Latest / MyMaine Birth / 159. MyMaine Birth: Pitocin Overuse, Uterine Rupture, and the Critical Need for Informed Consent with Katie Spinks

Transcript

159. MyMaine Birth: Pitocin Overuse, Uterine Rupture, and the Critical Need for Informed Consent with Katie Spinks · MyMaine Birth

0:00
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.
0:10
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.
0:17
Angela: From our state's biggest hospitals to birth center births and home births, every birth story deserves to be heard and celebrated.
0:27
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.
0:35
Angela: Hey everyone, welcome to episode 159 of My Main Birth.
0:42
Angela: This week I've been exploring the difference between the idea of rebirth and the ideology that can easily develop around it, especially after a previous traumatic experience.
0:53
Angela: Before we begin, I want to offer a content warning.
0:58
Angela: Today's episode contains a detailed discussion of a very traumatic birth.
1:03
Angela: So if you're pregnant or not in a place to hear this kind of story right now, please skip this episode.
1:09
Angela: Today's conversation is a powerful and very important one.
1:14
Angela: My guest is Katie Spinks, a childbirth educator and doula who's lived through a very traumatic birth experience.
1:21
Angela: During her daughter Jolene's birth, excessive pitocin led to a uterine rupture.
1:26
Angela: Katie was in extreme pain while her concerns were dismissed by the medical team.
1:30
Angela: What unfolded that day changed her life forever.
1:34
Angela: Julian suffered a severe brain injury called HIE, which stands for hypoxic, ischemic encephalopathy, which also led to cerebral.
1:44
Angela: Katie has been fiercely advocating for her and has started pursuing expensive experimental treatments, including stem cell therapies in Mexico, along with her ongoing intensive therapies.
1:56
Angela: While Katie's story is particularly severe, birth trauma happens every day on so many different levels and in so many different ways.
2:06
Angela: In this conversation, Katie bravely shares the story of Jolene's traumatic birth, the uterine rupture, and the lasting impact it has on her family.
2:15
Angela: We talk about the bigger questions many women face after difficult hospital experiences and where the line sits between healthy autonomy after trauma and ideology that can sometimes go too far.
2:28
Angela: Check out the show notes for all of the links to connect with Katie, especially if you feel called to donate to her journey of exploring some very interesting experimental treatments for Jolene.
2:39
Angela: You can find Katie on Instagram at Katie underscore spinks underscore or on Facebook just as Katie Spinks.
2:49
Angela: And again, I have all of her information linked in the show notes.
2:52
Angela: So please go give her a follow and show her and Jolene some love.
2:57
Angela: Alright.
2:59
Angela: Hi Katie, welcome to my main birth.
3:01
Angela: To get started, would you share a little bit about you and your family?
3:07
Katie Spinks: So my name is Katie.
3:08
Katie Spinks: I'm 37 and I live in Virginia.
3:11
Katie Spinks: I have six children altogether.
3:14
Katie Spinks: Two of them are deceased, and my youngest is six.
3:20
Katie Spinks: Yeah.
3:20
Katie Spinks: No, yeah, Jolene is six.
3:21
Katie Spinks: I'm like, hold up.
3:22
Katie Spinks: She was born in 2020.
3:23
Katie Spinks: Um she was my fourth pregnancy and fourth birth.
3:30
Katie Spinks: And then the two babies after her passed due to preterm delivery.
3:34
Katie Spinks: They just, they were too young.
3:35
Katie Spinks: They couldn't be resuscitated.
3:37
Katie Spinks: So um they didn't make it.
3:39
Katie Spinks: Um, yeah, I don't really, there's nothing a lot to say about me.
3:43
Katie Spinks: You know, like my life is pretty much revolved around my kids, especially taking care of Jolene since she requires total care.
3:50
Katie Spinks: Um, but yeah.
3:53
Angela: Now, would you share a little bit about your first pregnancy in birth?
3:57
Katie Spinks: Yeah, my first pregnancy, I was pretty young.
3:59
Katie Spinks: I would think I was 19 or 20 years old.
4:02
Katie Spinks: Uh, pregnancy was totally fine, uncomplicated.
4:06
Katie Spinks: Birth was also fine and uncomplicated.
4:09
Katie Spinks: I was 40 and a half weeks.
4:12
Katie Spinks: I'm pretty sure if I remember correctly, it's been a long time.
4:14
Katie Spinks: It I was 40 weeks and five days when I had her.
4:18
Katie Spinks: I was induced.
4:20
Katie Spinks: Um, it went literally perfectly fine.
4:22
Katie Spinks: Like I couldn't have, if there was anything I could change, I wouldn't have changed anything.
4:27
Katie Spinks: It went really, really well.
4:28
Katie Spinks: There were absolutely zero issues.
4:30
Katie Spinks: Same with like healing and postpartum and everything.
4:33
Katie Spinks: I I had absolutely no issues at all.
4:36
Angela: Yeah.
4:36
Angela: So would you share a little bit more just about that experience with that first induction for you and the doctor that supported you?
4:45
unknown: Yeah.
4:46
Katie Spinks: So I lived in a different state when this happened.
4:48
Katie Spinks: And, you know, that was 16 years ago too.
4:51
Katie Spinks: Um, the induction, like everything was was was great.
4:55
Katie Spinks: I know that when I did go in there, I was already pretty dilated because I remember them saying, like, oh wow, you know, like you're this is your first baby.
5:02
Katie Spinks: You're so young.
5:03
Katie Spinks: This is great.
5:03
Katie Spinks: Like, I do remember them being excited that I was already fairly dilated.
5:07
Katie Spinks: I want to say it was like four, four, maybe five centimeters dilated already.
5:10
Katie Spinks: The doctor, she was really supportive.
5:12
Katie Spinks: I remember having a nurse, sometimes two nurses in there all the time.
5:17
Katie Spinks: You know, like they they moved me a lot.
5:19
Katie Spinks: They were very attentive.
5:21
Katie Spinks: They made sure I was okay.
5:22
Katie Spinks: The doctor was in and out throughout the whole process.
5:26
Katie Spinks: Um, she just everybody was great.
5:29
Katie Spinks: I have absolutely nothing bad to say.
5:31
Katie Spinks: They were so kind, they were attentive.
5:33
Katie Spinks: Um, I never once had to feel like any pain or feel like I wasn't being heard or anything.
5:40
Katie Spinks: It really was such like a beautiful experience.
5:43
Katie Spinks: Like I couldn't have asked for a better experience.
5:46
Angela: What do you remember around how they used Pitocin during that birth?
5:50
Katie Spinks: I don't remember much of anything, but for what I know from Pitocin now and using it many more times, I don't feel like my dose was really high because I don't remember feeling excruciating pain.
6:04
Katie Spinks: Like I waited for a little while to get the epidural because I was really afraid to get the epidural because I was so young.
6:11
Katie Spinks: But I just don't remember being like in excruciating pain.
6:15
Katie Spinks: I remember feeling like it was a really intense period cramp.
6:18
Katie Spinks: So I don't feel like they had my dose very high.
6:22
Katie Spinks: And I do remember them shutting it off before the doctor came in to help me push.
6:28
Angela: How was your postpartum then with her?
6:30
Katie Spinks: It was great.
6:31
Katie Spinks: Like, obviously, postpartum is is not fun, like healing and stuff.
6:34
Katie Spinks: I did have a tear, so I was healing more than just like birth and all that.
6:40
Katie Spinks: I think I went back to school when she was like two weeks old.
6:43
Katie Spinks: So it really wasn't bad.
6:45
Katie Spinks: Like, I have I have no complaints.
6:47
Katie Spinks: It was it was really it was nice.
6:49
Katie Spinks: And I had a doctor, like I said, like she was great.
6:52
Katie Spinks: Like she had me come in, I think like once a week for the first couple weeks because I did have those stitches.
6:58
Katie Spinks: And I guess I was young, like a young mom, and I was doing it alone.
7:00
Katie Spinks: So she just like she was very attentive.
7:03
Katie Spinks: So it was it was really nice.
7:04
Katie Spinks: It was, I don't want to say like it sucks having that as my first experience, because then it kind of like set me up for next experiences, but it was nice that that was my first experience, and the first one wasn't super traumatic.
7:18
Katie Spinks: But then I, you know, held that those standards with the rest of my births because I was like, well, this was great, and everybody was great, and everybody was so kind and and so attentive, and and they all cared, everybody should be like that.
7:31
Katie Spinks: You know, just it definitely wasn't like that.
7:34
Angela: Now, would you share a little bit about your second pregnancy and birth?
7:38
Katie Spinks: For my second one, my son.
7:40
Katie Spinks: The birth I did go into preterm labor quite a few times in my third trimester.
7:46
Katie Spinks: I think I was on bed rest from 34, 35 weeks on because I just like I kept going into preterm labor.
7:54
Katie Spinks: But I was also like, I was working a lot, I was like really stressed out.
7:57
Katie Spinks: I had another child to care for.
7:59
Katie Spinks: Um, it was just it was a lot.
8:01
Katie Spinks: So pregnancy was rough, but he was healthy, you know, like nothing ever happened to him throughout the whole pregnancy.
8:08
Katie Spinks: It was just a lot because of everything that I had going on.
8:11
Katie Spinks: And for his birth, he was also an induction.
8:15
Katie Spinks: And I remember that one being like a little bit, well, a lot more traumatic than my first one because everything, like all the patos and stuff, just kept making his heart rate drop.
8:25
Katie Spinks: So they were constantly like flipping me, putting the bed upside down, like fixing me here, do like it was just a lot of movement.
8:32
Katie Spinks: And I remember maybe I was it was before the doctor came in to push.
8:36
Katie Spinks: So maybe I was like eight, nine centimeters.
8:38
Katie Spinks: Like I was just like panicking, like I was panicking a whole lot.
8:41
Katie Spinks: They had to give me some medicine to calm me down because I was just freaking out because they were just in there, like they were attentive, which is good.
8:48
Katie Spinks: And I'm very like thankful that they didn't just be like, oh, whatever.
8:51
Katie Spinks: Like they just it was very scary constantly having people rush in and being like, okay, you have to stay in this position.
8:57
Katie Spinks: Like, we have to do this, we have to do that.
8:59
Katie Spinks: And so it was it was a little bit more, but he was real small.
9:02
Katie Spinks: So once the doctor came in and had me push, I think I pushed for like five minutes, maybe, and he was out.
9:08
Katie Spinks: He was real, real tiny.
9:10
Katie Spinks: So that was that was like a little bit more traumatic, obviously, than than my first one.
9:15
Katie Spinks: And healing with him was fine.
9:17
Katie Spinks: Like I didn't have any stitches with him or anything.
9:20
Katie Spinks: I was back to driving like two days after he was born.
9:22
Katie Spinks: I felt like physically totally fine.
9:26
Katie Spinks: It was just like in those moments when his heart rate was decreasing and everybody was panicking and it made me panic.
9:33
Angela: Yeah.
9:34
Angela: Yeah.
9:35
Angela: And for that birth, did they start you on the Petocin just to start the induction?
9:39
Katie Spinks: Yeah.
9:40
Katie Spinks: So, you know, you arrive and you get all set up, get your room set up, they do the labs, they do everything they need to do, and then it just went right to Petocin.
9:47
Katie Spinks: I do think with him, I was also fairly dilated as well.
9:51
Katie Spinks: For my both of my inductions for my first two, I was in there like from start to finish for less than 12 hours.
9:59
Katie Spinks: Yeah, I do remember him.
10:01
Katie Spinks: Yeah, yeah, for less than 12 hours.
10:03
Angela: Now, how about your third birth?
10:06
Katie Spinks: The third was also an induction with her.
10:09
Katie Spinks: Let's see, for Amelia, I was 39 weeks even with her.
10:14
Katie Spinks: I can't remember if I was as dilated with her as I was with the other two.
10:20
Katie Spinks: The pregnancy was totally fine.
10:22
Katie Spinks: I worked all through my pregnancy.
10:24
Katie Spinks: I worked up until like two days before I was induced.
10:28
Katie Spinks: Um, never had any issues with her pregnancy.
10:31
Katie Spinks: For the induction, I think the only reason why like it was, I guess, like not traumatic, but it was hard is because I had an epidural and it just did not work.
10:40
Katie Spinks: And they tried to redo it two more times and it just did not work.
10:43
Katie Spinks: And pitocin contractions are just God, I don't know if you felt them without an epidural, but they are they are so painful.
10:52
Katie Spinks: So once I got further along, like I was able to control the pain and like handle everything until like I was transitioning and then it just got really, really rough.
11:01
Katie Spinks: Like I was just puking violently and sweating, and it was just it was so, so, so painful.
11:09
Katie Spinks: And because I was in so much pain, it was really exhausting.
11:12
Katie Spinks: So when I was pushing her, she was a really big baby.
11:15
Katie Spinks: I was struggling.
11:16
Katie Spinks: So I do know the doctor did have to use the vacuum to pull her out.
11:20
Katie Spinks: But like I had my husband and his family, like everybody was super encouraging, and like everybody, even the nurses, they were so sweet.
