When Becky and her transgender husband decide to grow their family, it’s a long, winding road to meeting their baby. First step: make very careful adjustments to her depression & anxiety meds in order to conceive as safely as possible. Next step: the tedious process of seeking out a sperm donor. Then they had to go through 7 emotional rounds of IUI and finally IVF before they could even start a viable pregnancy. Today Becky shares all of those details plus her baby’s birth story, which starts with contractions in the middle of the night, being told she’s not actually in labor when she clearly was, augmenting with pitocin, Becky advocating to have her preferences be honored, and an otherwise fairly uncomplicated birth. She also shares a bit about her breastfeeding journey and how postpartum anxiety started around 3 months out from birth when baby went on a nursing strike.
We want to remind listeners, particularly expectant parents, to always curate for yourself which episodes you feel will build your confidence and not your anxiety. This is one of the more challenging stories in that Becky was the unfortunate recipient of patient gaslighting, which could be upsetting or triggering for some listeners. We doulas unfortunately see far too much of this during and after our clients’ labors. However, you’ll hear how smartly Becky advocates for her voice to be heard and her preferences to be respected, so this is one reason we felt this story could be very useful for expectant parents to hear.
If you do choose to skip the story, I highly recommend tuning in to the teaching portion at the end because I’ll go over some simple but powerful self-advocacy strategies that are a glimpse of what you’ll also learn if you come to birth class.
Resources:
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Episode Topics:
Before conceiving slowly getting off anti-depressants
Husband is transgender, so they needed to use a sperm bank, sharing about the selection process, choosing a donor with qualities similar to her husband
7 unsuccessful inseminations, took a break after 5th
Started taking fertility meds during the inseminations
After 7th unsuccessful one, decided to jump into IVF
October did IVF and it worked on first try
Birth story: wakes up with contractions around 6 minutes apart and a bit of spotting -- she goes to the hospital and they sent her home after double-checking dilation
Go home, labor at home 24 hrs -- confusing because she’d have consistent contractions that fizzled out in the evening
She goes in the next day and she’s 4 cm and decides to get epidural
The contractions were showing up inverted, confusing discrepancies in communication between hospital staff
Waiting for epidural
Doctor pressuring her to give pitocin, but Becky pushed back and said she wanted the epidural before pitocin
Had to administer the epidural twice
The hospital staff very abruptly telling her to start pushing
Around 40 minutes of pushing
Giving birth was the best day of her life -- surprised by the euphoria after birth for the first few days
Breastfeeding journey easy at first, then nursing strike around 2 months
Getting Covid around 5-6 months (parents and baby)
Tip to get to know other parents and learn from their experiences
For anyone scared of giving birth, be sure to prepare and educate yourself
Interview Transcript
Lisa: Welcome to the Birth Matters Podcast. Today I have with me, Becky. Hi, Becky, how are you today?
Becky: I'm good. How are you?
Lisa: Doing pretty well, thank you. So glad to see you. It's been over a year since you took my birth class, right?
Did you take my class fully virtually or a little bit in person? I'm trying to remember.
A few people were still in person and the rest of the class were virtual, and then I think by like week two, it was all virtual.
Lisa: Yeah, yeah, there were two couples who came in person. And then the rest of you were virtual.
I was thinking that you were part of that group, but I was like, I think they were fully virtual, but I can't remember for sure, because it was just such a crazy time, wasn't it?
Lisa: Right around the time of the shutdown and everything, the national emergency. Ooh. Glad we're through that.
Becky: Yeah.
Lisa: And I can't even imagine being pregnant. Were you in your third trimester or almost, maybe?
Becky: I was in the second when things shut down.
Lisa: Right, because you weren't due till July.
Becky: Yeah.
Lisa: Yeah, oh my goodness.
Well, first of all, could you just introduce yourself a little bit and if you'd like to share the neighborhood you live in, just anything that you'd like to share?
Becky: Sure. My name is Becky. I live in Whitestone with my husband, Cris. We had our daughter July 7th. So on Monday, she'll be 11 months.
Lisa: A fun way to almost celebrate the first birthday, because almost there, to share the birth story.
Becky: Yeah, yeah. It's been a crazy year. We've been at a really good part, thank God, for awhile now. What else?
I mean, she's doing great. She just started walking, she's saying a couple of words. We're just starting to look into things in our community that we can do with her, like an outdoor music class, something like that, because one of my biggest fears with the pandemic was, you know, we didn't know how long, would we have a good vaccine, would it, you know?
And I was like, how am I going to socialize her? Is she going to be afraid of people, of crowds, you know. She loves people, loves to meet people. She's so social. So thank God for that. And yeah, things have been going good for a bit now.
