Latest / MyMaine Birth / 168. MyMaine Birth: Anna's first birth story, a home birth with loving support from her midwife

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168. MyMaine Birth: Anna's first birth story, a home birth with loving support from her midwife · MyMaine Birth

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: I said to Tiffany at one point, like, am I supposed to push now?
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I did not feel an urge to push, but she said, Yeah, you can if you want.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're fully dilated.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: And like, if you feel that you want to try that, you can.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so this was a very cool experience.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: I tried to push a few times, and I remember feeling like there wasn't a connection there.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then maybe on the fourth time that I tried, I had this very vivid vision almost of a hand reaching out and grabbing my hands.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: And it was like it grabbed it and then it connected.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then when I pushed, I felt something.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like I felt that it was connected and moving.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it was like I had grabbed my child's hands and I was like, here we go.
• 0:53
  Angela: I'm Angela, and I'm a certified birth photographer, experienced doula, childbirth educator, and your host here on the My Main Birth podcast.
• 1:02
  Angela: This is a space where we share the real life stories of families and their unique birth experiences in the beautiful state of Maine.
• 1:10
  Angela: From our state's biggest hospitals to birth center births and home births, every birth story deserves to be heard and celebrated.
• 1:19
  Angela: Whether you're a soon-to-be mom, a seasoned mother, or simply interested in the world of birth, these episodes are for you.
• 1:28
  Angela: Hey everyone, welcome to episode 168 of My Main Birth.
• 1:34
  Angela: As a reminder, I share all different types of stories that are submitted to me.
• 1:39
  Angela: Hospital births, birth center births, and all different types of home births.
• 1:44
  Angela: Whether your story was positive, negative, or anything in between, this is a safe space for you to feel seen and heard.
• 1:52
  Angela: And if you're pregnant or planning on becoming pregnant, I really think it's so important to listen to a variety of different birth stories.
• 2:00
  Angela: So that you can start to focus in on what pregnancy and birth path is right for you.
• 2:05
  Angela: Because as I'll continue to say over and over again, it does not look the same for everyone.
• 2:12
  Angela: And women today are making a wide variety of choices when it comes to their pregnancy and birth.
• 2:17
  Angela: And ultimately, you are the authority in your birth experience.
• 2:21
  Angela: And the choices are up to you.
• 2:25
  Angela: The only requirement for sharing a birth story on the podcast is that at least one of your birth stories is a main birth story.
• 2:32
  Angela: As an added bonus, all of my podcast guests receive a gift certificate for a family adventure photo session on the session day of your choice.
• 2:40
  Angela: I host session days for my podcast guests at iconic locations across Maine throughout the spring, summer, and fall.
• 2:47
  Angela: So if you're interested in joining the community of Main Mom sharing birth stories on the podcast, you can fill out the form over on my website, mymainbirth.com, or you can always message me over on Instagram at mymainbirth.
• 3:01
  Angela: Our closing song is by Kate Sutherland.
• 3:04
  Angela: Kate's community songs and deep nature connection work can be found over on her website, katesutherland.ca.
• 3:11
  Angela: Today's birth story guest is Anna, and she is here to share her beautiful home birth story with loving support from her midwife, Tiffany Carter Skillings.
• 3:22
  Angela: All right.
• 3:23
  Angela: Hi Anna.
• 3:24
  Angela: Welcome to MyMane Birth.
• 3:26
  Angela: Hi.
• 3:27
  Angela: To get started, would you share a little bit about you and your family?
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: I am an attorney.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: I live in Waterville, and my family is me and my five-year-old son.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, my partner and I are separated and co-parenting, which is a little sad, but we're trying to do our best.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that we will figure it out.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: We ended up in Maine a couple years ago.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: Before that, we were in Alaska and we met in Philly.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: So it's been kind of a whirlwind.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: But at this point, both sets of grandparents are also in Maine.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: He grew up here.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, meeting him was kind of my first introduction to Maine.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then my parents ended up following me here.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: So at this point, it's it's I'm very grounded here, which I'm happy about.
• 4:20
  Angela: Cool.
