Today Sarah & Steve share their daughter Molly’s birth story as a special way to celebrate and honor her on her 13th birthday, which is the day this story is airing. It’s a story of an unmedicated vaginal birth at home with a homebirth midwife in Brooklyn. Interesting, perhaps, to note that Molly has recently become interested in becoming a midwife and has listened to every single episode of this podcast! Sarah shares how giving birth and becoming a mother stirred up a new wave of grief over the loss of her mother, which was about 7 years before she became a mother. This sharing was also a special way to commemorate the 20th anniversary of losing her mother as it was recorded the day after it. She’ll mention a couple of things that happened during pregnancy that seemed like messages sent from her mother. As a professional in literacy as well as an anti-racist educator, Sarah provides a number of great book recommendations, including the recommendation to expose little ones to diversity and representation in books that you read to them as early as possible.
Resources:
Kristin Leonard, homebirth midwife
Orgasmic Birth - documentary created by Debra Pascali-Bonaro*
Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth by Ina May Gaskin*
The Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife by Peggy Vincent*
Motherless Daughters by Hope Edelman*
Motherless Mothers by Hope Edelman*
The Business of Being Born - documentary by Ricki Lake & Abby Epstein*
Crawling: A Father’s First Year - memoir by Elisha Cooper*
Nursing Mother, Working Mother by Gale Pryor & Kathleen Huggins*
Two Eyes, a Nose and a Mouth by Roberta Grobel Intrater* (Scholastic children’s book)
Fearless Girls, Wise Women and Beloved Sisters: Heroines and Folktales from around the World - Kathleen Ragan, editor*
The Red Tent by Kathleen Diamant*
Granulation Tissue info (article from The Vagina Whisperer)
“My Expressed Breastmilk Doesn’t Smell Fresh. What Can I Do?” article on pumped milk that baby rejects or smells bad, touches on the excess enzyme called lipase Sarah thinks her milk had (KellyMom)
Birth Writes: A Collection of Real Life Birth Stories - another book Sarah recommends (but didn’t mention in the podcast)
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: Hi, Sarah and Steve. So good to see you.
[00:00:03] Sarah: Thanks for having us.
[00:00:03] Steve: Hello.
[00:00:05] Lisa: These are friends of mine. They are the parents of one of my daughter's best friends, Molly, and we were so sad when they left New York a few years ago to go to Chicago.
[00:00:17] We miss them a lot, but I'm so happy to reconnect in this way. They're going to tell Molly's birth story today. So would you guys start by just introducing yourselves? Get us acquainted with you a little bit. How old is Molly? How long ago did you give birth? What do you do for a living if you'd like to share that -- any of that good stuff.
[00:00:35] Sarah: Sure, thanks. So Molly's almost 13. So this is a little while ago, but I was born and raised in Chicago and then lived in New York for 11 years, and Molly was born in Brooklyn and then we moved back to Chicago when she was a baby. And then we moved back to New York for two more years, and then we moved back to Chicago again.
[00:00:59] But I teach teachers I have a PhD in education from NYU. And I taught at NYU and Loyola Roosevelt, and now I'm at UIC and I'm a freelance educational consultant and I also tutor kids. I'm a reading specialist. So I, with the pandemic and virtual I've actually had quite a lot of clients in New York, which has been kind of fun
[00:01:21] I assess and tutor kids over the internet. So yeah. I teach teachers. I do a lot of anti-bias, anti-racism trainings as well. And so post-George Floyd, I was also in very high demand. The virtual has made it more accessible to reach people all over the country.
Episode Topics:
Midwife Kristen Leonard & Molly
Got pregnant on first try
A crow was outside, felt like she was hearing from her deceased mother
Sarah was born in a blizzard in homebirth
Read THE BABY CATCHER
Did an in-hospital birthing center tour, but felt like it was too easy to risk out of the birthing center
Meeting midwives -- met 2 & hired Kristen Leonard
Rented a pool
Sarah’s aunt in Chicago is a midwife -- did a crash course birth class with her
Joining a due date mom’s group at a boutique in Brooklyn; she was due last
Go to a La Leche League meeting
Kristen made home visits
Due March 24th -- slowed down, worked less, took naps
On a sunny Friday, she walked to Bay Ridge library; as she was leaving, a big thick chapter book fell off the shelf. Fearless Girls, Wise Women… -- felt like it perhaps was another message from her mom, who had passed 7 years before
Came home and cooked, which she never does -- in hindsight, it was nesting energy
Didn’t feel great that night
Contractions start in middle of night, Steve records them
Watched a documentary about an artist who uses items from nature
Labored for a couple of hours in the middle of the night before calling midwife
Water breaks and she vomits
Thinking about each contraction as a hug (from a book)
In transition, she questioned her ability to do it, feels like she can’t go on
Sarah in and out of pool
Midwife comes
Dark environment with candles, soft music
Steve shares some about his interaction with the midwife
Baby crowns, pushing for around 1.5 hrs
Gave birth on hands and knees, Molly’s head emerges under water
Midwife tells Sarah to pick up Molly; Sarah’s exhausted and surprised to be told to pick her up
She brings her to her chest and initiates breastfeeding
Named her Molly Elizabeth (same name as Sarah’s mother and Sarah’s middle name)
Born over 9 lbs
Midwife cleans up, leaves, and then they go to sleep all in their bed together
Calling Steve’s parents in the UK -- his dad says, “So when’s the next one?”
Grief process over the loss of Sarah’s mom -- giving birth triggered a new wave of grief
Developing granulation tissue in her vagina (scar tissues with nerve endings in it) -- very painful
Had to go into a clinical setting to get it removed, but more grew
Nursing was very painful
Sleep deprivation being challenging
Feeling enamored with Molly
Steve’s reflections on becoming a dad and being supportive
Getting 12 weeks leave from NYU, then switched to being a consultant
Other resource recommendations -- books, documentaries, tip to expose your child to diversity/representation in books from the beginning toward anti-racism education
[00:01:36] So even though we're in Chicago, I was in New York for 13 years and part of my heart is definitely still there.
[00:01:44] Steve: Yeah. I work as a freelance event designer, designing environments for stores and corporate events. And I do all that from the table in the back of the house.
[00:01:56] Sarah: And if you hear his accent, he's not from Chicago or New York.
[00:02:00] Steve: Yeah. I'm British. I'm from Wales. Small countryside village.
[00:02:05] Lisa: And didn't you use to work in England in theater?
[00:02:11] Steve: Yeah, sorry. Yeah, no, training was as a theater set and costume designer. And worked in London for many year until I came to the U.S.
[00:02:20] Lisa: Fellow theater lover. Great. And our daughters were born in the same month. They're both going to become teens in March. Oh my goodness. And we're aiming to air this on Molly's birthday, which is really exciting. I'm excited that that'll be a little birthday gift for her.
[00:02:39] Sarah: She loves this podcast. Because she's thinking about maybe becoming a midwife when she's older.
[00:02:44] Lisa: And that just makes my heart sing. I was so thrilled when you guys told me that she was listening to the podcast, I'm like, "Yes, we need to reach -- not just girls, but everybody at a younger age with this information. So we can sit with it and just be more well-informed going into this healthy physiological process, so yay.
[00:03:05] And I know those plans can change. I don't expect her to become a midwife, but I love that she is having that passion now, because she's really just getting ahead of the game. That's so wonderful.
[00:03:17] And also regarding your work, Sarah, I just want to let listeners know that I will post your website, your information on the show notes page, just in case they are looking for a tutor or would like to do more anti-racism work.
[00:03:32] I love that work that you do. I deeply admire that and that's so needed right now. So thank you for all of that work that you're doing. All right. Well, why don't we go ahead and jump in. Can you give us a little background? If you'd like to tell us anything about conception and or pregnancy, how that went, how you made the birth choices you did? All that good stuff?