Lisa: And are you a stay-at-home parent or are you working?
Becky: Yeah, I stay at home with her.
Yeah.
Lisa: I'm glad you can do that.
Becky: Yeah, I actually love it. I hear about a lot of moms or parents who understandably kind of miss work or, you know, like staying at home wasn't for them, but I'm finding more and more that I really am content. I really love being home with her for the time being.
Lisa: So nice to hear. Nice when it works out that way.
Becky: Yeah.
Lisa: Great. Well, why don't you begin by sharing anything about the pre-birth journey? How did you prepare for conception, if you want to share that or just preparing for parenthood.
Becky: It was a pretty long journey. Well before we started trying to conceive, I started preparing my body a little bit, because just before you asked me if I would talk at all about having anxiety and depression, and that was upfront the first thing, because I was taking an antidepressant, antianxiety that was not safe for pregnancy. I think it was Effexor. It also can be pretty difficult to detox from.
So I think it was like a year before we even started trying that I started coming off that and slowly taking a smaller dose of something more pregnancy-safe. Because for me personally I can't be on nothing. So I had to find the safest way of keeping myself healthy. So that was the first part of our process.
And then eventually, the difficulty started once we started trying, I guess. Well I guess I would have to explain at this point, my husband is transgender. So our first attempts were insemination. So we had a donor, you know, anonymous donor.
Lisa: Do you mind my asking what the selection process was like for that?
Becky: Yeah, so we went through California Cryobank, which is like the most highly recommended Cryobank. They give you so much information. I mean, these donors must be working with them for several months, giving all the information, taking all the tests they have to take, coming back for more tests if requested, it's very, very thorough.
The only thing you don't really know about them is names, what they look like now. That's it, you get baby pictures of them, you get their whole medical, their family's medical history. So we narrowed it down a lot by, I particularly wanted the donor to be Italian because my husband's a hundred percent Italian, and I just wanted something that our child could have with his side of the family that's like a connection there. That's not, it's not all coming from me, you know? So that narrowed it down a lot. And then we went through many profiles and tried to find people who seemed to have similar, you know, values.
My husband's a musician. I think the donor was a musician and a comedian and things that we--
Lisa: Aww, that's cool.
Becky: had in common, yeah. So that was basically that. There was also a lot of genetic testing. Yeah, that's a process of finding an anonymous donor, for sure.
Do you remember, did that take weeks or months?
Becky: I would say, definitely months.
Lisa: Hmm.
Becky: Yeah, we probably started that within that year, where I was preparing physically. We started by going to a clinic and then the very next step was finding the donor and starting some testing.
We actually lost the first donor we really wanted because I tested as a carrier for Tay Sachs, and this donor was no longer available for more extensive genetic testing.
We couldn't take the chance and we had to find these different donors, so, yeah. That was a whole other process. But then we chose one and started trying. We did seven unsuccessful inseminations. We took a break after the fifth one, so it spanned almost a year of trying. Really difficult, emotionally.
Lisa: I can imagine.
Becky: Yeah, I never had a diagnosis of any infertility issues. That almost made it more frustrating, because I was like, they can't help me. They can't make this easier for me because they don't know why I'm not taking. But if you think about it, it's such a small chance every time, you know?
So I ended up starting fertility medications while I was still doing inseminations. And then, after the seventh one didn't take, we thought about all the different ways we could potentially move forward and decided to jump right into IVF.
Lisa: Do you mind my asking if your insurance would cover any of this?
Becky: Oh no, not our insurance, no.
Lisa: Oh, so sorry to hear that.
Becky: We didn't have any coverage.
There was also this drama at the place. We ended up switching fertility clinics and the one that we ended up with, I mean, all's well that ends well, but they had told us we were approved for a grant that would have covered a lot of it.
And it turned out that the person in charge of dealing with this did not properly look over our application, and we were never eligible to begin with.
Lisa: Oh, come on! Thanks for getting our hopes up.
Becky: That was a bad day. So no, no coverage.
You know, we'd saved a long time for this.
We imagined this, we had no idea how much it would cost. We knew it could be a whole lot. So we spent like, even before we got married, we'd been saving and saving in the event that this could cost a lot of money. And we made it work, and I believe it was October. Like I had to start in September, the different fertility medications and all that, the shots and October did the IVF and I was pregnant. So thank God.
Lisa: One time one round of IVF?
Becky: One time, yeah.
Lisa: Oh, thank goodness, after 7!
Becky: They had two viable embryos, so, you know, it was,
Lisa: Nerve-racking maybe?
