up, I take a shower, I start cleaning up, trying to unpack a couple of things. And I keep leaking. So I'm leaking, leaking, leaking over like the next, like two hours or whatever.
[00:17:41] And I'm like, you know what? I don't think I'm peeing myself. I think this might be my water. So I wake him up. I'm like, listen, I don't want to freak you out. But I think my water broke. And he's like, no, it's not possible. It's so early. Cause I was exactly 36 weeks on that Saturday.
[00:18:00] Shawn: Well, I don't think I said it's not possible. I think I said something silly, like I said, "are you sure?" And she said, "well, You know, you can look at the evidence right here. And I said, okay, fine. I believe you.
[00:18:14] Mila: I thought I peed myself, I thought I was just like incontinent; well, this is my reality now. I just peed myself.
[00:18:20] Lisa: That's very common. Yeah. That confusion of like, which is it?
[00:18:24] Shawn: Yeah. And I think my main thing was like, " Why did you wait two hours to wake me up? Thank you for thinking of my sleep. But it's okay. It's kind of a big, big deal. and I think what then you, you called the doctor? At eight o'clock-ish?
[00:18:37] Mila: Yeah. I called the doctor at 8 and I got his answering service.
[00:18:41] I was like, all right, well, you know, I feel fine. I'm not in pain. So let me try to clean up a few things, do some laundry and then another few hours pass and I'm still leaking fluid. Not a lot of fluid, but like steadily leaking. And then finally I get a call back. And my doctor's like, "Yeah, you should go to the hospital."
[00:19:00] I'm like, are you sure? He's like, yeah. Yeah, you should try to get to the hospital. I was like, well, I have some time though, right? Is it like time is of the essence kind of thing? He was like, probably make your way over there. I was like, well, could I like finished a load of laundry that I'm doing?
[00:19:18] And he was like, okay, yeah, finish your load of laundry. But like, try to make it to the hospital, like soon. So at that point,
[00:19:26] Lisa: Part of that, part of that recommendation is probably because you were 36 weeks, because if you were a little later, there wouldn't be as much of an indication to come sooner. But I just wanted to point that out for the listeners.
[00:19:38] Shawn: Yeah. And then, so we got there what? Early afternoon.
[00:19:41] Mila: Yeah. Yeah. So we drove from Long Island to Mount Sinai West, which took a really long time,
[00:19:50] Shawn: To your point, Lisa, there was a question of whether they were going to put her in a bed right away. But similar to what you just said, because she was about 36 weeks, they said, you know what?
[00:20:00] Yeah, we're going to put you in a bed. They didn't put us in the labor unit right away.
[00:20:05]Mila: They put us in, what's the initial bed that you get?
[00:20:08] Lisa: Triage?
Mila at the hospital at 36 weeks. She says: “That morning I was totally sure I wouldn’t be admitted, let alone give birth the next day. I was trying to not panic and not think about complications concerning pre-term birth.”
[00:20:09] Mila: Yes. Triage. So we were in triage for hours and hours and like they kept coming in and going out, they were like, well, we don't really know if you're going into labor or what.
[00:20:18] And they were like checking and all these things. And I was like, I feel fine. So like for the longest time I had in my head that I'm totally not going into labor. I'm totally going to be discharged. And I'm definitely going to get to go home today. And like, thank God, I packed a just-in-case bag that morning.
[00:20:34] Cause like after four or five hours in there, they're like, yeah, we're admitting you, this is happening. And I was like, how could this possibly be happening? I'm not feeling anything at all. Like I felt fine. And they explained that like, basically the risk of infection was going to go up if I didn't start active labor and I was like, all right, you know what to do, but I really don't want to do labor induction. You know, I want this to come as naturally as possible. And they were like, well, we can wait a few hours for your contractions to start, but we have to tell you that once we reach a certain point, we will have to look at induction.
[00:21:11] Shawn: And what did they give you? I think it was around midnight.
[00:21:14] Mila: Yes. So, I want to say around midnight, so probably like 15, 16 hours after my water broke something like that. they gave me a lozenge, Forget what it was called
[00:21:27] Shawn: No idea.
[00:21:28]Mila: they put a lozenge in my cheek--
[00:21:32] Lisa: Probably Cytotec.