[00:03:55] Sarah: Yeah. So we were married about four years and thinking about moving back to Chicago already from New York and thinking we should have a baby while I still had really good health insurance at NYU. I'm not even joking.
[00:04:14] Lisa: No. Fair enough. That makes sense.
[00:04:17] Sarah: Because we were going to move to Chicago without jobs necessarily lined up and a newborn. So we decided to conceive, to start trying thinking that maybe we'd have a baby in May. And we got pregnant the very first month that we tried. So we had a baby in March.
[00:04:34] I had a home pregnancy test that I took in the morning when Steve was still asleep. And I remember basically like sticking the positive thing in his face and being like, "Steve! We're pregnant! Oh my God. It's positive!" I didn't actually think it would be positive right away. And then there was a crow outside the window in Brooklyn. I don't remember ever hearing a crow before. And my mom had died seven years before that. And we have one audio recording of her voice. And she said if she was able to communicate with us from the afterlife, it would be through the crows. And so the morning this crow outside my window in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn was like cawing its head off, I was like, "Mom?" And I was kind of creeped out, but it was also really cool. It was like really cool. So, you know, there's no way like to really know, but that's kind of a fun part of the, birth story.
[00:05:28] We had to move while I was pregnant, which was not fun. So I don't think we started deciding about hospital or home birth, like immediately, but it was pretty soon after. And we read a really good book. Steve wasn't convinced about a home birth. I was a home birth and my brother was a home birth. And I had an aunt who was a home birth midwife. So home birth was definitely not unfamiliar to me. And I always thought it was kind of cool that I was born at home, because it was kind of different because not everybody's born at home.
[00:05:58] I have kind of a cool birth story about the home birth midwife and doctor actually almost not being able to get to our house because it was like three feet of snow. And we read "The Baby Catcher." So I highly, highly recommend it. I actually asked Steve to read it also. "The Baby Catcher," which is a series of short stories, short vignettes. Every chapter is a birth story, and it's a midwife who wrote it. It's so good. And so now our daughter's read it already. It's a really good one. And it helps you be like, "Okay, maybe home birth is a possibility."
[00:06:27] Steve: I guess I'd always figured you get married, get pregnant, and have a baby. I hadn't really thought about the actual birth and how that happens. The baby just appears after nine months.
[00:06:42] I wasn't thinking about it. And then Sarah came up with the home birth idea. Even though I come from the land of home birth, it may be the first time I'd actually heard about it. And you know, obviously I'm just like terrified about what's involved and what can happen. So something like reading that book, "The Baby Catcher ", it explains a series of home birth stories. Some of which don't go well, some of which happen in the backseat of a car. And it just made me realize that, you know, you don't need the hospital, it can happen anywhere. Even if you're doing it in the hospital, it can still happen in the car on the way to the hospital. So, What's the difference? That book, and then, you know, other videos and speaking to midwives kind of convinced me.
[00:07:27] Sarah: And then we did a hospital tour to do the birthing center. But when I found out that if the birthing center is full, like those two or three rooms at whatever hospital that was...
[00:07:39] Lisa: Mount Sinai West, I bet it was.
[00:07:40] Sarah: Yeah. If they're occupied, then you're in a regular room. I'm kind of hospital averse, and I'm really averse to like beeping noises. I'm not even kidding. It seemed like it was going to be triggering for me and not very relaxing. The fluorescent lighting, like, I just didn't, it just, you know, it's very clean, but it's kind of antiseptic.
[00:08:01] I just wanted to be at home. And I liked the idea of not having to transfer home after birth; you're already at home. And I remember Steve asked about car seats, because we didn't have a car.
[00:08:14] Steve: While we were at the hospital, they announced that you can't check out with your newborn unless you have a car seat, and we don't have a car. So my immediate thought was, do we have to buy a car seat? How on earth do you leave the hospital with your kid, if you don't have a car seat? So I got really kind of caught up on that idea. Someone explained, well, your wife takes the taxi and you take the subway, which was kind of why I didn't mind anyway. But just this idea, you couldn't check out without a car seat, kind of. confused me for a while.
[00:08:45] Lisa: I will just chime in to mention that a student of mine in birth class last weekend actually brought this topic up. They were like, "Do we really have to get a car seat?" And I just mentioned that there is a car service that exclusively caters to families. And so they have all the current safe different sizes and types of car seats, if they did give birth in the hospital, which they're planning to. And Uber and Lyft and those different car services also have that option at a premium to pay extra for that. But that's interesting. It makes sense that you would be like, "I don't want to have to buy a car seat. What are you talking about?"
[00:09:21] Sarah: It's so funny how I feel like we were totally not thinking about how I would feel after the birth, thinking like I would take the subway. I mean, like, I would walk up and down stairs and I would take the train like everybody else every day. Like I would not....But I will say we had a home birth. We did not buy a car seat. And when we had to take her for the early checkup with the pediatrician, I took the bus. We took the bus in Brooklyn. I didn't take the train because I didn't want to do the stairs, but I did take the bus. So she was on public transportation, I think when she was like seven days old or something. I was not terrified of germs and stuff. I just was like, no, we're just going to take the train and the bus like everybody else I wasn't really thinking, like, "Keep her insulated in a car where she's not exposed." Now it's different during a pandemic, obviously.
[00:10:11] Lisa: Sure.
[00:10:12] Sarah: Even more reason to have a home birth. That's what I would say. So I think the book, the hospital tour, and then the midwives we met -- and I feel like we only met two, and we just totally fell in love with Kristen Leonard. She's just like an amazing human being, like, just like a lovely, a lovely person. We just clicked. We talked a lot about travel, international travel, and I think even like some social justice stuff, like we just loved her. So it just was a pretty no-brainer like, it was a pretty like, okay. I was born at home. I don't want to transfer home afterwards. I don't want us to buy a car seat. Let's just do it at home. And then Steve started researching the water birth, like, to have a pool. So we rented the pool. Any other prenatal stuff?
[00:11:00] Steve: My biggest fear with the home birth was: what if there's an emergency? And then we're kind of stranded in our apartment, south of Brooklyn. We did speak to two midwives and both of them, I think they recognized how anxious I was. So just for the moment when they were talking about that, their attention was on me. Whereas normally it would be on Sarah or both of us. But this time they kind of concentrated on me. And you know, they basically explained that as midwives, they're trained to keep people alive. So, a, they're not going to let you do the home birth, if there's any risk of any complication that they can see; if there's anything untoward, they won't do it. You'll be in a hospital. You'll be safe. If you're fortunate enough to go the whole way, then if an emergency happened during the birth, they're both trained to get emergency services to you and keep you alive until they get there. They even made the comment, you know, "You could have an emergency in a ward, and then someone else could have an emergency in south of Brooklyn. And the person in the house could be in the emergency room quicker. By the time the ambulance gets to you and picks you up, you could be in the emergency ward quicker than someone who's already in the hospital, just based on, you know, mechanics of moving people around.
[00:12:15] So that was really kind of reassuring to me. And then once I realized we can do it at home without all the extra fuss, and we knew it was probably just going to be the two of us, because our families were far away, and it was a no-brainer.
[00:12:32] Sarah: And we did a birth class. We did a crash course birth class with my aunt who's a midwife, Mary Summers, in Chicago. And she's just absolutely amazing. So we were home visiting or in town for a wedding or something. And she did like a one day private with us. And the thing I remember the most actually was her asking us what was like the largest physical challenge we'd ever overcome, we'd ever accomplished.
