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9. My Maine Birth Morgan's EMMC Birth Story, Bangor, Maine · MyMaine Birth

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: I'm Angela and I'm a certified birth photographer, experienced doula, childbirth educator and your host here on the my Maine Birth podcast.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: This is a space where we share the real-life stories of families and their unique birth experiences in the beautiful state of Maine, from our state's biggest hospitals to birth center births and home births.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Every birth story deserves to be heard and celebrated.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Whether you're a soon-to-be mom, a seasoned mother or simply interested in the world of birth, these episodes are for you.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Welcome to episode 9 of the my Main Birth podcast.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Today's birth story guest is Morgan, and she is here to share about the birth of her youngest son, patrick.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: He was born at Northern Lights Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Hi, morgan, welcome to my Maine Birth.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Hi Miriam.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: So to get started, can you tell me a little bit about you and your family?
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: So I'm Morgan.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: I live in Old Town with my husband, andrew, and our three munchkins William is almost five, matthew turns two this weekend and Mr Patrick is 44 tomorrow and we moved to Old Town about a year ago.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: My husband works for the University of Maine.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: We're a new Maine alum and we've been puttering around the Bangor area for the last nine or so years and we just bought a house and settled in this past year and so, yeah, that's kind of where we're at and I'm a stay-at-home mom in the throes of parenting these crazy yahoos, and that keeps me busy most of the time.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: I'm a social worker by training.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: I did that for about a year when Maggie was first born and I did my schooling while, you know, when William was small but kind of decided I couldn't spread myself that thin and do my job that I loved and be a good mom.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: So for the time being I'm home with my kiddos, using a lot of the same skills at home that I would be at work.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: But yeah, all right, can you tell me about when you found out you were pregnant with Patrick and a little bit about your care?
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: So we like to joke.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: Patrick is our bonus baby.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Maggie was breastfeeding and then had just finally cut her off last summer and I am not a super crunchy granola person but I do the like fertility awareness tracking for um, for my body, and I was just getting back into tracking cycles and I noticed my body was off and like I think I might be pregnant and Andrew's like, oh, like we just did this like a second ago, it feels like him and we were in fact pregnant and so I took a test at home and I've always done my care at the hospital, um, I see a nurse midwife there and she is lovely and I feel like that's always been a great like in between for um getting like access to a lot of the medical components of my pregnancy and labor and delivery, but also having someone who's a little bit more holistic, a little like maybe listens to me a little more than just going by the common standard protocol.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: So it's a little different this time around because of office here in bangor just closed, the primary ob retired and so a load of women are scrambling to find providers in the Bangor area.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: So that was a little bit um touch and go at first if they were going to be able to fit us in um and scheduling, but it ended up working out okay for us.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: So that was all all well and good.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: But they've scheduled me for I did a dating ultrasound, I think somewhere around eight ish weeks, and from there started my prenatal care at the hospital and I.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: This time they do a really neat thing where they do bedside ultrasound so they have a little like portable machine that they can bring in, which they did just once at the beginning, after the dating ultrasound, to kind of like, I guess, be an in-between between like having to go do a full ultrasound appointment.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: But that was kind of neat, you know, I just like seeing their little, their little cells in there and they don't really look like anything at that point, still being there, smudge or something, but I always find those so fun.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: So we did the early ultrasound and then a 20 week and then a couple of growth ultrasounds at the end.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: But I did all my care there at the hospital and then at the end I ended up being induced with some blood pressure issues, which was not uncommon for me.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: I, with my other two I've had like kind of just flying under the radar.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Blood pressure funkiness right until the very end and with Maddie it like skyrocketed and so they induced me.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: That was a little bit chaotic and crazy, so I kind of had an idea that might happen this time and so we were going along just fine, kind of hanging in there.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: And then at the end I was already super pregnant and uncomfortable and ready to be done and, um and and my blood pressure kind of crossed over into the hypertension range and so my midwife was like maybe we should just get this over with and get the baby out.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: I was super ready.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: So, um, he was born on March 23rd and I was 38 weeks, six days, so a day short of 39 weeks wow.
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: So how was your time in the hospital?