Very nerve wracking, yeah. But yeah, worked with one try and you know, they told me I was pregnant and everything was great for about three weeks.
Becky: And then I started getting sick and I didn't get out. Well, back then we lived in a basement apartment. I didn't get out of my dark cave of a bedroom for two months.
So we've always called that the quarantine before the quarantine.
Lisa: Right, because that was only, I'm thinking like November, December, January-ish?
Becky: Pretty much, yeah. Even when I started to come out of the first trimester sickness, I became nocturnal in the process, while I was sick. And I've always had messed up sleep issues that took another couple of weeks to switch out of.
And then Cris and I, my husband, went on a baby moon to Miami, which we didn't know. We probably should've known at that point that it wasn't that safe to travel. Things had not shut down yet.
Lisa: It really crept up on most of us.
Becky: Yeah.
Lisa: I don't know. I just was sort of in Lala land, just thinking, oh, that's never going to, it's not going to come to us. Like, which is so ridiculous, given we live in New York city where everybody travels.
Becky: Yeah. We were definitely in Lala Land at that point.
I only found out later that my father was like freaking out that we were getting on a plane. We were not shut down yet, so we just didn't know. We weren't paying very good attention, that's what it was.
So we went on this trip and then everything shut down. So there was this, thank God I did get this break, where I was feeling a little bit better and we were able to go away and we had a decent time.
I wasn't a hundred percent, but we did okay.
Becky: And then it was like the majority of my pregnancy, I was very isolated. So, and I started feeling physically terrible again by the third trimester.
Lisa: Yeah, we were chatting before we hit record about how you and I were emailing about the severe fatigue you were having in April, May, going into your third trimester.
Becky: Yeah, it was pretty severe. I was pushing myself to do like 10, 20 minutes of stretching and yoga as many days as I could. Because I was listening to your podcast and I took the course and I really wanted to try and like get myself in the best physical, you know, preparedness that I could, but it was very, very little that I could manage to do.
I gained so much less weight than I ever imagined I would, because eating was just, all these women who talk about like bingeing, when they're pregnant, I have no idea how. Like nothing fit. I couldn't, you know, it was rough. It was really rough, and mentally, I was gone.
You know, for anyone who struggles with that in their pregnancy, I would hope they would take some comfort from my story because it did end. The depression I was in definitely ended once I gave birth. There was other postpartum stuff, but yeah.
Lisa: Sure. Yeah, and do you mind my asking, were you seeing a therapist at all during the pregnancy?
Becky: I think I was seeing her like every couple of months on the phone. To be honest, it was one of the worst depressions I'd ever been in, because you combine not being able to move or do anything, being worried about general pregnancy things.
I was terrified of labor and delivery and COVID, and I'm someone who's, for the past few years, I've been really active in advocacy.
And there were all these protests happening that I could have nothing to do with. And I felt really sad and, you know, we were all terrified last summer. It was just crazy with COVID and with, you know.
Lisa: Totally.
Becky: So it was an intense combination of things. And I even towards the end, late in my third trimester, I was on a very, very low dose of Zoloft and I increased it a little bit towards the end because, I mean, it got to that point where...
Lisa: Yeah.
Becky: Yeah, it felt like I had to.
Lisa: Sure, absolutely. Well, so then does that feel like a good time to go into the birth story?
Becky: Yeah.
Lisa: Or feel free to share anything else.
It's all like such a blur. All I know is like, it was really rough.
Lisa: The pregnancy, you're talking about.
Becky: Pregnancy, yeah. Trying to get pregnant, you know, it was hard. The hormones were hard.
But I do remember my birth story pretty well.
So basically, I was told to go to the hospital very early on. And I knew it was early on. My mom had ended up staying with us for some time, thank God.
And I remember waking up and being like, there's some blood, I've been having cramps since last night. Do you think?
You know, and then we called the doctor and the doctor said, "how often are you having the cramps?"
And it was like six minutes. And he said, "all right, go."
And I was like, "really?" Like, it just didn't seem like. I was like, it's not this fast. I don't think so. But we went and I was right. They were like, "yeah, this is early labor, but you got to go home." Basically. And there was confusion to begin with, because first they examined me, they said, "you should go home."
And then, after I had like gotten dressed and we grabbed our stuff and we were getting out, the resident doctor came to me and said, "I just spoke with your doctor and they want me to check you again." And I said, all right.
She said, you know, "maybe you progressed in the last hour."
Let's just, okay. So we went back, you know, did the whole thing over again.
"No, you haven't progressed, you should go home."
