Michelle knew all of her life that she experiences medical anxiety and convulsive syncope. So, when she started thinking about her deep desire to grow a family, she started educating herself and preparing strategically. Knowing herself and her anxiety challenges, she started planning for an unmedicated birth. Along the way, her strategies included eventually changing OBs who would be more supportive of her preferences and needs, hiring a doula, doing lots of research and taking birth class. This is a story of how this preparation contributed to her well-supported, uncomplicated, unmedicated hospital birth.
Resources:
Oak Point Health & Vitality Centre - acupuncture (Astoria)
Sarah Sandona, FemFirstHealth (Long Island City pelvic floor PT)
3R’s tip sheet (Birth Matters)
Sponsor links:
East River Doula Collective (find a doula, attend our free “Meet the Doulas” event, workshops/classes)
Episode Topics:
Medical anxiety and convulsive vasovagal
Doing therapy in her 20s to work through this to prepare for giving birth and conquer her fears
Fainting during blood work at an early pregnancy appointment, learning to advocate for herself because she knows her body
After that first visit, things were pretty okay with this care provider
Having a healthy, uncomplicated pregnancy
In February, got a mild case of shingles, another red flag with care provider as they were dismissive and fairly uncommunicative
Started doing some research on cesarean rates at her hospital and her OB’s practice
Had a friend who’s a doula as a resource but not available for her due time
Eventually finding her doula, Jaime Lewis, through the Astoria Doula Collective
One of the doulas she interviewed advised her against her current hospital/practice
The final straw toward switching care providers asking OB about opting out of IV fluids and having a horrific, scary reply
While seeking out other OB options, she is told she needs to do the challenge test but refuses
Shifted to Dr. Taiwa-Rutherford at Weill Cornell
Seeing a pelvic floor therapist for some back pain she was having
Doing a few things to help things along - dates, red raspberry leaf tea, bouncing on ball, walking, Spinning Babies exercises
Aug 6th, the night before she goes into labor - had a bbq at sister-in-law’s house, while driving home got her first lightning crotch experience, strong enough they had to pull over
Next day, getting frequent, rhythmic urge to pee and pressure
Contacting doula
Labor coping techniques -- ball, frozen massage ball, laboring in bathroom
Jaime arrives around 9pm, they leave for the hospital
Triage unpleasant, getting hep lock, encouraged by being 7cm
Dr. Bradley was the OB on call and she was encouraged when she told her she’d see her for pushing within 2-3 hours
Did a little practice coached pushing right before full dilation, needing baby to come down a bit more
Pushed a few contractions on all fours and in other creative positions before Dr. Bradley comes in and asks her to be on her back, which worked fine for Michelle at the end
Takes only 3 contractions and 9 pushes for him to come out
Euphoria after birth, not able to sleep
Challenging 1st urination before transferring to postpartum unit
Vague baby announcement text to family/friends causes an uproar
Early breastfeeding and exhaustion
Starting a business just before having a baby
Interview Transcript
Lisa: Hi, Michelle. Welcome to the Birth Matters Podcast.
Michelle: Hello.
Lisa: I am so excited to have you here today. Thanks for joining me.
Michelle: Me too. I'm so excited. I love talking about birth and my pregnancy and my birth story and haven't been able to share the whole thing with you yet, even though we talk quite often. So, I'm really excited to be here.
Lisa: Michelle just happens to, I think you found me through the podcast, didn't you?
Michelle: Through the podcast, and actually, I think the first place I really found you was when we started looking for a doula and someone, or I read somewhere about the [East River] Doula Collective, and that's what made me reach out to you first. Then I realized you had classes and all these other things, and I think the first time I spoke with you, we actually weren't quite neighbors yet. We were both living in Astoria, but I'll let you share a little bit about fun situation.
Lisa: Yeah, and so we shared the same house number, but Michelle is one block over, one block west, I believe of where we live. And so, it was so funny when you filled out the class intake form, I was like, wait a minute, what? 2030? wait, what?
Michelle: Yeah, she lives right there. That was great, when we discovered that you were like, do you live at this address? And I'm like, yeah, we just moved to this address and we're literally around the block from each other.
Lisa: And so, you took my online course and then did the add-on of a private comfort measures workshop, right?
Michelle: Correct, correct. My husband and I really wanted to do an in-person class. It was important to us, but scheduling-wise, it just didn't work out. And it was so great to know that you're so close and we run into each other sometimes when I'm walking in the neighborhood. And so, I felt doing the online course, and then scheduling that private workshop with you really was so great for us, it worked out really well.
Lisa: And it was really fun that originally, that was going to be a virtual private session, but we were like, we live so close, and it feels like it's getting safer, and we're vaccinated and let's do it in person. And that was delightful to get to do that.
Michelle: So helpful too, which I'll talk about later, but it was great.
Lisa: Great. I didn't ask you to introduce yourself yet, if you would, please just share with us how long ago you gave birth, and well, we already talked about you live in Astoria, Queens and just anything you'd like to share.
About Michelle
Michelle: Okay, great. So, I gave birth to my first baby five weeks ago yesterday. He was born, we have a little son, his name is Van. His full name is Evangelos, we are Greek. So, his name is Evangelos, but we call him Van and he is has a variety of nicknames in Greek and English, which I was just telling you, if you live in Astoria, you might know that that happens a lot with the Greek culture.
Our son, Van is five weeks and I do live in Astoria with my husband, Costa, who I sometimes also refer to as Gus, just heads up. And I'm an early childhood educator, so I teach, this year, I'll be working when I do go back to work in a three-year-old classroom. I work in a private preschool in a synagogue on the Upper West Side.
Michelle: So, children have been, always a really integral part of my life. My husband and I have 11 nieces and nephews together. We're both one of four children, and so we have really big families and lots of kids around all the time. Our oldest niece is 15 and the youngest, besides Van now, is three, and so I've spent a lot of time taking care of our nieces and nephews, helping our siblings.
When I went to college, I went to school two days a week and helped my siblings with the kids the other three days a week. So, for me, becoming a mom has just been like such a dream of mine for, I can't remember a time where I didn't dream about becoming a mother, and so this has just been the most amazing, magical experience for me. And I am on some other level of euphoria still, five weeks in, that is just, it's incredible.
Lisa: I love it. And I don't think I've asked you this, given the many children in the family, do you have an idea of how many kids you two would like?
Michelle: Yeah. I mean, we always say four, like that's just our number, because I think we're both one of four. I was always really worried about birth and my pregnancies, and I know that every pregnancy can be very vastly different, and every delivery can be vastly different. But if I have the experience that I just had, I would have 10 more kids, I would keep it going if we could, you know, as long as I'm healthy and my children are healthy and, look, we live in New York, so as long as we can afford it, I think we'll just keep going until it makes sense. But four has always been like our number. I don't know if we'll definitely have four, but we'll see.
Lisa: And I just wanted to mention for listeners who might not live in the New York City area, that Astoria is a very predominantly Greek neighborhood. And I love living here because I've learned a lot. I have a lot more to learn about Greek culture. I've always wanted to go to Greece, I still haven't, but I love all the Greek restaurants and just getting to know lovely Greek people in our neighborhood, it's a really cool place to live.
Michelle: I'm happy you feel that way.
Preparing for the pregnancy
Would you please start off by sharing a little bit with us about your pregnancy and the ways that you prepared for this journey into parenthood?
Michelle: Absolutely. So, I want to preface talking about my pregnancy with something that's just a really important part of my life. For a long time, I considered it part of my identity, which it is, but I really had to find a way to also steer away from that. And I've been very lucky through a lot of amazing therapists I've worked with in my twenties and in my like young adult life that have helped me to get through this.
High anxiety & convulsive syncope
Michelle: But I'm a person who really, my whole life suffered from really high anxiety. And a lot of my anxiety really revolved around the medical world. I guess that since I was a young child, I had a history of traumatic events in doctor's offices, always had horrible issues with vasovagal reactions and needles since I was very young.
When I was four, I had my first, what they thought was a seizure, which we actually found out after all these years, I have something called convulsive syncope, so when I do faint, a lot of the time, my body responds in a way of convulsions. It could mimic looking like a seizure, I've been tested many times. I've never actually had a real seizure. But I've learned now in my adult life that my body, one of the ways it responds to stress is by shaking. My husband has vasovagal syncope, but I haven't heard of the convulsive version.