[00:21:33] Mila: Yes. Cytotec. They're like this will soften your cervix or something like that. And I was like, are you sure I have to do this? I still really want it to come naturally. And they're like, "yeah, you have to do it." So the Cytotec didn't do anything at all. Like nothing.
[00:21:47] I still didn't feel contractions at all. Like we were like laying there, joking around, watching TV, whatever. And then finally they're like, all right, we gotta give you a Pitocin drip. And I was like, no, like, that's the one thing I didn't want. I, you know, read all this horrible stuff about pitocin and like, you know, just labor induction in general.
[00:22:03] They're like highly recommended that you go to Pitocin drip, now. I was like, well, start me off the lowest dosage possible. And they're like, okay. Yeah, definitely. But we're doing it.
[00:22:16] Lisa: And Cytotec usually won't produce effective labor contractions. So if you're not having contractions, usually they do need to move in an induction, you know, onto pitocin.
[00:22:26] Mila: Wonder why they even started the cytotec if it wasn't gonna do anything.
[00:22:29] Lisa: Well, it's ripening your cervix. So if your cervix needed some help with the ripening, that's why they would start with Cytotec or Cervidil.
[00:22:37] Mila: Okay. So it wasn't necessarily for the contractions to start just for the cervix.
[00:22:42] Shawn: So that worked. What time was--
[00:22:43] Mila: That worked. It was almost immediately after that I started having contractions, and I wanted to go natural and we had talked about that throughout the entire pregnancy and I had told them, you know, and my birth plan is to do nitrous. If I feel like I need it. And like literally two hours after they gave me the pitocin, I was like, "I need some nitrous." Like right now it was getting really bad and I started the nitrous. And it was going okay. And I was like, you know, do my breathing techniques. And he was giving me my massage. I mean, I was breathing in the nitrous, which you did absolutely nothing at all.
[00:23:19] Lisa: Oh no. Sorry. Sorry it didn't help. Yeah. It's different for everybody.
[00:23:23] Mila: Yeah. That's what they were saying. They're like, yeah, you know, some people like calms them down or whatever. Some people doesn't do anything for us, so it didn't do anything for me and I was breathing through it. I think I was a trooper for a while and then come like 4:00 AM. I was just like, I can't do it.
[00:23:40] Shawn: I think it was, "Get me the epidural!"
[00:23:43] Mila: I did not do that. I was just like, we can talk about my options . Do you want the epidural or, and I'm like, yeah, no, I want it.
[00:23:55] Shawn: That helped, right?
[00:23:56] Mila: Yeah. So immediately after, no, it was just like, it was such like a feeling of defeat though. Like when the anesthesiologist came into the room, I was in between contractions.
[00:24:06] And at that moment, I was like, you know what? Let's tell her, leave. Like, I changed my mind, let's not do it. And then we're like, I'm kind of going back and forth. They're like, you got to tell us, like, are we doing or not? And then like, you know, when you're between contractions you're like, this isn't that bad, but then once the contraction starts, you're like, wait a minute, no, I was wrong. This is that bad. It's like contractions started back up.
[00:24:26]Shawn: So that was four o'clock and then he's he's born at,
[00:24:29] Mila: Well, we're not--
[00:24:30] Shawn: I know, but I'm saying, in terms of the timeframe,
[00:24:32] Mila: Oh, after contractions started, he was born eight hours later. No, not eight hours.
[00:24:35] Shawn: He was born almost, it was 1:47 pm.
[00:24:38] Mila: So the contractions started; they gave Pitocin at like middle of the night, epidural at like 4:00 AM. I finally was able to get some sleep after the epidural. The epidural felt horrible. I think it's cause like also mentally, like, I didn't want it there, but it was also just like a weird feeling to not have any feeling in your legs.
[00:25:00] Lisa: So it numbed your legs fully?
[00:25:02] Mila: Yeah, it numbed me completely. And they told me to top it off. Like if I wanted to top it off, I refused to top it off. Like once it was in there, I was just like, I don't want to say I regretted it, but like the entire time I kind of felt like. You know, I gave in.
[00:25:14] Shawn: What time were you fully dilated?
[00:25:15] Mila: So I, after I woke up from my nap, they checked me and they were like, "Oh, you're fully dilated."
[00:25:21] And I was like, "Oh, okay." Yeah, it was like 8:00 AM. I was fully dilated and they're like, well, you're going to start pushing soon. I was like, what I thought I had more time. But no, they had me start pushing maybe at like 10:00 AM or something, and nothing was happening at all. Like no luck whatsoever.