• 4:21
  Angela: So now jumping into birth, would you share about how you found out you're pregnant and what your thoughts were in choosing your care?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was an exciting time.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I met my partner right before, you know, a couple months before the pandemic hit.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: And once the pandemic hit, we we both kind of wanted to get out of Philadelphia.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: And we he had spent some time in Alaska and we just kind of flocked there.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: And we were in kind of this apocalyptic mindset of trying to make all of our dreams happen at once.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: And we both wanted to have kids.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so we were trying to get pregnant, and we had gone to a fertility specialist because it wasn't happening right away.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I had no idea, I had never tried to conceive, so I didn't know how any of this worked.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: And we were basically told it will happen, it will probably just take a little longer.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so we set out for Alaska, and sure enough, you know, they backdate the pregnancy to the first day of that cycle.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: And technically I got pregnant the day we moved to Alaska.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I just I was sure I wasn't pregnant that cycle because I had some cramping and I just like expected my period to come any second, and then it just didn't.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then we were so we have a video of the whole thing, like me finding out I was pregnant, and I was I felt like so manic and happy, and it was just a wonderful time.
• 5:51
  Angela: Yeah, so many emotions.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was definitely high energy.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't really get hit with any of the fatigue until a couple weeks later, but for a while there I was just high flying.
• 6:06
  Angela: Yeah.
• 6:07
  Angela: Oh my goodness.
• 6:08
  Angela: Wow.
• 6:09
  Angela: So what were your thoughts in choosing your care then?
• 6:12
  Angela: Had you thought about that as you were trying to conceive, or yeah, what were you thinking?
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that was a weird issue for us because we were in a very remote part of Alaska.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was working for the public defender's office.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: And um it's actually off-the-road system, the town we were in.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: And for pregnancies that happened there, they have you move to Anchorage a couple weeks before your due date to have the birth in Anchorage.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: And when we I the truth is we hadn't really planned, like we we wanted to be pregnant, but like we hadn't, we were in a very abstract kind of dream space with it.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: So once it happens, you know, everything started to kind of come into sharp focus, like all the actual logistics.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: And we realized, okay, the second wave of COVID is hitting, and my mom's not gonna fly out here, like your mom's not gonna fly out here, and and we're gonna have to move to Anchorage for the birth.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it just seemed really overwhelming.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so we made the decision to move back to Maine for the actual birth a couple months before.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I negotiated with my job, and they were gracious enough to let me continue working once we moved back to Maine remotely, which we were kind of used to doing at that point because everybody was in COVID mode, and a lot of the hearings in Alaska are telephonic anyway.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: So we were able to negotiate that.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so while we were in Alaska, we started interviewing midwives in Maine just over Zoom because I know I knew I wanted to do a home birth.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it was the first midwife I interviewed, was the one that we chose.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: I just really liked her because I was nervous about doing a home birth for my first birth.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: I come from a very kind of Western medical family.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: My mother's a nurse, and my father's a physician, and my sister had a hospital birth.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so my mentality in finding a midwife was like, I want someone who's like more careful and more meticulous than I am about all of this so that I can just rest assured that like, even if I'm not thinking about, you know, every possible variable, she is.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so I kind of went with somebody who is more on like the medical end of the spectrum of midwives.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and she had been working in the hospital setting for much of her career, and she was very, very risk averse and put a lot of kind of upfront work into making sure as many bases were covered as possible in order to avoid emergency hospital transfers.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: And she, in fact, had had no emergency hospital transfers and I think over 500 births.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, as a first-time mother, that was music to my ears.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: I thought that was really cool.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: So we met her over Zoom and then we kind of continued corresponding and were able to meet her in person when we got back to Maine.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: Do you care to share who you went with?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: So her name is Tiffany Carter Skillings.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, she's amazing.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so she's based in Yarmouth.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, she's she's super amazing and was very patient with us because we definitely presented some interesting issues for her, but she was great and felt very safe with her.
• 9:54
  Angela: Yeah.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: So how far along were you when you finally did make it back to Maine?
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I believe it was March.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I would have been five months, I think.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: I had a couple visits with the hospital in Alaska, and so we did some ultrasounds there, but yeah, it was I was lucky.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I had I felt really healthy and good.
• 10:15
  Angela: Awesome.