Yeah. So, I've had this for as long as I can remember. And, there've been times in my life where I've been able to manage it really well, but something that was always really difficult for me was thinking about the future and how important it was for me to have a family and if I was, blessed enough to be able to get pregnant and birth my own children, like how was I going to do this, How was I going to do this?
My husband and I really worried about it, and I really worried about if I'd be able to physically and mentally handle this time in my life. And so, I dove right in, like in my twenties, I did a lot of therapy and a lot of work to really get throughreally for this moment. it was for a lot of other things in my life also, to just be able to function better and generally lower my levels of anxiety and things like that.
Michelle: But it was really important to me to be able to conquer these types of fears, in order to reach this time and become a mom. So, I've been through the ringer with a lot of different doctors my whole life, some have been great, most of them have dismissed the intensity of this anxiety that I've always had or told me like, oh, you're going to get over that, or you've got to grow out of that, or a lot of different things over the span of my life. But it was really important to me to find a provider who I thought could really understand me and work with me on this.
Found an OB-GYN
Michelle: And so last June, not the one that just passed, June of 2020, I found a new OB-GYN who I spoke to very in-depth about this. And I really thought that this particular provider understood what I was talking about. So, in June of 2020, was the first time I met my first care provider that I had been using in this pregnancy. So, I will talk about how I did switch care providers pretty late in the game. But that summer of 2020, right before we started trying to get pregnant, I had found someone that I really liked, someone who was an OB in an office that was pretty large. So, I had found out later that, this office was pretty large. The plan was to meet as many care providers as I could, just to make sure I was comfortable with everybody.
And this was before I fell pregnant. And then come November of 2020, we found out I was pregnant, a few days after Thanksgiving, which was so exciting. Took us a few short months, but we were just, through the moon. My husband and I have been together for 13 years and our families are super close andhis family really is my family.
His parents are really like my parents and they've known me since I was 16 years old. And so, us announcing, like we were pregnant over the holidays to everybody was just, it was magical. our families couldn't be happier. I'm my mom's baby, and I'm the baby by many years. So, it's been a long time on our side since we've had a baby in the family.
So that was just an amazing time. And, with regards to my medical anxiety, for example, my first prenatal appointment was really rough. And this is like the first experience I had at that care provider, not to base everything off of it. It's funny, it's one of those things where like hindsight is 20/20.
When you look back at everything, you think of all the things you should have known or seen or wondered about.
Lisa: But how could you know, if this is your first time doing this?
First prenatal appointment
Michelle: Exactly. And so, for example, at my first prenatal appointment, the actual appointment went great, I got an ultrasound, I was I think just about six weeks pregnant at the time.
It was like right before Christmas, maybe five weeks pregnant. But I needed to get blood work done, which has always been tremendously difficult for me and traumatic. And I usually wind up having some sort of convulsive syncope episode. And if a doctor or nurse or any care provider that doesn't know me hasn't seen me have one of those before, it's like very scary. And because of COVID, my husband wasn't allowed to come in the room with me, which not having a support person at many of these appointments was really hard for me. But also emotionally, and just with regards to my anxiety, I need somebody there who knows how to help me get through.
And so, it was really difficult for me. And I wound up letting the nurse at the appointment talk me into sitting up for the blood work, which I knew in my gut was the wrong choice. She asked me to sit in a chair that was closer to the countertop, to make it easier for her to do what she needed to do and change out vials and XYZ. I'm not a nurse, so I don't know, I let her talk me into it. And when I think back, that was like my first chance to really advocate for myself and say, you know what, I know this is easier for you, but I can't do this. I will faint. It won't be a good situation. It can't be good for the baby and for me, and instead, I let her do that and I wound up fainting and they wound up pulling my husband in from outside, who was waiting in like 20-degree weather or whoever called it was outside the door and couldn't understand why I had been in there so long, and was worried that I had fainted, which of course I did. So, after that, they listened to me once in a while.
Lisa: You'd like to think!
Michelle: Yeah, exactly.
And I remember leaving that appointment and I felt awful. I felt nauseous and sick, and we were going to take the subway home and I couldn't even stand. And my father-in-law came and picked us up, thankfully. We were like scared at the time to take Ubers, because it was like in the height of COVID.
And my husband, we got home, and I finally felt a little better, he was like, look, your body, you know yourself, you need to speak up. You cannot let anybody tell you what you need when it comes to these medical choices. And I was like, you're right.
And we've talked a lot about looking forward into the pregnancy and what our plans were for this issue. And so automatically, I don't even remember when we talked about it. I think it was before I was pregnant, but we knew hiring a doula and having somebody with us would be tremendously helpful.
It's funny, before I was pregnant, before I started doing any research on what type of birth I dreamed on having, I was so committed to having an intervention-free birth, strictly because of my anxiety. I don't know how else to say it, but almost like in a selfish way, I didn't want to get the epidural because I didn't want that needle, or I was afraid of how I would panic. So, it really had nothing to do with, this might be better for my body or for my baby or for, it was really just about, I can't handle all these things, so I'm just not gonna do them.
Lisa: That makes a lot of sense.
Yeah. I was like, we can have this baby at home, and my husband's like, meh like, it's our first baby, He wasn't on board, yeah.
Wasn't like super on board now we'll discuss further, but he was nervous. I had never been admitted or been a patient in a hospital and not even in the ER myself, my whole life, until I had the baby. So, for me, this was all very scary, and I never had good experiences, even just being a visitor at a hospital.
Michelle: So, I was really worried about that.
An amazing pregnancy
Michelle: But to continue with my first care provider, after that first visit, things got a little bit better, I was just a really good advocate for myself. I wound up doing fairly well through the rest of the pregnancy, with the blood work and all the different kinds of testing they had to do. It wasn't easy for me, but I did it, and I'm so lucky and so grateful. I had an amazing pregnancy as far as generally, how I was feeling physically. I had no morning sickness, I felt amazing. Maybe a little tired in my first trimester, but I did great. I felt normal, I was able to exercise and keep up with my lifestyle.
We used to laugh, if someone didn't know I was pregnant, I could've hidden it for a very long time. And my family, I could have hidden it from easily. I think it would have been like, if I was not drinking wine at a family event, someone would be like, are you okay? Of course, we told everyone pretty early in the holidays and it's hard to hide it any longer.
I really had an amazing pregnancy.
February shingles
Michelle: One of the only big hiccups that I did have was in February over the president's week break. I came down with a very mild and manageable case of the shingles, which was really interesting, and I don't know anybody else that happened to. This experience of having the shingles was my next big red flag for working with this provider.
And it really was all about communication. I was obsessively calling the office to speak with my doctor, and I wasn't getting any call back. And if I was getting a call back, it was from a nurse or someone who would just basically tell me, go to the dermatologist. And then I have my dermatologist saying, please check with your OB on taking X, Y, Z.
I wound up deciding to take Valtrex to try to slow down and manage symptoms a little better. And that was a big decision for me to have to make. It was my first pregnancy, I really didn't want to have to take medication. Was it safe? What were the potential risks and side effects and all these things?
And I just wanted to talk to my doctor, one time.
Disappointed in the first care provider
Michelle: And long story short, I finally got a call back from my care provider, 14 days after I got diagnosed with the shingles, which at that point, it was over. And so when she called me to say, oh, I see in your chart, you made a lot of phone calls and you've been trying to get through to us.
And how are you feeling? I see you have the shingles. I was kind of like, well, it's over. I don't really need to talk to you anymore. I'm better, but I didn't hear from you for two weeks. And you know, it was really disappointing, but I still told myself, I don't know, I was very committed to my initial decision of working with this care provider.
I haven't mentioned yet that the hospital I was supposed to deliver at was also the hospital where all my sisters and sister-in-law’s delivered and it was very familiar to me, and I felt very comfortable there. I know the hospital inside out, from being a visitor. And so in my head, it just was the place, that's where we're going to go.
The hospital, I found out later, had a pretty high C-section rate. And it was around this time where I started doing more research on those types of factors. What did the statistics look like in the practice that I was currently working with?