[00:12:53] And we're both cyclists. And that's how we met actually was through our long distance cycling and some racing. And I had ridden 500 miles in six days. I had done that twice. And it was from Minneapolis to Chicago. It was a fundraising event for organizations that support people with HIV and AIDS that was in 98, 99.
[00:13:13] I did those and I did the Boston to New York one also, which is shorter. But she was describing labor, you know, labor is work. Like the word labor means work and it is hard. It is hard. She wasn't sugarcoating -- that it's hard, but it's short term. And I remember reading one of my friends bought me the Ina May Gaskin book and just really learning about the monkey brain I remember.
[00:13:36] A lot of it's psychological, a lot of it's like, saying to yourself over and over, " I can do this," for me as a woman, I was like, "My body is made to do this, my body is made to give birth." Women have been given birth for millennia without drugs and without hospitals. Like our bodies are made to do this.
[00:13:54] Lisa: So were there any other ways that you prepared? You've already shared a lot, but I just wanted to see if there's anything more before you actually go into the birth story itself.
[00:14:03] Sarah: I think that's all I remember is a lot of books, crash course with Mary, the meetings with Kristen, our midwife, amazing midwife. I did join a mom group two other things.
[00:14:14] I joined a birth support group for women who were all due in March. It was through a shop that I don't know if it's still there in Brooklyn, but you could like go in and basically like sign up with your name and email. It was neat cause we met, I can't remember if we met every month during our pregnancy, but then it was kind of cool to have this little group of like new friends. There were probably maybe eight or 10 of us who were all due in March, but I was due at the end of the month.
[00:14:43] So like they all started having their babies. And then maybe, I don't know if we were meeting weekly at that point, but I remember, I think I went to one of the meetings and one or two of the moms both were there with their newborns. And I was still pregnant. Maybe it was even past my due date. And they were like, go ahead and hold our baby.
[00:15:02] Like, apparently that can possibly help bring on labor cause it triggers hormones and stuff. So that was really sweet. And I remember taking her, I think that was our first outing with Molly except for the pediatrician was we went to this mom meet up and I would definitely recommend that because we had no family in the area, either of us-- and I was 29, so I wasn't a baby, but none of my friends in New York had had babies yet. Like none of my college friends. I was the first -- one was in Connecticut and one was in Texas who had babies before me. But having that support was really important. And the other thing that was recommended, I think it was in one of the books I read, was to go to a La Leche League meeting before you give birth.
[00:15:45] And so I did that also in Brooklyn. So I had already met the local La Leche League leaders and a couple of women in the group who were nursing. I was very committed to nursing. I was a thousand percent committed that I was going to make sure that that was going to work, it was going to work well. And so then it was nice when I did have questions in those early days and weeks when I wasn't even up for leaving the house... it was still cold. You know, it was the end of March, early April. It was winter, you know, spring was coming, but it was cold and I was not up for a lot of walking. I was in some pain that we'll talk about later. But yeah, having that connection to La Leche League was also really, really valuable. I would highly, highly recommend that.
[00:16:28] Lisa: I'm so glad you're saying that, because when I teach about lactation, I always say, "Hey, go now." And I mean, right now, they're all virtual, super easy. You just go on a Zoom call and you're getting ahead of the game and you're finding community because, like you're saying, that is so important to connect to other expectant parents who are in a similar time of life.
[00:16:48] And those are free meetings for anyone not familiar with La Leche League; it's mother-to-mother peer support with a meeting facilitator who is often either training to become a lactation consultant or already is one. So you're getting free support from often a professional as well as fellow parents.
[00:17:05] So thanks for sharing that. Great. Well, do you want to go ahead and start your birth story? And that can be in the last few weeks of your pregnancy or wherever you want to start.
[00:17:19] Steve: I was going to add another pre-birth thing about having a midwife. Kristen came to our house, every checkup while Sarah was pregnant. So we didn't have to go out to a clinic or anything. So I realized we were fortunate to be able to do that. And so the, over the few months that she came to our house, you know, she became a friend and it was always a sit down an hour or so for her to do the examination and whatever and catch up. And also I knew that, you know, we then knew that when we'd go into labor, that it would be this friend who was coming over and we weren't going to be suddenly in the hands of people we hadn't seen before. So I think that really helped as well. That was nice.
[00:18:00] Lisa: That's often a big selling point for people as they're choosing their birth place is, "You mean I don't have to go anywhere for my prenatal visits. That is amazing." Now, I just want to clarify that some home birth midwives do that for the whole time. Some of them have you come to them for some of the appointments and then they'll come to you for some of the appointments.
[00:18:20] So there's various setups with that, but that's one question you can ask, for those of you who are listening who might interview home birth midwives, make your Wishlist of things that matter to you and then ask them if that's their model of care.
[00:18:32] Sarah: And I'll add one more thing too. We didn't do any prenatal testing because Steve's brother had Downs Syndrome. And so we knew we were not going to abort if the baby had Downs. So we were kind of like, "Why would we test--we don't need to know. Because it doesn't really matter. Like we're going to love this baby regardless."
[00:18:50] And so even if I had a slightly higher chance of having a baby with Downs because of the bloodline -- there was no other Downs in his past history. So we don't actually think it was like the genetic kind, but we didn't do it was just nice to not have that pressure of like, you have to XYZ.
[00:19:12] Like I only had one, well, I had two ultrasounds. I had one to confirm my pregnancy really early with a midwife at a clinic that I didn't like at all. And my aunt was like, "Oh yeah, we call them med-wives," like very medical, very, very medical. Yeah, not, not like a home birth-type midwife. And I didn't like it.
[00:19:31] It was very kind of cold and like formal and. de-personalized and it just didn't fit my personality type. And then we did have the 20-week to find out the gender. Cause that was really important to me. And we were so happy to have a girl. Like we both really wanted a girl and Molly knows this and I'm going to say this and people might judge me, but we joke that if we had a boy, we'd give him up for adoption, which is not true, which is totally not true, but that's how much we wanted a girl.
[00:20:02] Steve: It probably would have meant more babies.
[00:20:04] Sarah: Well, when they said we were having a girl, I just cried of relief. I was so happy. I was so happy we were going to be having a girl. And not for like girly, girly stuff or like clothing choices. It wasn't that. It's more like trauma from past situations with men and boys. But that's another story for another day.
[00:20:26] So our birth story. So I think I was due on March 24th and I was already working at home and not really doing that much working. I had a really great boss. In like the week or two leading up to it, I wasn't commuting to my preschools in the Bronx and Brooklyn or to NYU anymore.
[00:20:46] She was allowing me to work from home. And I was getting a lot of naps in and reading a lot of books, which was really nice. But I was getting a little impatient when the due date passed because I was just like, ready, already, like to not be pregnant anymore. I really wasn't sleeping well. I remember waking up, you know, five, six, seven times in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom or just waking up. And later I thought, "Well, that prepared me for newborn stage." People who have an easy pregnancy and don't wake up in the middle of the night probably have more of a shock when baby never sleeps.
[00:21:22]But on the day, it was a Friday and it was a nice day. It was sunny. And I actually felt like walking. I walked to the Bay Ridge public library.
[00:21:33] And read children's books because that's part of my career as an early childhood teacher educator. And I remember I was leaving the library and this book fell off the shelf like behind me and landed on the floor like a loud -- and it kind of startled me and I turned around and it was this big thick chapter book in the children's book section. I don't know how it could have fallen off the shelf. It didn't seem like there was any gravity, like, I couldn't understand the physics of how it could have possibly fallen off the shelf and it startled me. So I bent down, I picked it up. And it was called Fearless Girls, Wise Women and Beloved Sisters: Heroines and Folktales from around the World.