So it was already a little confusing. So we did, and I spent another, roughly 24 hours at home from that point. You know, the next morning I was having much more intense. It was so not what I imagined it would be like laboring. I think we learned in your class, but I completely forgot, that there's a possibility that you can be having regular contractions and they can get closer and closer and closer and then just stop for a few hours.
Yeah, early labor sometimes can be more non-text, but well, anything could be non-textbook, for sure. But early labor especially, what you're describing sounds like maybe prodromal labor, if it was completely fizzling out. It's like starting and stopping or speeding up and slowing down.
Lisa: If that happened, because you just said you were at home for like 24 hours and having that happen.
Becky: Well, it was consistent for the rest of the day after we got back and then around late evening, maybe eight o'clock, just stopped having contractions.
Lisa: Yeah, sometimes that can happen.
Becky: Yeah, so I was like, what is going on? Am I in labor? And then, you know, we looked up our information. It was like, oh yeah, this does happen sometimes. And I ended up sleeping a lot, considering I was having contractions, once they started again, I just remember, I would wake up to having a contraction, I would nudge Cris, he would wake up, write down the time and then we'd go back to sleep. That's kind of how we went through that night.
And then the next day, I went back and the resident was like, oh, yep, you're at, I think I was at four centimeters at that point.
They're like, great. She said, we can do an epidural if you're ready, if you want to. And I was like, yeah, let's like, I always intended on having the epidural, a hundred percent. So I was like, if you're offering it, yeah, I'm ready to have the epidural. And that's when things got really weird.
So, I guess I won't say what hospital I was at, because there was a really bizarre experience, but I will say, regardless of that, that the resident doctor and you meet so many nurses in the process. Every single nurse and person working there was amazing.
However, the doctor who did the delivery, who I of course had met before and had had appointments with before, she came in and almost contradicted everything I had just been told by the resident doctor. She was like, "you're not really at four centimeters. You're closer to three. You're not even really having contractions. You're not ready for the epidural. We got to put you on the pit right away (pitocin) for, you know, we don't know."
And I was like, wait, what, what, what, I'm not in, I'm not having contractions? And
Lisa: Seriously?
Becky: It was so confusing, I was like, what do you mean I'm not having contractions?
And she's looking at the monitor, just like, you're not having contractions, you're not really in labor yet. You're not in labor.
And I was like,
Lisa: Keep it to yourself, lady.
Becky: What do you mean? I don't remember if it was a nurse or, you could tell that there was probably some difficulty dealing with this doctor, like the way the nurses acted around her, very carefully.
One of the nurses had said, "she is having contractions. You know, we're watching her," you know, whatever they said. So apparently what was happening was that on the monitor, my contractions were showing up inverted. So instead of spiking up, it was dropping down.
Lisa: Hmm.
Becky: And I don't know if the doctor had never seen that before. They didn't really have an explanation for us as to why they were coming up that way. But regardless, I was having contractions, I was absolutely in labor.
Lisa: Believe somebody when they say they're having contractions, like really?
I was in so much pain, I wasn't up for arguing with her. I would just like, you look them in like a storm saying all this stuff. And I would just stare at her like, I don't know what the hell you're talking about, because I'm having contractions. So that was really bizarre. And then the resident came back. I explained to her what had just happened. I said, she said, I can't have the epidural yet. She said this, she said that. And the resident just kind of like took a deep breath and was like, " let me come back. I'll be right back." And I don't know what was going on, if there was any back and forth, but all I know is they started the process of the epidural with getting my blood work started.
Becky: And it was a long time in between them offering you the epidural and me actually getting it. Something went wrong with my blood work. They had to redo it, retake it. There was a long wait and in the midst of that, while I was waiting, every time the delivering doctor would come in she would keep telling me, "you know, you're not really in labor yet. You're not really, we're going to get you on the Pitocin. You got to go on the Pit, we got to put you on the Pit."
And I was like, by that point, I wasn't really getting relief between contractions anymore. It was horrible pain during the contractions and slightly less horrible pain in between.
I was shaking, I was crying, and the thought of being put on Pitocin without getting the epidural, I was like, it's not happening. It's not.
And this is where your class came in more than any other time during anything pre-, post- birth. Because you emphasize so much advocating for yourself.
And I took that away from it immediately. When people ask me, how was the class? I was like, you really get the sense that doctors don't listen to you when you take this class and that you really need to be prepared for that. And I was because of that. I thought of you, like saw your face when this was happening.
Becky: And she was finally coming to put me on Pitocin and I said, I'm not going on. I'm not. And she was like, You're not even, you're not there yet. You're not. And I said, well, I was already told that I can get the epidural now, they already started the blood. I don't know why. Bottom line, I'm not going on Pitocin without being given the epidural first.