[00:25:40] I kept pushing and pushing and pushing-- hours. Three hours later I was like, what's going on? They're like, well, his head is at an angle. I said, well, what does that mean? And they were like, well, you know, you could keep trying, or we could do actually, he brought it up because of your class.
[00:25:57]Shawn: The vac. They were going back and forth on, you know, the difficulties they were having and it was taking longer than anticipated.
[00:26:04] Mila: I was done. Like I was so done. I was spent after three hours.
[00:26:08] Shawn: I could see she was just physically and mentally exhausted and drained. And I grabbed the, I don't know if it was, I think it was the nurse, not the doctor. And I said to the nurse, "would the vac be an option at this point?" What do you think? And she was like, "Well, yeah, we could do that." And then, at first Mila, I don't think you were on board.
[00:26:26] Mila: No, I just, all that was going through my mind is "I can't go into surgery. I do not want a c-section." My entire birth plan had fallen apart you know, like, I didn't want to do labor induction; we did labor induction. I didn't want to get an epidural, I got an epidural. I didn't want to do a vac and I definitely did want to do a C-section, but I would have gone for the vac obviously, rather than going to surgery. So finally, I was like, if you think a) it's safe to do the vac right now and b) if you think that he'll come out with the vac, let's do the vac.
[00:26:55] Shawn: The doctors seemed excited to do it. Because I know he was excited in the sense that
[00:26:59] Mila: No, it was weird, wasn't it?
[00:27:00] Shawn: No, they were having difficulty doing it. And, you know, he was like, Oh yeah, if you guys are open to do the vac, let's do the vac. Like, let's speed this thing up.
[00:27:07]Mila: I don't think he was excited to get the labor over with.
[00:27:11] Shawn: He wanted to move it along. But then they did the vac. I think they had a resident.
[00:27:16] Mila: Oh my God. So once we told them we wanted the vac, like 16 people came into the room.
[00:27:20] Shawn: Yeah.
[00:27:21] Mila: And I was just like, what is like, why is there a party in my room right now?
[00:27:25] Lisa: It's weird; it feels like a bigger production than it should, seems like it would feel like.
[00:27:29] Mila: Yeah, I was like what did I just agree to?
[00:27:31] Shawn: It was like a small army or like a clown car showed up, but they weren't clowns; they were very experienced.
[00:27:37] Mila: I think they were mostly residents.
[00:27:39] Shawn: They knew what they were doing. And then the doctor that was overseeing it, Dr. Lee, right. He had, they had a resident actually do the vac with him standing right there. If I remember correctly, Lisa, I think you had said there's like a three pull limit or something?
[00:27:53] Lisa: Three pop off. Yeah, the suction cup.
[00:27:56] Shawn: I think it popped off the first time, but they got it on the second, if I'm not mistaken.
[00:28:02]Mila: And then they called pediatrics in, and I was just like, why are you calling pediatrics? And they're like, well, it's because you're 36 weeks, you know, we need.
[00:28:11] You know, we need someone here to assess him. The entire time, I was just like, I am going to lose it right now. And I just kept breathing. And the whole time I was just like, just keep breathing and, you know, take it one minute at a time and try to get through it. And like, don't focus on how awful this is and just, you know, focus on the fact that your baby's about to you're about to meet your baby.
[00:28:32] Shawn: And I think you were what was active labor, two hours?
[00:28:35]Mila: Well, contractions started right after the Pitocin.
[00:28:39] Shawn: I mean, actual pushing.
[00:28:41] Mila: Pushing was like three hours.
[00:28:44] Shawn: Yeah. But yeah, but then he was born and everything was, you know, well,
[00:28:48] Mila: no everything wasn't good. Cause his head was like this freaking long.
[00:28:53] Shawn: So one thing I didn't know that I got from your class and I would have lost my mind if you didn't tell me this, when he, I was standing right there when he came out and of course he was blue, gray color, his head was it looked like, you know, Dan Akroyd from the Coneheads and he didn't look like it was breathing. And my first thought was, "Oh my God. You know what? This is, this is terrible. But then I remembered your class, that this is normal.