[00:22:18] And I thought, "Wow, that sounds like a cool book." And again, I was like, "Mom?" Because my mom had died seven years before and I couldn't figure out how that book fell off the shelf and why that book. So that's just one more of those like cool unexplainable--
[00:22:40] Lisa: Chills moment. I got chills when you shared the crow story and I got chills just now. Oh wow.
[00:22:45] Sarah: When I was walking home from the library, it was really pretty, it was really nice out. And I remember somebody on the street saying, when are you due? And I was like four days ago. And they were like, "Well, good luck." And then that night I went into labor. So I remember, I just remember we had homemade pizza and Oreo cookies, Double Stuf Oreos.
[00:23:06] Steve: If Sarah's cooking, you know something's going on.
[00:23:08] Sarah: I don't cook. Steve does like a hundred percent of the cooking. He had an art class and then I remember him calling and being like, "Can I have a drink with my art teacher? Cause it's the last one." I was kind of like, "Yeah. Okay. I mean, I think I made dinner already, which I don't usually do. Yeah, that's how I knew that -- the walk to and from the library in Brooklyn, the walking and the making food. That was my like nesting -- what do they call it when you get like a burst of energy?
[00:23:33] Lisa: Mm-hmm, nesting.
[00:23:35] Sarah: Yeah, that was that. I didn't know that it was, but that was that. And we got in bed that night and I didn't feel well.
[00:23:40] I felt kind of -- it wasn't crampy. I don't think that had started yet. I just felt kind of, not nauseous, I don't know. I just didn't feel well. I didn't feel well like lying down. And so I remember saying like, "Can we go sit on the couch? Can we go, I don't know, watch a movie?" Even though it was late, it was probably like 11:30 PM or something. And I was tired.
[00:23:59] Steve: Don't forget, we'd already planned that when you went into labor, there was a certain movie we were going to watch. So we sat [and watched it] in one span. There's a movie by an artist called Andy Goldsworthy. Basically creates using leaves and stones and ice, things like that. Nature stuff. It's an hour or so long and we have just planned that we'd watch that during labor because it would keep our mind off everything and pass the time. So we sat down and started it.
[00:24:36] Sarah: And I think contractions started and Steve started writing them down. You know, I didn't kind of know exactly what they were like immediately, but it was like, "I think this was it." 'Cause my water did not break immediately. We put the movie on, he started writing them down. And then I'm not sure if he started filling up the birth pool.
[00:24:55] 'Cause I knew that you shouldn't get into early. I remembered that. But we labored along for a couple of hours before we even called our midwife. 'Cause it was like the middle of the night and we were kind of keeping an eye. She had told us, I don't know, let her know when they were five minutes apart or whatever. Whatever the measurement was that we were supposed to let her know.
[00:25:15] And I remember sitting in a birth rocking chair that we had bought for nursing and my water broke. So I was sitting on a towel. I don't remember if there was a plastic bag or anything under that, but I was sitting in this rocking chair and all of a sudden there was some liquid and I was like, "Oh!" And it was warm.
[00:25:33] And I was kind of like, "I think, I think, I think my water just broke. Oh, Okay. Well, there's that. Check that off the list of like things that typically happen." And then I'm pretty sure I vomited after that. I was like, "Oh, there's those Double Stuf Oreos and pizza. That's gross." Steve was very generous to clean it up.
[00:25:53] And I think we finally called her because I really wanted to get in the pool and I kinda wanted to know if it was okay to get in the pool and give her a heads up. And I think, I think we did. And she said, you know, "Call me again when--" whatever the next measurement, maybe the first call was 10 minutes apart. It was kind of a long time ago.
[00:26:11] Steve: Yeah. That was like two in the morning. So we were already a little bit nervous waking her up even.
[00:26:18] Sarah: And then it wasn't that much long after, but I remember calling her again, maybe around 4 or 4:30 and they were closer. And she said, "Okay, I'll take a shower and I'll be right there." And she didn't live that far. And there wasn't gonna be a lot of traffic at four in the morning. Straight down Fourth Avenue. But I remember I was actually on the toilet and I was in a lot of pain and I definitely, I was like, "I think, I feel like I have to poo, but I can't poo."
[00:26:50] And she was like, "Oh my God, you're in transition. I'm coming now. Like, I won't take a shower. I'll be right there." Her reaction was like the baby's coming. And I don't remember if she used the word transition. I had forgotten that from the birth class. 'Cause I was just so in the contraction
[00:27:04] Lisa: Not in your thinking brain, sure.
[00:27:06] Sarah: But what I remember was thinking that every contraction was like a hug. That was in one of the books -- that every contraction was hugging the baby and one hug and closer to actually meeting the baby. It was hard. I mean, it definitely hurt. I'm not gonna lie, but I knew that it was short-lived.
[00:27:23] I just knew that it wasn't going to go on for six days that intensely. My labor was pretty short, so I think the contractions were very strong. And I think I don't actually have a very high tolerance for pain, either. I think I'm incredibly sensitive. I know that I'm incredibly sensitive.
[00:27:42] And in that transition moment though, I definitely panicked in my head and was like, "I can't do this. I can't. Who did I think that I was, that I could have a home birth, like I need to go to the hospital and have drugs."
[00:27:56] Lisa: And that is such a sign of transition.
[00:27:59] Sarah: Yeah, I freaked out cause I was like, "This is, this is too hard. I'm not strong enough. My mom was clearly stronger than me." She had two home births and her third birth was a breech baby, natural, no drugs -- butt first. My sister was folded in half. So my mom was my heroine and I just, in that moment was like, "I can't do this."
[00:28:22]But I think she was already on her way. And by the time she got there, I remember being in the pool. I was wearing like a bathing suit top, I was still partially covered. It was very like body self-conscious, I'll be honest about that. That might help some people.
[00:28:37] And you do want to tell her what you remember about Kristen laying everything out? 'Cause I didn't even see this, but it was dark. I think we had a couple of candles maybe and like a lamp. I think we might've had some soft music on, it was very lovely to be at home. It was absolutely lovely to not have to move. And I was in the pool and Kristen got there and Steve let her in and then he can tell that part.
[00:29:06] Steve: Yeah. So practical matters again, putting a pool in your first floor apartment in Brooklyn is pretty scary as well. There's one guy who was doing birth pool rentals and he basically explained it away and there was some insurance involvement. But yeah, we had a pool full of water in our apartment that night. Sarah was in and out of it, I think, for a few times, just trying to get comfortable.
[00:29:32] And I'll also say, you know, for the birth, you watch all the videos about different ways of doing it. Orgasmic birth and Hypnobirthing and all the videos, very idealized and wonderful with the men and the women rocking together and oohing and ah'ing. And I'd just like to say that there was none of that.
[00:29:51] Sarah: I was like, don't touch me. I mean, I just was like, no, I just--
[00:29:55] Steve: So I wasn't the guy in the pool hugging her with this loving embrace. It was like, "Get away!" It was more like, you know, a gentle hand on the back and scoop some water off the floor or something.
[00:30:07] But the midwife came in and, you know, she had three or four big holdalls [duffles] with her and some oxygen tanks. I was like, "Oh, okay." And Sarah was in the pool and the couple of first checkups. And I know at one point Kristen was behind Sarah doing an exam.
[00:30:26] I was at the front end of Sarah. So Kristen was like, looking over Sarah's back at me. And she mouthed something. She didn't say it out loud. She mouthed something to me. And my brain said, "It's not there." So I was convinced like, "Oh, we're far too early." Not something was wrong, but you know, maybe we're like a day early, like, "it's not there."
[00:30:47] So I kind of panicked and Kristen's looking at me with a puzzled look, puzzled. And eventually she actually just told Sarah that the baby's head was right there and she could touch it if she wanted, she could reach down, because the head was right there; we were ready to go.