Lisa: Good for you! Good for you! Because it makes a lot of sense, your rationale, and good for you for making your voice heard.
Becky: I just wasn't willing. I was in that level of pain where I was like, I'm not having this pain be increased at all without, you know. Because like I said, I never had any intention of having an unmedicated birth. That was the point where I remembered what we had learned, more than any other time. And I feel, even though I'm typically a fairly assertive person, I don't think that had we not talked about that so much in the course, that I would have said anything.
I think I probably would have been, like, she says that we, you know. But I remember you talking a lot about the pushing the Pitocin too. And I was like, I'm not doing this this way. And so yeah, it did, thank God, you know, she backed off and ended up getting the epidural. It had to be administered twice.
The anesthesiologist who was also lovely. Administered it and injected, I don't know what any of the actual medically what's going on with it, but injected something and he said, do you feel like a cold feeling in your back?
And I said, in my neck. And he gave me this look, in your neck? And this was one of my biggest fears about giving birth, the epidural won't work somehow. So when he gave me that face and said, I was like, no, no, I immediately panicked.
Lisa: Panicked, sure.
Becky: She's like, all right, it's okay. And then, I don't know if it was because of that or separate or both, but I did end up having, my blood pressure went up, and I felt very panicky.
My heart was racing.
Lisa: Usually, when they first administer it, it drops and then it usually fixes itself pretty quickly.
Becky: Or maybe it might've dropped. I remember something was off and I could feel it. He had just said, however he worded it, but he said, "I don't think that I did it wrong," but if I ever have any inkling that there's a slightest possibility that it was administered incorrectly, I redo it.
Apparently that weird neck back thing was enough indication that it could have been wrong.
Lisa: Yes, sometimes the medication can run up and sometimes it's evidenced by some issues breathing.
I haven't heard the coolness in the neck thing, but I assume that's probably a similar concept in terms of, they're hoping the medication will run down, but maybe sometimes it goes up.
Becky: I've heard of it going up. And he said back and I said neck, and I was like, no, it's happening, like one of my biggest fears here is that, you know, but thank God it didn't.
I had relief finally.
Lisa: Oh good.
I couldn't stop shaking, which is something I didn't know, sometimes.
Lisa: Yeah, I'm hearing that more recently from clients about shaking with an epidural. It's pretty expected when it's wearing off, but I'm starting to hear more and more stories of shaking once it's administered from then on.
Becky: Yeah, throughout.
Lisa: I'm sorry you had that because it really does make it hard to rest.
Becky: Yeah, I didn't really get rest, but I wasn't in pain anymore, so I was good. So I wish I had recorded myself telling this story right after it happened, in case I forgot anything.
I think that that was the extent of the confusion. Before the epidural, there was a lot of that, this doctor constantly coming in and telling me that I was not in labor, that I needed to progress further, that I was not having contractions and everything else indicating that was not the case.
It was just bizarre. It was bizarre.
Lisa: That really is bizarre. When you emailed me saying, using either the word bizarre or weird, I was like, what? And I can't wait to hear this. What was going on? What happened? And was this doctor someone you had met? Was it someone with your practice or was it the attending?
Becky: She was in the practice and I had met her and I had liked her before.
But that experience with her was, I remember going for my six-week post appointment and hearing her. She has very distinct voice, she sounds exactly like Edie Falco. So I remember hearing her voice down the hallway and being like, oh my God, she's going to tell me I didn't really have a baby, you know?
Lisa: Oh God, please!
Becky: So that was the weird part. There were so many, like, I just, not what I expected.
It was like all of a sudden they came in, checked me and said, okay, push. I think you're at the point. Okay, here's what we're going to do, we're going to go. They said I was at 10 and a half centimeters. And I thought that they wanted me to push, to see if I could get to 11 by pushing.
I don't know, that was the weird impression I was getting, but no, they just came in and they were like, oh, okay, you're ready now, push.
Lisa: And were you feeling any pressure, like rectal pressure?
Becky: Yes. Yeah, I could feel. At that point, I was not feeling pain, but I was feeling a lot of discomfort.
It felt like a full bladder feeling. And when I would have a contraction, I would feel light rectal pressure. Yeah, rectal pressure. That's how I knew I was having one. And I just remember it was only 40 minutes of pushing. And it felt faster than that, even though it was the most physically-demanding thing, you know, like running a marathon uphill.
Becky: They told me, after the first couple of pushes, they were like, this is going to go fast. You're really pushing.
And I remember thinking like, get this, was going to curse, get this baby out of me. I want her out. You know, just all this misery is about to be over.