• 10:16
  Angela: So how were you feeling just like emotionally and just overall throughout your pregnancy as you were shifting from Lanchorage and Alaska and thinking about me?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I think I was just really excited.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: I was dreaming, you know, and a cool thing that happens in my second trimester, I've always had back issues.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess it was, you know, the increased blood flow, but all of a sudden I my body just felt really amazing and like I was pain-free for the first time ever.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so I just felt like pregnancy was this wonderful like cure all for my body.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it was, I mean, I had some.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um now I'm blanking on the name when you have pelvic pain.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I had some of that, which just felt like I was being kicked in my groin.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: But other than that, it was it was just like a blissful state to be in for the most part.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I was just trying to manage like everyone has fears about what the birth is gonna be like, and was kind of almost religious about telling myself, you know, my job during the pregnancy was to keep keep fear out of the equation as much as possible.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, plan what I could, but but there's so much that you can't plan.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so I really resisted any impulse to like have a strict birth plan or have a vision for how anything was gonna go down be besides some very basic things.
• 12:01
  Angela: Yeah, and that's incredible.
• 12:02
  Angela: And it's really important to have like just that kind of mindset, is that's really great.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I try, I mean, luckily I also had a who she was the one who inspired me to do the home birth because I had never met another mom who did one for her first baby.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'd only um met mothers who had chosen to do it after doing a hospital birth.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: So she was kind of my inspiration and um she I think helped me realize how possible things can be if you if you believe in yourself.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: And we've all been through so much as women, so we're capable of so much, but at the same time, you know, keeping in the back of your mind you need to change course, like that's part of it as well, like allowing space for those variables to occur.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I was trying to do that too.
• 13:01
  Angela: Yeah, yeah, it's such a path to navigate for sure.
• 13:07
  Angela: Just the unknown.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and just being comfortable with the unknown is no matter what part of life you're talking about, that's very difficult.
• 13:17
  Angela: Yeah, so true.
• 13:20
  Angela: Yeah.
• 13:20
  Angela: So how were things going?
• 13:23
  Angela: Like even just with your appointments as your pregnancy progressed towards, yeah, the end.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: Things were going really well.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I just I feel so fortunate that, you know, for the most part, I didn't really hit any obstacles in the pregnancy itself.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: The only thing was he was breached for a certain for a certain time, and I was told to I think do somersaults in the pool.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: Which I did, which I did at you know, the YMCA in the in the therapy pool, which is their warm pool.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I have very distinct memories of doing that, and it was fun.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, this can't possibly work, but he did switch positions, so I don't know if that's what did it, but yeah, it he seemed to be, you know, happy, and I was having some trouble kind of fully realizing that there was a human being inside of me that I was making, like I had some disconnect, but I remember this specific moment where I was at my partner's parents' house, and I was taking a bath in their cloth up tub, and my partner's mother brought me a cup of tea, and I'm sitting in the bath drinking this tea, and I think I was like seven and a half, maybe eight months, and I accidentally clanged the mug on the side of the tub, and my son just jumped like startled in in my belly.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I it was the first moment that it really like I was like, there is a full being inside of me who's responding to stimuli that are in the worlds right now.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: And that was that I think that's the moment that it like hit me what was actually happening, and it wasn't just this cool experience my body was happening was having.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: It was like, oh, there's also a separate thing going on.
• 15:21
  Angela: Yeah, it's so big.
• 15:23
  Angela: Like yeah, like you said, it's not just you, and it can feel like that because from the outside it is just you, yeah.
• 15:31
  Angela: Yeah, just like having that those moments where you're like really able to connect.
• 15:36
  Angela: Yeah, hear different stories from from moms when they have that moment.
• 15:40
  Angela: Some moms it's from the beginning, some moms it's some point throughout the pregnancy, and some moms it's when you're holding that baby in your arms.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, so interesting.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you know, if I ever was able to go through it again, it would of course be different.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that first time is so weird and special because there's no context for it.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: So you're developing context as you go, which is yeah, interesting.
• 16:09
  Angela: Wow, and then how did you do with the move from Alaska to Maine?