[00:31:04] Sarah: Yeah, so I didn't know that until right now. I don't think he's ever told me that. What I remember Steve telling me is that with all the equipment is that, I don't know if it was like a hockey bag size, but like she like laid everything out and I never even saw it cause it was behind me. I never even knew that that was there. So he told me later. But yeah, I was in and out of the pool a little bit. I didn't, I wasn't into walking. I didn't have a birth ball.
[00:31:28]'Cause I hadn't done like a real proper birth class; I probably should have. But I did a crash course with my aunt who was amazing. And I kind of thought that was enough. Like I just thought, you know, women have been giving birth for millions of years. Like my body's going to know what to do.
[00:31:40] My aunt offered to fly out to be there. But I just thought that was kind of risky given you never know when labor is going to be like, you know, for her to book a flight or whatever.
[00:31:48] So it was just us and Kristen. It was just the three of us. And I remember pushing, I think. I felt really like ineffective, like inefficient. I mean, I just didn't feel like I was good at it. Like, I didn't know how. I was definitely anxious about pooping also. Like I was not okay with that.
[00:32:06] I just was like, really uncomfortable with that idea that that could happen. That kind of freaked me out. But I did push obviously eventually well enough. I think it was about an hour and a half or, I don't really know, of pushing. I feel like. And then the head came out and I think I probably did touch the head when she was still inside, I think I kind of remember that.
[00:32:27] And then I pushed and the head came out and Molly's underwater. So I was on hands and knees and her head came out and I could see her head between my legs. And I was like, "Like, Oh my God. That's the weirdest thing ever," to see the baby's head between your legs? 'Cause I was on hands and knees. And I was like, "She's okay, right?" Like, 'cause she's not breathing yet. Cause she's, you know, she hadn't had any oxygen yet. Kristen's like, "Yeah, no, she's fine. She's fine. Give me one more big push, and you'll get the, basically get the body out."
[00:32:57] I was like, "Oh my God." Like that was -- and I screamed like somebody was murdering me. And I felt bad for the tenants upstairs. Luckily they were training to be doctors. They were a young couple. I don't think they were going to be labor and delivery doctors, but they were like in their residencies. I was like, "Wow, I might've just woken them up at whatever at five in the morning or whatever." And it was a bloody murder scream. But it helped. And then, yeah, and then one more enormous push and she slid out and Kristen said, "Pick up your baby. So I was the first one to touch Molly."
[00:33:36] And I was kind of startled. Like I was, I think I was in shock, almost, that I had just done that. And like, I was so tired 'cause I labored all night. And I needed to sleep. Like I am a sleeper. I really, really like to sleep more than most people. I think I need sleep. So I was kind of not in a great place at 5:30 or something in the morning when Molly was finally born. And I was so surprised, I wasn't prepared for Kristen to say, "Pick up your baby." I was like, "Wait, what? Oh!" Because like here's Molly, like in the water, just like, I mean, it was only like a second I'm sure. But it felt a very long time in my head. So I picked her up and I put her on my breast. We had already known that we didn't want to have the cord cut right away.
[00:34:19] And so I just kind of looked at her and like tried to get her to latch on right away. Like just put my breast in her mouth. Like, I didn't know what to do. I mean, I just was like, "Oh my God, I just had a baby." And so we all just took a couple minutes -- I don't know how many, maybe 10, 15. I'm not really sure.
[00:34:41] And I remember Kristen saying something like, "Do you wanna check the sex or do you want to check if it's a girl?" So then I looked and I was like, "Oh yeah, no, she's the girl." 'Cause I didn't, I just was like, well, they already know, I already knew she was going to be a girl from the ultrasound.
[00:34:53] So I thought that was really funny that she was like, do you want to check? And then I was like, "Oh yeah. Oh yeah, no, she's a girl." And Kristen goes, "Yeah, she's too pretty to be a boy." And we had picked Molly Elizabeth. Elizabeth was my mom's name and it's my middle name. We had some back and forth on names and we looked through some name books and I think Elizabeth was a no brainer that that would be the middle name, but we weren't sure on a first name, there weren't any other family names. We had very different opinions. Actually, Steve, do you want to share some of the Welsh names that you thought of? Cause I think they're really funny. Because I was like, "Uh, no." But go ahead and share some.
[00:35:29] Steve: Irrelevant.
[00:35:30] Sarah: Please. It's funny.
[00:35:31] Lisa: No, please do share. I would love it if you remember.
[00:35:36] Steve: And I'm probably pronouncing it wrong. Blodeuwedd.
[00:35:38] Sarah: And I was like, what?
[00:35:39] Steve: Or Branwen.
[00:35:41] Sarah: No. I didn't care for either of them!
[00:35:49] Lisa: Branwen, is that what you said? Yeah, I know what Bronwyn [different spelling] who's a teenager.
[00:35:54] Sarah: Yeah. So we had decided on Molly though, but we hadn't told anybody that was definitely a surprise. And I think we thought we wanted to try it out once she was born to see if it fit, to see if it felt right. Like 'cause we could change it, if it didn't seem right, but, but it did, it seemed very fitting.
[00:36:13] And so I think we told Kristen, first of anybody, that we were going to call her Molly. And then, and then at some point, Kristen was like, "Well, we should probably cut the cord now. Steve, do you want to do it?" No, we did the cord first. Yeah. You cut the cord, right? Steve cut the cord. Which I thought was, I didn't want to cut the cord, but Steve cut the cord, which I thought was very cool. And then Steve got to hold Molly.
[00:36:41] Lisa: Do you remember at what point Kristen had you get out of the tub?
[00:36:44] Sarah: No, I stayed in the tub, but I stayed in the tub for a long time. He cut the cord. I remember 'cause I had been on hands and knees, but then I was like sitting back on my feet, like on my haunches kind of holding her.
[00:36:56] It was like very hard to like get my feet out from under me to actually sit on my bottom. But no, I stayed in the pool for awhile. I birthed the placenta in the pool.
[00:37:04] So Steve cut the cord and then Steve was able to hold Molly. And then Kristen was like, "So now you need to birth the placenta." And I was kind of like, "What?" Like I was so out of it, like again, and I had this crash course birth class. Like, I'd like forgotten that that was like something that I had to do.
[00:37:21] And I was like, "You're kidding, right?" I mean, I just was like, "No more, like I did the birth part. You mean I have to push something else out of that hole that really hurts right now?" I was like not having the placenta thing, but obviously did. And I think she showed it to me and we put it in the Tupperware.
[00:37:41] We put it in the Tupperware. I ended up putting it in the freezer, I think. We didn't know what to do with it. I've learned more later about like drying it, encapsulating it. And I wish I had done that, but we did keep it and put it in the freezer.
[00:37:54] And then I think it was time for me to get out. So I think Steve took a shower first. So Steve gave Molly back to me and he took a shower cause he had been in the birth pool and he had swim trunks on and it was bloody. So he took a shower while I stayed in the pool with Molly. And then I gave Molly to Steve and then I took a shower and got clean pajamas on or whatever to basically get back in bed and go to sleep.
[00:38:20] And Kristen did whatever she did, we didn't wipe the vernix off. I remember feeling kind of strongly about that. We were just going to let that absorb into her skin over time. And there were no eyedrops. I mean, I just loved I didn't have to argue with anybody about why I wanted the placenta, why I wanted to keep that.
[00:38:40] It was just awesome. And Kristen weighed her, so we have a cool picture of Molly, like hanging and one of those like cloth--
[00:38:50] Lisa: little stork pouches
[00:38:52] Sarah: Yeah. It's just really cool. And she weighed nine pounds, eight ounces. Yeah, so she was big. And I called her my bagel baby, cause I was quite sick during my pregnancy.