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: I've seen, uh Erin Hoare there every time and she is lovely, we get along great.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: I always joke we'd be friends in real life if she wasn't my doctor, because I just think she's so cool.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: My hospital stay was great.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: I always think that the really the nurses are just the shining stars of the hospital, stay like they will do anything, they will answer any question and you can just tell that the people on the maternity floor like they want to be there, like I if I had to guess, that's probably like a bit of a like competitive spot to get into because it's like you have to love it to be there.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: Like I if I had to guess, that's probably like a bit of a like competitive spot to get into because it's like you have to love it to be there.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: Um, but we this time.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: So I had a like just a routine check on a Wednesday, so I guess that must have been my 38 week check and my blood pressure was high and so we were like, okay, we're just gonna push forward this schedule and get this going.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: But they wanted me to come in that night and get prepped, essentially to start toasting in the morning and I had to wait for a bed, which was a little stressful.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: I didn't have to do that with either of the other two.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: And so they're like call us at 730 and we'll let you know if we have a bed.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: And so we got the big kids packed up and sent off at the grandparents and we had andrew and I had kind of quiet dinner and hung around the house and we 7 30 we called and they said call us at 9 30.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: And so at 9 30 we called and call us at 10.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: So we called the time, starting to feel a little naggy at this point because I feel bad, like obviously there are other women who are having babies, which is why these beds are full, and I'm like, oh, do you have a room for me yet?
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: But finally, around 10 ish, they're like yeah, by time you get in here we'll probably have a spot cleared.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: So we got there on 10 30 and they got us settled in and I actually ended up sending Andrew home.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: He lived 20 minutes from the hospital.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: I was like, well, one of us should get some sleep tonight and so I kicked him out and sent him home for the night to get a little bit of sleep.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: But that night was really good.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: But just the night nurses are wonderful and they're so kind about like pretty much anything.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: They brought me snacks in the middle of the night, like they'll go raid their fridge for whatever they can come across, and that was fine.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: And the next day, um, we started pitocin.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: Well, I guess they started the like cervical ripening at I don't know about 11 o'clock and they ended up having to stop that because my contractions became frequent enough that they're like well, it's time to just get rolling with the pitocin.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: So that was about four in the morning and at first and this was my second time being induced, so I had a little bit of an idea what to expect.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: But you know it's different every time, and so I started having contractions a little more regularly and I could feel them, but they weren't very intense or exciting, and so I'm like well, we're just going to kind of walk along here, I guess.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: And you know they periodically came and checked me and I was like two centimeters, three centimeters nothing exciting.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: I was like, all right, well, we're just kind of hanging around and um through my whole like last, probably like four or five weeks, I was joking with Erin, um, because she for my first two, she was not on call or on rotation when I went into labor and so Dr Rinaldi delivered my other two because she happened to be the on-call doc.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: And so I was joking with Erin.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: I was like you know, you got to get to one of these days and so she had me go in on the Wednesday night and she was going to be back in that Thursday morning at like 7 am.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: And so she's like don't have the baby without me overnight.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: And I was thinking about it four in the morning when they started the pitocin.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: I was like you all should just tell her I have the baby and she's too late.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: I couldn't get the nurses on board with that, but but we, you know she breezed in at like 7, 30 or 8 the next morning and no baby yet.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: And so she's like kind of crossed that off the list, that she's like I didn't miss it.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: But they broke my water then and that was when things like really started rolling.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: It was like almost like literally immediately.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: It was like, oh, that was a lot more intense, contractions were more frequent and I, with my other two, I got epidural and I was very happy with that decision.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: I always tell moms it it's not for every mom and it made me.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: It wasn't wouldn't necessarily be for me every time, but I've not yet regretted it.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: So I was like, yeah, let's get the lady in here to do an epidural.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: And that was very uneventful I feel like that's like the best word when you're talking about labor and delivery Like uneventful, boring, that's good, we want it to be that.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: So that was fine.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: And with my other two, I feel like getting an epidural was like I was able to rest.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: I was able to kind of relax my body a little bit more and get to a point where, like the other two, I was able to get a nap in, and that was not the case this time.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: I was still like feeling not excruciating pain or anything, but like definitely significant contractions.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: Still, I'm like that's different than the other two and, um, that was like 8 20 in the morning.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: They, they gave me the epidural and I still was feeling like, wow, that's really strong pain but, you know, manageable enough, we're rolling with it no big deal.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: And they checked me and I've gone from three centimeters to six centimeters in like 30 minutes or something.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: Or time is very funky when you, when you're in labor, so it couldn't have been too long, but probably 30 minutes.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: And so then I was like really feeling it and um, they came in and checked me a little bit later and I was like eight centimeters and I was like, okay, we're really rolling now and it really like it got to the point where she's like I'm gonna go away.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: But the nurse is, if I'm gonna go away, but if the pain or the like pressure intensifies, call me.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: It was like five minutes later and she's back again because I'm like it's really intense now.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: And essentially we got to.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: He was born at 10 33 and it was at the point where, like they had to kind of scramble to get erin back in there and she walks in and she goes oh, you are holding that baby in.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: I can tell from the look on your face.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: So they got got set up and she says when you feel the next contraction, push.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: And I pushed for two minutes and he was fast and furious into the world.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: So I he was six and a half hours from Pitocin to baby.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: For the first four I kind of say don't count because they were not very exciting.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: So really we did all the work in the last two and a half hours there but he was by far my most exciting, I think, maybe delivery.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: The other two were kind of leisurely.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: None of my labors were very long, but my, my oldest, was about 12 hours from first contraction to baby and my second was 10 hours from toasting to baby.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: So six and a half.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: I'm like all right, we're getting efficient at this.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah, he's a little bit fast and curious in the world there, how's breastfeeding going?