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think I I don't remember much about that move.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think it went pretty smoothly.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: We actually ended up moving into a sweet little rental house right up the street from my partner's parents.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: And they live on a beautiful lake in Reedfields, and the house itself that we moved into was like perfect for pregnancy and and infancy, um, because it was one floor and everything was on that floor and just very manageable.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I was working up until he was up until I was like 39 weeks.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I think I was just kind of focused on that transition and getting excited about you know the home birth, but yeah, I still very much just felt like I was kind of just doing my thing as an attorney and a person, like getting through the pandemic.
• 17:06
  Angela: So how were those last weeks and then days leading up to when your labor started?
• 17:11
  Angela: And how was your birth?
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, they were they were great.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think I had in the back of my mind, like everyone had told me, my mother had said, my mother-in-law had said, you know, the first one's usually late.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm thinking he was due July 7th.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh, I have until mid-July.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: It started to get a little burdensome in the last week.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember going on a walk with my mom the day before I ended up going into labor.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: But I that was the first time when I said, like, I don't think I want to keep walking.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I think I've walked enough.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: But it was getting a little hot.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: I would go to Target and just walk around in the air conditioning.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: And life was just normal.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the only thing is like looking back on it, I feel silly because my my partner is someone who stays up pretty late.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I wanted to be up with him doing fun things.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, the night before I went into labor, we we were up till 1:30 watching a movie and then falling around and like gonna fall asleep till maybe three.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: And looking back, I'm like, what was I doing?
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: I should have been getting really good sleep, but I just was not in the mindset.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: For some reason, I was like absolutely convinced that he was just gonna come at least a week late.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: But I woke up on July 4th and I was having contractions, and you know, I had all these ideas for early labor.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: I had seen these beautiful stories of women going for hikes and you know, having friends over to eat watermelon, and uh, I had this idea that I was just gonna hang out and cook.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: And when I woke up in labor, I was it was very intense.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like, and I had expected it or yeah, I had expected it to feel like you know, slight menstrual cramps.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, if I'm truly in early, early labor and this is what it feels like, this is crazy.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: So my midwife came out, I think it was like 5 30 in the morning, and I was already four centimeters at that point.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I wasn't in true early labor anymore, you know.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so that was somewhat comforting to me because I was like, okay, at least I know like I'm somewhat progressed.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: And the plan was that we were gonna have the baby in a cabin that was attached to my in-law's house down the street.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: So the plan was when I started going into labor, we would kind of meander down there, and the the bath was set up, and it would be this slow, easy thing.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: And my mother-in-law was gonna cook, and but it seemed to be happening fast and furious.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: And my mom is a nurse, as I said, she came from Portland.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: She was there, you know, within an hour and a half of me waking up.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I was laboring at our house, and then all of a sudden, I kind of realized like, if I'm gonna do this move down to the cabin, it needs to happen now.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: As it's getting to the point where it's very intense.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so I really I didn't want to walk down.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: It was probably, you know, 300-foot walk.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I felt that was not possible.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: So we loaded me into the car.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: And looking back on it, I still feel like we did that at the last possible second because even that one-minute car ride was very uncomfortable.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: I did not want to be in the car.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so I'm glad we were able to manage that.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't know if you want me to keep going with the birth.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I like to know what happened after this car ride.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: We got to my in-laws' house, and I was just kind of laboring on the on their couch, and we hadn't gone out to the little cabin yet.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's only about 10 feet from the house, but apparently I was falling asleep between contractions, which I don't remember.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I was very tired.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: And my partner was being my doula and telling me all the things we read about in you know, Anime Gaskin stuff.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I just remember like none of it.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: I I wasn't mad at him and I wasn't frustrated.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: I just none of it really registered like you would think it did.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: I was just kind of in my own world and trying to get through it, I think, going moment by moment.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then eventually we met.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Moved to the cabin.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember the first moment I got in the tub, it was it was a huge relief.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's that feeling of getting in a warm, warm tub.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's always a huge relief.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so it does take some of the intensity out of the moment for sure, which was really nice.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: But pretty quickly, I think that fell away.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I was very much back in it.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I just remember it going progressing very rapidly.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: And at some point, you know, I I got I assumed this position of being in all fours and hugging the side of the tub.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: That is where I seem to organically end up.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I I didn't curse at anyone.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I but at one point I did say, gosh darn it, which everyone laughs about now because they're like, who says gosh darn it?