11:28
Katie Spinks: Like, I remember this one nurse was like by me and just like let me cling onto her as I was like freaking out because I do know that they were saying, like, okay, it looks like the baby's starting to struggle a little bit right before they hooked up the vacuum.
11:41
Katie Spinks: So everybody was like, You, you know, you have to get her out now, or things could go south.
11:46
Katie Spinks: So I did that with one like push and with the vacuum, they were able to guide her out.
11:51
Katie Spinks: But I did get like a fourth degree tear, which was really painful.
11:55
Katie Spinks: It took me a long time to heal from her birth.
11:57
Katie Spinks: I think, oh my God, it took me like eight, nine weeks to heal from her birth.
12:01
Katie Spinks: It was, it was rough.
12:03
Katie Spinks: But still, over in all, I would take that experience over what happened with Jolene any day, you know.
12:07
Katie Spinks: Like I look back and I think, like, oh my God, like the births with my second and third, like they were traumatic.
12:12
Katie Spinks: Like, you know, my son's heart rate was decreasing, and then with my daughter, the epidural didn't work and I was in excruciating pain.
12:18
Katie Spinks: But still, like I would take that any day over what happened with Jolene any day.
12:25
Angela: So at this point after your third birth, was there anything, maybe even stories from other friends that you were hearing at this point that were maybe making you think that the level of pain that you were experiencing with the contractions during the birth when you had the pitocin, that was maybe more than like it should have been.
12:43
Katie Spinks: At this point, no, I still was completely clueless.
12:46
Katie Spinks: Like, I wasn't on social media at this point.
12:48
Katie Spinks: Like, I just like had a Facebook for like just friends and all that.
12:52
Katie Spinks: We didn't really talk about stuff like that or anything.
12:54
Katie Spinks: So I still wasn't able to connect the dots.
12:58
Katie Spinks: I just thought this is just how it's supposed to go, you know.
13:01
Katie Spinks: Like I trusted what all the doctors said and in everything that they did and said, so I never questioned anything.
13:06
Katie Spinks: I was like, it I guess this is just just how it is, and it is what it is.
13:11
Katie Spinks: It wasn't until Jolene was like a year old, maybe maybe a year and a half, closer to two years, that I like really joined on social media and I started, you know, looking around and digging and reading and figured out like, oh, so this this was not normal.
13:25
Katie Spinks: This was not how things were supposed to be.
13:27
Katie Spinks: None of this should have happened in the first place.
13:30
Katie Spinks: Things could have gone way different had I known all these things then that I know now.
13:37
Angela: Yeah, which is why we're here talking about it.
13:40
Katie Spinks: Yeah, yeah.
13:40
Katie Spinks: I agree.
13:43
Angela: So now would you tell me about how you found out you were pregnant with Jolene and like what your thoughts were on choosing your care?
13:49
Katie Spinks: So, like I said, at this point with her, when I was still pregnant with her, I just just trusted the doctors, you know, like I didn't question anything.
13:56
Katie Spinks: I did choose a doctor that was based in the hospital where I gave birth to my second and my third child.
14:02
Katie Spinks: So the doctor I'd had, I think was a different hospital.
14:05
Katie Spinks: And I didn't know much about the hospital, and I was like, I just want to stay at the hospital that I've been at.
14:08
Katie Spinks: So I chose a different doctor because of where the hospital location was.
14:11
Katie Spinks: That was it.
14:12
Katie Spinks: But no, like Jolene's pregnancy was literally beautiful.
14:16
Katie Spinks: I'm like, if every woman could experience a pregnancy like I did with Jolene, this world would be so overpopulated.
14:21
Katie Spinks: Like it was just such a beautiful pregnancy.
14:23
Katie Spinks: I loved it.
14:24
Katie Spinks: Like I worked out up until the day before I delivered.
14:27
Katie Spinks: Like I just felt amazing.
14:29
Katie Spinks: Like her pregnancy, I couldn't have asked for a better pregnancy, honestly.
14:32
Katie Spinks: It was great.
14:33
Katie Spinks: It was so wonderful.
14:36
Angela: Now, would you tell me about some of your like appointments towards the end of your pregnancy leading up to your induction with her?
14:43
Katie Spinks: Yeah, they were just like your typical come in, you know, vitals, weight, checking for dilation.
14:50
Katie Spinks: And I think that we scheduled an induction at like 37, 37-week appointment for a 39-week induction.
15:00
Katie Spinks: You know, they're just your typical go in, check, like in and out in five minutes type of thing.
15:06
Katie Spinks: I don't think I ever spent more than like five minutes in there.
15:09
Angela: So, what did that conversation look like?
15:10
Angela: Do you remember?
15:11
Angela: Obviously, very short.
15:13
Katie Spinks: Yeah, I don't remember a lot.
15:14
Katie Spinks: It was very short.
15:15
Katie Spinks: It was just like, you know, he's like, okay, like if you want to be induced, like these are the dates that we have open.
15:20
Katie Spinks: You're allowed to pick from here to here, you know, you're gonna be going the schedule, they're gonna call you the night before, tell you when to come in, you're gonna go in, be induced, and then you're gonna leave.
15:31
Katie Spinks: Like it was very cutthroat straightforward, and and that was it.
15:34
Katie Spinks: Like, there were no, do you have any questions?
15:37
Katie Spinks: Do you want to do nothing?
15:38
Katie Spinks: It was just here's your date, they're gonna call you.
15:41
Katie Spinks: Don't eat or drink after midnight.
15:44
Katie Spinks: See you then.
15:45
Katie Spinks: Like that that was it.
15:48
Angela: Yeah.
15:48
Angela: So did you think about any of that?
15:52
Angela: Or you just kind of in the mindset where you're just like, oh, that's what they say to do.
15:55
Angela: So that's that's what I'm gonna do.
15:57
Katie Spinks: Yeah, like I just thought that this was how it's supposed to be.
16:00
Katie Spinks: You know, like I had had other kids, so I was like, oh great, I'll just schedule it that way.
16:04
Katie Spinks: I can get a babysitter for for my other kids, and I know like when we're gonna be there.
16:08
Katie Spinks: Everybody can take off work for that day.
16:09
Katie Spinks: I thought I was going to go in, have her, and then leave like 24 hours later, and that was gonna be it.
16:17
Katie Spinks: Like I had no clue.
16:18
Katie Spinks: I should have asked questions, I should have done anything.
16:21
Katie Spinks: I just he was just like, you know, we do these every day, all day.
16:25
Katie Spinks: Everybody gets induced.
16:27
Katie Spinks: So we'll see you later.
16:29
Angela: So, how are you feeling emotionally leading up to that birth?
16:33
Katie Spinks: I was feeling really good for a while, and then I don't know, just out of nowhere, I want to say probably more towards my last few weeks, maybe like 32 plus weeks.
16:44
Katie Spinks: I just like got really anxious and nervous.
16:47
Katie Spinks: Like it was very weird.
16:48
Katie Spinks: It's so hard to explain.
16:49
Katie Spinks: It's kind of like like an impending doom feeling.
16:52
Katie Spinks: Like I just kept feeling like something bad was gonna happen.
16:54
Katie Spinks: Like it was just so strange on Thanksgiving before I had her.
16:58
Katie Spinks: I had her January 1st.
17:00
Katie Spinks: So that Thanksgiving before I had her, I was like writing out a will in my friend's kitchen, and it was just so weird.
17:06
Katie Spinks: I was like, I don't know why.
17:07
Katie Spinks: I just feel like I just need to have this stuff on paper because if something ever happens to me, like I just I need people to know like these specific things.
17:13
Katie Spinks: Um, it was just weird.
17:15
Katie Spinks: I kept feeling like like something bad was gonna happen.
17:18
Katie Spinks: I didn't know what, obviously.
17:19
Katie Spinks: But it was just so strange.
17:21
Katie Spinks: Like I just can't explain it.
17:22
Katie Spinks: It was just like very dark feelings, like lots of anxiety.
17:27
Katie Spinks: And everybody just kept saying, Oh, it's because you're gonna have four kids.
17:30
Katie Spinks: You know, like that's a lot of kids to handle.
17:32
Katie Spinks: Four kids is a lot, and you've still got two little ones, so you're just you're just anxious and nervous.
17:36
Katie Spinks: And I was like, Yeah, you know, I just I don't know, that's just not how I feel.
17:39
Katie Spinks: I don't feel nervous.
17:40
Katie Spinks: I feel like I've got a lot of support.
17:44
Katie Spinks: I just don't feel nervous.
17:45
Katie Spinks: I just I just don't feel right.
17:47
Katie Spinks: It was so hard to explain.
17:49
Katie Spinks: This went on for weeks, like literally until the day we had her, and even the day we had her, like we woke up late.
17:56
Katie Spinks: I was like, I don't even feel like getting ready.
17:58
Katie Spinks: Whereas before I would have gotten up, done makeup, and like taking pictures with all my kids and everything.
18:02
Katie Spinks: This time I was like, I just I don't know, it just doesn't feel like like a day that I should have a baby.
18:06
Katie Spinks: It was just it's very hard to explain, but it just didn't feel right.
18:11
Angela: And how is your husband feeling?
18:13
Katie Spinks: Oh, he felt the same way.
18:14
Katie Spinks: He'd we were both talking about it in the car, and before it went silent, he was like, it just something just doesn't feel right.
18:21
Katie Spinks: Feels like something bad's gonna happen.
18:23
Katie Spinks: But of course, we're not thinking like, oh, this is our intuition telling us that we need to just turn around and go home.
18:28
Katie Spinks: It was just everybody kept saying, You're nervous for having four kids, you're nervous for having four kids.
18:33
Katie Spinks: And I'm just like, um, yeah, I don't know.
18:36
Katie Spinks: But it was, it was definitely tall tale signs.
18:38
Katie Spinks: Like we definitely should have listened to those those signs.
18:42
Angela: So you were induced on New Year's Day, is that right?
18:45
Angela: Would you walk me through that morning?
18:49
Katie Spinks: Yeah, we got there early.
18:51
Katie Spinks: There wasn't a whole lot like going on in there, you know, like it was New Year's Day.
18:54
Katie Spinks: Uh, it was it was dark out because I think that it had snowed a little bit prior.
18:59
Katie Spinks: Well I got like the labs done.
19:01
Katie Spinks: They had me take a urine test.
19:03
Katie Spinks: Like we did all the walk-ups before you actually like start the induction.
19:08
Katie Spinks: We did all that.
19:09
Katie Spinks: I do remember like giving the nurse my birth plan.
19:11
Katie Spinks: It was the same one that I used for my second and my third child.
19:15
Katie Spinks: It wasn't like anything crazy.
19:16
Katie Spinks: I was just like a couple of things on there.
19:18
Katie Spinks: I wanted to keep my placenta.
19:19
Katie Spinks: I didn't want the baby to be vaccinated.
19:21
Katie Spinks: I wanted the cord to be, I wanted delayed cord clamping for at least 90 seconds.
19:27
Katie Spinks: Um, I didn't want the baby to leave the room, obviously, unless emergencies happened.
19:31
Katie Spinks: And I said that I didn't want to be offered a C-section for prolonged labor unless a C-section were medically necessary or, you know, things went downhill fast.
19:40
Katie Spinks: Then obviously, you know, it's like you guys can do whatever you need.
19:43
Katie Spinks: Um, but it was just like little simple things like that, that a lot of women can choose what they do and don't want to do.
19:50
Katie Spinks: And the nurse was just like, she was very weird about it.
19:53
Katie Spinks: She was like, You used this birth plan last time.
19:55
Katie Spinks: I remember her being like kind of catty about it.
19:58
Katie Spinks: And I was like, Yeah, yeah, that nobody questioned me last time.
20:01
Katie Spinks: Like they were totally cool with it.
20:03
Katie Spinks: You know, like I remember the nurse at my my third birth, like she loved the placenta thing.
20:07
Katie Spinks: She like held it up for my other kids and she was like, and this is where your baby sister was, like, and your mom's gonna take it home.
20:13
Katie Spinks: She's gonna, you know, she's gonna do what she's gonna do with it, and it's gonna help her.
20:15
Katie Spinks: And like she was like super, they were all super cool about it.
20:17
Katie Spinks: And this time they were just like, Oh, that's just so weird.
20:20
Katie Spinks: We've never heard of that.
20:21
Katie Spinks: I have to ask if if I can if we can do that.
20:24
Katie Spinks: And I'm just like, okay, whatever.
20:26
Katie Spinks: Um, so yeah, and then they did hook up the plu the Pitocin.
20:31
Katie Spinks: Um, I do remember with Jolene, I was not very dilated at all.
20:35
Katie Spinks: I think that I was about a centimeter dilated with her.
20:38
Katie Spinks: So my body was was not ready.
20:40
Katie Spinks: Um, and they did just go straight to Pitocin.
20:43
Katie Spinks: And I had a different nurse to start with.
20:47
Katie Spinks: And I started early.
20:49
Katie Spinks: Maybe it was like closer to eight or nine in the morning.
20:53
Katie Spinks: And things were like things were totally fine, you know, like there I really had no issues.