[00:29:21] Mila: The whole time I was like, "what does it look like? What does it look like? What's going on? What's going on?" He's like, "Uhhhhh, "
[00:29:25] Shawn: I saw him. I looked at it as, Oh, no, everything's fine. Everything's fine. Like, I knew that this was,
[00:29:30] Mila: No but like your face got pale
[00:29:32]Shawn: I probably looked like a ghost for a second. But then I remember
[00:29:35] Lisa: You were trying to fake it.
[00:29:36] Shawn: Yes, exactly. I remembered this is normal. But they had to take him away. They brought him to the NICU. There were some breathing issues initially. And then once they had him in the NICU, there were a couple other issues that developed. So that was stressful, to say the least,
[00:29:54] Mila: Oh, we forgot to mention your participation in the labor itself, the pushing.
[00:30:00] Shawn: Oh, yeah. Tell me that this would happen. But, during the pushing, they had the nurse on one on the left leg and me on the right, holding her up, and helping with pushing. And I had no idea. I knew it was a possibility from your class. No one had told me before the actual pushing started that, "Hey, you're going to play an active role with the nurse and the doctor,
[00:30:20] Mila: Which was so cool.
[00:30:22] Shawn: They came in, "Okay. Grab a leg. All right." And that was it.
[00:30:26] Mila: I was like, "Are you sure he's qualified to do this?" They're like, "He's okay. He's just going to hold onto your leg."
[00:30:32] Shawn: It's funny. At one point between pushes, before they were really getting close in time, there was still like a decent amount of time between them. And the doctor and I started talking, I think we were actually talking about the UFC or something like that, like, while she's
[00:30:47] Mila: Because they're both mixed martial arts fans, just my luck.
[00:30:50] Shawn: While she's pushing and the doctor and I are like, "Yeah, do you remember a Royce Gracie from 1993? And she was like, "Both of you!"
[00:30:56] Mila: I did not yell at you.
[00:30:57] Shawn: She's like, "I'm in the middle of labor." We're like, "Oh, ok, yeah, sure."
[00:31:01] Mila: I did not yell. I was very polite, but I was like, "Is this conversation necessary right now I think I'm about to push a baby out."
[00:31:10] Shawn: We were getting sidetracked, but he was very good. He was very good.
[00:31:14] Yeah. And then finally, Ethan was born about 1:47, and then taken to the NICU.
[00:31:19] Yeah. Taken
[00:31:20] Mila: right to NICU. Couldn't hold him. Couldn't do delayed cord clamping, which I was really excited about. And they were basically like, "He needs to be assessed right now. We are not going to delay cord clamping. Like we need to take him away." And I was just like, so I can't hold him right now? They're like, "No, we're taking him away."
[00:31:38] Shawn: So yeah, the initial issue was a breathing issue. I think that he didn't start breathing until maybe like 15 or 20 seconds after they wanted, they would expect that something like that it was slightly delayed, not significant, but that was the reason they took him to the NICU. And then once he got there, they had him on a CPAP for the first day. And he was able to get off the CPAP after a day.
[00:32:04] Mila: It was just the pressure one after the CPAP. So they were saying like, he was breathing fine, but they want it to just put a little, like a pressure thing on his nose.
[00:32:12] Shawn: The breathing resolved, the breathing resolved relatively quickly, but then his, his bilirubin levels were elevated. So that was their major concern.
[00:32:22] It was never elevated to the point where they were very concerned, but it was slightly elevated to the point that they said between this and the fact that he was 36 weeks, he's got to stay here. And then they put them on photo therapy and he was there for, he was born on Sunday, the eighth, and he didn't come home until Saturday the 14th. So it was about six days in the NICU, something like that.
[00:32:47] Mila: And every day they were like, "Yeah, we think tomorrow might be the day," and then we'd get our hopes up and then the next day it'd be like, "bilirubin's still high, more phototherapy." So he was doing phototherapy for like probably four days or something, right?
[00:32:58] Shawn: Yeah. And from our perspective, so he was born on Sunday, the eighth. And then, so Mila stayed in the hospital Sunday, the eighth, and then Monday the ninth. And then they actually had a room in the NICU for parents. There's only one room, so there's many babies in the NICU, but there's one room for parents and if it's available, they'll give it to you. But you can only stay in there for one night. Cause obviously there's other parents who might want to use it. So we got to stay in the NICU room Tuesday, the 10th. But then after that we had to go home and he stayed in the NICU. It was about an hour drive, you know, between Long Beach to Mount Sinai West
[00:33:37] Mila: Without traffic. So two hours every day to get there.