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: That was like the worst thing I said during the labor.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then there was one point where I was like almost in transition and I looked over and my mom was sitting in the corner of this cabin, and it's a tiny cabin, but she looked terrified.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think she had been terrified of the home birth in general, because as I said, she's a nurse in a in a medical setting.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I looked over to her and said, Are you okay, mom?
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: And she's like, What are you okay?
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, at some point I said to Tiffany, like, oh wait, I did I did leave out one important tidbit, which was that we had candles lit around the edge of the cabin interior, and Tiffany's hair caught on fire at one point.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: Oh no, which was crazy, but very quick, and we handled that.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then she did give Yona and I some time to ourselves in the cabin, which was I think nice for Yona, but at that point I was already like deep into myself.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't really in the like, let's have this romantic connective space, like so.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was valuable for him connecting in that moment.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, fast forwarding to yeah, to getting to the transition point.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: I said to Tiffany at one point, like, am I supposed to push now?
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I did not feel an urge to push, but she said, Yeah, you can if you want.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're fully dilated and like if you feel that you want to try that, you can.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so this was a very cool experience.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: I tried to push a few times, and I remember feeling like there wasn't a connection there.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then maybe on the fourth time that I tried, I had this very vivid vision almost of a hand reaching out and grabbing my hands.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: And it was like it grabbed it and then it connected, and then when I pushed, I felt something like I felt that it was connected and moving.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it was like I had grabbed my child's hands and I was like, here we go.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: And it was only a few pushes, honestly.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like his head came out, and um his he was hanging out there for for a little bit, and this is all on video.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like I've watched it back a few times.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: He because of the way that I was positioned on all fours, his head actually came out above the water.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: So Tiffany told us that all of him had to now come out above the water because I guess that they they have to either completely come out in the water or out of the water.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so at that point, one of our friends who was in the room with us had to kind of lift me up so that we could ensure that my baby was fully born in the air.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: And his death, my my ex-partner has all of these theories that my son is scared of water now because he wasn't born in the water, you know, all of these kind of cosmic things.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: But regardless, yeah, it I just did kind of one last push and his eyes were wide open and he was handed to me.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I, I mean, even if you look at the video now, you can see my eyes are like in another dimension.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like I had exited this planet.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: I felt like, you know, I had broken open, the room had broken open, the state of Maine had broken open, the universe, like I don't know where I was, but it was not here.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so I did not have that experience of like this extreme connection with my baby.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: I felt very removed from what was going on.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I like watching the video because now I have that experience of like, oh, I get to see my son for the first time.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it was a very out of body.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I did have some hemorrhaging afterwards, which was a little bit of a frantic scene because you know, Tiffany is very, as I said, very risk averse and very careful.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so that was handled in like a very quick medical way.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think I think it was just like so much at once, so much happening so fast.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: Even the birth itself was only like seven and a half hours from the minute I woke up to the minute he was born.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, it just felt very out of body, all of it.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: So besides that hand holding moment.
• 27:59
  Angela: Yeah.
• 27:59
  Angela: Oh my goodness, that's so incredible.
• 28:02
  Angela: What a beautiful story.
• 28:04
  Angela: Wow, and how did your mom do?
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: She ended up doing fine.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think that I think she was there was a point in transition where it was the only point in the labor where my cries got I they turned high pitched, like I was in pain.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I actually remember thinking to myself, like, I can't do this.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: This is too much.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm but then I I realized like my only alternative is getting in the car and going to a hospital, and I'm not doing that either.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that moment also registered for her where she was like, my daughters and pig were sitting in this cabin, and she got scared, you know.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: But I think it was a very formative experience for her to see that this was possible.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I think she would say today, no, it was very scary.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: But I think overall it was really beautiful.
• 29:05
  Angela: Yeah, wow.
• 29:07
  Angela: Yeah, it's so incredible how, like, if there is something that comes up, like you said, you're bleeding a little bit more after the birth.