20:59
Katie Spinks: I used the peanut ball early on because I liked how it helped last time.
21:03
Katie Spinks: Like it helped, like, you know, take kind of like takes the pressure off.
21:06
Katie Spinks: So I used that pretty early on.
21:08
Katie Spinks: I was using IV narcotics like every four hours.
21:12
Katie Spinks: I think I had like two doses before everything went south.
21:15
Katie Spinks: Because I was like, well, if the epidural is not didn't work last time and it only worked with my son, it only worked on half my body.
21:21
Katie Spinks: I was like, I'm not gonna take the risk this time and go through the pain.
21:24
Katie Spinks: I'm getting one for it to just not work.
21:26
Katie Spinks: So yeah, I was like perfectly fine.
21:28
Katie Spinks: Like I was able to handle the pain and I wasn't breathing through it.
21:31
Katie Spinks: We were watching TV and all that.
21:33
Katie Spinks: And then the nurse's change shift.
21:34
Katie Spinks: I think it was around 6:30 when the new nurse came in.
21:37
Katie Spinks: And it was like very shortly after that, is when everything started going downhill.
21:43
Katie Spinks: So when my rupture happened, it was really like small and localized, but but I could feel it.
21:48
Katie Spinks: Like it felt like an explosion in my admin.
21:52
Katie Spinks: That's like the only way to describe it.
21:54
Katie Spinks: It literally feels like like a firecracker going off in you.
21:57
Katie Spinks: And my new nurse was like just not as attached.
21:59
Katie Spinks: As my other nurse.
22:01
Katie Spinks: She was very, I don't know.
22:03
Katie Spinks: It just didn't seem like she was all the way there.
22:05
Katie Spinks: Maybe she was new, maybe she didn't want to be there.
22:07
Katie Spinks: I don't know, but she was just like, you know, you, you should just give nepidural.
22:10
Katie Spinks: You need more pain medicine.
22:12
Katie Spinks: You're fine.
22:12
Katie Spinks: Like your body's probably picking up.
22:14
Katie Spinks: Let's check you.
22:15
Katie Spinks: And so, of course, I was like, okay, you know, like at first it was really painful, but I was still able to like, you know, handle it.
22:23
Katie Spinks: I have a pretty high pain tolerance.
22:24
Katie Spinks: So I was okay.
22:26
Katie Spinks: Not okay, but I wasn't like screaming at this point.
22:30
Katie Spinks: So she did check me.
22:31
Katie Spinks: And I do remember I was like getting pretty far along.
22:33
Katie Spinks: It was like almost to the transition stage.
22:36
Katie Spinks: And she just kept saying, like, we'll get you another, we'll get you an epidural, we'll get you more pain meds.
22:42
Katie Spinks: And I was like, I don't really don't want all that.
22:44
Katie Spinks: Like something, I don't know, something, something's really, really hurting.
22:47
Katie Spinks: So she did give me more pain meds and then she walked out and she was like, you know, let's just see if this works.
22:52
Katie Spinks: Let's just see what happens in like 15 minutes.
22:54
Katie Spinks: Well, you know, 15 minutes goes by, nothing is getting better.
22:58
Katie Spinks: It's still super painful, but because Jolene was able to hold a steady heart rate, they were like, this is just contraction pain.
23:06
Katie Spinks: Like, like we don't know what you want us to do.
23:08
Katie Spinks: Like, she was very, how do you even describe it?
23:12
Katie Spinks: Like, she was very standoffish, like she was very ignorant.
23:16
Katie Spinks: She kept saying that like I was being dramatic.
23:19
Katie Spinks: She kept saying that I should be used to the pain because I had three kids prior.
23:23
Katie Spinks: She kept saying, Well, if you would just get the epidural and relax, you'd be fine.
23:27
Katie Spinks: Like, she wasn't doing anything to really assess and like try and figure out what was going on.
23:35
Katie Spinks: Cause I I was handling the contractions while like, you know, obviously I was, you know, it was hurts, but it wasn't that insane, like agonizing pain.
23:44
Katie Spinks: And as time progresses, like that, it's getting worse and worse.
23:47
Katie Spinks: And at some point, like I start screaming and I'm like, I can't handle this anymore.
23:51
Katie Spinks: Like, this is unbearable.
23:53
Katie Spinks: Like, I'm telling you, like I'm pleading with her.
23:56
Katie Spinks: I'm like, I need a C-section.
23:57
Katie Spinks: I am telling you something is going wrong.
23:59
Katie Spinks: There is something isn't right.
24:00
Katie Spinks: This is not right.
24:01
Katie Spinks: Like, I don't feel right.
24:03
Katie Spinks: This is not contraction pain.
24:04
Katie Spinks: And she just would not listen.
24:06
Katie Spinks: Like, she just wouldn't listen.
24:09
Katie Spinks: And I, it was right as transitioning was happening.
24:12
Katie Spinks: I remember her like crouching in a corner and she started like bawling her eyes out.
24:17
Katie Spinks: She's like, I don't know what to do.
24:18
Katie Spinks: There's no doctor here.
24:19
Katie Spinks: Because the doctor was in another emergency C-section.
24:22
Katie Spinks: So yeah, they I so I didn't even have anybody.
24:25
Katie Spinks: So she's like, crying, I don't know how to deliver a baby.
24:28
Katie Spinks: I've never delivered a baby before.
24:29
Katie Spinks: And my husband's like sitting there screaming at her.
24:31
Katie Spinks: He's like, Well, if you don't know how to deliver a baby, then why are you in here?
24:34
Katie Spinks: Like, go get somebody else who knows what they're doing.
24:36
Katie Spinks: Like, this is not right.
24:38
Katie Spinks: This has never happened before.
24:39
Katie Spinks: Like, that this is not right.
24:41
Katie Spinks: So I guess at some point she walks out and she does eventually call the on-call doctor.
24:45
Katie Spinks: And about like 25, 30 minutes later, the on-call doctor comes in.
24:49
Katie Spinks: And this bitch, the only thing she cares about, she too, is holding the birth plan.
24:53
Katie Spinks: And the first thing she says when she walks in is, oh, not hi, I'm so and so a doctor you've never met.
24:58
Katie Spinks: What's going on?
24:59
Katie Spinks: It's I see you want to take your placenta home.
25:02
Katie Spinks: That's disgusting, illegal, and I won't let you do it.
25:04
Katie Spinks: You will get an infection and kill your baby.
25:06
Katie Spinks: Like she was adamant that I'd not take the placenta home.
25:09
Katie Spinks: And I remember like just saying to her, I don't give a fuck about the placenta right now.
25:13
Katie Spinks: Like something is wrong.
25:15
Katie Spinks: Like, you guys need to help me.
25:16
Katie Spinks: Like, I need a C-section.
25:17
Katie Spinks: Like, I am begging you to give me a C-section.
25:19
Katie Spinks: Like, I do not care what that birth plan says.
25:21
Katie Spinks: And she's just like, you just need to push.
25:24
Katie Spinks: You just need to push your baby out and you'll feel better.
25:25
Katie Spinks: And obviously at this point, like I still have no clue what's going on.
25:29
Katie Spinks: I didn't even know this could be a thing.
25:31
Katie Spinks: I didn't even know a uterus could rupture.
25:33
Katie Spinks: I didn't know any of these things could go wrong.
25:35
Katie Spinks: So I'm in my head just thinking, maybe this really is just birth pain.
25:41
Katie Spinks: But something in me felt like this is not birth pain.
25:45
Katie Spinks: And it took like the first push, and I felt it go from like a small spot to like all the way across.
25:50
Katie Spinks: And at that point, I was like, I am literally dying.
25:54
Katie Spinks: Like I'm telling you guys right now, if you do not take me for a C-section, I'm telling you, I'm going to die.
25:59
Katie Spinks: And they they like they just didn't care.
26:01
Katie Spinks: So after that first push, and it when it ripped all the way, obviously like she got cut from oxygen like at that point.
26:07
Katie Spinks: So her heart rate started to decline a little bit.
26:10
Katie Spinks: And so they hooked up the vacuum.
26:12
Katie Spinks: And each time I would push and they would pull, it would pop off her head, and then I would pass out because I started losing so much blood.
26:20
Katie Spinks: And so they did that about three times.
26:23
Katie Spinks: And on the third time, when it popped off and I passed out, her heart rate was like 40 at this point.
26:28
Katie Spinks: But I and I didn't wake back up.
26:29
Katie Spinks: They were putting the smelling salts in my nose and like doing the chest rubs and oxygen and all this stuff.
26:34
Katie Spinks: But like I've lost so much blood at this point.
26:37
Katie Spinks: I just would not wake back up.
26:38
Katie Spinks: So at that point, then they finally decided to do the c-section.
26:41
Katie Spinks: But my husband said they had like no urgency, they weren't like throwing things on the bed and running, that they were just like walking back there.
26:49
Katie Spinks: They had him put on the bunny suit.
26:51
Katie Spinks: Like they were prepping like this was a normal C-section.
26:53
Katie Spinks: Meanwhile, I'm passed out, not even awake.
26:56
Katie Spinks: And they're just treating this like such an inconvenience.
27:00
Katie Spinks: I guess it wasn't until that they realized that my vitals were like really tanking, and she was at like 20 at this point, that this was not going to be a normal C-section anymore.
27:12
Katie Spinks: He said that he was walking in and two nurses came from like each side of him and took him right back out.
27:17
Katie Spinks: And then they like blocked off the doors because that I guess they knew at that point they really fucked up and things were not about to go normal.
27:24
Katie Spinks: I don't remember any of that though.
27:26
Katie Spinks: Like when it popped off the third time, like that was the last thing I remember.
27:29
Katie Spinks: It was, it was just, it was like a nightmare, like a literal nightmare.
27:33
Katie Spinks: He said that the whole time he was sitting out there, like try like waiting to come in.
27:39
Katie Spinks: They wouldn't tell him anything.
27:40
Katie Spinks: They were just like, oh, the anesthesiologist needs more time.
27:43
Katie Spinks: Like they're trying to set up, you know, like all that.
27:46
Katie Spinks: And he was like, I knew they were bullshitting me.
27:48
Katie Spinks: I knew the whole time they were bullshitting me.
27:50
Katie Spinks: He said it was like an hour later a nurse came back out and said, um, God, what did he say?
27:56
Katie Spinks: They said something, but it was like, I can't remember what it was.
28:02
Katie Spinks: But he said that it like he knew at that point something was wrong.
28:06
Katie Spinks: They came out and said, like, there's doctors working on both of them.
28:09
Katie Spinks: Like, do you want us to call somebody to come sit with you?
28:11
Katie Spinks: And he said that at that point, like, like he just knew that he he just walked out, walked away.
28:15
Katie Spinks: He was like, I couldn't sit there and look at them and their faces anymore.
28:19
Katie Spinks: Cause when they came out and said that they're working on both of them, he said, I knew that they fucked up and I just couldn't be there anymore.
28:25
Katie Spinks: Like, I don't blame you.
28:26
Katie Spinks: You know, I couldn't, I couldn't either.
28:28
Katie Spinks: Oh yeah, that's the story with Jolene.
28:32
Angela: Wow, Katie, I'm so sorry.
28:35
Angela: What was the next remember?
28:38
Katie Spinks: So I guess at this point it took them longer to work on me than it did to work on Jolene because by the time they were waking me up, they were wheeling me back into the room.
28:47
Katie Spinks: They already had her in the transport cart, like the team was already there, like waiting to take her.
28:52
Katie Spinks: So they were just like waking me up like vigorously, rubbing me there, like you, you know, your baby has to go to another hospital.
29:00
Katie Spinks: Like you have to wake up so you can just say goodbye.
29:03
Katie Spinks: You know, now I'm just sitting there like, I don't know what the fuck is happening.
29:06
Katie Spinks: You wake up from an almost four-hour surgery, you're groggy, you're in so much pain, you don't know what's going on.
29:10
Katie Spinks: I just wake up and see like a hundred people in my room, and I see like this whole team of like transport nurses, and I see Jelene in a cart.
29:19
Katie Spinks: Sorry, that's hard.
29:20
Katie Spinks: Um it was just it was a lot.
29:24
Katie Spinks: It was a lot.
29:25
Katie Spinks: I just remember like being in a lot of pain and I didn't know what was going on.
29:32
Katie Spinks: So I think like I saw her, I touched her foot, and then like I was in so much pain, I just like started like screaming.
29:43
Katie Spinks: I was like, I can't I can't do this.
29:45
Katie Spinks: Like I am in agonizing pain.
29:47
Katie Spinks: And they like put something in my IB and then I passed back out until like the next night.
29:52
Katie Spinks: Um, I guess they had me on a lot of like fentanyl and morphine, a lot of like narcotics, because it was just it was so painful.
30:00
Katie Spinks: It was I was in a lot of pain.
30:01
Katie Spinks: And so they transported her.
30:03
Katie Spinks: And I so I was in the one hospital and she was in another.
30:07
Katie Spinks: And once I was like stabilized, my husband left me because I told him, you know, like like I'm I'm fine at this point.
30:14
Katie Spinks: I'm just in a lot of pain.