[00:33:40] Shawn: So, basically every day, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, we were driving there in the morning, staying there all day, coming home at night, obviously that was stressful. You know, we both wanted to take our baby home, but, you know, we couldn't.
[00:33:54]The saving grace was that there was no significant concerns by the doctor, you know, every day was just sort of, the bilirubin's slightly elevated. Once it gets down, we'll let him go home. And of course the both of us are furiously researching every piece of medical literature we can find on the internet to, you know, corroborate what the doctors are telling us to what we're reading and, you know, it matched up. They were experts; they knew what they were doing. And he was fine. And he ultimately came home on Saturday the 14th. Yeah.
[00:34:24] Lisa: Oh, and just for listeners, the elevated bilirubin and the phototherapy is for jaundice, for those who aren't aware of what that is.
[00:34:33] Shawn: And he never had any significant jaundice. It was very, very slight, here and there, but the concern is that if it's too elevated, there can be, neurological issues and other, you know, permanent damage. And so that was, you know, something that was in the back of our minds, but the doctors reassured us that that was really not a risk for him because his levels weren't elevated that high.
[00:34:58]But you know, it was still stressful going there every day, you want to take them home. You're hoping today is going to be the day and it's not today and it's tomorrow. And you know, but you know, we got to sit next to him every day and the nurses were really good.
[00:35:13] Mila: It's funny 'cause he was bigger than all the NICU babies so that all the nurses were saying how big he was.
[00:35:19] He was six pounds, seven ounces. So I don't think he wasn't necessarily a big baby, but I guess like to the NICU nurses, it was really big. And they kept saying like, what our big boy he's such a big boy. And so that was interesting. and then we saw, you know, we met a couple of the other people that were in NICU and saw a couple of those babies. What they're able to do for these babies is tremendous.
[00:35:40] Like, it is amazing. Modern science is just incredible. It really is. There was a baby there that was born at like 24 weeks or something. The amount of care that the nurses put in and just like everything that they're able to do , it's tremendous.
[00:35:54] It really is amazing. I had like full confidence in the pediatricians there the entire time. I knew that like he was getting the best care possible. And we knew like from the get-go, cause this was an IVF pregnancy. So we knew from the get-go -- we researched everything from the very beginning.
[00:36:10] So we knew that Mount Sinai had a really good NICU unit. And of course we weren't anticipating going into NICU, but one of the reasons that we did choose Mount Sinai was because of the availability of the NICU. So that ends up working out well.
[00:36:25] Shawn: And I guess for people that don't know the NICU , it was great, actually. There was two shifts and they did rounds twice a day, right? Once in the morning, once at night, when the change of shift with the new doctor, and you could actually time it to be there when they did the rounds.
[00:36:42] Mila: You got to speak to a pediatrician as often as, when they were there twice a day.
[00:36:46] Shawn: And they answered, they would give us their sort of summary overview of his condition, where he was at, what the testing showed, all that. We were able to, you know, ask every question that we had. They were very, very helpful.
[00:36:59] The nurses were. I mean, the nurses were even showing us how to change him, like in his, what do you call the --
[00:37:06] Mila: Yeah, they were having us change him and feed him. And it was cool cause we got like a little like supplemental baby caring class for the four days or five days that we were going in there.
[00:37:18] Shawn: Yeah, something like that. But yeah, they showed us feeding, changing him, all that. We got to, you know, we snuck into the little food pantry in the labor unit. Yeah,
[00:37:29] Mila: Well, they gave us the code, we didn't sneak in.
[00:37:33] Yeah. A really good thing about Mount Sinai West for anyone that's delivering there, they have a food pantry and
[00:37:44] Shawn: Insider tip. The food was amazing.
[00:37:49] Mila: Yeah. If you're pumping in the middle of the night or you're breastfeeding in the middle of the night and you want a snack, you can have hubs go over your birthing partner go over to the food pantry and they give you a code. It's not like a forbidden place and there's like apple juice and grape juice and bad stuff that, you know, you probably shouldn't eat, but they do have like granola bars and stuff like that too and like sandwiches. So that was a bonus. We had a lot of apple juice and grape juice, which brought me back to elementary school. But it was amazing.