• 29:14
  Angela: Midwife is right there to handle all of that, right there with you at home, you know, and she knows exactly what to do.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and we also had this other fantastic midwife, Rebecca, and I can't remember her last name, but she was I I only met her that day.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I knew I was, I knew that Tiffany would bring a second midwife, but I hadn't met her.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: And she was just a perfect compliment to Tiffany because she was very kind of ethereal and like slow in her speech, like slow talking, gentle, sweet, like, and it was just like a perfect counterweight to the intensity and precision of Tiffany.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: So it ended up being like a really beautiful pairing, I think.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I think they should always work together.
• 30:03
  Angela: Oh, that's amazing.
• 30:05
  Angela: And how was your like immediate postpartum?
• 30:08
  Angela: How did the placenta come out?
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I that seemed to I I remember just, and I'm sure a lot of mothers feel this way, you're just kind of done.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: And the idea of something else coming out of your body is like, really?
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: It just felt like impossible.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: But I think it was the kind of thing that once it was over, I was just happy to be done.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: And we moved to the couch in the main house, and Rebecca helped us with making placenta prints.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I had told our friends and family that anybody who wanted to come for the birth was welcome to come.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: And there were probably 10-ish people from our life there, and everyone was feeding us and you know, looking at how beautiful Ubi was, and he was just perfect and pink and sleepy, and like I mean, he did an absolutely wonderful job.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like his heart rate was chill the entire time.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I tell him to this day, I'm like, you are so cool coming into this world.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like you did, you know, but yeah, that first day was just the the first 24 hours I felt like after he was born were just like blissful and easy.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's just kind of this like weird heavenly limbo that you're in.
• 31:34
  Angela: I love the way you've described some of these moments throughout your pregnancy, labor, and birth.
• 31:42
  Angela: And yeah, it's so true.
• 31:45
  Angela: Like, I just that just like to soak in that joy, you know, of just wow, like this just happened, you know, it's so big, it's such a big moment, yeah, to just sit and soak it in.
• 31:57
  Angela: It's so special.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I don't I think also like when it's your first, you don't really know what you're in for.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: So it's kind of like the ignorance is bliss aspect of it in terms of like as soon as they're born, and then it kind of hits you.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: You're like, oh wait, now I'm like, I have 24 hours of work for the next 18 years.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't really hit you when you're in that beautiful space of just holding them.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: But I think, yeah, you know, the first 24 hours was great.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: The next six months after that was really, really challenging for so many reasons.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: But I, you know, I think that most mothers feel that way.
• 32:41
  Angela: Yeah.
• 32:42
  Angela: Do you care to talk more about that?
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like how was your postpartum?
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think I struggled a lot with him as a newborn.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there were so many variables coming into play.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: I think I was shocked by by the workload.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: I've feel like I've been really blessed my whole life to, you know, I've worked hard in school, I've worked hard at my jobs, but it it felt it didn't feel anything like that.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: It felt so much harder and so much more demanding.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I was really exhausted.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: And my my partner had has some sleep challenges.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so between the two of us, it was really difficult to get the amount of rest we needed.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that compounded probably my ability to a be relaxed in how I nursed Ubi and kind of like I was I was getting into my analytical mind and I was like trying to be on a schedule, right?
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: And the the truth is, you know, you have to be available on demand and you can't get frustrated when that's more constant than you thought it was gonna be.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I think I was desperately looking for like a framework, and uh I wasn't relaxed.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: And when you're not relaxed, you're also not producing like as well as you you could be, probably.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: And what's hard about it is like Ubi wasn't gaining weight as much as I hoped.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: And he was he was born at a very average weight.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think he was eight, seven, but he wasn't gaining weight quickly and not to the point where the the the pediatricians were alarmed, but he keyed in that like 15% percentile.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I was in my head constantly about like, is this am I producing enough milk?
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't know how much is coming out, and sometimes I can pump and sometimes I can't, and it's it's very mysterious, and there's something wrong with me.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I just was very freaked out about it constantly.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, the sleep deprivation does not bode well for that kind of anxiety, and so between that and just the overall kind of hubbub of like adjusting to this new life, I think Ubi had a hard time too adjusting.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: He felt that anxiety in me, and like he had a really hard time settling throughout the day.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um if it seemed like there was just a lot of crying, and I just remember feeling very confused and very overwhelmed, and like I couldn't get into a rhythm for a very long time.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, looking back, so much of that is just like learning to let go and to just like let go of what you think is normal, and that's not something that can be taught, like that's something you have to go through and learn for yourself.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, it's hard to learn in the moment for sure.