30:15
Katie Spinks: Like, I'm gonna live.
30:16
Katie Spinks: So you need to just like go be with her.
30:18
Katie Spinks: And so he got up there.
30:20
Katie Spinks: I want to say it was probably about 24 hours after she was born.
30:26
Katie Spinks: Um, and they had started cooling her.
30:28
Katie Spinks: Like they had already started cooling her before we left they left the hospital, but they like did it more in a professional way at the other hospital and and doing all that.
30:38
Katie Spinks: And so the first time I saw her, really like saw her was over FaceTime.
30:44
Katie Spinks: Uh, and the doctors were like, we don't know much about her or anything that's going on.
30:49
Katie Spinks: Like, we we don't know a lot.
30:50
Katie Spinks: We just do know that she has what's called HIE, and that's a brain injury.
30:55
Katie Spinks: That was the first time I'd ever heard of that.
30:56
Katie Spinks: Like, I was like, I don't even know what that is, to be quite honest.
30:59
Katie Spinks: Um, so it was just like it was just it was just a lot to take in, you know, like after you go through something like that, and then you're learning this diagnosis and learning that your baby might not even live.
31:09
Katie Spinks: Meanwhile, you're in a hospital, you can't you can't leave because if you leave, you won't make it either.
31:14
Katie Spinks: It was just, it was a lot.
31:16
Katie Spinks: Like, I would never wish that, even on my worst enemy.
31:19
Katie Spinks: Uh, I did leave, I think she was like five, five days old.
31:23
Katie Spinks: I was able to like finally get up and go to the bathroom.
31:26
Katie Spinks: They took McCatheter out and all that.
31:28
Katie Spinks: So I was like, I feel like at this point, if I can get up and somebody can help me get to the bathroom, like I just want to leave.
31:33
Katie Spinks: So I just I just left.
31:35
Katie Spinks: I told them, you can just give me the AMA papers, but I just I can't be here anymore.
31:38
Katie Spinks: I gotta I gotta get out of here.
31:40
Katie Spinks: So I did.
31:40
Katie Spinks: I left um and just went and just stayed with her.
31:44
Katie Spinks: I've never seen a baby like that in my life.
31:47
Katie Spinks: That was really rough.
31:48
Angela: Would you walk me through like kind of what happened with Jolene in those first moments and and what the doctor at that first hospital did before like her transport?
31:58
Katie Spinks: So I just know what was in the papers and what he told us.
32:01
Katie Spinks: So I guess when she was born, obviously she was she had no effort to breathe, she had no pulse, she had nothing.
32:06
Katie Spinks: So he had to resuscitate her, I think five, five different times, maybe.
32:12
Katie Spinks: Five or six, five, like five or six different times he resuscitated her, you know, and gave her like happy.
32:16
Katie Spinks: He did umbilical lines.
32:18
Katie Spinks: Once he got a pulse on her, he just, you know, he said he knew we needed to cool her.
32:24
Katie Spinks: He's like, the only way this this kid is gonna live is if we cool her and and shut her body down so it doesn't keep spreading.
32:33
Katie Spinks: So in like what he did, like literally saved her life.
32:36
Katie Spinks: If he had never started cooling her, she would not be here because it was just it was so bad.
32:41
Katie Spinks: So he he did, he definitely took extra measures.
32:43
Katie Spinks: He put like ice underneath blankets, like he just took things that he could find that were there because this was not a hospital with a NICU.
32:51
Katie Spinks: It was there was no nursery, even.
32:53
Katie Spinks: It was just like the lowest of the low hospital.
32:57
Katie Spinks: So he did, he just like took blankets and ice and ice packs and fans and just started cooling her that way.
33:05
Katie Spinks: Um, I don't know if they brought something with the transport cart.
33:08
Katie Spinks: I don't know how that worked in transport, but I do know that he was very adamant that they keep her cold while she was being transported.
33:18
Katie Spinks: And the doctors at the hospital with the NICU, they said that like everything he did was like above and beyond that most hospitals would have never done that because it's not in their protocols.
33:29
Katie Spinks: It's not, it's just not what they do.
33:31
Katie Spinks: So they said that because of what he did, he he literally saved her.
33:35
Katie Spinks: Obviously, like they did more stuff to save her, but he was like, Because of him, you know, we were able to help her further.
33:42
Katie Spinks: Without that, she wouldn't have made it because the cutoff time is six.
33:45
Katie Spinks: So I think it's like six hours for cooling from time of injury to cooling.
33:49
Katie Spinks: You have that window where if you go past that window, it's just you're looking at like a real rocky road.
33:55
Katie Spinks: So she was like right at that, right at that mark.
33:57
Katie Spinks: So we're just I'm very, very thankful for him.
34:01
Katie Spinks: Because if it weren't for him, she would not be here.
34:04
Angela: Yeah, and he was on one of the only ones that came and talked to you afterwards about like what kind of actually happened to you, right?
34:12
Angela: Because from what I understand from listening to your podcast, you had thought that some of the things were your fault, like the way they had spun it when you left that first hospital.
34:22
Angela: Would you share a little more about like how they made you feel and then how you came to understand like what was actually going on?
34:29
Katie Spinks: Yeah, so he didn't tell me too much.
34:31
Katie Spinks: He wasn't there.
34:32
Katie Spinks: So, you know, he was like, I can only speak on like what I know and what I saw.
34:36
Katie Spinks: He said that she definitely went a significant amount of time without oxygen.
34:39
Katie Spinks: There's no way she had just lost it.
34:43
Katie Spinks: He's like, she she had been, she had been without a pulse for quite some time by the time he got to her.
34:49
Katie Spinks: But so the doctor and the nurse that were with me came back in the day after I woke up.
34:54
Katie Spinks: And the nurse like sat on my bed and she was like giggly.
34:57
Katie Spinks: She was like, Oh, you know, these things just happen.
34:59
Katie Spinks: It just happens.
35:00
Katie Spinks: Some women's bodies just aren't made for birth.
35:02
Katie Spinks: I do, I do think it's I do this this part pissed me off.
35:05
Katie Spinks: So when she sat on my bed, she was like, I should have recognized that you had a rupture because I teach about ruptures at the local college.
35:12
Katie Spinks: And I'm thinking in my head, like, if you teach nurses about this, our county is in trouble because you couldn't recognize what you teach about.
35:21
Katie Spinks: Like, that is a problem.
35:23
Katie Spinks: That is a huge problem.
35:24
Katie Spinks: And she was like giggly about it.
35:25
Katie Spinks: And I was just like, none of this is funny to me.
35:28
Katie Spinks: You you completely ignored and dismissed my concerns.
35:32
Katie Spinks: And it led to essentially two people dying on your watch because you didn't know what you were doing.
35:38
Katie Spinks: Like, I don't think it's funny.
35:39
Katie Spinks: I had nothing else to say to her.
35:40
Katie Spinks: And then when the doctor came in, she was like the same thing.
35:43
Katie Spinks: She was like, Oh, you know, these things just happen, just like what nurse Amy said.
35:48
Katie Spinks: Some women's bodies, they're just not meant for to carry babies.
35:51
Katie Spinks: Maybe it's because you had so many pregnancies before.
35:53
Katie Spinks: We don't, we don't know.
35:54
Katie Spinks: And I'm thinking in my head, like, you guys couldn't be any colder if you tried.
35:59
Katie Spinks: You could not be any colder.
36:01
Katie Spinks: And they did, so they like spun it on me because they had that birth plan that said, don't offer me a c-section for pro-long labor.
36:07
Katie Spinks: Like they used it, they used it against me.
36:09
Katie Spinks: Oh, the mom had a signed birth plan saying that she didn't want a c-section.
36:13
Katie Spinks: Meanwhile, I literally was like verbalizing to them, like, I don't give a fuck about this birth plan.
36:18
Katie Spinks: Like, do what you have to do.
36:20
Katie Spinks: If you have to cut me right here on this bed while I am alive and awake, like, do what you have to do.
36:24
Katie Spinks: They just they did not care.
36:26
Katie Spinks: They used everything they could against me.
36:28
Katie Spinks: The fact, oh, look, the mom wants a more natural birth plan.
36:31
Katie Spinks: The mom doesn't want vaccines on her baby, the mom doesn't want her cord to be cut, like she didn't want any of this.
36:37
Katie Spinks: She didn't even want an epidural.
36:39
Katie Spinks: And I'm just like, you got that.
36:40
Katie Spinks: That's just that's so wrong.
36:42
Katie Spinks: That's just just wrong.
36:45
Angela: Yeah, I heard you share that in another podcast, and I've been thinking about it.
36:49
Angela: And I wanted to ask you, what are your thoughts on birth plans?
36:53
Angela: Well, now, as you're Adula and childbirth educator, like, what are your thoughts on birth plans being used against women?
37:00
Angela: Like, your birth plan said you didn't want to be offered a C-section for exhaustion, and then in your records, it said they had to do the cesarean because you passed out due to exhaustion.
37:07
Angela: Yeah.
37:08
Angela: Essentially saying they didn't offer you one sooner because they're honoring your birth plan.
37:13
Angela: Like, I've seen this often where moms I've worked with with have had things go askew in their births, and doctors just bring it back to, but your birth plan said this and that, essentially using it against them.
37:22
Angela: And falsifying medical records is not rare, unfortunately.
37:27
Angela: It happens to a lot of people.
37:29
Angela: And I'm starting to think birth plans give doctors and nurses like an out when things go wrong.
37:35
Katie Spinks: I, and you know, that's exactly how I feel at this point.
37:38
Katie Spinks: Like, on one hand, I love birth plans.
37:40
Katie Spinks: Like, I love that somebody can vocalize what they want and be able to make choices for themselves.
37:45
Katie Spinks: And then on the other hand, I'm like, if you actually give a copy to the doctor and a nurse and something goes wrong, they're gonna use this against you.
37:51
Katie Spinks: And then they're gonna use that as their out and they're gonna pin the blame on you.
37:55
Katie Spinks: So it's like, I like what my thing is now, like I like birth plans.
37:59
Katie Spinks: If I'm going to a birth with somebody and I'm like, give me the plan because uh no, I I'm your I'm just your advocate.
38:07
Katie Spinks: Like I'm here to just make sure you get what you want and get what you need.
38:10
Katie Spinks: Like you verbalize to them what you want, but you give to me in writing what you want.
38:14
Katie Spinks: Because if they're if something goes south and they're doing something to you and you don't want, I'm gonna tell your partner, your husband, your wife, your whatever, hey, she put this in her birth plane and she said that she doesn't want this, or she said that she does want this.
38:26
Katie Spinks: Like, but you need to speak up for her.
38:28
Katie Spinks: Like, obviously, I will too, but like it's just a way so that way they can't use it against them.
38:34
Katie Spinks: Because if the doctor puts in the notes, oh, well, Mrs.
38:36
Katie Spinks: Smith told me she wanted, whereas it's compared to, oh, well, I have a letter from Mrs.
38:41
Katie Spinks: Smith.
38:41
Katie Spinks: It's it's a little bit different.
38:43
Katie Spinks: So I'm like, it sucks because obviously it's so nice for them to have that birth plan, but at this point, you're just gonna have to verbalize it with them.
38:51
Katie Spinks: Well, I'll do it with you, you know, but do not give them a written birth plan because they're gonna use it against you.
38:58
Katie Spinks: It's hard, it shouldn't be that way.
39:00
Katie Spinks: Mom shouldn't be terrified to go into the hospital and be like, Am I gonna leave alive?
39:04
Katie Spinks: Are we both gonna leave alive?
39:06
Katie Spinks: If I say something, are they gonna use it against me?
39:08
Katie Spinks: It's like, you know, no wonder they don't want anybody recording anything in the birthroom because that's evidence in itself.
39:15
Katie Spinks: It's just it all like it all clicks, it all makes sense now why so many things are the way they are.
39:21
Katie Spinks: And it's it's wrong.
39:22
Katie Spinks: It only protects them, but hurts women and babies.
39:27
Angela: Yeah, it is so wrong.
39:29
Angela: And I completely agree with you everything you just said in the last few births that I've been to that have been at the hospitals.
39:34
Angela: I've told the moms like the same thing, like, don't give them a written birth plan.
39:38
Angela: Like, yeah.
39:39
Katie Spinks: Yeah, they're just gonna use it against you.
39:41
Katie Spinks: Why why bother?
39:42
Katie Spinks: It's it's hard enough going through something traumatic, but then turning around and feeling like it's your fault when you're already grieving and you're already like depressed and dealing with all those emotions to then sit there and feel like, man, I caused this, like I'm the reason this happened is just that's terrible.
40:00
Katie Spinks: No woman should ever feel that way, even though like logically you're like, Well, I didn't I screamed and pleaded for my life.
40:07
Katie Spinks: Like, you know, it's it's hard.
40:08
Katie Spinks: Like your mind fights with reality and trying to not accept what you're told.
40:13
Katie Spinks: If a doctor tells you it's your fault, well, like what else are you supposed to think?
40:17
Katie Spinks: You know, even though your logical mind is like, no, that's not my fault.