[00:39:04] I pretty much dry heaved every day for nine months. Like I never vomited once. I never once vomited, but every single morning I would dry heave once or twice. And bagels were about the only thing that I felt like I could eat that didn't make me feel sick. So I think twice a week, I think, or once a week I would have a bagel on my commute to the Bronx or Brooklyn, where I was coaching preschool teachers.
[00:39:32] So she was, she was chunky and then she lost weight and we'll get into the nursing in a minute. But yeah, she was a big baby, but she was very healthy. And Kristen put her first diaper on. And then Kristen left and I think she was like, "I'll see you tomorrow." And I think Steve and I kind of looked at each other like, "Oh my God. Now what? Like we have a baby and we're alone. And I'm really tired."
[00:40:02] So we all went to sleep like in our Queen bed with Molly on the bed with us, she had one of those little tiny baby beds -- it's basically a flat mattress with like a little wall around it, like a three inch wall around the head. So I think we have a great picture of maybe it's Steve and Molly in bed, because I think I took it later. But it was sunny. So we had the blinds closed and I had an eye patch on and we just all went to sleep. And then I think I woke up, I don't know, three or four hours later and was like, "[gasp!] Like, oh my God, there's a baby in the bed next to me." I'm like, should I feed it or something like, am I supposed to do something now?"
[00:40:44] She wasn't crying for hunger? Yeah, nursing was kind of awkward in the beginning. I'd never done that before and didn't feel very, you know, good at it and didn't know what it was supposed to feel like. But, you know, in those first couple of days, she was peeing and pooing. So I was like, well, clearly there's liquid. I mean, she's not, she's not not eating as I was waiting for my milk to come in.
[00:41:09] Steve: Yeah. I'm going to jump in. 'Cause I know you missed something that you wanted to talk about. But just to go back to what Sarah said. That moment when Sarah is recovering in the bed after the birth. And I'm filling in paperwork with the midwife and all that kind of stuff.
[00:41:27] And then she left, she let herself out and said, "Well, I'll see you tomorrow. And for both of us, it already was like, "Oh, where's the manual. You know, like what do we do?" But the midwife said, "Go to sleep." And we retired. And I think we made a couple of quick phone calls and passed out. And then you wake up and all of a sudden that that baby that is suddenly there. And it just felt very different, but also kind of right. Again, I know we were fortunate to do it at home and lucky the way things worked out, but you suddenly feel very helpless and lost. Cause you just got this new living thing. Both Sarah and Molly were glowing. Sarah suddenly looked, you know, very much at peace and very happy.
[00:42:15] She doesn't remember that, but she did. But that was really cool. But I did know that Sarah wanted to talk about the after effects of birth.
[00:42:24] Sarah: And I'm glad Steve remind me of the phone calls. We definitely call his parents in the UK. It was their first grandchild and their only grandchild, actually, that they'll ever have had.
[00:42:34] But my father-in-law said, and I hope he's going to listen to this. He said, "So when's the next one?" And I was like, "Are you crazy? I'm not doing that again!" That like, I don't remember exactly, but I just was like, "You're out of your bloody mind that you just asked me that when I just gave birth." Like I can't with you.
[00:43:01] We never planned to have an only, we thought we'd have at least two, I have two siblings. Steve has one. When we, you know, when we were married and newly, you know, dating, even we definitely thought we'd at least have two, but it's so funny that that morning I was like, "I am not doing that again." And then I ended up not doing that again.
[00:43:20] It took a couple of years to make that decision to not do that again, but I actually did choose not to do that again. It was overwhelming. I think because my mom had died before that, it triggered an upsurge of grief for me again. That I had lived already like seven years without her and grief is not linear. It's kind of up and down. And sometimes it's very unpredictable of when it's going to be down. You can just be triggered by like somebody in the grocery store or, you know, just like a random smell or a sight of something.
[00:44:00] And birth -- I think I probably anticipated it was going to be difficult. She had bought me The Red Tent by Anita Diamant as one of the last gifts she ever gave me for Christmas, she died in January of 2001. So I re-read that when I was pregnant with Molly, because I loved that, like, the intergenerational/women/birth... you know, the red tent during menstruation. I just loved that. And I had actually been literally reading it when she died. I was on an airplane from New York to Chicago when she passed. So I was literally reading it when she took her last breath. So I re-read that when I was pregnant and I was pretty overwhelmed with grief when Molly was born just missing my mom so much. Sorry.
[00:44:51] Lisa: You don't need to apologize.
[00:44:54] Sarah: But I just think it's the reality that there's other women who don't have moms around when they become moms.
[00:45:06]There's a really good book I read when my mom died called Motherless Daughters by Hope Edelman. She also wrote another book called Motherless Mothers. So I think I read that also when I was pregnant. The author, her mom died, I think maybe she was 13 or so. She's a journalist and she kind of reviewed all the literature on grief, including mother daughter, the unique-- it's different than father, daughter or spouse, or, you know, it's just, every everyone's grief is always unique based on the relationship they had and the age and stage and the circumstances around the death. But she was interested in mother daughter, particularly. And, and then she did her own research, surveying women who had lost their mothers at different ages and for different reasons.
[00:45:47] And it's just an amazing book. So I highly recommend it to anybody whose mom has passed. So then Motherless Mothers. She wrote when she became a mom, because she had two girls. And how becoming a mother changes your relationship with your mother even post death. So even though you can't talk to your mother about anything that anybody who has a mother who's alive might ask their mom about -- yeah, it's just part of like the grief journey.
[00:46:20] So. I struggled. I don't know if I had postpartum depression. I don't really know like clinically how that's diagnosed, but I definitely had a strong upsurge of grief for a long time. And know it was actually just the 20th anniversary of her death yesterday, the day that we're recording this on January 21st, 2001, and Molly said to me, something like.
[00:46:47] I would ask them how we were talking about -- I think it was in the movie that we were watching, Anne of Green Gables, which I watched with my mom as a kid -- something about the happiest day of my life came up in the plot line. I feel like for a wedding or something. And I was like, yeah, I don't know if I have a happiest day.
[00:47:01] I'm not sure what I would say is like the happiest day. And she's like, "Well, what about the day I was born?" And I was like, "Well, I'm going to be honest. I was happy. I was relieved that she was healthy and happy to not be pregnant and happy to be a mom. But I was also really depressed." It was not her fault.
[00:47:21] I don't want her to feel bad about that, but it was pretty overwhelming. And I think that's also normal to a degree that I think women should know that it's okay if you're not like in this blissed out state.
[00:47:36] It was painful for quite a long time. So I didn't know that it wasn't normal for it to hurt that much for so much longer after in the days and weeks following.
[00:47:48] But I think, I don't know if it was about a week later, maybe, Kristen came back. I think she definitely came back the next day. And I think about a week later she checked me and she's like, "Oh no, that's not normal." So I developed something called granulation tissue, which is basically kind of like scar tissue with nerve endings in it.
[00:48:06] In my vagina, so it was extremely painful. It was extremely painful and it just, you know, urinating and just living, it was just like extreme. I could really basically not walk. So we had to go in to see an OB to have it removed, and that meant a shot, you know, an anesthetic and we did take the train, we did not take a taxi.
[00:48:28] I remember getting off the subway and in the village. And then I ended up growing more. My body produced more and I had to go back again. So I was in a lot of pain for weeks, I would say. Nursing was also very painful, I felt. And I don't think there was anything wrong with her latch.
[00:48:46] I'm just very, very sensitive. I definitely had some dry and cracked nipples. And then I was so sleep deprived and I already mentioned how I don't do very well when I'm sleep deprived. So Molly like hardly ever slept. I mean, she obviously slept, but she didn't sleep in chunks of time.