Lisa: Particularly with the kind of pregnancy you had. I was like, I'm done, you're telling me this might go fast. Let's make it go fast. And I believe it, you know, a thousand percent. And everything from the time, from pushing to the couple of days after that, it's just like some of the best, best memories I'll ever have in my life. It was, you know what everyone says, just unbelievable.
Becky: My husband jumping up and down like, she's here, you did it, she's here, she's here, Becky, she's here! You know, it was just amazing.
Lisa: Did August come straight to your chest?
Becky: Yeah, pretty much. There was some, I can never say the word correctly, meconium?
Lisa: Mhm, meconium, yeah.
Becky: So they had to check her with that and make sure everything was okay. But yeah, pretty much she was straight to the chest. And my husband took these videos that he didn't tell me he took until like a month ago. And I'm looking at the phone and I'm like, you have videos of me right after she was born with like her leg, you know?
And he was like, oh yeah. Thanks for sharing.
Lisa: That sounds like something my husband would do. Just forgot that was there and just forgot to communicate that.
Becky: Have, you know, photographic evidence of the best moment of your life. Forgot to tell you.
Lisa: On the other hand, maybe what a nice surprise.
Yeah, it was really exciting to see that. But something that I did not know, whether I blocked it out or I just never learned it was that the hormones and the whole experience can put you in a state of euphoria in the very beginning.
Lisa: Absolutely, yeah.
Becky: Because I did not know that that could happen or maybe just that's what the hormones do to you, I convinced myself everything is wonderful forever now.
Lisa: Until the milk comes in.
Becky: Oh no. Yeah, I'd say it was like maybe day three or four. At least four. Because I was still really happy when I got home with her. But maybe day four or so, it was when I crashed hard, which is what I was expecting to happen. And yeah, like I said, those first few days, that's the best memory of my life.
Other than that, I have no love for the first six weeks. It was rough.
Lisa: Yeah, it's hard, getting used to very little sleep and feeding all the time and just so many new things. And the exhaustion from having given birth itself would be enough, right?
Becky: Yeah. Oh yeah. I didn't actually sleep for three and a half days.
Lisa: Oh, that's brutal.
Becky: Yeah, because there was no sleep during the, yeah, it was.
Lisa: You're talking about like during the labor.
Becky: Starting somewhere in labor to in the hospital with her.
Lisa: It's hard to sleep in the hospital.
Becky: Yeah.
Lisa: Yeah. Did you have a private room or a shared room or what?
Becky: Private room. You know, people talk about their experiences pre COVID and I can't imagine it being the normal way.
Because we weren't allowed out of the room. It was just, you know, me, Cris, and August, you know, all the different nurses that come in and no visitors allowed. And not even allowed to like go out to your car if you need.
Lisa: Yeah, last July, it was still pretty strict.
Becky: Yeah.
Lisa: Very strict. Yeah.
Oh, and did they do early discharge or how long do you remember how long you were in the hospital?
Becky: I think we were there the pretty typical amount of time. Went there Tuesday night and we left Thursday afternoon. Yeah, so that was pretty typical.
Lisa: Do you want to talk at all about initial breastfeeding?
Becky: Yeah. So it was pretty good to start with.
Lisa: How was your support in the hospital?
Becky: It was good. I mean, you know, they had a couple different lactation consultants, nurses. Honestly, the only bad thing about the hospital I went to was the delivery doctor.
Lisa: The one doctor, yeah.
Becky: Yeah, everyone else was amazing, so it was perfect. So there was a lot of support and she took to it pretty well. I think there's just very typical learning how to latch like that. That took her several days or I don't even know, maybe a week or so to kind of master that.
And the weirdest thing for me with breastfeeding slash having given birth was how my modesty did a 180. I remember being pregnant and my mom coming into my room one day and I was getting dressed after coming out of the shower and I was covering up. Like I'm very, very self-conscious and modest. And then you know, you've pushed a baby out in front of three people and it's like, what? Two days later walking around my house topless, trying to get the baby to let, just could not care less.
Lisa: Who cares anymore? Yeah.
Becky: It was wild to just have that automatic, like this is my priority now and I go, I don't care anymore.
Lisa: Nobody got time for being modest anymore or energy.
Becky: Exactly. So I mean, yeah, breastfeeding was pretty easy. I don't know. It was pretty straightforward in the beginning, and then it got really tough around two and a half, three months.
Lisa: I was expecting you to say like, when my milk came in, it got harder, because that's often a time that people struggle, but a couple of months later?
Becky: Yeah, no, she went on a nursing strike, which was something I'd never heard of.