40:20
Katie Spinks: I I was trying to get you to listen.
40:23
Katie Spinks: It's it's so hard.
40:24
Katie Spinks: So it just it is it sucks, but things they shouldn't be that way.
40:28
Katie Spinks: It shouldn't.
40:28
Katie Spinks: It's scary.
40:30
Angela: How did you come to finding out like what was really going on, like your truth in that whole situation as Jolene's NICU journey went on?
40:42
Katie Spinks: Honestly, I didn't find out really a lot of the truth until she was like, like I said, like two years old.
40:47
Katie Spinks: And and I enjoyed the internet world and I had talked to more professionals, midwives, OBs, doctors, NICI doctors, nurses, you know, talking to the nurses at the hospital that took care of her, the doctors who took care of her.
41:01
Katie Spinks: It was like everybody, what everything was saying, everything I read, like it all just it all aligned.
41:08
Katie Spinks: Like I did leave the Nikki when she was discharged, knowing that it wasn't my fault because the even the doctors and the nurses, they were like, This was not your fault.
41:18
Katie Spinks: You did not delay your care.
41:20
Katie Spinks: They delayed your care.
41:22
Katie Spinks: They're like, this was not some accident.
41:26
Katie Spinks: You didn't just get in a car accident and this happened.
41:28
Katie Spinks: They were like, This, this kid went a significant amount of time without oxygen.
41:33
Katie Spinks: Like there were tall tail signs.
41:35
Katie Spinks: You were hooked up to the monitor, they were charting, like you were hooked up and they should have known.
41:41
Katie Spinks: They should have, they should have moved faster and they didn't.
41:43
Katie Spinks: They're like, that this is not your fault.
41:45
Katie Spinks: So, like when they put that in my head, and they're the ones who told us, like, go talk to a lawyer, just go talk to one, see what you can find out.
41:52
Katie Spinks: Um, that I started, like, you know, slowly piecing all the puzzle pieces together.
41:57
Katie Spinks: Um, but when I find out, found out that my medical records were falsified, that just gave me like more of a push to want to find out even more.
42:05
Katie Spinks: So she was probably like two years old, and I found out like, this is this is scary.
42:10
Katie Spinks: This is and this is not rare.
42:12
Katie Spinks: I am not like the doctor and the nurse were like, this is so rare.
42:15
Katie Spinks: You're never gonna find anybody like you.
42:16
Katie Spinks: Like, oh yeah, I definitely, definitely did.
42:18
Katie Spinks: I found a lot more people like me.
42:20
Katie Spinks: It's not rare.
42:22
Katie Spinks: And it's 99.99% of the time because doctors and nurses just don't listen.
42:28
Katie Spinks: We're always just pushed off.
42:30
Katie Spinks: You know, it's like what they say in women's health care.
42:32
Katie Spinks: They make everything seem like we're just anxious, like when really like women don't get hurt until they're literally dying.
42:38
Katie Spinks: And even then, women will die and they'll be like, Oh, you should have gotten care sooner.
42:42
Katie Spinks: And it's like, should I?
42:44
Katie Spinks: Like, try, try to, nobody would listen.
42:49
Angela: Yeah, so after Jolene's birth, did you what it did you think you could get pregnant again?
42:56
Katie Spinks: No, they told me that there was no way I could get pregnant again.
43:00
Katie Spinks: They said that there was just so much scar tissue, so much damage.
43:03
Katie Spinks: They're like, there's just no way you could get pregnant again.
43:06
Katie Spinks: I don't even know why I trust them, trusted them at this point.
43:09
Katie Spinks: I think maybe I was still like delusional, like disassociated, and like thinking at this point I could still fully trust them because I shouldn't have trusted them.
43:17
Katie Spinks: I shouldn't have listened to them at all.
43:20
Katie Spinks: But I did.
43:20
Katie Spinks: I did get pregnant like the very first time.
43:23
Katie Spinks: We weren't even trying, but I was like, okay, like I just had a baby, I'm still pumping.
43:27
Katie Spinks: Um, because before, like when I had my other kids, I was able to use like pumping and all that as a way to keep from getting pregnant.
43:34
Katie Spinks: Uh this time, uh, I felt like I was far more fertile this time, which is crazy.
43:39
Katie Spinks: And I did get pregnant, and I lost that baby about halfway into the pregnancy.
43:44
Katie Spinks: And, you know, the I had a different doctor at this point.
43:47
Katie Spinks: And he was like, I know, I don't know.
43:49
Katie Spinks: I can't explain it.
43:50
Katie Spinks: Your pathology, everything looks totally normal.
43:53
Katie Spinks: We're just gonna we we don't know.
43:55
Katie Spinks: We don't have an explanation for you.
43:57
Katie Spinks: He was like, you know, but clearly you can get pregnant.
43:59
Katie Spinks: So you do with that information what you want to do.
44:02
Katie Spinks: But at this point, um, you know, like we really wanted another baby.
44:06
Katie Spinks: We wanted like a lot of kids.
44:08
Katie Spinks: And so we I got pregnant again after I healed from that loss.
44:14
Katie Spinks: And the same exact thing happened again.
44:15
Katie Spinks: Like I lost her halfway in.
44:17
Katie Spinks: The doctor was finally like, all right, you, if you keep getting pregnant, this is clearly just gonna keep happening.
44:23
Katie Spinks: He's like, I can't tell you 100%.
44:25
Katie Spinks: He's like, but I I feel like there's just a lot of scar tissue that maybe we can't see on an ultrasound.
44:32
Katie Spinks: Like, there's obviously something going on with your uterus.
44:35
Katie Spinks: Your body just can't handle being pregnant anymore.
44:39
Katie Spinks: Because when I got to that halfway point, you know, like your body starts stretching more.
44:42
Katie Spinks: He was like, So if your body is expelling pregnancies, when you're getting to that point, then obviously you just, you should not have any more, any more kids.
44:51
Katie Spinks: He's like, if I were you or you were my wife, I would just tell you to to just get sterilized.
44:57
Katie Spinks: Because if you have another baby or you get pregnant again, you could risk not only you dying, but the baby dying as well.
45:04
Katie Spinks: He's like, this is just, this is too dangerous.
45:06
Katie Spinks: So like I did listen to him.
45:08
Katie Spinks: I was like, I'm not, I don't want to play with with fire like that.
45:11
Katie Spinks: I think like after I healed from that loss, I did go and have a partial hysterectomy.
45:17
Katie Spinks: Um, and that doctor who did the hysterectomy, he said, I just do not understand why they didn't take your uterus out when you had the C-section.
45:25
Katie Spinks: He was like, Your uterus was probably the most trashiest uterus I've ever seen in my career.
45:31
Katie Spinks: He was like, it looked like shredded cheese stitched back together.
45:35
Katie Spinks: He's like, I don't, I don't know why they did that to you.
45:37
Katie Spinks: He's like, something could have happened down the road in when you were having your period or get into a car, something could have happened to you and you could have like bled out and died because they kept they put that uterus back in you.
45:50
Katie Spinks: He's like, they should have just taken it out.
45:52
Katie Spinks: I was like, Well, I guess that's nice to know.
45:54
Katie Spinks: I mean, I'm not surprised they they fucked everything else up, you know.
45:58
Katie Spinks: Why not mess that up too?
46:00
Katie Spinks: Um, so yeah, I think I had that done in like 2021.
46:04
Katie Spinks: Yeah, 2021.
46:07
Katie Spinks: But it's like the issues from all this just never went away.
46:11
Katie Spinks: Like I had the most horrific like scar pain for the longest time.
46:16
Katie Spinks: Like I had so many adhesions on my pelvis.
46:19
Katie Spinks: It's just like people think like, oh, you're you got surgery, you got healed up, like you're fine.
46:23
Katie Spinks: It's like, no, the issues never stopped.
46:25
Katie Spinks: And then because of all the scar tissue from all that, I had a torsed ovary that made me go septic this past August.
46:33
Katie Spinks: It's like it just, it just doesn't ever stop.
46:36
Katie Spinks: Like, I feel like this is just this is a nightmare.
46:39
Katie Spinks: And who knows?
46:40
Katie Spinks: I'm like, I only have one ovary left because I'm trying to cling on to it because I'm only 37, you know, like I really don't want to go through menopause right now.
46:46
Katie Spinks: Uh, but it's like they just they, you know, like it sucks because they get to move on from what they did.
46:52
Katie Spinks: Meanwhile, here we are six years later, and we will deal with the consequences of the lack of their actions for the rest of our lives, between the the all the scar pain and stuff from my surgery, and then obviously Jolene's brain injury.
47:07
Katie Spinks: Like it's just it never ends for us.
47:09
Katie Spinks: Meanwhile, them they just they just get to live their lives, and there's no no like repercussions for them.
47:17
Katie Spinks: And it's like it's like you said, it's not rare that it happens to to a lot of women.
47:22
Katie Spinks: Like, there's a lot of families like mine out there living with the same pain that we do.
47:26
Katie Spinks: Meanwhile, their doctors are still practicing, like still doing what they do.
47:29
Katie Spinks: It's not fair.
47:32
Angela: It's definitely not fair.
47:34
Katie Spinks: Not at all.
47:35
Katie Spinks: It's hard.
47:36
Katie Spinks: It's hard to like see.
47:37
Katie Spinks: Like one time her Facebook, the doctor's Facebook, popped up on my like people you may know thing.
47:41
Katie Spinks: And I'm like, here's her and her family at Disney World with all her kids, you know, and I'm like, must be nice.
47:47
Katie Spinks: We'll never be able to do that with our family because we have a child like Jolene.
47:50
Katie Spinks: Meanwhile, you guys get to go do stuff like that because nobody did that stuff to you.
47:55
Katie Spinks: You're just living your life.
47:56
Katie Spinks: It's just like it's such a like a like a slap in the face.
48:00
Angela: Do you care to name her?
48:02
Katie Spinks: Oh, absolutely.
48:03
Katie Spinks: Her name is Elizabeth Lavery.
48:06
Angela: And this is in Virginia.
48:07
Angela: So yeah.
48:09
Angela: What do you wish more women understood about their legal and ethical human rights versus hospital policy?
48:16
Katie Spinks: I wish they knew they had them.
48:18
Katie Spinks: I feel like way too many women think that policy is law and it's not.
48:23
Katie Spinks: If a hospital policy is there, it's to protect the workers, not to protect the patient.
48:29
Katie Spinks: Like you do not have to follow the policy.
48:32
Katie Spinks: If you want to do something off policy, do it.
48:35
Katie Spinks: You do you don't have to do what they want you to do.
48:38
Katie Spinks: And if they don't like it, request somebody else.
48:40
Katie Spinks: Like there's somebody in that hospital that will provide you adequate care, care, no matter what you want.
48:46
Katie Spinks: You know, to an extent, obviously you can't be there like chugging booze in labor.
48:51
Katie Spinks: But if you want to get up and walk around or use the birthing tub or take the monitor off because you're just in there having natural contractions, like, you know, do what you want to do.
49:01
Katie Spinks: It's it's your birth.
49:02
Katie Spinks: If you're making an informed choice, do it.
49:05
Angela: Yeah.
49:06
Angela: I tell moms to like just use the hospital room as like a hotel room, just like go in, use it as like your room.
49:11
Angela: Like it's your consumer.
49:13
Angela: Right.
49:14
Katie Spinks: I say the same thing.
49:15
Katie Spinks: I'm like, if your insurance is gonna pay for it, I mean, why not?
49:18
Katie Spinks: You don't, they don't have to do things to you and they can't kick you out.
49:21
Katie Spinks: They can't be like, oh, we have to leave because you don't want an IV.
49:23
Katie Spinks: Like, that's not their place to say.
49:25
Katie Spinks: If you don't want one, if you're a low-risk mom and you're not like with a blood pressure of 250 over, you know, 180, there then there's nothing wrong with that.
49:33
Katie Spinks: Do do what you want to do.
49:36
Angela: Yeah, definitely.
49:37
Angela: So, from your perspective, as a mom who's been through what you've been through and also as a doula and childbirth educator, how does a traumatic hospital birth change a woman's relationship with the medical system?
49:51
Katie Spinks: Oh man, that's it's hard.
49:52
Katie Spinks: It changes like everything about it.
49:55
Katie Spinks: For the first couple years of Jolene's life, I didn't trust any doctors.
50:01
Katie Spinks: None of them didn't trust doctors, nurses.
50:04
Katie Spinks: If you had a letter behind your name, I did not trust you whatsoever.
50:07
Katie Spinks: It didn't matter how nice you were.
50:09
Katie Spinks: I questioned everything you said.
50:11
Katie Spinks: But now that we're like six years in, obviously Jolene still, she needs a medical team.
50:17
Katie Spinks: She needs a team full of specialists, she needs therapists, she needs to have stability, she needs medical stability, she needs people who know what her baseline looked like.
50:27
Katie Spinks: It like forces you to like let go of that discomfort.
50:32
Katie Spinks: And I wouldn't say that I just trust doctors, you know.
50:35
Katie Spinks: I feel like I go into it not like with my walls up, but smarter.