[00:49:02] And I didn't do very well with like two hour, two hour naps throughout the night. And she seemed to be awake a lot at night. And sleep more during the day, which also is pretty common. So I was often saying to Steve, like, "You get a good night's sleep, cause I'm going to need your help in the morning." So I would stay up most of the night.
[00:49:25] She would fall asleep in my arms, but if I tried to put her anywhere, she would cry a lot. We didn't even have a crib. Yeah. We just had that thing on the bed. We decided not to do a crib because we were moving to Chicago very soon after that. So we didn't want to buy lots of stuff. And we had a little bouncy seat kind of thing that I would try to put her in and she would just cry and cry.
[00:49:45] It's like, she wasn't happy if she wasn't touching us or really close to us. So--
[00:49:50] Lisa: And that's very normal for newborns, they're used to being inside of you. And they just thrive on our touch, you know, it's helping their neurological development, but it can be so challenging for us as parents because we didn't expect that, right?
[00:50:03] Sarah: Right. And she didn't like to be swaddled. It was like things that worked for other people's babies weren't working for her. And yeah, I struggled a lot with the sleep deprivation. But obviously I was happy she was born and happy, very happy she was healthy and she really was beautiful.
[00:50:19] And I was so enamored like for months, just, I can't believe I grew her in my body. Like no offense to Steve, but like I did most of the work.
[00:50:31] Steve: I still haven't heard the end of it.
[00:50:36] Sarah: I mean, it's miraculous and I was at a shop in Chicago some months later that had a breastfeeding shirt. It said "I make milk. What's your superpower?" I just loved that because I did feel much stronger as a woman in my identity after that, I definitely felt like I gave birth and I nurse, I ended up actually nursing for five years. She chose to end on her fifth birthday. So we nursed for five years and it was beautiful and I didn't always love it. She nursed a lot for the first, you know, two years or so. Through all the teething and developmental challenges and we moved cross country, and we traveled to the UK multiple times.
[00:51:27] Her uncle with Downs actually passed. I think we went to the UK five times within her first two years because it was cheaper when she was under two. She loved to nurse and we could nurse anywhere at any time. I had a sling that I used, or I, you know, I would just cover with my scarf.
[00:51:45] I got very comfortable in nursing in public, but it was just magic. Nursing was magic. It was very good for her and it was very good for me, even though I didn't love it. And I was tired and I was tired of it at the end. I was like, okay, I think that's long enough.
[00:52:02] Like, I don't know what she would have nursed till six or seven if I hadn't made her stop. But I thought five years was a very good long time for like immunity and, you know, for health reasons, for bonding reasons. She was a very well-adjusted very, very smart, very inquisitive, high vocabulary child. And I credit breastfeeding for some of that. I really do.
[00:52:29] Lisa: Steve, is there anything you'd like to share about becoming a father, you know, as Sarah was sharing, it's really, they call it "matrescence" for mothers that there's this birth of a mother and birth of a father when you're giving birth the first time. And it's a huge transition psychologically, emotionally, and so much of the time we feel ill-prepared for that. We just like, nobody told us how radical it is for us. It's not just the birth of a baby. So I was just wondering, Steve, if there were any things to note about that transition for you.
[00:53:05] Steve: Oh, that feels like more of a blur. I definitely have my own, you know, my own emotional attachment to both of them grow. Kind of pride in Sarah and creating it. But also, you know, my own sense of belonging then. We weren't just a couple anymore. We were a little threesome and being aware of having to nurture and help this little thing grow.
[00:53:34] So that was, that was neat. Practically, you know, that idea where we got to the point, should I say in the first week or so? I was waking up with Sarah in the middle of the night when Molly was crying and I wanted to help. I wanted to fix it. I wanted Sarah to go back to sleep and Sarah eventually snapped and was like, "No, you sleep. I'll do Molly I'll rest later."
[00:54:01] So that was kind of hard to get used to. The idea that I couldn't help. But then also realizing that listening to Sarah and doing what she wants was the best thing I could do. So quite often during the day, you know, Sarah would be taking little naps and I would be with Molly alone, just doing whatever she needed. And I think that's the best thing most dads can probably do is just listen to the mum and do whatever she wants.
[00:54:35] 20 years of your life. Also, with breastfeeding, you know, I wanted to be involved, so we started trying to store milk. And so I could nurse her with a bottle and for many attempts she wouldn't take it. She would scream and spit it out. And so I started tasting it and it was just never good.
[00:54:58] Sarah: It was spoiled.
[00:54:59] Steve: And we read somewhere that sometimes like certain fat consistency or whatever in the milk. We never got it tested, but we're just assuming Sarah's milk wouldn't store in bottles. I just know that became a non-option.
[00:55:14] Sarah: So I wasn't able to pump. And I tried how many times -- a dozen or so? And something about lipids, like some women or whatever, it's like, you can boil it and then freeze it. And it just felt like too much work. It was like, we'll just nurse from the source. Like I hated pumping anyway. And I didn't have to 'cause I think I had 12 weeks of maternity leave.
[00:55:37] It was a very generous, very like privileged amount of maternity leave. And then when I went back, I was able to take Molly with me or work at home. It was the summer. So, you know, at NYU it was like a slower period for education. Like I wasn't, I didn't have to go to my preschools in the Bronx and Brooklyn, cause it was a little more like summer camp in the summer.
[00:55:59] And my boss again was very, very supportive and generous. And then we were moving to Chicago. So we were packing and when we moved, I didn't have a job at first. So I basically took off, I became a consultant, so I started working part time. So I could nurse and then leave the house for, you know, two or three hours and then come home and nurse again.
[00:56:21] And I was able to do some work from home, some, you know, curriculum writing and just kind of piecing together -- I was a grant reviewer for like federal education grants. So I could work at home while she was sleeping and then nurse, you know, before and after nap. And yeah, but back to Steve for a minute. He was so good with her.
[00:56:40] Like I remember, I feel like it was like the second day, maybe. He like gave her a tour of our apartment. I just remember hearing him being like, "And this is the office where Mommy 's writing her dissertation. And this is the bathroom. This is the kitchen where we make food." I was like, what is he doing?
[00:56:57] Like he's talking to her like she could understand language. But it was so sweet. It was so sweet. And I had finished my dissertation before she was born, but I hadn't defended yet. I think I defended when she was like six weeks old or something; that was crazy. I had just had some small revisions to make before it was finished-finished and I could graduate.
[00:57:22] So I remember him taking her on long walks so I could be alone. 'Cause if we were in the same apartment, she wanted to be nursing basically. Like she wanted to be touching me, attached to me. So the best times were when he would take her out in the baby Bjorn or the sling and then the Ergo. Right? Is that what they were all called? It was a long time ago. We've got lots of great pictures by the water and Bay Ridge. And yeah, Steve would take her out and that's when he noticed the milk was sour, because he would take a bottle and then he just was, it didn't work. So yeah, we were very fortunate on the nursing from the source, not having to pump and store and boil and all that stuff.
[00:58:11] Lisa: I'm glad you guys were able to identify what the issue was too, rather than, you know, continuing to try to offer the bottle and it just not working.
[00:58:22] I did want to ask, do you remember, did your insurance cover your home birth?
[00:58:27] Sarah: It did and it covered it so well. So we didn't really know ahead of time. I remember Kristen saying something like, " This is the cost." I want to say it was like five grand. I don't remember exactly. And it was kind of like, "This is what I'm going to submit for. And if your insurance doesn't cover that, then you'll have to cover the balance." And it was kind of like, okay, like, I was so opposed to hospital birth for myself that I was like, you'd have to pay me to give birth. Like, I was just like, I'll pay. And then my insurance covered a hundred percent of what she billed for. We were very fortunate. We were very, very, very fortunate.