So the hospital statistics look like, what kind of birth now that I'm a little more comfortable when I'm actually pregnant, I'm doing pretty well managing my anxiety, what kind of experience do I really want to have? I started listening to podcasts and stories and reading a lot and watching videos, something I never would have done.
Years ago, I could never imagine handling watching a video of a woman giving birth. And now it's like all I do all day long. But it became really apparent to me that I needed to start considering this decision. And if this particular care provider's office was going to be able to, not only offer me the things that I wanted, but support me in my decisions.
Michelle: And I started to question it, but we're still pretty committed to sticking with it. The pros outweighed the cons for me at that point.
Did her own research
Michelle: But meanwhile, in all this time, over the winter and the spring, like I said, I started really learning about physiological birth, and the process. Did my own research, reaching out to people.
I have a friend who's a doula who could not be my doula through this for timing purposes. And she's like a really strong kind of advocate, and she's really like deep in the dirt. She's great and I really wanted to work with her just because of that. And actually, it's funny the way it worked out, because it brought me to somebody else that I was so happy to work with that she couldn't work with me, but I talked to her a lot about my options and what I should be doing and what kind of research I should be doing leading up to my labor and delivery.
Found [East River] Doula Collective
Michelle: And so through my research, I found the [East River] Doula Collective, which is what brought me to you. And I think I reached out to you first, it might've been March of 2021. So I was like in my second trimester, probably a little late to the game as far as looking for a doula, but maybe right on time. I don't know if there's a really wrong or right.
Lisa: No, there isn't.
Michelle: But later than I want it to be, let's put it that way. Our lives were just extremely busy and we were leading up to moving and switching apartments. And I had reached out to you and you had been putting me in touch with a lot of different amazing women.
And I wound up working with Jaime Lewis, who was so great. And I know that you know her pretty well.
Another interview with a doula
Michelle: It's funny, I do want to share a story about another interview that I had done with a doula who came highly recommended to me from a family friend. And so I figured, I should absolutely interview her and see if we connect. And we didn't connect.
She wasn't the right fit for me, but she came highly recommended, and what was really interesting to me, is that she had worked very closely with a lot of the care providers in the office that I was currently receiving care at and at the hospital where I was scheduled to deliver. And she started to tread lightly when we first started our conversation about the type of birth that I was looking to have, but eventually, by the end of the conversation, she said to me, you're not going to have this experience with this office or with this hospital.
She said, "it's going to be really difficult for you. You're going to have to really advocate for yourself. They're not going to make it easy for you. And if you feel like that's going to be really hard for you, then you should consider switching doctors."
The Switch
Michelle: But I was approaching the end of my second trimester at that point or right in the middle, and I was like, at this point, switching care providers, how can I do this? And then came for me, like the final straw, which was in approaching my third trimester. I call this my notes, "The Switch," and when I say the switch, literally, the switch of doctors and mentally for me, my mindset, just so many things shifted for me at this time.
Glucose test
Michelle: When I was approaching my third trimester, I had to do the glucose test, which I really wasn't looking forward to. I scheduled it for the later afternoon, because I had never in my life given fasted blood work before, and I was really afraid to do it first thing in the morning. And they told me at the office that was fine, and that I would just fast an hour before the test and the glucose come in and we'd do the blood work together.
At that time, I think, what's the word, mandate or, the restrictions had just eased up and my husband was actually able to come with me to that appointment, which was really great for me. And I knew I'd be getting blood work done, so I was really happy to have him as a support person there.
So we went together, the test went fine, the blood work went fine. And at that appointment, I had already had a list of questions that Jaime, our doula had helped me come up with and sent me some things to consider and start talking to my doctor about, because we were getting further along, and so I didn't always have a lot of time with my doctor. So every visit, I would squeeze in a few questions and check them off the list.
And one thing that would happen at this appointment was, I decided that was going to be the day that I talked to my doctor about how I really didn't want to be hooked up to fluids and how I really didn't want to have an IV or even a hep-lock.
I was really worried that I mentally wouldn't be able to handle it and that it would cause me to panic in my labor, and that it would be impossible for me to recover from, and that it would be really dangerous for myself and for the baby.
I've seen myself, I've watched myself on the monitors, I've watched my heart rate get up to 150 in a doctor's office, and I really wanted to avoid that.
So we spoke about it and it was an immediate, no, you need to be hooked up to fluids. And I shouldn't even say it was immediate, no. When I asked what the policy was or what their common practice was, her response, instead of answering my question, her response was, how are you going to stay hydrated?
Lisa: Oh, have you ever heard of a drink?
The last straw
Yeah, so I responded like that's not really what I'm asking you. I'm asking you what my options are, I'm asking you, what's going to happen if I deny an IV or a hep-lock or port, you know, what's going to happen?
Michelle: And her response, I will never forget in probably my whole life, verbatim was, "Well, if you're not hooked up to an IV and I need to get this baby out of you in 60 seconds, then it's going to look like me slapping Lidocaine on your stomach and cutting you open. And if you bleed out and if you die, I'm just going to be looking at you on the table, like, well, she didn't want the IV."
Lisa: Oh my God.
Michelle: So, I looked over at my husband. We were very calm, I was very calm. I didn't say anything to her, we finished the appointment. And we got in the car and I was like, I think we're done. I think we're done. And my husband said, "I can't believe she said that. if you're done, I understand."
And there was a lot of anxiety about thinking of switching at that point. I think at that point I was maybe 27 weeks pregnant or something like that. And I knew it wasn't going to be an overnight thing. I knew I wasn't going to find a new care provider the next day, that could definitely take me on at that point. And the thought of switching hospitals, even though I knew in my gut, it was probably the right thing was just so daunting and anxiety-provoking. But I talked a lot about it with my husband and our families, my friends, the people who I really felt supported me.
And then, I think I reached out to you, Lisa, about some ideas about different care providers that you thought would be a good fit for me.
And then, I had a really great conversation with Jaime who, even when I told Jaime the story of what happened, remained very calm. I know deep down, she told me later she was horrified, she didn't want to sway or push me in any way, and she said to me, or I said to her rather, "Do you think I need to switch? Should I switch providers?"
And she said to me, "I think you need to switch." it wasn't about what anybody else thought, but she knew just by talking to me, that I was really uncomfortable, and this is going to set me up for a really hard rest of my pregnancy and potentially, a really crazy experience in the hospital.
Failed the glucose test
Michelle: And on top of all this, the straw that broke the camel's back, was that I failed the glucose test by one point. And at that point, I was still using that office of my care provider while I looked for another one, and they made it miserable for me.
I basically called and said that I was not interested in picking the second round of testing.
I was so worried about making it through one session of blood work that I didn't know how I would make it through two or three back-to-back, on no meals. I heard horror stories about people feeling really sick, people who aren't definitely afraid of bloodwork, feeling really sick and unwell in this visit.
And I just said, there has to be another way. There has to be something else we can do. And they kept telling me, again, wasn't getting any feedback from my doctor herself. It was always like nurses or administrative staff who kept telling me, this is what we do. And that's the only option."
And finally, after a week, "Okay, you're not going to take this second test, then we're going to refer you out to a gestational diabetes clinic, or I don't know what to call it, it was some you know, office through the Maternal-Fetal Medicine office. And they'll tell you what to do, but they were basically treating me like I had been diagnosed with GD, which I hadn't been.
So what we did opt to do in the end, was at home, we monitored my sugar, which was also really hard for me, you know, needles are not my friend, but now that I've done that, I would choose it every time. It was much easier for me.
My new care provider, who I finally signed on with, she looked at all my numbers and ruled out GD very quickly, based on a number of other factors. And so, very lucky that worked out the way it did, but they made it difficult for me. And so that was the end of my rope with them.
Ended up at Weill Cornell
I wound up interviewing a few practices and ultimately, went to receive care at Weill Cornell. And I was seen under the care of Dr. Teaiwa-Rutherford, she was incredible, but I did know signing on with them, that she was actually going to be on vacation the week of my due date. So we didn't know, look, we didn't know, regardless, who would be on call the night or the day that I went into labor.
Michelle: So for us, for me, it didn't make a huge difference to say yes to working with them. But I was able to, the rest of my pregnancy, meet with everybody on the team. I just instantly felt connected to all the doctors there. They all really respect physiological birth and don't push any interventions.