[00:38:15] Shawn: So he finally came home on the 14th and everything was good.
[00:38:19] Mila: Yeah. Finally,
[00:38:20] Shawn: He had his first pediatrician visit. What, a week later? Well no, you went there two days later and then the followup was a week later.
[00:38:27] Mila: Yeah. So they had to check his bilirubin once again at his first pediatrician visit and thank God, everything was fine. And he's just been, you know, doubling in weight.
[00:38:36]No, he's more than doubled in weight. He's 17 pounds now; he tripled in weight.
[00:38:41] Shawn: He went from like 20th percentile in weight when he first came home to like 85% percentile.
[00:38:49] Like maybe, you know, go to the gym, okay. You know watch your eating.
[00:38:53] Mila: He is so chubby.
[00:38:56] Shawn: Yeah. So everything turned out okay.
[00:38:59]They were testing the bilirubin at the pediatrician's office when he got back, I think they did it twice. And there was the risk that if it went back up, he might have to go back to the hospital. So that was a concern. I think there was also a possibility that we could do phototherapy at home if it was necessary. They'd have to, we had to get the equipment, obviously, but that wound up not happening.
[00:39:18]Mila: It seemed like we had to do a lot of phototherapy though, like a lot.
[00:39:22] Shawn: Yeah. Well, when he was in NICU, he did a lot of phototherapy. But you know, they explain it to you.
[00:39:25] Mila: It seemed like it was an overabundance,
[00:39:27] Shawn: It was, but I'm all for it.
[00:39:30] Mila: It's fine.
[00:39:32] Lisa: With a preemie. They're going to be a lot more cautious.
[00:39:34] Shawn: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
[00:39:36] Mila: Yeah. It all worked out. So, no complaints, everyone treated us really well.
[00:39:41] Lisa: Well, speaking of the well-nourished baby, do you want to share a little bit about your breastfeeding experience, maybe backing up to the NICU and all that?
[00:39:47] Mila: Yeah. So Mount Sinai has incredible incredible lactation consultants. Literally two hours after I gave birth, there was a knock on the door and a lactation consultant came in and she was like, are you breastfeeding?
[00:40:01] And I was like, I would like to, yes, but you know, I don't know where to start. So they showed us how to do manual expression. In every room, they have pumps and they showed you how to pump. And they were always available. So the first time that I met with the lactation consultant, we did manual expression.
[00:40:18] So I manually expressed colostrum, which I think was so beneficial to him in the NICU, being able to have that. And then I pumped every three hours, and I was able to eventually build up my supply. So toward the end of his NICU stay, he was having mostly breast milk, which is very important.
[00:40:35] And then I just kept pumping, when I got home and also breastfeeding as well, and I would not have been able to do it without those lactation consultants and they were incredible. So the first time was, the day that I gave birth and the second time was three days after I gave birth. And we went over latching.
[00:40:50]And even though he was teeny tiny, you know, six pounds, seven ounces, he was still able to latch. And yeah, we've been going strong since, almost four months old and he's still comforted by it and it's great. And I hope to continue doing it for as long as possible, but I just think it's so important to educate yourself on it and get help doing it.
[00:41:09] Cause it's hard. It's really hard. Everybody says like, " It's the hardest thing and the first few weeks is so difficult," and blah, blah, blah. Like yeah. You know, it's true. It is, it's really difficult. But after those few weeks, it's second nature. And it's just so important, you know?
[00:41:24]I just think like, how do you withhold that from your baby? Like if you're able to do it, like just do it, just get past any difficulty, any initial difficulty, any initial hurdles, you just get over it and like, you know, I know, La Leche League they're tremendous for women that have difficulty and there's so many resources out there.
[00:41:42]I thought it was really important to be able to breastfeed him and yeah, it's going well so far.
[00:41:47] Lisa: Yeah. And it sounds like you really had the support you needed to be able to feel like, okay, we're figuring this out. Along with that support when your baby was on the CPAP, how did that work? Were you only able to feed expressed milk during that time?
[00:42:04] Mila: So during that time, I was able to hand express colostrum and they had like a little syringe that they would just put that in his mouth.
[00:42:12] Lisa: Oh, good. I'm glad they were using a syringe and not a bottle.