50:41
Katie Spinks: Um, like she does have a couple doctors I do trust.
50:44
Katie Spinks: Like I love them.
50:44
Katie Spinks: If they recommend we do something, I'm like, okay, can you give me a couple minutes while I just look this stuff up?
50:50
Katie Spinks: And they're really good with me.
50:52
Katie Spinks: Like I explained to them, like, you guys have to understand why I question everything you say.
50:56
Katie Spinks: And they absolutely do.
50:58
Katie Spinks: They don't fight me at all.
50:59
Katie Spinks: They're great.
51:00
Katie Spinks: Like we are very, I am very thankful to have a team like that, but I definitely question everybody, whereas I used to just distrust them.
51:08
Katie Spinks: There was just an automatic distrust.
51:10
Katie Spinks: Now I just, I just question it and I don't just listen.
51:13
Katie Spinks: Where if they're like, when she was, um, we went to Mexico a couple months ago and she needed to go to the hospital, and they're like, oh, she needs these labs, she needs this, she needs that.
51:22
Katie Spinks: And I'm like, you know, I don't feel like she does.
51:25
Katie Spinks: If you can give me like a sound medical reason why she needs this and what you're gonna do with this and how it's gonna make your treatment better, then we'll do it.
51:34
Katie Spinks: But if you're doing it just to do it, I don't feel comfortable doing that.
51:38
Katie Spinks: Where like now I'm like not afraid to stand up for myself or for her, and I'm just like not afraid to be vocal rather than just being like, okay, sure, you want to do that, do it.
51:49
Katie Spinks: Just go ahead.
51:50
Katie Spinks: I just don't do that anymore.
51:52
Angela: Which is essentially like developing autonomy, you know, of just like having that confidence to say, like, you know, get all the information and say like what you think about it, really.
52:03
Angela: I just feel like that's I wish more women would would work on that too, like in preparation, right?
52:08
Katie Spinks: Right.
52:09
Katie Spinks: So like you just you have the information at your hand to say yes or no rather than to be like, oh, well, I told them they could, but I didn't know why.
52:15
Katie Spinks: I didn't question it.
52:16
Katie Spinks: For now, like I asked all the questions.
52:18
Katie Spinks: And if it makes me look crazy, crazy, it makes me look crazy, but at least I will have the information.
52:24
Katie Spinks: So if something does go wrong, I can be like, all right, you know what?
52:27
Katie Spinks: I'm the one that chose this based off of this.
52:30
Katie Spinks: So, like, you know, I will take responsibility rather than just be like, oh, well, they they said it, and then I get blamed for it anyway.
52:37
Katie Spinks: So it's just, I would just much rather make all of the informed choices and have the information to make informed choices than to just be like, okay, do what you gotta do, or be like, no, no, don't do that, don't do that.
52:49
Katie Spinks: Because then, you know, that can cause a whole lot of other issues.
52:52
Katie Spinks: It's just nice to be able to still have a relationship while not being like submissive.
53:00
Angela: Absolutely.
53:01
Angela: Yeah, 100%.
53:03
Angela: How do you see traumatic hospital birth experiences directly fueling the desire for some women to free birth?
53:12
Angela: I see, I feel like I see that a lot now.
53:15
Katie Spinks: Um, not even just free birth.
53:17
Katie Spinks: Like some women are like, I just want to stay home, I just want a midwife at my house, like I just want somebody there for backup just in case, okay, which I get, I get you want somebody there for backup, you know, do what you want to do at your birth.
53:27
Katie Spinks: Um I I mean, I could definitely see it.
53:30
Katie Spinks: I would be scared shitless to go back into a hospital and have another baby.
53:36
Katie Spinks: Like, even being in a hospital six years later, doesn't matter what hospital it is, it like triggers the PTSD and anxiety, like the smell of alcohol swabs, the look of a hospital bed, like the color of a hospital.
53:50
Katie Spinks: It's very triggering.
53:52
Katie Spinks: So I can definitely see where, like, you know, like birth is hard enough in itself.
53:56
Katie Spinks: It's hard, it's it can be triggering for some women.
53:59
Katie Spinks: It just it's it can be a really hard experience.
54:02
Katie Spinks: So you don't want to add that trauma and anxiety and all those feelings onto it because then you know, like once you get into like you're fully anxious, you're panicking and all that, you could either just submit to whatever they want to do and things could go south again, or you could just say no when you actually need something.
54:19
Katie Spinks: It just like it clouds your judgment when you're panicking and you don't know what to say or what to do.
54:26
Katie Spinks: Um, and you can't make informed choices.
54:28
Katie Spinks: So I could, I mean, I could definitely understand why so many women are like, I cannot go back into a hospital.
54:34
Katie Spinks: I can't do it.
54:35
Katie Spinks: I I I completely see where they're coming from.
54:38
Katie Spinks: You just you don't understand it unless you've been through it.
54:42
Katie Spinks: Like the PTSD and the way the little things can trigger you into a full-blown like panic that can last for days and days.
54:51
Katie Spinks: It's it's exhausting and painful.
54:55
Angela: Are you familiar with the Free Birth Society?
54:57
Angela: Have you heard much about them or not that much?
54:59
Katie Spinks: A little bit.
55:00
Katie Spinks: I know a friend on Facebook who is a free birther and she talks like a lot about it.
55:04
Katie Spinks: Like I've learned a lot of free birthing through her, and then she has like friends at free birth too.
55:09
Katie Spinks: So like I just look at their conversations a lot.
55:11
Katie Spinks: I don't like read anything from the society.
55:14
Katie Spinks: I've heard of it, but I don't know like a whole lot about it.
55:17
Katie Spinks: I just know, like, I guess, about what free birth is and why women choose it and and about it through through women who've done it.
55:25
Angela: So the whole reason I'm doing this whole series is because the leaders of the free birth society were kind of feeding on all of the women who've had birth trauma and just telling them that just go on free birth.
55:38
Angela: There's nothing ever goes wrong in a free birth.
55:40
Angela: And then there's been a lot of women who have had obviously like birth is birth.
55:44
Angela: Sometimes things happen, and just getting that information where there's nothing ever goes wrong was really harmful for some women.
55:52
Angela: So I just am trying to balance out their stories with obviously there's also a lot of harm happening in the hospitals.
55:59
Angela: Yeah.
55:59
Angela: So that's why I'm including your story in these series that I'm doing.
56:03
Angela: There's actually a six-part podcast from The Guardian that just did a year-long investigation on them.
56:08
Angela: If you're curious, like I definitely point you towards their podcast, like kind of explains it all.
56:12
Katie Spinks: So ever say that to somebody that's like telling parents, oh, don't buckle your kids in a car seat because there was a kid in 1993 who got strangled in their car seat.
56:23
Katie Spinks: Like, things can go wrong anywhere.
56:25
Katie Spinks: Things can go wrong eating dinner.
56:27
Katie Spinks: Okay, like things can go wrong any time of the day, no matter what you're doing.
56:31
Katie Spinks: The difference is, is do you have the information to make proper choices and stuff like that?
56:37
Katie Spinks: Not just do god, that's so dangerous.
56:40
Katie Spinks: Oh my god, did people die?
56:41
Katie Spinks: Did women die?
56:42
Katie Spinks: Women, babies, yeah.
56:43
Katie Spinks: Oh my god, that's so sad.
56:45
Katie Spinks: That is so sad, so sad.
56:47
Katie Spinks: And I'm sure the people who were like super like into hospital births and stuff are like, see, that's why everybody needs to birth in a hospital.
56:54
Angela: I feel like it is, like you just said, like this story, it's a story about information, is and so it's a story about just informed consent and it's about each person's relationship with safety.
57:05
Angela: And that looks like everybody, you know, like you said, like you can die eating dinner, but do we go and eat our dinners at hospitals just in case we choke on our steak, you know?
57:13
Katie Spinks: No, you learn how to properly do it, like driving a car.
57:16
Katie Spinks: You can die driving in a car, but you learn how to safely do it so that way you can do it in a safe manner and get back home.
57:22
Katie Spinks: It's like that's what I tell people about birth all the time.
57:24
Katie Spinks: Like, you can safely do it, but there's also an unsafe way to do it.
57:27
Katie Spinks: And going in blind, having absolutely no information and some being submissive to the hospital.
57:33
Katie Spinks: Yeah, you're you're probably gonna end in a C-section.
57:35
Katie Spinks: You go in there, your cervix is zero, you are completely like zero percent effaced.
57:40
Katie Spinks: Like you're you do not need Pitocin.
57:42
Katie Spinks: You need to go in there with information, make informed choices, like do what's best for you and your baby.
57:47
Katie Spinks: And if you decide after getting all the information, you still want to hop in the potosin train, by all means, do it.
57:53
Katie Spinks: Just know what to look out for.
57:55
Katie Spinks: Like, there's like just it's crazy the way people think that birth is literally one way or the other.
58:00
Katie Spinks: Like it can go bad for anybody.
58:03
Katie Spinks: Like, just know what you're doing, and your chances of it going right are way higher.
58:07
Katie Spinks: Even if you're high risk and you do need an induction, like do the induction properly and you will end in a vaginal birth.
58:13
Katie Spinks: Do it improperly, you're gonna end in a C-section.
58:16
Katie Spinks: Like, come on now.
58:17
Katie Spinks: It's just the way so many women are like manipulated and coerced into thinking every woman's body needs an induction and every baby dies after like 39 weeks.
58:28
Katie Spinks: I swear that whoever started that just needs to be like in prison because maybe someone just die after 39 weeks.
58:34
Katie Spinks: Like, this is not how it works.
58:36
Katie Spinks: It's crazy.
58:39
Angela: After everything you've been through, how has your understanding of informed consent changed?
58:45
Katie Spinks: Um, well, I now know what it is.
58:47
Katie Spinks: I don't think I really knew what it was before.
58:49
Katie Spinks: Like, you know, like I told you before, I really just trusted anybody that had a letter behind their name.
58:54
Katie Spinks: I'm like, well, they went to school.
58:55
Katie Spinks: Surely they know what they're doing.
58:57
Katie Spinks: They wouldn't tell me to do this if it wasn't safe or if it wasn't best.
59:01
Katie Spinks: I just didn't ask any questions.
59:03
Katie Spinks: And now I ask all the questions.
59:05
Katie Spinks: Like, even if I walk in with a list this long, I'm gonna ask all of them.
59:08
Katie Spinks: I want to make sure I have all of the information and I'm agreeing to something or declining something because I've read all about it and I feel like it's the best choice.
59:19
Katie Spinks: Whereas before I just I didn't, I just did whatever they said.
59:23
Katie Spinks: So I just I didn't know what informed consent really was until afterwards.
59:28
Angela: Yeah, I feel like that's the case with a lot of moms.
59:31
Angela: I know in my first birth, I didn't know really.
59:33
Katie Spinks: Like you don't really know it's nothing.
59:36
Katie Spinks: Yeah, a lot of women do that, especially like when you're younger or first-time mom, you just you just do what they what they say.
59:41
Katie Spinks: You don't really know there's a whole nother world until something goes wrong, and you're like, I can't possibly be the only one.
59:49
Katie Spinks: And then you find you are not possibly the only one, you are one of thousands, maybe even millions, who knows?
59:55
unknown: Yeah.
59:56
Angela: What do you wish you'd known about Petocin before going into labor with Jolene?
1:00:03
Katie Spinks: Everything.
1:00:04
Angela: I wish I'd known everything.
1:00:06
Katie Spinks: If somebody, but if we're being real, one thing, if somebody had sat down and told me the risks, like sat down, like you and I are talking and just been like, here, I want you to know that these are the risks.
1:00:17
Katie Spinks: If you agree to have this drug, all of these things can happen to you.
1:00:21
Katie Spinks: All of these things can happen to your baby.
1:00:24
Katie Spinks: I want you to know that there's a such and such chance you could end in a C-section.
1:00:28
Katie Spinks: I want you to know all of these things so that way we can make a proper plan, not just this is what you're getting.
1:00:35
Katie Spinks: Adios, you know, like a conversation.
1:00:39
Katie Spinks: I know that so many women are like, oh, you sign a piece of paper saying that you know, but that's not the same thing as an informed conversation.
1:00:47
Katie Spinks: Like, and when an anesthesiologist comes in, they sit down, they don't even get your signature until they've had you look them in the eye and have a whole conversation about anesthesia and what the risks are, and all of you know, a whole informed conversation, and then you sign the piece of paper.
1:01:05
Katie Spinks: So, like, why can't obscure doctors do like why?
1:01:08
Katie Spinks: It makes no sense if other doctors can do it before they're giving you a risky procedure or a risky drug.
1:01:14
Katie Spinks: Surely NOB can do it too.
1:01:16
Katie Spinks: Like, surely, or even the nurse do it, somebody do it.
1:01:20
Katie Spinks: So many women like me, I can't just read a piece of paper and understand something.
1:01:24
Katie Spinks: I'm more of like, I need you to tell me verbally, like face to face about something, because I can't just read it and understand.
1:01:31
Katie Spinks: I understand better by having a conversation.
1:01:34
Katie Spinks: And I know like so many other women are like that.