Lisa: Oh yeah, sometimes that can happen.
Oh God, that started like at least two months long anxiety, OCD thing around nursing, pumping, is she eating enough? Because basically, I don't even know if it was a full on nursing strike. I guess, maybe for a couple of days, it was. But basically, she went into that more developmentally, that stage of being more distracted, like the first couple months, it was like she would nurse every two hours, but nurse for like 40 to 50 minutes.
Becky: So it was like, you know, I was just constantly nursing and she would take forever. Suddenly she was taking less than 10 minutes and I was like, she's not eating enough, or she was refusing or she, you know. I really didn't want to stop breastfeeding, I really didn't want to do formula, I knew it was okay if I chose to, but I just, something I don't know, I just felt really didn't want to do it. And I ended up having a lactation consultant come. Even a couple months after the strike she had had. I just never felt confident she was getting enough, that she was, you know, taking enough basically. And so I opened up to the idea of trying formula so I could stop stressing and obsessing so much. And she had it a couple of times. And the third time she had it, she had a major reaction, like vomiting for hours.
Lisa: Oh, goodness.
Becky: Yeah.
Lisa: Yikes.
Becky: So after that, she refused any kind of formula. I mean, obviously I changed formulas, I waited a couple of days, you know, and then she just refused any for a while. So I had to give up on the whole idea of maybe formula could work for us, at least for the time being, and then it just like transitioned into, it got easy for us again. She eventually started accepting a different kind of formula and we had it as a backup. If she ever refuses or if I ever don't pump enough, you know, we have this. And then we started giving it to her once a day so that Cris could give her a bottle at night. And then by that time it was like, I realized she really just doesn't need to nurse more than like six minutes.
Lisa: They often get very efficient.
Becky: Yeah, really efficient and I finally realized this is all she needs, she's gaining, she's eating enough, and she's still nursing. She's, you know, almost 11 months and we're still the easiest thing for us. So yeah, breastfeeding was the major journey with the postpartum anxiety.
Lisa: Yeah. Yeah. I've said this before and I'll say it again, it surprises virtually all of us, how emotionally-fraught breastfeeding is, body feeding is. You know, we just don't realize how much our identity as a parent is going to be tied into this feeding thing, and like, I'm a bad parent, if this isn't going well and you know, or if I stop and, oh man, it can really hit our mental health.
The most important thing I've learned about parenting for me, early on at least where I'm at, is to rely on other people who have had babies. Really don't be afraid to talk to other moms or, I don't want to be gender exclusive, but you know, other people who've given birth and who have children, who may have had similar experiences.
Becky: A woman who I used to work for, I used to take care of her kids. I remembered that when I took care of her 4-month old, that he had been like half formula, half nursing, and I wondered, you know, would that work for me? And I just wanted to talk to her about, could you tell me what made you go to that decision? And she told me that she was so depressed after her first son that she couldn't produce enough for him, that she stayed depressed for two years. And I thought a, I totally get that, and b, I am not letting that happen to me. That conversation was so important because I said, okay, I'm not going to ruin all our lives over the fact that nursing isn't going that great right now. I will try something else and I will let go and I will accept whatever, you know?
Lisa: Yeah. That's a good, healthy balance, I think. Yeah. Too many parents feel like, I must do this at all costs. And that's not always healthy for anybody, if it's at the cost of our mental health.
Becky: Yeah. That was enough, that just like woke me up. I was like, I am not letting that happen. Because I could easily see that happening to me, just falling into this depression over, you know, choosing not to breastfeed anymore or not wanting to breastfeed anymore, you know?
So that was, generally speaking, leaning on other parents when you go through things that are terrifying and surprising, has been so important for me.
Lisa: That's really excellent advice. Yeah. I'm a big believer that we need, we need each other, we need fellow parents, we need to be in relationship and in friendship with people who have babies about the same age, people who have gone before us, people who are coming behind us. Each of those have different values.
Someone was reminding me of that recently, and that really resonated. Yeah, and I'm glad you heard that one story to help inform your choices.
Becky: Yeah, and I'll remember things later like, August, there was that one incident where she had thrown up that I just talked about. And a few weeks ago I gave her a different kind of food and she threw up, and for a minute, I was really freaked out like, oh my God, what did I do to her? And then I remembered the first time she threw up, I talked to another mom who was like, my kids threw up all the time. Then I was like, you know what, this is the second time she's ever thrown up, she's fine. It's okay. You know, like you got to
Lisa: Have a normalization factor, yeah that can be helpful.
Becky: So yeah, breastfeeding was a big, I don't know, catalyst I guess, in the postpartum anxiety.