[00:42:15] Mila: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. The entire time, more or less, they use the syringe until he was off. But I think he was off like within a day off the CPAP and then off the other, I don't know if the other thing was necessarily a breathing machine and the one that put pressure on, I don't know exactly what that did, but for whatever reason, he still used a syringe for that also. But then as soon as he was able to do a bottle, I think on day three in the NICU, he was able to take a bottle.
[00:42:40] So I would pump and put it in a bottle. And at first it was like the teeniest tiny amount, tiniest amount. And I was just like, I'm never gonna have an adequate milk supply. I'm not making milk. And I was like, so discouraged. But yeah. You know, day five, day six, it came in and, and going strong since, knock on wood.
[00:42:58] Hopefully it continues for at least another couple of months. Hopefully until he's a year old, but you know, we'll see what happens. Life gets in the way; I know that much, but I'm going to try.
[00:43:09]Lisa: What happened with House Hunters? Did that just go out the window once your water broke?
[00:43:12]Shawn: Yeah, so originally they had said, "Okay. Let's maybe see if we can reschedule. Once you guys are settled in, we can, you know, film the remaining days." And I had said, without really getting approval from my better half here, I had said like, "Oh yeah, sure. I'm sure we could do that." And then once we sat down and figured things out, it was sort of like impossible. Like, because we can't have the baby, while we're shooting, she can't be carrying around with him. You know, he's brand new, he's a newborn he's crying all the time. You know, we've got a whole crew there on a certain work schedule
[00:43:51] Mila: Didn't want to have strangers in the hall.
[00:43:54] Shawn: So there was, we can't film with him. And then the other alternative would be taking this newborn and giving them to grandma for, you know, eight hours, 10 hours at a time.
[00:44:04] Mila: Which would be fine if I wasn't breastfeeding.
[00:44:07] Shawn: So it was like, we finally said, "Sorry guys. We don't think this is going to be doable." And so that was unfortunate, but somewhere there's a real or a, you know, digital video file somewhere.
[00:44:20] Mila: Of me waddling 8 1/2 months pregnant. This is the last apartment.
[00:44:26] Shawn: That one that will never air, will never see the light of day.
[00:44:28] Mila: Thank God. Thank God. I was just frighteningly max. I don't want to ever see me look like that. So embarrassing.
[00:44:42]Lisa: Mila, not that you need it necessarily, but I had myself muted when you were talking about feeling really disappointed in getting the epidural. I just want to mention that, you know, an induction is a harder way to go for most people. And so I think you did what you needed to do and to just be gentle with yourself in that way, too, that, you know, it was necessary. And because you certainly didn't want it to become traumatic or more challenging than it needed to be. And so I think you made a smart choice and you were doing the best with the circumstances that you were given.
[00:45:16] Mila: Yeah. I mean, in a perfect world, you know, would have gone differently, but whoever adheres to their birth plan. Like, I don't know anybody who has and I definitely -- at least not a hundred percent. The next time, I definitely want to try to go natural the next round and I am looking into, just having a doula and a midwife the next time around . I don't think, you know, the whole sterilized hospital environment is really necessary. Or at least for me, I don't think it's necessary now in like the state of mind that I currently have with respect to birth and the whole process.
[00:45:46] So I'm definitely looking into that for the next one. And yes, I already am planning for an extra. And even though he's four months old, like I am already like, I want more like, it's the best thing in the world. Like what's better than having a baby?
[00:45:58] Lisa: Oh, I love hearing that. That's great. And yeah, I mean, in right now, there's a lot more people becoming a lot more aware that, you know, hospitals are for sick people.
[00:46:08] And if you are low risk, if you've had a fairly uncomplicated pregnancy, midwives are such a great option. And to know that if you're not comfortable giving birth outside of the hospital, that some midwives do work in hospitals as well.
[00:46:21] Mila: Yeah. Yeah. Definitely looking into that. I'm excited for that. I'm excited to just like, not have that pressure on myself also, because I feel like in the hospital, it's a little bit more rushed. And it's a little bit more like, well, we've got to get you in this room, then we got to get you in that room.
[00:46:35] Cause we got to open this room up for the next person. And it's like, you know, if you're in the comfort of your own home or you're, in the comfort of a birthing center with midwives. I think the vibe will be a little bit more different also. So I'm kind of looking forward to that.
[00:46:48] Lisa: Hm, nice.
[00:46:49] Mila: Yeah.