I'm just so happy to be with them and to be with the hospital.
Questions while seeking a new care provider
Lisa: Were there specific questions that you asked as you were seeking a new care provider to help you decide on who to choose?
Michelle: Yes. I would ask, it was more generic things like statistical stuff. What's your C-section rate? How do you feel about X, Y, Z? I think what was important, I don't know if this answers your question, but I think it will be helpful, what was important was, me going into these interviews with the new provider, and I did this every time I went to the doctor after that, really showing what I knew.
So I found ways in conversations with doctors to show my level of knowledge about physiological birth, and something about that really changed the game. The doctors, instead of treating me in a way of telling me what I had to do or what everybody else does or what they typically do, I don't want to say they knew I knew better, but sometimes it felt like they understood that I was really knowledgeable about all these different things and interventions and what they meant.
And I'm so thankful that through your class, Lisa, we were able to learn about all the potential interventions and what they could mean and what they could look like, and how necessary were they and, what were the risks and the benefits, and when did those outweigh each other? And what happens if we do nothing, and using all these different tools to navigate the rest of my pregnancy.
And so every time I went to the doctor, if I met a new doctor especially, I would make it really known that I knew what I was talking about. And that really helped me know that this was the right decision for me.
Lisa: As you say that, I'm wondering if part of the messaging in communicating what you know about interventions and physiologic birth, is part of that kind of conveying your preferences and what kind of birth you were hoping to achieve?
Michelle: Yes. Yes, and at this point I had said earlier that, I wanted an intervention-free birth because I was so worried about the anxiety the interventions would cause me, but it became so much more than that. The respect and the awe that I had as I was educating myself about birth and what our bodies are so capable of, it overcame me in such a way, it became something I was always talking about and always reading about and always watching videos about. And so for me, it changed my mindset, and it did become the message that I was sending to these care providers. And by their reactions, I was able to tell if it was the right choice.
Lisa: And before you chose your new care provider, did you bring up the whole IV thing specifically? Do you remember?
Michelle: Yes, I believe I did. I'm pretty sure that I did. A lot of what I remember talking about was that and inductions. I really was afraid to be induced. Luckily, I didn't have to be. I know that sometimes there's no other choice and it is medically necessary, but I was afraid of being pushed into a non-medically-necessary induction.
And so I asked a lot about that and what indicators they would use, to decide if somebody needed to be induced or not. And where they going to just put me on a time clock and say, you're at this point in your pregnancy, you're 40 weeks or 41 weeks or 42 weeks, that was important to me, and their answers to me always were really in line with what I saw.
It was mostly, your body can do this, we're going to just monitor, as long as everyone's healthy and good, we'll just continue to let your body do its thing. They really just respected the whole process of birth, and it was so important to me to see that. So really grateful that I made the switch.
It was a little daunting I had never stepped foot in Cornell Hospital. I knew that it was a new hospital and beautiful and private rooms and all those great things, and so that helped. But it was still a little bit scary for me because it was unfamiliar and for me, anything in the medical field and medical aspects of my life, that was unfamiliar, was always really difficult for me to adjust to.
So I was a little scared about that, but thankfully, had a great experience with them. So I'm very lucky.
Lisa: I had two other questions I wanted to ask real quick. Did you bring up your medical anxiety as you were interviewing care providers?
Michelle: Oh I mean, I don't go to a doctor that I not bring that up. It's like the first thing that I talk about, always.
Lisa: I suspected, but I just wanted to check.
The new care providers more caring about anxiety
Lisa: Yeah. And so I assume with the care provider you chose, were they more caring about that idea or what was their response?
Michelle: Much more caring. Their response was great. Every doctor that I talked to, I mean I always had this history of being, you slightly dismissed, or maybe a doctor not really understanding what I was talking about and thinking that I'm like, oh, I'm just a little scared of needles, and I just won't look and it'll be fine. That was like the token line of my whole life. just don't look at it.
And then, I got to a point where in my adult life, if someone around me was having a conversation about surgery, I was fainting on the floor. it had nothing to do with, oh, just don't watch or, oh, it's not going to hurt.
It was such a deeper, I learned a lot in my adult life about blood injury and injection phobia, which is what I have, and it has nothing to do with just pain or being nervous. It's a lot deeper than that. So I would talk about that a lot and, you know, again, by their responses and the way they handle that, it was with a lot of care and patience, which is big for me. And yeah, I really felt comfortable with them.
Anyone in the family hired a doula?
Lisa: Hmm, nice. Going back to your choosing to hire a doula, did any of your family who had given birth, sisters or anyone hire a doula?
Michelle: No, this is so interesting. No, most of my family had never heard of a doula. I think they all thought it was really the right choice for me, with my history. What was funny was, through my pregnancy, despite the issues I had with my care provider, I was super calm and my husband, who's pretty chill and not so anxious, was very anxious and very worried about me all the time. And was I doing the right things? And should I eat that? And can I do this? And all these, like first time dad things, he was so nervous. I was so calm and chill and just oh, it's fine, and I feel fine. Even when I had the shingles, I was like, it's fine. But when I would explain to family and friends, that our doula also could be really great support for my partner, a lot of people were really supportive and on board. I mean, they needed to learn about what a doula would do for us, but really supportive and onboard.
A lot of the births in my family, my whole side, my sisters and my sister-in-law had seven C-sections, all C-section babies. This is my mom's first grandchild that's not a C-section.
Lisa: Did you say seven C-sections?
Michelle: Yeah, my sisters and my sister-in-law had only C-sections with all seven kids between the three of them. And my husband's side, all the other family that we've known has had the vaginal birth. like in our generation, I'm not talking about my mom's generation or going past that, but anyone around my age, who I've known or friends of our family, has always had some sort of intervention, whether it was, pain medication or an induction. So I don't think anyone around us, in our immediate circle had any experience with an unmedicated vaginal birth.
So our family just had a lot to learn, and they wondered, and sometimes I would get the comments of oh, you're going to need the epidural and things like that. But I used a lot of it as fuel to light the fire.
And I kept telling myself, if I need it, I'll get it, I had a plan, but I also knew to be prepared for all different scenarios.
The birth story
Lisa: All right. So would you like to jump into your birth story, and you can start wherever you want. It could be like I don't know, a week or days leading up to it, or right when it starts, whatever feels comfortable for you.
Michelle: Okay, great. Yes. I'm so excited, I love telling this story.
Days before
Michelle: I had nothing, big signs in the days leading up. The end of my pregnancy, my only big complaint was that I had a lot of low back pain and kind of pelvic pain, so that felt hard. But I saw a really great pelvic floor physical therapist a couple of times, and she really helped me.
And by the very, very end, I was actually feeling pretty good. other than being uncomfortable for being 39 weeks pregnant, I felt really great. I wasn't sleeping, which was really hard, and I was up a lot, using the bathroom or just with insomnia.
So that was hard, but I was lucky enough that it was the summer and because I'm a teacher I was off and not having to commute or be at work all day, so I was really able to just hang around and stay cool in the August heat, in my apartment and rest.
The night before
Michelle: But the night before I went into labor, so I really went into labor the Saturday morning, August 7th and Van was born at 1:04 in the morning on August 8.
the night before on the sixth, we had a barbecue at my sister-in-law's house for our nephew's third birthday. And we were with a bunch of family and in-laws and, it was funny. It became a really big joke, will I go into labor tonight or tomorrow, or this is always like the running conversation at the very end of the pregnancy. When is it going to happen? And a few people told me, they just felt like it was coming, and I said, I feel like it's coming, who knows? It could always be like, it's coming, and then you could be pregnant for a long time and go past due date and who knows?
Lisa: And I'm sorry, I might've missed it, how many weeks are you at this point, on August 6th?
Michelle: On August 6th, I was 39 and two days. 39 weeks and two days. My due date the next week. And at that point, with my doctor, we had decided that if I went past, my doctor was going to be on vacation and we knew this, and that if I went past, I would go to an appointment on my due date. And she did talk to me about, I had scheduled a non-stress test in my 41st week, if I had gone that long. A non-stress and a growth scan. And she agreed that as long as everything was fine, we could wait until she got back from vacation, which would be almost like at the end of my 41st week. So I was really happy with her, with our decision that we made together to do that. And that as long as it was comfortable, we would just wait it out.