[00:59:10] Lisa: I think she might at least back then she had the same biller as my home birth midwife. And that biller was just gifted in getting insurance to cover things miraculously. But it is a little bit -- like you're holding your breath, like, "Oh, is this going to work or not?" And my midwife just said, "Stay out of it. Don't even try to get involved. Just let her do her magic." And yeah, same for us. We were so, so grateful that it was covered. So just for listeners to know that your insurance may or may not cover part or all of a home birth, but it's worth investigating. Homebirths in general cost way less than hospital births. So just good to know. Thank you.
[00:59:52] Well, so are there any other things that you wanted to share as we start to wrap things up that you haven't gotten to share yet?
[00:59:59] Sarah: Yeah, I was thinking we were talking earlier. I loved the film, The Business of Being Born. I would highly recommend that to all expecting parents. It was phenomenal. And I loved that it was New York and I loved that they interviewed doctors from NYU hospital and they were like, "So how many natural births have you seen?" And they all looked at each other and they were all like, "Zero." And my brain just exploded.
[01:00:24] Lisa: Right? Mine did too. When I saw it in that second pregnancy.
[01:00:28] Sarah: I was like, "No way. You've never seen a natural birth? You've never attended a natural birth? And all you want to do is give everybody Pitocin." Like no way, no way I trust my body is meant to do this. I don't want all this intervention and pressure to make decisions when I'm not feeling well. No, I highly, highly recommend The Business of Being Born.
[01:00:53] I really recommend that Baby Catcher book which is less well known then -- and it's not all home birth. She's a hospital midwife at first. She's a nurse. And it starts in the hospital and then she goes into home practice and some of them are transfers to hospitals and some, they might even be hospital birth.
[01:01:08] I don't remember a hundred percent, but it's very, very, very good. It's not all just like pro-home birth. It's just birth in general, but it's a beautiful book.
[01:01:16] Lisa: I want to read that now and I'm going to link to that and any resources you've mentioned today, I'll be sure to link to those in the show notes.
[01:01:23] Sarah: Okay.
[01:01:24] Steve: I have one for dads. A children's book author -- the book's called Crawling, and his name is Elisha Cooper. And it's basically his first year of being a father. He's a freelance illustrator children's book author. So he works from home and lives in San Francisco. Very nice. But he's like this stay-home dad for the first year. So just for me, it was just like, I think most of the book is like dealing with having a newborn and what's it like, and how does it affect his day?
[01:01:59] And he got that nice feeling of being a dad, I guess, and being in your family and it's all very happy. And then right at the end, you know, she's like nine months old and breaks her arm or something. So this is sudden like little tragedy, which, you know, that kind of broke my heart when it happened because all of a sudden, there's this kind of emotional thing at the end, and you kind of realize what it's going to, maybe that's going to happen to me.
[01:02:23] What's that going to feel like when my kid gets hurt? And then a few years later he wrote the sequel. Where one of his kids actually has cancer, which is another, another level altogether. That first one, just as an introduction is nice.
[01:02:36] Lisa: I'm so excited you are introducing me to books that I have not heard of. And so I'm going to look that one up as well. Thank you for sharing that. And I imagine Steve, as an artist and a stay at home dad, that helped you just connect to that author on those specific levels. I want to give Steve a shout out, he is an amazing artist.
[01:02:55] I've seen some of his drawings and I'm like, "Oh my gosh," I never knew when you lived here, how gifted you are in that way. So I've been thankful to see that. Continue sharing your art.
[01:03:07] Sarah: Painted a lot of amazing portraits. Yeah, he's awesome. I also thought of a book that I can't think of exactly the title, something like Nursing Mother, Working Mother or something.
[01:03:18] That helped me a lot in terms of, again, it's short vignettes by different women who had different professions around pumping and just like the commitment. 'Cause I was a working mom, even though I was a part-time working mom. I was a consultant for her first five years of life. But I was pretty much just the sole wage earner. So even though I was a consultant, all of the family financial pressures were on me. So I was trying to juggle my commitment to nursing and not giving up. And that book was really helpful. And La Leche League. When we moved to Chicago, I started going to a lot of La Leche League meetings, too.
[01:03:54] But that book was really helpful if you're a nursing mom in terms of advocating for your rights of like a place to pump and breaks and that kind of thing. That book really, really helped me. Yeah, obviously we like to read, so I'm a literacy specialist, as I mentioned, I tutor kids. And the other advice I'd give to new parents would be in terms of your children's book collection, if you're going to start buying or getting books from the library, really important to get books with diverse characters.
[01:04:21] So we are white, we have European ancestry and from day one, we had diverse books of, you know, illustrations and photographs of kids around the world with different skin color and hair texture and facial features. And the music that you listen to Putumayo CD series has these like world music from all, you know, all different countries.
[01:04:45] Lisa: I love that series.
[01:04:47] Sarah: That stuff really matters much younger than most people realize. So a lot of anti-bias, anti-racism work starts with people in middle school and high school. When they think that kids are ready and it's actually so important in early childhood. And I'm talking like infant toddler pre-preschool pre- I mean, obviously some kids go to early childhood centers in terms of childcare needs. But the books that teachers read and parents read is so critical. There's an amazing book, I think it's out of print, but you can still get it, called Two Eyes, a Nose and a Mouth.
[01:05:21] Molly was obsessed. So it's photography. It's probably got 150 different pictures, just like headshots with a black background. It's so striking and it's a poem, you know, so it rhymes. It was out by Scholastic. But anyway, I really recommend Two Eyes, a Nose and a Mouth. And there's a lot of books that have, you know, LGBTQ families in them just to like normalize the diversity -- different religious backgrounds, people, you know, with Muslims who are wearing the hijab, like it's really important to get those images in front of babies and toddlers.
[01:05:57] Lisa: Yeah, I can't remember the exact article that I read at some point there about research that's been done on how early our biases start. So that really resonates. Thank you for sharing that.
[01:06:11] Sarah: Yeah, there's definitely research with three-year-olds for sure. And infants notice. So six-month-olds can notice skin color. That idea of kids being color blind is totally false. They don't have bias at six months, but they do recognize if they have caregivers, you know, in the home, out of the home, relative, they noticed the different amounts of melanin in people's skin. And it's nothing to be ashamed of.
[01:06:34] It's something to celebrate. And there's so many people really uncomfortable with talking about it. And it's really important for our children that we get more comfortable talking about it. Especially people of European ancestry tend to be least comfortable talking about it. And whoever's listening, I hope you feel proud of your heritage and celebrate everyone else with heritage. And the diversity in the world is a beautiful thing, including people who are really sensitive like myself.
[01:07:00] So I want to say happy birthday to Molly. Because 13 years is a big deal and it was one of the happiest days of my life, for sure, even though I struggled with my grief it was amazing to become a mom and to be growing with her as a mom over these past 13 years has been awesome. Just awesome.
[01:07:24] Steve: Oh, no. I was giving you your moment.
[01:07:26] Sarah: Do you want to say anything?
[01:07:30] Steve: Happy birthday, Molly from me, too.
[01:07:32] Lisa: And I want to say happy birthday, Molly. I'm sure that our girls will connect on her birthday and then on a couple of weeks before on Ella's birthday as well. So we celebrate your life, Molly. We love you very much, and it's been so beautiful to hear how you came into the world.
[01:07:53] So thank you so much, Sarah and Steve, this has been a treasured time. I'm really grateful you took the time.
[01:07:59] Sarah: Thank you for having us. Thanks everyone. Whoever's listening, thank you for listening to our story.