And we had a lot of COVID drama too, in her first six months. My husband owns a business with a partner, part owner. The partner's wife had COVID at one point and I had already been at my mom's for a little bit without him. And when we found out she had COVID, I was like, I'm just going to stay here until we know everybody's negative. And so I decided to stay at my mom's with the baby during her 4-month sleep regression, where, as it turned out, she was also teething and I couldn't swaddle anymore, because she was rolling over and it was the election.
Lisa: Oh, boy, what? Oh, no. Talk about anxiety.
Becky: I remember falling asleep on my parents' living room floor while she was finally sleeping for a couple hours at night. Because her regression was so hard. And then in December me, my husband, August all got COVID.
Lisa: Oh my goodness. Oh, so sorry.
Becky: We'd been so careful.
Lisa: Mm Hmm.
Becky: So isolated and we made one mistake being around my dad for one hour. I don't know, we were around him like an hour, and he said he didn't feel well. And we didn't believe him because he's kind of a known hypochondriac. And it was the sixth time thinking he had had COVID that year, and we were like, whatever. And we weren't super near him, but I don't know, whatever happened, my dad did, he was positive for COVID and then the three of us were all positive. And then thank God, August had like one rough day. It was like having a cold for her one day and I wasn't too sick.
And Cris got very sick, but. Honestly, like ever since then, and that was when she turned 6 months, everything has been awesome. It really has. I feel like I needed six months and this is something I would love for any people preparing to have a baby. If you're scared about the life change, honestly, I think it took me six months, and a rough six months at that, to adjust.
You just have to adjust to your life being so, so different. And six months makes sense to me. It's like they tell people, if you move to a new city, give it six months before you decide if you hate it. And ever since I adjusted to being a mom and being full time 24/7 a mom and getting past all the bumps we had, it's just been awesome. She's just the best.
Lisa: Six months is such a nice age, starting around then they're just, they're so much more interactive. I mean, they start to be a little interactive at around three months, but like really, at six months, they're just so much fun. I remember that age and I miss it.
Becky: Yeah. She's exactly that, she started being kind of a comedian and she's just so determined. She's always onto the next thing. She's like, I can sit up, great! It's time to crawl. Oh, I can crawl now? Time to stand up, and she'll just work on it and work on it, and she's just so funny.
She has such a sense of humor. You know, we've worked on sleep very hard but she's taken to it and she sleeps great. There was a really rough, rough time in that first six months that I'm kind of glossing over, but it's, it's all been worth it.
Lisa: Hm. Were there any sleep resources that you found to be helpful? Any books or courses or anything?
Becky: I kind of used a few different things. There's Sleeper Teachers, you can follow on Instagram to get information on that. There's another, what is it called? All the Sleeps, is another one. So I basically compiled all the different common advice that they give on how to work on sleep.
Starting at six months, how to try and work on it as they get older, how to try and work on the form of regression, you know, is sleep training right for you? And honestly, being stay at home during a pandemic was really, really hard for a while, but it also gave me the opportunity to work on naps every day and just take our time, you know?
Lisa: Sure, and have a lot of consistency.
Becky: A lot of consistency, yeah.
Lisa: Hm, nice.
Great, well, as we start to wrap things up, are there any other things that you haven't gotten to share that you wanted to share or any other additional insights for people who are listening?
Becky: You know, the only thing I would try to tell anyone who's scared like I was, I was really, really scared, particularly about labor and delivery, and I took your course and I took in everything as much as I could, but at the same time, I was so scared that it almost felt like too much preparation at times.
Lisa: Sure.
Becky: Cris would want to like, let's try these, you know, the different, I don't know what you call it when you show like different ways that the partner can
Lisa: Hands-on comfort measures?
Becky: Yeah and I'd be like, I don't want to think about it. I don't know. I would just encourage people to take a course like yours and read up as much as you can.
And if you can do yoga, do it. And if you can, don't be so scared that it shuts you off from preparing yourself and from learning about, you know, what lies ahead.
Because there were a lot of big twists and turns and surprises for me because I did kind of, you know, shut down. But like I said, I did get a lot from your class and from your podcast.
And you know, sometimes I would hear people talk about how they were exercising all the time and I'd be like, how are these people doing it? You know, sometimes you get so like you don't compare.
Lisa: Comparison, yeah.
Becky: Yeah.
Lisa: That can be not so helpful.
Becky: Do what you can and don't compare. Yeah.
Lisa: Well, thank you, Becky. It's been so lovely to reconnect after over a year and so much happening in the world and in your life.
Becky: Thank you.