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: okay and I think that a lot of times like, especially for new moms, like the appreciation for like it's a skill you have to learn and baby have to learn, like it is natural and beautiful and wonderful, but it also could be hard and weird and like you gotta practice, kind of.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: And so this time around I perhaps had a little bit of hubris that I thought I knew what I was doing and, um, I think God likes to keep us humble, so we've had a little bit of a harder time.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: This time around he had like a really tight, tight latch that was like pretty painful at first, and so the benefit of him being my third is that I know how to advocate for myself a little better than with my other two.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: With my first, I feel like it was pretty painful at first too too, but I just didn't say anything and I suffered for a while and this time I was able to say I know that's not right, it doesn't feel good and it shouldn't hurt like that.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: Can we figure something out about that?
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: So he's had a couple OMT appointments that um were really neat.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: I was like I still don't, like I was joking with my mother-in-law, that like I was in the appointment watching and I'm still not entirely sure what they did, but they worked their little magic and manipulated his little jaw and, um, that's gotten a lot better.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: But he's taken his sweet time catching on to latching and he's a little bit lazy at the breast so he'll fall asleep on me.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: We gotta wake him up and try again.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: And so he's been a little slow, lazy at the breast, so he'll fall asleep on me.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: We gotta wake him up and try again.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: And so he's been a little slow to gain weight, which, um, I'm trying not to get disappointed about.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: I think it's like there's a really wide range of feelings when you're just like never sleeping and very hormonal, and and part of it is like I love breastfeeding because I like that.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: There's that special bond that I get.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: To provide that for him, that's that closeness and also formula is just outrageously expensive and I want to avoid that at all costs.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: But so, like right now we're supplementing after feedings, which I kind of had to make peace with because ultimately we want our coffee healthy and well, and so we're trying to get him to gain weight, we're trying to get him to clear some bilirubin.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: He's still I call him my very cute little balloon, but he's still a little orange, but we're getting past that now.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: So they had us supplementing for the time being.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: Um, so it's going better, but it's a process and it's like okay, well, we spend a lot of time nursing, bottle feeding, pumping, which means you don't leave the house for very long stretches of time, but it's.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: I'm hopeful about things getting better from here and it is kind of like just that skill building, really like he's catching on to pieces of it and really kind of like for me learning how he's different than my other two and like what he needs compared to them and then how to balance what he needs with what they need, because they are still very needy with their ages.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: So we're we're adjusting and we're taking our sweet time getting there, but it's all on an up-to-date one, so that's good too yeah, so how is the transition from two to three going?
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: they love him.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: It's really cute.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: My four-year-old, almost five.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: He calls him little buddy and he's always always like how are you little buddy?
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: And he just loves him so much and he's like super touchy so you have to be like okay, you love him and give him space.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: But he does really well with him.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: He has a little bit of a hard time sharing me and he's super duper, a momless boy with her best buds, and so it's a little hard for him to be like well, why is he taking forever to eat?