1:01:36
Katie Spinks: Plus, you know, when you go in for an induction or you go in to have your baby, you're not sitting down thinking, thinking straight.
1:01:42
Katie Spinks: You're you're already nervous, you know, you're anxious.
1:01:45
Katie Spinks: So reading a piece of paper, you're not going to be like, oh yeah, I understand this.
1:01:48
Katie Spinks: I understand this.
1:01:49
Katie Spinks: So many women don't even know what a uterine rupture is.
1:01:53
Katie Spinks: They don't know what a tacky uterus is.
1:01:56
Katie Spinks: So reading it on a piece of paper, just that's just confusing.
1:01:59
Katie Spinks: So just I just wish somebody would have sat down and just explained it to me, like what the risks are and like made a plan rather than just doing it all without me involved.
1:02:09
Katie Spinks: I just wanted to be involved.
1:02:11
Angela: Yeah, absolutely.
1:02:12
Angela: Like that's should be expected of for everybody.
1:02:16
Angela: Yeah.
1:02:16
Angela: From your perspective, why do you think informed consent is so often overlooked or bypassed in hospital birth settings?
1:02:23
Angela: Because, in my experience, it's very common for care providers to present these interventions as the only option rather than offering the true informed choice, which leads very directly to many women experiencing births that they're describing as traumatic, even when on the outside looking in, they're healthy and their baby's healthy.
1:02:41
Angela: But really, it comes back to they didn't have informed consent and they were not in charge of making their own decisions.
1:02:47
Angela: So, why do you think these conversations that are crucial to have so that people don't have birth trauma are not happening?
1:02:55
Katie Spinks: I think it's because honestly, if we're being real, it's just easier for the doctor.
1:03:00
Katie Spinks: It's just easier for the doctor to come in and be like, okay, we're starting you on pitocin.
1:03:06
Katie Spinks: The nurse is gonna do, she's gonna check you every hour, and we'll see how you progress in five hours.
1:03:11
Katie Spinks: Like it's just easier for them to come in, say what they're doing, and walk out rather than being like, okay, let me pull up a chair and talk to you.
1:03:19
Katie Spinks: We're gonna go over the risks, we're gonna go over the possible outcomes, we're gonna go over a plan.
1:03:23
Katie Spinks: We're gonna do like that.
1:03:24
Katie Spinks: Just takes too much of their time.
1:03:25
Katie Spinks: They don't want to waste 30, 30 minutes to an hour in a room with a woman who's already nervous, whereas that hour could be spent with them already starting the drug and already getting things moving and all that.
1:03:36
Katie Spinks: It's just like, it's like a race.
1:03:38
Katie Spinks: You ever see like the way sometimes hospitals run, like sometimes when I go into them and I see the birthing ward, it's like everybody is like so fast-paced, they're like, do, do, do, do, do.
1:03:49
Katie Spinks: And I'm just like, you like settle down.
1:03:52
Katie Spinks: This this isn't a race.
1:03:53
Katie Spinks: If that woman is in that room for six days because that's what's safest for her and her baby, so be it.
1:03:59
Katie Spinks: Like, if you have to have her here for monitoring for 24 hours and then send her home and then have her come back, so be it.
1:04:06
Katie Spinks: It just everybody is in so much of a rush.
1:04:09
Katie Spinks: And I feel like the biggest thing is if women really know the risks of these interventions and drugs, they're gonna say no.
1:04:15
Katie Spinks: They're gonna say, you know what?
1:04:17
Katie Spinks: I'm actually gonna go home.
1:04:19
Katie Spinks: Um, and my baby isn't in danger and I'm not in danger, I don't, I don't want to do this anymore.
1:04:24
Katie Spinks: And then that wastes not only their time, that also makes like their schedule.
1:04:29
Katie Spinks: They're not gonna know what's gonna happen.
1:04:30
Katie Spinks: Like they like the fact that they can schedule things and they know where they're gonna be at what time, rather than just being like on call, like, oh, 11:30 p.m., somebody's having a baby, and then they got to come in.
1:04:41
Katie Spinks: Like, they don't like that.
1:04:42
Katie Spinks: They like things to go on time, on their schedule, as they know, rather than it just being like, we don't know, we don't know.
1:04:50
Katie Spinks: And then, you know, more women denying intervention.
1:04:53
Katie Spinks: I'm sorry, I don't care what anybody says.
1:04:55
Katie Spinks: The more intervention that they give, the more money they make.
1:04:57
Katie Spinks: Because if you look at your hospital bills and your like all the itemized receipts, everything costs money.
1:05:03
Katie Spinks: And the physician in hospital get paid a portion of that.
1:05:06
Katie Spinks: So if you take all those interventions away, that's a whole list of like money that's not going towards them.
1:05:12
Katie Spinks: Like that's just how I feel.
1:05:14
Katie Spinks: Um, I don't know if you follow Dr.
1:05:15
Katie Spinks: Bill Chan too, but he talks a lot about it, how they do make more money for more things.
1:05:19
Katie Spinks: And it just makes sense.
1:05:21
Katie Spinks: Like it makes sense.
1:05:22
Katie Spinks: The more you do, the more you get.
1:05:25
Katie Spinks: So the less you do, the less you get.
1:05:27
Katie Spinks: And why would they want that?
1:05:29
Katie Spinks: You know, like why would they want that?
1:05:30
Katie Spinks: That's just it's obviously it's messed up, but that's just how it is.
1:05:34
Katie Spinks: They they want to go fast, they don't want their schedule to not be pristine and scheduled during the day, and they need an income.
1:05:43
Katie Spinks: So it's just they're not gonna sit down and tell one of these things.
1:05:46
Katie Spinks: And they, I've seen it too where doctors don't like when a woman comes in informed.
1:05:50
Katie Spinks: They they do not like it at all.
1:05:52
Katie Spinks: Some nurses too, they get very like catty and rude and stuff.
1:05:56
Katie Spinks: And it's like, how are you gonna be mad at somebody for choosing what to do with their body?
1:05:59
Katie Spinks: How?
1:06:00
Katie Spinks: I don't understand that.
1:06:02
Katie Spinks: It's crazy.
1:06:04
Angela: It is absolutely crazy.
1:06:05
Angela: And I just hope that more doctors and nurses know.
1:06:09
Angela: I know a lot of doctors and nurses do listen to this podcast.
1:06:12
Angela: And if you're a doctor or nurse and are listening, like these are women's peak life events that you're facilitating.
1:06:21
Angela: Just respect it as that.
1:06:22
Angela: You know, it's a peak life event.
1:06:25
Angela: It's so important.
1:06:25
Angela: Like you're always going to remember like the day you gave birth, no matter how it goes.
1:06:29
Angela: So like be kind, please.
1:06:31
Angela: Inform your patients.
1:06:33
Angela: Maybe even be a little bit like your Jolene's NICU doctor that broke policy and outside the box because it was the right thing to do.
1:06:42
Katie Spinks: Absolutely.
1:06:43
Katie Spinks: And like you said, like it's we're going to remember it forever.
1:06:46
Katie Spinks: You when you have a baby, even if you go home and your baby goes home, it doesn't matter.
1:06:51
Katie Spinks: You don't just have the happy baby or that healthy baby, healthy mom thing is so it's so wrong because it's just, it's not true.
1:06:59
Katie Spinks: Like your experience still matters.
1:07:01
Katie Spinks: And if you have trauma from having birth, that trauma follows you for the rest of your life.
1:07:06
Katie Spinks: You don't just, it doesn't just go away.
1:07:08
Katie Spinks: You know, it takes years to sometimes finally even sit down and be able to come to terms with it.
1:07:14
Katie Spinks: Like it took me five years to sit down and like accept what happened.
1:07:18
Katie Spinks: And then that's just like that, that's a lot, you know, that's a lot.
1:07:22
Katie Spinks: And it really does interfere with a lot of other things.
1:07:26
Katie Spinks: People don't realize that.
1:07:27
Katie Spinks: When you go home from your birth, it doesn't stay in the hospital, it follows you for the rest of your life.
1:07:32
Katie Spinks: And like just being a good doctor and a good nurse really can make or break an experience, even if my rupture was completely random and it just happened even with apitocin or even with pitocin.
1:07:44
Katie Spinks: If my nurse had just shown me compassion, if she had just cared enough to check, if the doctor had just cared to check, like we would we just wouldn't be sitting here having this conversation.
1:07:55
Katie Spinks: Like it just things happen.
1:07:58
Katie Spinks: Obviously, things happen, but it's about how you handle it.
1:08:01
Katie Spinks: And if you handle it crappy and cold, you're gonna you're just gonna ruin somebody's life.
1:08:05
Katie Spinks: You're gonna ruin somebody's life.
1:08:07
Katie Spinks: And it's gonna be really hard to come back from that.
1:08:10
Angela: Would you tell me about some of the treatments you've been pursuing for Jolene?
1:08:13
Angela: That I I know I've been following you on Instagram and like you've been noticing some improvements.
1:08:19
Angela: So let's see.
1:08:22
Katie Spinks: Last year she went for a treatment called Cytotron in Mexico.
1:08:27
Katie Spinks: That was a 28-day treatment.
1:08:30
Katie Spinks: It was supposed to like build new pathways in the brain.
1:08:33
Katie Spinks: And she definitely showed a lot of improvements after that.
1:08:36
Katie Spinks: Like before we went there, she would vomit all the time, every day, like five to ten times a day, every day.
1:08:41
Katie Spinks: She couldn't gain weight.
1:08:42
Katie Spinks: Like it was just, it was exhausting how much she would vomit and how much we struggled to get her to gain weight.
1:08:48
Katie Spinks: I want to say, like a week after we were home, she's vomited maybe one, maybe two times in the last year.
1:08:56
Katie Spinks: So she's been able to gain weight, which helps her, you know, in therapies and to progress and all that.
1:09:02
Katie Spinks: So she had a lot of improvements from that.
1:09:04
Katie Spinks: And then she's had umbilical cord stem cells and cord blood, which really helped with her vision and cognitive skills.
1:09:12
Katie Spinks: Then she went for a new treatment called Muse cells.
1:09:16
Katie Spinks: It's a type of stem cell, which she has shown like amazing improvements for that.
1:09:21
Katie Spinks: And then she's also done a round of intensive therapy.
1:09:25
Katie Spinks: So, like usually for physical therapy for kids like her, they go once a week for like an hour a day.
1:09:30
Katie Spinks: And that's it.
1:09:31
Katie Spinks: So intensive therapy, it's five days a week, anywhere from like two to four hours a day, depending on what is best for the child.
1:09:38
Katie Spinks: For Jolene, it's two hours.
1:09:40
Katie Spinks: So she'll go for two hours a day, every day for three weeks.
1:09:43
Katie Spinks: And it just really helps like muscle memory with kids like her, because repetition is so important.
1:09:49
Katie Spinks: Like it is crucial for kids like her.
1:09:51
Katie Spinks: So when you pair those kind of therapies, like the stem cell therapy and the physical therapy, they work together.
1:09:57
Katie Spinks: And the improvements when you like do them right are just they're amazing.
1:10:01
Katie Spinks: So she's had a whole lot of treatment in the last year.
1:10:05
Katie Spinks: Cause I know when kids turn like seven, like the neuroplasticity starts to settle in their brains.
1:10:11
Katie Spinks: So obviously they can still improve, you know, like she could still continue going, still improving.
1:10:15
Katie Spinks: It just wouldn't be as much as it is now.
1:10:18
Katie Spinks: Like her brain is like a sponge now.
1:10:19
Katie Spinks: You could easily manipulate it and she can heal much better now.
1:10:23
Katie Spinks: But when she turns seven, it just kind of settles down some.
1:10:27
Katie Spinks: So what she will have when she's like seven and further is probably what she's gonna have for the rest of her life.
1:10:32
Katie Spinks: Obviously, she can still improve here and there, but the improvement she's made over the last year is like night and day.
1:10:38
Katie Spinks: I don't know if you followed us like a year or two ago, but um, it was just, it was a lot.
1:10:43
Katie Spinks: She was always seizing.
1:10:45
Katie Spinks: She couldn't hold herself up.
1:10:47
Katie Spinks: She had absolutely no arm strength, like her head would drop a lot.
1:10:51
Katie Spinks: She couldn't sit up straight.
1:10:53
Katie Spinks: She had a hard time being on her legs.
1:10:56
Katie Spinks: It just, she was very, very, very weak.
1:10:58
Katie Spinks: You know, she could sit up and she could roll, but she wasn't very interactive either.
1:11:04
Katie Spinks: She wasn't using both of her hands together.
1:11:06
Katie Spinks: Like she's just doing so much more now than she was like two years ago, even this time last year, because we didn't leave until June last year.
1:11:16
Katie Spinks: Um, so all these treatments, they're just they're so amazing.
1:11:19
Katie Spinks: I hate that they are not covered.
1:11:20
Katie Spinks: And I hate that we don't know about them until we find out through like word of mouth.
1:11:25
Katie Spinks: Because I feel like if we had done these treatments years ago, she could probably be like walking with a walker right now because she tries so hard, even crawling.