• 36:07
  Angela: Yeah, it's definitely a relearning of everything that you once knew and figuring out what works now.
• 36:15
  Angela: So now, as a final question, if you were to give advice to someone who's expecting or even new parents, what are some of the biggest things you'd want to share?
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think it's related to what I was just talking about, which is, you know, I have a very analytical mind because I'm an attorney and I, you know, that's the way I'm trained to think about issues.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I research everything to a T.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: I try to, you know, plan when I can and optimize when I can, etc.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I think there's this myth out there that like you're when you become a mother, you have an intuition about how to care for your baby.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that's true for some people.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I've never met somebody who that's been automatically true for.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so I really, I really think that myth or that um that you know kind of general opinion is harmful.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think the reality is you're learning a completely new occupation.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, you will develop intuition, but it takes time and it takes paying attention to your individual child.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so I wish that I had, if I could go back, I would have spent less time researching, less time crowdsourcing, less time panicking if I had the right answer and just knowing, having confidence that and faith that like I would develop this intuition over time if I paid attention.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because ultimately that's what you have to do anyway.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: No matter how much you research, like you're gonna have to pay attention to your kid, and they're so unique.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: So you might as well not do all of the crazy research and actually just spend your time doing that, paying close attention and being okay with being wrong for a while.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I would also say, like, choose one medical provider that you trust.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: And when they say something, you listen and you don't chase down a million other people because you're gonna want to, and you're gonna want to have your suspicions confirmed, etc.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: But it's just like there will always be somebody who will give you a different answer.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but ultimately, like if you have a seasoned pediatrician or midwife or someone that you trust and they tell you, like, listen, your kid's growing slow, but growing healthily, and you don't have to worry about it.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you should listen to that person, person and you should trust them, and you should um trust yourself for.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I completely agree.
• 39:04
  Angela: Thank you so much, Anna, for taking the time to chat with me and share your birth story.
• 39:09
  Angela: It's been such a pleasure chatting with you and listening.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: No, thank you so much.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_01: This is such a great podcast and such a great idea.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I love all the moms in Maine.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: We're awesome, and I have such a great network of people that I want to grow, and it's just such a special place to be a mother.
• 39:32
  Kate Sutherland: Follow the walk of the wild ones into the woods and the darkness, rebirth the waves of the ancient ones whose tracks were washed away in blood.
• 39:43
  Kate Sutherland: It falls to us now to open up and taste beyond what we prefer.
• 39:48
  Kate Sutherland: Take up the Phoenix fire, and take change to the life and the death, follow the water, the wild ones, into the woods and the darkness, we both the ways of the ancient ones were on the wave.
• 40:04
  Kate Sutherland: It's all to us now to open up and take me on the weaker dead.
• 40:09
  Kate Sutherland: Take up the feet, it's our fleeting, change to like the past.
• 40:15
  Kate Sutherland: Step a step through the unknown, I'll be on the light and you'll be mine.
• 40:20
  Kate Sutherland: In darkness, let love the way to feed the soil of changing times.
• 40:25
  Kate Sutherland: Step a step through the unknown, I'll be on the light and you'll be line.
• 40:30
  Kate Sutherland: In darkness, let love like the way to feed the soil of changing times, follow the walk of the wild ones, into the woods and the darkness, rebirth the weight of the ancient ones, distracts for the walk the way you mind.
• 40:46
  Kate Sutherland: It was two months now to open up and take me on the dead, take up the phoenix, fire cleansing, change your life and death.
• 40:57
  Kate Sutherland: Step by step through the unknown, I'll be online and you'll be mine.
• 41:02
  Kate Sutherland: In darkness, let love light the way to feed the soil of changing times.
• 41:08
  Kate Sutherland: Step by step through the unknown, I'll be online and you'll be mine.
• 41:13
  Kate Sutherland: In darkness, let love light the way to feed the soil of changing times.