Given that you really wanted to not be induced, had you started doing anything at this point to try to encourage labor to start at all?
I don't know if these things would technically be considered trying to naturally induce labor. I was eating dates at the end of my pregnancy, I was drinking red raspberry leaf tea. I was doing Spinning Babies stuff, bouncing a lot on my ball, lots of exercises, I would try to walk as much as I could, but because I was in a lot of back pain, that felt really hard. But otherwise, that was about it. nothing too crazy.
Michelle: And I had only agreed to do one cervical check at my 38-week appointment with the midwife who was on staff at my doctor's office. I was curious, they had asked me if I would do one. I really initially didn't want to do any, but that day I was feeling okay, let's see where we're at. And at that point, my 38 week appointment, she told me my cervix looked closed but soft. And that was it, and I didn't really want to do any more than that because I didn't want it to excite me or disappoint me and make me really nervous either way. So I just had agreed to not do really, any more of them unless they were necessary.
So that was all I knew, at the end of the pregnancy, everyone starts asking you, are you dilated? And what does your doctor say? So that was a little tricky towards the end. But the night before I went into labor, we went to this barbecue, we were driving home, my husband asked me if I would drive home, cause he had caught a couple of drinks, but it was fine, but just said, you should drive.
Michelle: And I said, of course, and we were driving on the Whitestone expressway towards Astoria, and I guess I got my first real experience with lightning crotch. I thought I had it earlier.
Lisa: Oh, fun.
Michelle: And I was driving and I actually, it happened four or five times, and I couldn't even sit still. And we had to pull over and switch seats, which was like, we were looking at each other in the car before we got back on the road, and we were about 5 or 10 minutes from home, but like, is this something, is this happening? What was that? And I was like, I think it's lightning crotch. I think I thought I had it earlier, but maybe that, I was just probably having other pelvic pain. It was intense, but it passed.
And we went home and went to bed.
And, all our days at that point, we didn't make any very solid plans, but I wanted to continue being out and doing things when it felt right, and when I felt good. And I had convinced my husband that after he was finished with work that next day, which was a Saturday. Usually on Saturdays, he's able to be home earlier than the rest of his days, so he was done working at about two o'clock and I said, we should go out for a nice lunch tomorrow.
Everything at that point became like, will this be our last time to go to lunch without a baby, or before the baby comes? So we had agreed to do that. And that was our plan, but we said, we see how I was feeling and how our night went. So our night went fine. It was normal for me, I got up a million times to pee through the night.
And my husband left for work before I woke up for the first time, like really woke up, which I want to say was around like seven in the morning. And I woke up and again, felt this urge to have to pee. So I went to the bathroom and I went, and then I went back to bed, because that's what I was doing at that point, just kept going back into bed until I really was awake for the day, which could be like 9 or 10 o'clock. And at this point it was like seven in the morning.
Michelle: So I went back to bed and then I woke myself up again, like 10 or 20 minutes later with that same urge to like have to pee again. And I was like, ugh, again, I just went but got up and I didn't have to pee but I felt like I did.
And so that continued to happen for an hour or two, and in this like rhythmic way. And I started thinking like, could this be a contraction? Or could this be early labor? Is this Braxton Hicks, which was like happening to me some mornings, but this felt very different. Just different, and I felt different.
Contacting husband about contractions
Michelle: And so I called my husband at work, which is thankfully, five minutes from where we live, but I said, something's up, and he was like, okay, we'll see, didn't they say, you could have this on and off. And I said, yeah, I don't know. I feel different. We'll see how it goes.
And automatically, he was like, then I guess we're not going to lunch.
And I was like, no, like we're going. We'll see how I am in a couple of hours. I'll pick you up from the office around two. And all day long until two o'clock, I continued to have these rhythmic waves of something, you know, pressure. That's what I'm going to call it, pressure. Not pain, but something. And I think until he saw me, when I showed up at my husband's office where he works with his brother, my brother-in-law, who I'm very close with, until they really saw me in person, I think they both were like kinda doubting that something was really up.
But when I walked in and I started having contractions in the office, my husband was like, oh, wow, I think you might be in labor. And at this point I had reached out to Jaime and told her, I think via text, "Hey, this is going on, I have no other signs, I have not lost a mucus plug, any, anything else indicating labor. Just this rhythmic pressure kind of stuff, which I'm going to assume at this point, are contractions."
Contacting doula & early labor lunch date
In early labor, on lunch date in Long Island City
Michelle: And Jaime said, "totally sounds like it could be early labor, sounds like it could be false. It could stop, it could keep going, keep me posted."
It was a Saturday, so I just wanted to give her a heads up in case this was it, and we needed her. And so I did that and she just said, keep me posted. And I said, we're going to go to lunch in Long Island City and have an afternoon day date, and then we'll let you know how it's going. So we did just that. We went to lunch and at this point during lunch, I started, I think right before we went to lunch, I started timing with an app. I started timing some of the contractions, just to see if I could sense like a real schedule or rhythm to them. And during lunch they were getting, I don't want to use the word intense, but more intense than they were before, getting stronger. And during lunch, they were getting pretty close together, but they weren't lasting very long.
I would have a contraction, let's say like every four or five minutes, but they were like 30 seconds long, maybe 40 seconds long. I was fine, I was talking through them, I was eating watch, I was eating guacamole, I wanted to go walk around the park to Gantry State Park.
And when lunch was over and my husband was like, are you sure you want to take a walk?
And I was like, yeah, let's take a walk, maybe not a long walk, but let's go walk and then we'll get back in the car and we'll call Jaime and see what Jaime thinks. And at this point I was still in touch with my family, my mom, my friends, Hey guys, heads up, I might be in labor, but I don't know what's happening exactly, but keep you posted.
And so now, as far as the timeline goes, five o'clock and we're heading back home to Astoria from Long Island City and we're in the car and we decide to call Jaime. And my husband starts getting a little nervous. He's like, why are they so close together, and why are you fine? Why are they close together, and why are you sitting in the car with me, fine?
Lisa: This is not what I see in the movies and TV!
Michelle: Exactly. So we called Jaime, and I keep saying to my husband, this is my first labor, this could last all day long. We could be like this all night, this is what it is.
And he's like, all right, but why are they so close? Why are they so close?
I'm like, I don't know. So we call Jaime and we're like, Jaime, why are these so close together?
And she's "I don't know, but you're talking, you're laughing, you're having a conversation with me."
She heard me through a few of them in the car and she was like, "listen, go home, are your bags packed, is everything ready?"
I'm like, I have a few more things to throw in.
She was like, "throw your stuff together, get comfortable, you could be like this all night. It does sound like it's probably early labor because it's pretty consistent and it hasn't stopped all day."
More early labor at home
Michelle: I think I have a text from her at some point that says it hasn't stopped, so you're probably headed in that direction. But watch a movie, relax, maybe have a glass of wine, chill."
I'm like, okay. So we get in the door at 5:30. I'm like, you know what? Let's pack up first and have everything ready to go, that way if we have to leave, like in the middle of the night, when we're sleeping, we're ready. And then we'll sit down and watch a movie. We actually wanted to watch the second season of a series we're watching.
So that was our plan. And I called our family and friends and said, this is our plan, I'm probably in labor, keep you posted through the night if we leave here.
Michelle: And so this is at 5:30, we get home, we pack up the bags. I go to sit on the couch and I couldn't focus enough to watch a new show. Now I'm a huge Friends buff, like my number one, my whole life, it's like my safe zone, it's on all the time in my house. So I'm like, let's put on Friends and let's just chill.
But then I started needing help. And so the contractions were staying, I want to say four minutes apart at this point, but they were getting a little longer and now I started needing help through them.
And so this was where, for me, comfort measures, the things we learned from you Lisa, in your class and your workshop we did together, other things that we had learned from just our own research, some things Jaime had showed us. That's really what got me through.
Ritual counter pressure / comfort measures
Michelle: My husband at this point started, doing some counter pressure. I was bouncing on my birth ball. I have a really funny story from your class. I hope you talk about this in every class about the rituals women make in labor, and at one point we had come up with this system, I'll call it of me bouncing on my birth ball, my husband's sitting on the couch behind me with an ice massager ball that we have, and making this pattern on my back, on my low back.