1:11:35
Katie Spinks: You could tell she her body wants to do it.
1:11:37
Katie Spinks: It's the brain and the body that's not connecting.
1:11:40
Katie Spinks: So she wants to, but her body's just not cooperating.
1:11:45
Katie Spinks: So I feel like if we had started years ago, she would just be doing so much more now.
1:11:48
Katie Spinks: But I'm just, you know, I'm thankful that we found it that we're doing it now.
1:11:51
Katie Spinks: And hopefully, with everything I can pack into like the next six months, it'll really help her.
1:11:57
Katie Spinks: Cause I'm like nervous.
1:11:58
Katie Spinks: I'm like, once she hits seven, I know it's not gonna cut off obviously like that day, you know, but I'm like, how much more can she really do after that?
1:12:05
Katie Spinks: So we'll see.
1:12:07
Katie Spinks: We'll see.
1:12:08
Katie Spinks: But we're gonna definitely keep keep doing stuff for her because it's it's definitely helping.
1:12:12
Katie Spinks: It's definitely helping.
1:12:14
Angela: So, as a final question, what do you think it will take to see some changes in maternity care?
1:12:20
Katie Spinks: A system rebuild.
1:12:21
Katie Spinks: Somebody is gonna have to care enough to want to put their foot down and be like, our system needs to change.
1:12:29
Katie Spinks: Because I feel like honestly, our system is going backwards little by little by little.
1:12:34
Katie Spinks: Women are convinced that their babies die after 39 weeks.
1:12:38
Katie Spinks: There are women who truly think their placentas also die after 39 weeks.
1:12:42
Katie Spinks: There are women who who say, Oh, I'm scheduled for my elective induction at 37 weeks because my baby's full term.
1:12:48
Katie Spinks: And it's just like, who is telling you these things?
1:12:52
Katie Spinks: Who is telling you guys these things?
1:12:54
Katie Spinks: And it's just until the mortality rate and the C-section rate gets well over 50.
1:13:01
Katie Spinks: I just don't think anybody's gonna care.
1:13:03
Katie Spinks: People are looking at it like, oh, it's only at almost 40%.
1:13:06
Katie Spinks: Like that's not that bad.
1:13:08
Katie Spinks: And it's like, are you kidding me?
1:13:09
Katie Spinks: We are in 2026.
1:13:11
Katie Spinks: We're supposed to be like a developed country, and we have like the worst statistics of all the first world countries.
1:13:17
Katie Spinks: So how I don't understand how nobody's standing up yet.
1:13:19
Katie Spinks: I feel like it's really gonna take more deaths, more injuries.
1:13:24
Katie Spinks: Like you're gonna need to see a lot more horrible things happen for somebody to be like, okay, maybe we do need to do something.
1:13:30
Katie Spinks: Until then, it's just gonna keep getting worse and worse.
1:13:33
Katie Spinks: Like, I know that I feel like in the last year, HIE has really skyrocketed.
1:13:38
Katie Spinks: Like there are people coming out left and right.
1:13:42
Katie Spinks: Like, I constantly get messages to my inboxes.
1:13:46
Katie Spinks: It's it's at least weekly.
1:13:48
Katie Spinks: At least.
1:13:50
Katie Spinks: Um, well, I just had my baby, you know, like I was induced and my doctor didn't listen.
1:13:55
Katie Spinks: Now my baby has HIE or my baby just died.
1:13:57
Katie Spinks: It's just, it's just constant.
1:13:59
Katie Spinks: It's constant.
1:13:59
Katie Spinks: Whereas I want to say, like two years ago, or even when I first started posting, it wasn't a whole lot.
1:14:04
Katie Spinks: Like it was women who had already been through it.
1:14:06
Katie Spinks: So, you know, it wasn't people like it just happened, it just happened, but it's just happening more and more and more.
1:14:12
Katie Spinks: And until things get worse and worse and worse, nobody, nobody's gonna do anything.
1:14:18
Katie Spinks: They're gonna wait till it gets really bad.
1:14:20
Katie Spinks: But then at that point, it's like dude, you've already done all the damage.
1:14:24
Katie Spinks: The damage is done.
1:14:25
Katie Spinks: You somebody needs to do something now to prevent it from happening.
1:14:29
Katie Spinks: Um same with like I know this is probably off topic, but like I asked my daughter's teacher.
1:14:35
Katie Spinks: She does school and home.
1:14:37
Katie Spinks: So her teacher comes to our house.
1:14:38
Katie Spinks: She's homebound, and she was telling me that she's like exhausted, she's overworked, you know, she's older, she wants to retire, but she can't.
1:14:45
Katie Spinks: She's like, we don't have enough help.
1:14:47
Katie Spinks: We have so many kids.
1:14:49
Katie Spinks: She said that in one day, it was like two weeks ago, they had interviews for eight kids in just the morning, brand new kids coming into like aging into the school system.
1:15:00
Katie Spinks: And I was like, I know you don't have to tell me.
1:15:02
Katie Spinks: You don't have to tell me like anything you're not allowed to.
1:15:04
Katie Spinks: Why are these kids disabled?
1:15:06
Katie Spinks: Like, what happened?
1:15:07
Katie Spinks: Are these genetic disorders?
1:15:09
Katie Spinks: Like, what's going on?
1:15:09
Katie Spinks: She's like birth.
1:15:10
Katie Spinks: They're they're all from birth.
1:15:12
Katie Spinks: Everything is from birth.
1:15:13
Katie Spinks: I'm like, I knew it.
1:15:15
Katie Spinks: I I knew it.
1:15:16
Katie Spinks: Every time I talk to somebody, it's always birth related.
1:15:18
Katie Spinks: Always.
1:15:19
Katie Spinks: It's like, how many more kids do these people really want to see suffer until they do something?
1:15:25
Katie Spinks: Like, how many women are struggling with just wanting to not be here?
1:15:28
Katie Spinks: How many moms do kill themselves because the pain, not only physically but mentally, of uh living a life like this or even dealing with trauma like that?
1:15:37
Katie Spinks: It just is too much sometimes.
1:15:39
Katie Spinks: Like it's just too much.
1:15:40
Katie Spinks: It's just I feel like they want things to get that bad before they actually do something, but that's what it's gonna take.
1:15:46
Katie Spinks: It's just gonna take for things to get significantly worse before somebody does something.
1:15:50
Katie Spinks: We need a new system.
1:15:52
Katie Spinks: We need one badly.
1:15:53
Katie Spinks: You know what else we need?
1:15:54
Katie Spinks: We need doctors and nurses to stop going online and telling women that inductions don't carry risks.
1:16:00
Katie Spinks: Like, I am so sick of seeing doctors.
1:16:02
Katie Spinks: Oh, it's fine.
1:16:03
Katie Spinks: We do inductions every day, they end in vaginal birth, it's perfectly fine.
1:16:07
Katie Spinks: But does the mom leave traumatized?
1:16:09
Katie Spinks: Is the mom traumatized?
1:16:11
Katie Spinks: Like it ended in a vaginal birth.
1:16:13
Katie Spinks: Is she okay?
1:16:14
Katie Spinks: Like what happened, you know?
1:16:16
Katie Spinks: Stop telling women that they're gonna be fine because you don't know that.
1:16:20
Katie Spinks: You don't know that.
1:16:21
Angela: Yeah, that part's not talked about.
1:16:23
Angela: It's just like another Tuesday.
1:16:24
Angela: We just do this, you know, every day.
1:16:26
Angela: It's you know, no big deal, just another day for them.
1:16:28
Katie Spinks: We've already done 15 this morning.
1:16:30
Katie Spinks: What's another one?
1:16:30
Katie Spinks: It's like you were you're pumping a mom's body full of drugs, hooking her up to monitors and having her lay on her back like dead cattle.
1:16:38
Katie Spinks: What do you mean?
1:16:39
Katie Spinks: Like that's not okay.
1:16:41
Katie Spinks: Not okay.
1:16:42
Katie Spinks: The whole system is the system is just crazy.
1:16:45
Katie Spinks: It's just crazy.
1:16:47
Angela: Yeah, the system is it's almost like the system is designed that way, I feel like, for a reason.
1:16:54
Angela: And it's actually the way it was designed, it's working just fine.
1:16:57
Angela: But unf of course, inside of that, there are plenty of good doctors and nurses, you know.
1:17:03
Angela: Like you said, obviously we came across some that were not good.
1:17:05
Angela: And and it's hard even for the doctors and nurses that truly do care, like to be in this system in these situations.
1:17:11
Angela: And yeah, I really think that, you know, when women start standing up for their births, you know, as the consumers of this business model of healthcare, you know, when they stop going in and doing whatever the doctors want them to do and they start saying, I'll take this, but not that, or whatever they actually want, like from an informed place with all of the information.
1:17:30
Angela: Like, that's just, you know, it's it's on the women, you know, the consumers to say, Hey, tell me more about this, or I'll do this and not that, you know, like not just have like a one-size-fits-all birth.
1:17:41
Katie Spinks: I agree.
1:17:42
Katie Spinks: They have to stand up for themselves.
1:17:43
Katie Spinks: It just sucks because like you're either gonna get a doctor who's like cold.
1:17:46
Katie Spinks: I'm all for that.
1:17:47
Katie Spinks: If you're doing that because you've researched it, or a doctor that's gonna be like, your choice is gonna kill your baby.
1:17:52
Katie Spinks: Your baby's gonna die.
1:17:53
Katie Spinks: You're gonna die.
1:17:54
Katie Spinks: Everybody's gonna die.
1:17:55
Katie Spinks: It's like, well, obviously, if you're gonna tell a mom that she's gonna be, she's gonna be co-erced into changing her mind.
1:18:00
Katie Spinks: So it's like the system, like you said, it's it's doing what it was designed to do.
1:18:05
Katie Spinks: People need to stand up against the system, and somebody needs to also somebody bigger with like more power needs to stand up against the system, too, because the system is garbage.
1:18:14
Katie Spinks: It's absolute garbage.
1:18:16
Angela: Well, Katie, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me and just for doing everything that you're doing with you know, sharing so much awareness about this topic, like online.
1:18:27
Angela: I I know it's can't be easy to talk about, but just really appreciate you so much for just spreading so much awareness about this topic because more moms need to know about this.
1:18:37
Katie Spinks: I agree.
1:18:37
Katie Spinks: That's why I do it because like it's it's so important.
1:18:39
Katie Spinks: It just takes that one person to be like, your story really changed my life before you.
1:18:44
Katie Spinks: I was gonna go in for a 39-week induction.
1:18:47
Katie Spinks: Instead, I waited for spontaneous labor.
1:18:49
Katie Spinks: I had a baby, and we both left not only alive, but happy, and and I loved my birth.
1:18:55
Katie Spinks: And it's like, that's why I share.
1:18:57
Katie Spinks: Like, it's so important.
1:18:58
Katie Spinks: Or for a mom to be like, Well, I saw your story, and I also was told I was alone.
1:19:02
Katie Spinks: There was nobody else like me, and you made me feel more seen.
1:19:05
Katie Spinks: It's like it's just it's so important that the people who've been through it have somebody who can resonate, and then the people, the women who might not have had a baby get access to information because knowledge, knowledge is just powerful.
1:19:18
Katie Spinks: You can do a lot with it rather than going in blind.
1:19:27
Kate Sutherland: Follow the walk of the wild ones into the woods and the darkness.
1:19:32
Kate Sutherland: Rebirth the ways of the ancient ones whose tracks were washed away in blood.
1:19:38
Kate Sutherland: It falls to us now to open up and taste beyond what we've been fed.
1:19:43
Kate Sutherland: Take up the feed, expire, cleansing, change to light the path and said, Follow the walk of the wild ones, into the woods and the darkness.
1:19:53
Kate Sutherland: Rebirth the ways of the ancient ones, whose tracks were washed away.
1:19:58
Kate Sutherland: It falls to us now to open up and taste beyond what we pretend.
1:20:04
Kate Sutherland: Take up the feet, expire cleansing, change to like the path to set.
1:20:09
Kate Sutherland: Step by step through the unknown, I'll be on like a new line.
1:20:14
Kate Sutherland: In darkness, let love like the way to feed the soil of changing times.
1:20:20
Kate Sutherland: Step by step through the unknown, I'll be on like a new mind.
1:20:25
Kate Sutherland: In darkness, let love like the way to feed the soil of changing times.
1:20:30
Kate Sutherland: Follow the walk of the wild ones, into the woods and the darkness, rebirth the ways of the ancient ones, whose tracks were washed away in blood.
1:20:41
Kate Sutherland: It was to us now to open up and chase beyond what we pretend.
1:20:46
Kate Sutherland: Take us the feet, inspire cleansing, change to light the path.
1:20:51
Kate Sutherland: Step by step through the unknown, I'll be online and you'll be mine.
1:20:57
Kate Sutherland: In darkness, let love light the way to feed the soil of changing times.
1:21:02
Kate Sutherland: Step by step through the unknown, I'll be online and you'll be mine.
1:21:07
Kate Sutherland: In darkness, let love light the way to feed the soil of changing times.