[00:46:50] Lisa: Well, are there any things that you haven't gotten to share yet that you'd like to share? That's one thing, and then the other thing is if you've already shared everything you wanted to share, are there any tips or insights or reflections that might be beneficial to parents who are expecting a baby or new parents in those first three months of life?
[00:47:09] Shawn: I think we've gotten through the whole timeline. Is that right?
[00:47:12] Mila: Yeah, I think we got through everything I wanted to get through. Just like, just breathe, you know, just breathe. That's all you can really do. You know, look at the positive, stopped dwelling on the negative. And like, I had to keep telling like my mantra the entire time was, "I choose joy."
[00:47:28]Like that's what I've been doing. Like I'm choosing to feel joy. I'm choosing to feel positive emotions and I'm going to acknowledge the negativity that is in my life or that I think about, or the bad thoughts, like, I'm not good enough or this isn't going well.
[00:47:45] Like you acknowledge those thoughts, of course. But like, you could also just let them go. Cause like what point, there's no point in worrying, and there's no point in stressing and there's no point in having anxiety, cause it's not going to change your outcome. And it's likely to make things more difficult for you and your partner and everybody else that you come into contact with.
[00:48:02] So you can just like choose to feel positive emotions. You can choose to exude positivity. You can choose to surround yourself with like good vibes. And yeah, like look at it as a positive experience. And like, don't look at it as something that's negative. Cause like it's natural; it's like, it's a beautiful thing.
[00:48:19] And you just like need to look at it as that. If I were to hear myself saying this, like last year, I'd be like, what a granola, granola lady, like crunchy, you know, whatever. But yeah, you know, if that's how I sound, that's how I sound; like it is what it is. Like, it's such a transformative thing.
[00:48:38] And you really just need to realize that, like you not only need to be better for yourself and you not only need to think better for yourself, but you need to be better and think better for your baby. They will pick up on any negativity that you're putting out there. So like just don't do it.
[00:48:53] Shawn: And I think the other thing from your perspective was sort of, you know, embrace the chaos. Be aware that not everything is going to go to plan and when that happens. You don't know what unexpected things are going to happen, but you can know that unexpected things will happen.
[00:49:10]So you can be a little more prepared for when that happens. For me, for fathers or for partners out there, the most important thing during both the pregnancy and labor was to just be supportive, make her as comfortable as possible, you know, in the hospital.
[00:49:26]And it's something that you've talked about a lot, Lisa, was be her advocate, ask questions, you know? When she's in pain or taking a nap, whatever the case may be, make sure to get that information from the doctors and all that. Now I know when she needs a break. She's breastfeeding a lot and she's with him a little more than I am because of that.
[00:49:46] But when I see her getting stressed or whatever the case may be, you know, that's why I noticed step in there, give her that break. But I think overall just, you know, enjoying it also.
[00:49:57] Mila: Another important thing that you said, I think that I really took to heart was like, ask for help. The burden is not entirely on you. Like if you have that support system, ask them for help, you don't have to do it on your own. I've learned to ask him for help when I need it. And I think that's important. And the baby just woke up. Perfect timing.
[00:50:15] Lisa: Perfect timing. I love it. Great. I was about to ask Shawn what tips do you have? But I think you actually just answered it about what tips would you have for supporting a partner who does deal with anxiety, but all those things that you just said seemed to really speak to that very much so. Just being really supportive -- that alone reduces our anxiety.
[00:50:36]Shawn: I try.
[00:50:37]Lisa: Oooh, do I get to meet your baby?
[00:50:40] Mila: He just woke up; he might be a little grumpy. Say hi to Lisa.
[00:50:48] Lisa: You would never know he was a preemie.
[00:50:51] Mila: Right? He's such a chunky little monkey.
[00:50:53]Lisa: Well, thank you so much you guys, this has been wonderful to reconnect and get to see your faces again, get to hear your voices, and to meet your baby virtually as we're all doing right now.
[00:51:06] I hope to see you guys at some point, maybe at a reunion or something.
[00:51:10] Mila: So yeah, once we're no longer socially distancing,
[00:51:13] Lisa: Right, yes. Once it's safe to do so, of course. All right. I hope you have a great day and thanks again.
[00:51:19] Mila: Thank you, Lisa. Nice talking to you.
[00:51:20] Lisa: Bye.
[00:51:21] Mila: Bye.