And when he would stray away from the pattern, I was like... (loud pain groan)
Lisa: Totally.
Michelle: What are you doing, you know, we really came up with this hysterical combination of things that worked. So we did that for a while.
Lisa: Isn't it wild? Isn't that wild, how that ritual, you have to stick to it exactly.
In the bath
Michelle: It is wild. It is wild, and then once I was done with that, I was done. I was like, I got to go in the bath. And it's funny, when I went into the bath, I really wanted to be alone. I found out later, I didn't realize I had Facetimed to my best friend at some point while I was in the bath. I don't remember doing that, talking to her and through some of the contractions.
I remember she told me, and I even looked back at some of my texts with my group of girlfriends, like my best friends since I was three years old. And when I look back at the messages, I was telling them, I'm in the bath, I think I'm alright. But I don't know, but I want to be alone. I don't want Gus near me. It was just really funny, like all these really strange things going on, so now I'm in the bath for a while.
Labor building intensity
Michelle: Now it's seven o'clock, things are getting intense at home, and we're okay, should Jaime come here? What are we doing?
And we called again, and she was like, "you're managing well though, I don't know how early this is, where you could be."
I had still no other signs, I hadn't lost the mucus plug, I hadn't had anything else going on. And I kept saying am I managing really well? Am I like a unicorn? And I'm like, managing really well, or is this nothing, and I'm being dramatic?
Because now I'm nervous that we're going to go to the hospital and they're going to be like, you're one centimeter, you know, something ridiculous. So we just kept saying, all right, we'll give it a little more time, a little more time.
Asking doula to come over
Michelle: Finally, by eight o'clock my husband called Jaime and he's "I'm running out of things to do here. They're getting really close together, she's struggling. Can you come over?"
So by the time she got here and got herself together to come here, it was like nine. And in that last conversation through the phone, I think my husband was trying to let her listen to me through some contractions and giving her the lowdown on what we were doing here.
And she said something to him, I remember him through the phone saying, "How does the baby feel?"
By the way, I didn't say this yet, but we didn't know if we were having a boy or a girl. And "Bean," who we still called "Bean," was "Bean" our entire pregnancy, like we never could refer to the baby as a he or she. we didn't know, even though we really felt like we were having a girl, both of us. So it was really funny that we had a boy.
Lisa: You canceled each other out.
Michelle: Exactly. Exactly. Jaime through the phone said something to my husband like, does she feel Bean, does she feel the baby and is she feeling movement?"
And that whole few hours, I wasn't even thinking about tracking any movement. I was just trying to get through my contractions. So I was like, I don't know if I feel any movement, I don't know, what do you mean? I don't know.
And so she was like, "All right, try to pay attention to it, make sure you feel the baby once in a while."
And that sent me into a spiral of worry. I was like, I don't know, maybe we should go to the hospital.
Jaime arrives
Michelle: So Jaime walked in the door at nine o'clock and she didn't even take off her shoes to stay a second. She walked in, she saw me on all fours in our living room and trying to get through a contraction.
And she was like, "what do you want to do?"
And I was like, I still don't feel the baby so I think we need to go. And I said, what do you think?
And she said, "I think we can totally go if you want to go, but I don't know where you are, really. You're still managing okay. So I'm just warning you, if we go, it might still be a while."
And I was like, okay, whatever. We need to go.
The car ride to the hospital
Michelle: So the car ride was hard. It was fast though, we got to the hospital in like 14 minutes or something, but it was tough.
And on the way there, I felt some sort of gush, not like soaking wet, but I was like, I don't know if I lost my mucus plug or something's coming out, something's going on. I guess we'll see when we get to the hospital.
Arrival at hospital & triage
Michelle: So we got to the hospital around 9:30 PM and they took us up and told us that we'd go to triage and that only my husband can go into triage with me. I was dreading going into triage because I knew they were going to do a cervical check and I knew they were going to talk to me about the whole IV hep-lock situation. And I was really worried about how that was going to go.
And I knew that I'd have to be monitored in bed for 20-ish minutes on my back. And I had not been on my back the whole time I was laboring, so I was worried about that. And so we got into triage and all those things happened.
I will say, the hardest part of my entire experience, I think, was the triage. The cervical check, that particular one was not done by the doctor, it was horrendous. It really was. Even my husband, I remember watching his face while they were doing it.
Michelle: so when it was over, I remember thinking, if they tell me I'm like one or two centimeters dilated, I'm going to lose my mind. And when she was finished, she looked at me and she said, "you're seven centimeters."
And I was like, oh my God, thank God.
Lisa: Yes.
Michelle: Thank God. We're like, far up in here, and I know it could be fast, it could not, but oh my God. I was so happy about that. I didn't know until we got into triage, I finally thought to ask, who's on call?
And it wound up being Dr. Katrina Bradley, who has from what I read, really great and I met her once and thought she was awesome, and she has an amazing rapport with people, in regards to natural birth.
I don't know if she started or just worked for many years in the birth center when it was like St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital, and so I really felt so comfortable and confident knowing that she was going to be on and hopefully, would be on to deliver the baby, depending on how long things went on. I was so thrilled when I found out it was her out of all the options, besides my own doctor.
Hep-lock
So she walked in and I said, Dr. Teaiwa, my doctor, and I agreed to hep-lock, is that okay? And she said, that's fine, we'll see how you do if you need anything.
Michelle: So they did that, which was not easy for me, but I got through it. And then they said, "okay, up to your room, you go."
And we went and Jaime met us there. And Dr. Bradley had said to me, when we were leaving triage, she said, "You're doing great. You are progressing great, everything looks good." And she said, "I'm going to see you in two to three hours and you're going to have your baby."
And I remember thinking, two to three hours? But couldn't this be all night?
You know, I didn't want to tie myself to it, but it got me really excited, to think that it could be that soon.
Move to L&D room
Michelle: And we got to our room, really thinks here for me go fuzzy. I wrote something down, but like in short, it was two to three hours of me doing anything possible to get through these contractions.
At this point, they were on top of each other. Maybe I had one or two minutes in between each one. They were super intense. I was not getting through them without some sort of intervention from either Jaime or my husband or both.
What I remember is really wanting my husband's face, in my face, like with me. And so a lot of stuff did fall on Jaime to do, physical counter pressure and different things, but they would switch off. I could feel their bodies, both of them being so tired helping me.
Michelle: And I was so tired that I was ready to fall on my face. I just kept, going and trying different things.
Moving around lots & losing inhibition
Michelle: I was on my hands and knees receiving counter pressure from either support. I was doing different positions on the bed. I was bouncing on a ball. At some point, I had a peanut ball laying on the bed. At some point, I remember laboring a little bit on the toilet.
Just like all over the room, never still, ever, and I was so hot. I remember somewhere in those two hours saying, take off the robe. And so it was like a big joke, I was just laboring naked for two or three hours
Lisa: Yeah, you lose all inhibition.
Michelle: You lose all inhibition. I felt when it was over, and I really reflected on the experience, I say to everyone, that was the most raw, primal, unbelievable, intense experience I ever had in my entire life.
It was just, it was insane. Amazing, insane.
Feeling the urge to push
Michelle: Dr. Bradley came in two and a half hours later, two hours later. And she came in and I was telling her, I need to push. I feel it. At that point, I had a lot of rectal pressure. I kept saying that to everyone around me, to my husband and Jaime and the nurses. And everyone was like, "okay, we'll get the doctor, we'll get the doctor."
And Jaime was kind of like, "if you feel like you need to push, just push."
I guess she was able to see or know, well, you hope the baby wasn't just gonna, fly right out unexpectedly. But we were just doing different things to get me comfortable.
And she said, "let's call the doctor in and see what she says."
So when Dr. Bradley came in, she said, "I need to do a cervical check."
And I was already a little traumatized from the one I had had in triage, so I was I don't know, do we really need to do this?
And she was like, "if you feel like you have to push, I want to see where you are and where the baby is, and what's the status."
And so for the first time, like the whole labor, she was like, "I need you to go on your back." And I was like, ugh, I really don't, I don't want to push here. I was so adamant. I was like, I don't want to push on my back.
And she was like, okay, that's fine, but let's check you, and that check was actually much better. And she was like, "you're so close. You're like nine and a half or more, but the baby needs to come down a little bit."