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: And like the babies do that.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: But he's getting there.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: And my daughter is Miss Independent always.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: So she's kind of like more okay with the sharing aspect, but she is delighting in the opportunity to get into mischief while I am busy with other things.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: So like I was nursing Patrick the other day, she like kind of went around the corner I couldn't see her and climbed up on the kitchen counter and ate all the jelly beans in the Easter basket and I'm like, oh you little stinker.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: But they're kind of.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: They're kind of figuring out what they can and can't get away with with mom having a new baby and kind of adjusting to a new normal really.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: But we're getting there and some days are better than others.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: But they love him.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: And my daughter at first I don't think she fully grasped that he was a human the first few days she kind of like anyway, almost treated him like a lamp or a chair or something like there's Patrick, and then I think she kind of called and she was like oh, like, so she calls him baby Pat, and she goes hi, baby Pat, and she has her sweet little voice and talks to him.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: So they love him and that's been really sweet to see like how they treat him.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: And then they also are bickering with each other a lot more than usual and kind of scrambling to figure out the new dynamic.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: So it is kind of that like low expectation thing.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: It's like more just being graceful with ourselves and like letting it be okay that this season will be a little rocky and we'll adjust, and knowing that it's intense but it's short and pretty soon we'll be sleeping a little more and be getting into a routine.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: And it's not forever but it's a little hectic.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: What is that phrase?
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: They say um, the days are long but the years are short.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: It's like trying to slow down a little bit to appreciate just like the little, like little moments of them, like snuggling him or my son is so cute because he's a helper kind of at heart.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: He really has such a big heart and loves to love on people.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: And so in the car the other day, pat Patrick was getting hungry and he started to cry and William figured out that he could put Patrick's fingers in his own mouth to help him, like calm him down.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: He.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: So he like stopped crying and I was like wow, what are you doing?
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: I put his fingers in his mouth.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: I was like good job, big brother, like you figured out a solution and it was like helpful, nice work.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: It was kind of fun to just see them care for him and and they're really they do so well with him and it's like, well, some moments are rockier than others, but kind of being able to slow down and enjoy them has been a while.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: Fit in my recliner.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: We snuggle up all three of them me and the cat will lay across the top and it's like, oh we, we are snuggled in.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: That's kind of special to have that just closeness too oh yeah, savor those little snuggles.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: Is there anything else you'd like to add?
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: I think the only thing I would add is don't ever like you.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: You have to be your own best advocate.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: And so like, if something doesn't feel right, ask, say something, if you wish something could go differently, ask.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: And like I had hospital births with all three and they have.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: You know their rules about how things have to be done, because we live in a pretty litigious culture so they can be more strict about certain things.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: But you never know what the answer is unless you ask.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: And a lot of times you can kind of work through a pros and cons or can we get some compromise and meet my comfort level.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: So I would definitely say like advocate for what you want and and like it's okay if that's a little unusual or something, but like kind of letting that be, like, I guess, being confident in in asking and like for me, quite frankly, I was at the point where I was like ready to have a baby.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: So I was like, yeah, let's induce, I'm good with that, like pretty baby done.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: But I think asking the questions, being willing to kind of feel dumb, I guess, at the expense of like having new information, like that's kind of important.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: But and thank your nurses, they're like they're the angels, and so then those doctors get like the credit at the end.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: But we all know the nurses did all the work and they're just always lovely.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: So that, I think, is the highlight of all of my births is like just the relationship with the women who come in every couple hours and, you know, check on you and they bring you the things you need and they're there kind of you know they do the like morning shift, night shift, so you get them for like a full day and then it's just like that's a really sweet relationship, even though it's short, like those ladies I'll probably never see again, other than like maybe bumping into them at the grocery store or something, but like it's just something special about that shared experience.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: And so thank your nurses and stand up for yourself.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Those, I guess, are my end points.
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Morgan, so much for sharing your birth story today.
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: Thank you for having me.
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: I'm so glad we could do this.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Before you go, I just want to remind you I have a ton of resources for pregnancy and birth.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: If you're pregnant, whether you're a first-time mom or if this is your fifth baby, I want you to check out the show notes, because I have some free trainings and free downloads that you can sign up for, as well as the link to access my labor of love, a self-paced online childbirth education course.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: I created this course specifically for moms who don't want to be told what to do, regardless of where you're birthing or who you're birthing with, and I'd honestly love to teach you everything that I know so that you can prepare for an autonomous birth experience and prepare to step into your role as the leader of your birth journey.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: So click to the show notes, check out all of those links and, if you ever have any questions, feel free to DM me at my main birth over on Instagram.