And she was like, "give me 20 to 30 minutes. Let me go check on someone else, and I'm going to come back and you're going to have your baby."
So that was like motivation enough for me just to keep going.
Michelle: And that's what I did.
At this point actually, I said, I really feel like I need to push.
And she said, "Then let's practice." But the practice pushing was of course, coached pushing on my back, holding my breath. The whole, what you see, you know, in the movies and things like that.
So we did that for a few contractions. We practiced. I got "the hang of it," quote, unquote, in hospital land, pushing.
So she left the room, I slipped right back over on all fours, and at this point, I was so exhausted. I was collapsing in between the contractions. I think I was falling asleep for 30 seconds, and then just waking back up and going to the next one.
Michelle: And my husband was incredible. I couldn't believe he remembered this and did it, something you had shared with us to do, he was matching my tone and trying to keep me low. When I would get really high and screechy in my vocalizations, he would just with his own sounds remind me to go lower. It was so amazing.
And so I pushed for a couple of contractions on all fours, with just us in the room and the nurses. And then at one point, I got up and had my upper body leaning over the top of the bed, and I was up on my knees and I pushed.
Ready to push
Michelle: And then the doctor walked back in and she was kind of like, "are you ready?"
And I was like, I'm ready. And she asked me to flip back on my back so she could do one more check to see where I was. And so we did that and she was like, "You're ready. And we're going to push."
And like I said, I was so adamant about, I don't wanna push on my back. I don't want to push my back.
But at that moment I remember being so exhausted,
Lisa: Yeah.
Michelle: that I couldn't get up, if you paid me. I was already on my back. She was like, everyone was set up to help me, who was holding my legs, who was doing this?
And I was like, let's just push this baby out. I was so tired. And so that's what we did.
Baby's birth
Michelle: And in that position, with the doctor there, ready to go, it took three contractions and nine pushes total, until he came out. And that was the most, I'm speechless when I think about that moment.
Right before he came out, Dr. Bradley had asked me if I wanted to feel the baby's head. And I wanted to so bad, but I physically couldn't even find the strength to move my arm, to reach down, to feel it.
I was so tired that I was like, I can't right now. I wanted to, but I just, I couldn't do it, I was so tired.
Michelle: And all I could focus on was pushing. That's just the only thing I could do. So that's what I did. And it's so crazy because when he came out, my husband says it was like really fast, like an all at once. He couldn't believe how he just flew out.
But when he came out, I had felt some relief. I knew something came out, but I didn't know, was it just his head? I didn't know, I just was focused on trying to keep pushing.
Michelle: And so he came out and the next thing I know, Dr. Bradley's telling me to hold him with my hands. I found out after that my cord was pretty short, so I guess she wanted me to really pull him up on my chest myself, rather than her placing him on.
I don't know what the typical thing is, but she told me that after, "your cord was really short", saying, "I was worried to toss him to you," or whatever.
It's a boy!
Michelle: And so I pulled him up and that feeling man, was just euphoric. He was so slippery and he was so small, and I looked down at him and I looked at my husband and I couldn't figure out if I saw a cord, the cord or if he had a penis. I couldn't see, what I'm figuring out what I was seeing.
And I like looked at my husband and I was like, is it a boy? And he was like, it's a boy. And we were just like, we would have bet money on it was a girl. We just had this gut feeling, and so we were just in shock.
And after that, I think one of the first things I said, I was just crying and we were both crying, my husband and I, I'm in heaven, and he was on my chest and we just couldn't believe he was here.
She's amazed she did it without epidural
Michelle: But I looked around the room at the nurses and Jaime and my husband and our doctor, and I was like, I never even said "epidural." I was pleased but so shocked with myself.
We had talked about, I'm probably going to ask for it and just ignore me, unless I'm the one who says, get the anesthesiologist.
We had all these plans in place for when I was going to ask for it and how we were going to ignore me if I was asking for it [during] the contraction and you know, like it would be a real discussion. Was I really gonna get it? And I never said it, it never even came to my mind, it just wasn't an option. And every contraction, I just kept going. I just couldn't believe it.
And so, for the whole golden hour, which was more like two hours actually, which was incredible, they delayed his cord clamping.
I remember Dr. Bradley's saying, "the cord is done pulsating." She let it go for a while. My husband cut the cord and then we kept him on me the whole time. I remember them saying "We have to take him to weigh him. It's been like an hour and a half. We should have weighed him like an hour ago."
like they were like
Lisa: Oh, so not urgent!
Using the bathroom after birth
Michelle: Let us stay, they got me up to try to use the bathroom. That's a funny story. When they got me up, and just something that I really never thought about and wasn't prepared for at all, so I feel like it's important to share.
When they got me up to try to go to use the bathroom and pee, and relieve my bladder a little bit, because apparently it was very full. They realized this when they were doing the fundal massage and after everything was over, I had needed some stitches. So when it was all done, and they did finally take the baby to weigh him. My husband went, it was all in the room, he went over to the weighing station and all that.
They took me to the bathroom and I could not release my bladder. I just couldn't, I had no control, I couldn't feel anything. And the nurse kept saying, "Just keep trying."
Michelle: But then she said, "if you can't, your bladder's really full, I might have to give you a catheter."
And that flipped me, I was like, "absolutely not! That is why I didn't even want an epidural. I am not getting a catheter after all this."
And so thankfully, I was able to go a little bit and they reluctantly let me go to our postpartum room. They wanted to keep me, and the doctor was like, "it's fine, just go. Hopefully, you'll go in a couple of hours when you're upstairs."
And that's what wound up happening. It did happen on its own, but it's just something I never thought about or was prepared for at all, that could be a possibility or it could be an issue. So that happened.
And that whole time, during golden hour, it was a lot of calling our parents and our families, and I remember our phones. We had lost contact at some point because Gus was so involved with helping me and being a source of comfort for me. No one was responding, I clearly wasn't to anybody.
Losing c contact with family
Lisa: Good. Good. I'm glad to hear that.
Michelle: She wasn't responding.
Lisa: I was a little concerned with your big family, that it might've be a big distraction for him.
Michelle: Well, it was really hard because when he finally came out, all my husband did was text just our moms and say, "Bean is here," but he didn't say if it was a girl or a boy. So we had said we wanted to do that and that we wanted to FaceTime them together. His parents and my mom and say, it's a boy, or it's a girl, we had this all decided, but we didn't tell them that.
So he said, "Bean's here," he didn't say we're fine, Michelle's fine, the baby's fine. That's all he said. And then it was like, that was right after he came out. So then it was like the cord and the stitches and all this stuff, then we lost contact again. And all our siblings and my best friends were calling obsessively each other, and everyone's saying, what do you mean? They kept saying to my mom, you're not reading the text what is it? Is it a boy or is it a girl? Michelle okay, what's going on?
My mom was like, I'm reading the text, this is all it says. So apparently we drove everybody crazy. We found out later.
Moving to postpartum & partner's exhaustion
Michelle: But then we got to call everybody, we checked into our room like two hours later, and what I remember really was, I looked over at Gus and he was so tired. In 13 years, I never saw him look as tired as he did at that moment.
And I was exhausted, but I was like on some other level of high, I was like in a euphoric state, so I couldn't even think about sleeping. I just had him in my arms and I didn't want to put him down.
And my husband was like, I'm so tired. He doesn't even want to say that to me because obviously, you can't tell someone, who just gave birth, I'm so tired. He was looking at me, and I said to him, you're really tired. And he was like, I can't keep my eyes open.
And I was like, so go to bed. And so he did, and I stayed up for five hours straight and stared at him just the way I'm holding him right now. I couldn't even close my eyes. I just couldn't. And that's the one thing I'll say. I will never forget that night for the rest of my life, like watching him and just holding him and being alone in our room, in the dark together.
But I probably should have slept a little bit. It set me up for, I was up for a really long time. And then, in the hospital, no one's letting you sleep. They're in there every hour doing something and checking on you. And thank God, because I had such an easy delivery and whatever, and a healthy situation going on.
Home the next day
We were home the next day. So it felt good to go home fast, but also, I was really tired. I was really tired, and those first few days of home, I don't think I've ever been so exhausted as I was, physically. Really, just physically, my body was tired. I didn't even want to sleep, I just was so like, I couldn't move, I was so tired.
Recovery within days
Michelle: But overall, I think I had a really great recovery. I felt like myself within days, there was nothing, no pressing issues. I was a little uncomfortable, but otherwise, I was tired, and that's really about it. I started breastfeeding immediately, after he was born. In the hospital, it went pretty well. We struggled a little bit in the early days with the latch, my nipples were really hurting for a while and got pretty beat up.
But after they healed, which I had to do like a variety of things to get them to heal and give them a break and continue to feed him. And here we are, five weeks later and he's still exclusively nursing.
And I was telling Lisa earlier, I pumped for the first time yesterday just to get used to trying to start incorporating pumping. But he hasn't taken a bottle yet, and I'm so lucky. I know so many people that struggle with breastfeeding and I've learned it's really a skill. It's not as natural as you think it is. It's something that you have to learn as like the breastfeeding parent. It's something that your baby has to learn how to do, and I could see why it's so hard. And so many people, it's a lot. It's a lot, and so I'm so happy that we're in a place right now where it feels really manageable. And I love it so much, because I do.
And otherwise, postpartum, I'm really lucky. Emotionally, I feel great. I've had a lot of experience with newborns and babies, so in that way, I always was prepared to feel good about it. I didn't think I'd be super overwhelmed and I'm not.
What's hardest for me right now is that my husband, we had just opened a local business a couple of months ago, my husband and his brother. We opened a physical and occupational therapy office. My husband is an OT and he's a hand therapist specifically, so he specializes in upper extremity rehab. And that feels hard because it's still getting off the ground. They're working all the time. My husband works like 75 hours a week.
Michelle: And so I'm alone a lot of the time, even though we have a lot of great support from our families and our friends and I have visitors a lot, which is great. But I miss my husband and he misses being home and we wish she was here more, both Bean and I. But otherwise, I'm really, I'm doing great, and I'm so lucky that I'm feeling good, and just so thankful to have this little miracle with us.
I think that's it. I don't know if you have any questions for me.
Fortitude
Lisa: I love it. I love it. I love it. Yeah. You know the word that came to my mind as you were talking about breastfeeding and the perseverance and then learning the skill, I've never thought this word before, but fortitude was what came to my mind. It does often take some real determination and fortitude for, 90% of us who don't find it to come naturally and easily as we think it should at first.
Michelle: Yes. Someone told me, I think I was like in my third week breastfeeding, that if I made it three weeks, I would keep going. And I didn't really understand that at first, but now when I think back to those earlier days, the first two weeks and how hard they were, I could see how it would have been really easy and really understandable within those two weeks to say, you know what, this is really hard, and I can't handle this right now. Or I need to put my mental health first.
And I'm going to just go out and say this, like "fed is best," and however people need to feed their babies, is what's important that the baby is healthy and cared for and that's it. I don't take for granted how great I feel now and how manageable it did become for me.
Lisa: Yep. I totally am in a hundred percent agreement with everything you just said. The mental health aspect is so key, and breastfeeding is not worth coming at the expense of our mental health for sure. But I'm glad that you've been able to make it work and get better at it, and that you're, I think enjoying it even?
Michelle: I am, I'm enjoying it so much. I'm enjoying it so much that yesterday I cried when I was pumping, at the thought of like, I mean, part of me wants to have someone else be able to feed him with a bottle so that I could go somewhere or when I have to go back to work in a few months, I know that's like the real possibility. But part of me is just like, I never expected to feel so, I don't want to use the word devastated, but so taken aback by the thought of someone else feeding him. I want my husband to feed him, I know he really wants to feed him and it would be so special for them, and I love thinking about that, but I'm also like, I feed him.
Lisa: That's our relationship.
Michelle: It's just, yeah, it's hard, I never expected to feel like that. I thought I'd feel so liberated, being like, I have this opportunity to pump and make a bottle, but it's actually a little bit hard for me, but I know I'll adjust and it will be okay.
Lisa: And you're about to, I imagine go back for your six-week appointment soon here.
Michelle: Next week, yeah.
I hope that goes well.
Michelle: Thank you. Thank you.
Lisa: Well, this has been wonderful. Thank you for sharing your beautiful story.
Michelle: Thank you for having me. I'm so happy to share.
Lisa: Yeah. And are there any final pieces of wisdom or insights or tips that you'd like to share as final thoughts before we wrap things up?
Michelle: My final thoughts are my labor and delivery was everything that I hoped it would be. And I think I just, I don't want to say over-prepared because it was a very real possibility that it wouldn't be what I hoped it would be, but for me it was.
And so I think, so many people along the way kept telling me, things happen, and if XYZ happens, you have to do this, or your doctor's going to tell you to do this, and your doctor knows. Your doctor is a doctor.
And I just really feel like on some level, that I wish the whole time, even though I'm happy I over-prepared myself and did all the right things to advocate for myself through my pregnancy, and maybe that is the reason that I had the experience that I was hoping for, but I wish I had trusted my gut a little more and said no, you know what? This is what's going to happen, and this is the experience I'm going to have, no matter what happens. I'm going to have a positive experience, even if it's the birth that I didn't sign up for or wish for.
My friend who's a doula told me, when I would sometimes call her and tell her stories about people I heard that had what I thought was like a traumatic experience, someone who wound up having a c-section or got pushed into an induction or X, Y, Z.
Michelle: She told me, Michelle, just because something sounds traumatic to you doesn't mean that it was traumatic for somebody else or for that person.
Lisa: So true.
Michelle: And that resonated with me my whole pregnancy. I really had remembered her saying that to me. Because I would hear these stories and be really freaked out. But when you don't associate it always with it being something traumatic, it's, all births are beautiful.
And so that really was something that I wish I had heard earlier so that I didn't have to feel like I was always taking away like, oh, another traumatic birth experience from every story I heard that wasn't like my dream story.
Lisa: Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of wisdom there. And I really commend you for listening to your gut, trusting yourself, realizing that the care provider you originally were with was not going to be conducive to the kind of birth that you personally were hoping for. I am a hundred percent sure that was a big contributing factor toward your labor and birth going as beautifully as it did.
Michelle: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Lisa: Of course, there are always many other factors that play into things, but that is one of the biggest ones.
Michelle: I agree. I agree. My husband and I talk about this all the time that I don't know what kind of experience I would have had if I stayed. And so I'm really happy that I made the hard, but right choice to move.
Lisa: Yeah. Yeah. And you trusted your body and that mindset and the preparation and the building a birth team that supported you it sounds like Costa, or Gus was an amazing support, as was was Jaime.
Michelle: He really was. Yeah, we were so lucky, so lucky.
Lisa: Wonderful. thank you again, Michelle, I look forward to seeing you in the neighborhood. One thing I didn't mention at the top of the episode was, the other day Michelle was walking around the block with her baby on a little stroll. Was it an evening?
Michelle: It was evening.
Lisa: Was it? Okay, I couldn't remember which it was.
And several of my students were waiting outside to come in for class, all pregnant couples, and you met them before I was even, I think I was inside and I just happened come out when you were chatting with them. And that was the most fun thing.
Michelle: Well, I came out and saw them on the block and was walking down and I said, oh, these are Lisa's people. And when I got up to the house, they said, are you here for Lisa's course? And I said, yes, and I said, I took her course and I had the most amazing experience with her, and I just had the most amazing labor and delivery.
And, it was just, it was great, and I hope that I made them feel good knowing that, I had such a positive experience, not only with working with you, but also really doing that kind of work really paid off. Because for me, it was really important to be as educated as possible.
And I know that's not conducive to everybody, some people don't like to be over-prepared and it doesn't work for them, but for me and a person with high anxiety, it's important that I am, even if it feels hard to be over-prepared, it's what works for me.
Lisa: Yep, right there with you on that. That's why I do the work I do.
Michelle: Yeah. Yup.
Lisa: Because the birth class I took was a game-changer, as well. Thank you. Thank you. I look forward to seeing you in the neighborhood, and hopefully when things feel safe for me to get to hold your sweet little guy.
Michelle: Oh yeah, whenever you're ready, we'll come around.
Lisa: All right, thanks again, Michelle. Have a great day.
Michelle: You too. Thank you.
Lisa: Bye.