Birth Journeys: Lifting the veil on the birth experience
Did your childbirth experience go as planned? Then The Birth Journeys Podcast® is for you! We share powerful and transformative birth stories that illuminate the realities of childbirth. Hosted by a labor nurse and prenatal coach who specializes in transformational coaching techniques, this podcast goes beyond traditional birth narratives to foster healing, build trust, and create transparency between birthing individuals and healthcare providers.
In each episode, we dive into essential topics like birth preparation, debunking common misconceptions, understanding hospital procedures, and promoting autonomy in the birthing process. We also bring you the wisdom and insights of experienced birth workers and medical professionals.
This is a safe and inclusive space where every birth story is valued, honored, and deserves to be heard. Join us in exploring the diverse and unique experiences of birth givers, and discover how transformational coaching can empower your own birth journey.
Contact Kelly Hof at: birthjourneysRN@gmail.com
Birth Journeys: Lifting the veil on the birth experience
Tara Accardo: Trusting Maternal Instincts and Navigating Premature Birth Challenges
What would you do if your pregnancy took an unexpected turn? Join us for a heartfelt conversation with Tara Accardo, a first-time mom and grief and transformational life coach, who shares her compelling journey through pregnancy, an emergency C-section, and the early arrival of her daughter, Audrey. Tara’s powerful story not only highlights the importance of trusting maternal instincts but also provides deep insights into the critical role of timely medical intervention. Her narrative is a testament to the strength and resilience of new parents navigating unforeseen circumstances.
Our discussion extends into the complexities of prenatal care, emphasizing the necessity of monitoring fetal movements and understanding blood type compatibility. With Tara’s personal anecdotes and medical insights, we break down the protocols and tests used by doctors to safeguard both mother and baby. This episode underlines the significance of parental intuition and timely medical consultation, offering valuable advice for expecting and new mothers on recognizing when something might be off and taking proactive steps to ensure their baby’s well-being.
Finally, we address the emotional and psychological challenges that come with childbirth, particularly in cases involving premature birth and NICU stays. Tara opens up about the trauma of an unplanned C-section, the emotional rollercoaster of having a baby in the NICU, and the importance of a supportive medical team and clear communication. She provides tangible advice for parents facing similar experiences, calling for more compassionate, patient-centered care from healthcare providers. This episode is an emotional journey that celebrates the incredible resilience of parents making the best choices for their families amidst unexpected challenges.
Connect with Tara at:
https://lossesbecomegains.com/
https://www.instagram.com/lossesbecomegains/
Join the Bump & Beyond Online Community for moms & moms-to-be!
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Kelly Hof: Labor Nurse + Birth Coach
Basically, I'm your birth bestie! With me as your coach, you will tell fear to take a hike!
Connect with Kelly Hof at kellyhof.com
Medical Disclaimer:
This podcast is intended as a safe space for women to share their birth experiences. It is not intended to provide medical advice. Each woman’s medical course of action is individual and may not appropriately transfer to another similar situation. Please speak to your medical provider before making any medical decisions. Additionally, it is important to keep in mind that evidence based practice evolves as our knowledge of science improves. To the best of my ability I will attempt to present the most current ACOG and AWHONN recommendations at the time the podcast is recorded, but that may not necessarily reflect the best practices at the time the podcast is heard. Additionally, guests sharing their stories have the right to autonomy in their medical decisions, and may share their choice to go against current practice recommendations. I intend to hold space for people to share their decisions. I will attempt to share the current recommendations so that my audience is informed, but it is up to each individual to choose what is best for them.
Hello, today I have with me Tara Acardo. Tara is a wife and a new first-time mom to her daughter, audrey, who was born five weeks early via emergency C-section in January 2024. While she also works in marketing in the wine industry, her true passion and purpose in life is being a grief and transformational life coach. She loves to support and guide those grieving or enduring difficult hardships to discover fulfilling, beautiful, meaningful life after loss or painful life experience. She is also the host of the Life with Grief podcast, which is available everywhere you get your podcasts, tara. Welcome and thank you for joining me.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Kelly. I'm so happy to be here and I just appreciate this platform to share my story. I haven't really shared it out into the world yet.
Speaker 1:Wow, well, I hope that it's a healing journey for you and I'm sure that it will help a lot of moms that want to learn about the birth process or maybe can relate to your experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we have just the elephant in the room or the infant in the room. We have a little Audrey joining us, because nap time didn't work out.
Speaker 2:So we are lucky to have a third person, yeah.
Speaker 1:So tell me, how was your pregnancy, how was all of those things leading up to the big moment?
Speaker 2:So, honestly, my pregnancy and I don't say this to be like braggy at all, but like I had a really good pregnancy I had a little morning sickness in the very early weeks, like week five to nine headaches, a little bit of nausea and you know some, some aversions, but really it went away fairly quickly. Otherwise, you know, I definitely had some back pains and stuff later on in the pregnancy. You know a lot of the typical things but generally speaking, I will say I feel I got pretty lucky. That being said, I was due February 19th of 2024. So, as you mentioned, my daughter came five weeks early. Given this was my first child, we had no reason to think anything was wrong or that there would be anything to look out for all that stuff. And I will say she was pretty consistent as far as like moving goes. She's pretty consistent on like what times of day she would be active and things like that. A lot of the time it was after food, as a lot of babies are. And there came to be a week and it's funny I even like think back on it now and I'm like kind of wondering when I really started noticing a lack of movement. But I definitely remember really noticing it and to the point where I was saying it out loud to my husband and even to my in-laws at one point, that I was like this is interesting, I'm not sort of like feeling her move as much as I usually do. And it's such a trip because a lot of moms out there might know, like, as they get bigger and as you're into the third trimester, yes, you agree, huh, they get bigger, they start losing space in there. They move less, right. So when I was experiencing this, I was kind of like, okay, well, I don't know if I should just chalk it up to that or kind of what's going on, but I will say this whole experience has been such a lesson in mother's intuition. That is truly, truly a thing, whether it's mother's intuition or not just listening to your gut when something is not right. And so I think probably two to three days before we ended up having to do the emergency C-section spoiler alert I felt her moving significantly less, not even just like rolling, no kicks, really nothing. And I remember saying like out loud the night before we had to go to get it checked out. I was like this is really where something feels really off and my husband, bless his heart, was like I'm sure it's fine, I'm sure she's just, you know, losing space in there, all that typical stuff. And I just remember thinking to myself like no, this is just. I know my baby, this is not, this is not right.
Speaker 2:So Saturday, january 13th, rolls around and I was. I was pretty stressed out about and I'm not a person that gets stressed pretty easily. So when I was like stressed out and you know, I knew something was really off. So that morning I was up at like 5am. I remember trying to do all the things to get her to move or to do the kick counts, you know, and to see what I could feel Tried eating something, and just nothing, really Very, very minimal movement of anything.
Speaker 2:So called the doctor. They were like you know, if you, if you want to come in, you're welcome to. And I was like, awesome, thanks, going to go ahead and do that. So my husband and I go to the hospital I'm in triage and they just start doing some tests hook me up to an IV, do a sonogram on her, try and get her heart rate and all of that. And she was alive. She did have a heartbeat. But very long story short, it got to the point between the sonogram and then the blood pressure test they were doing especially when I was on my right side, you know the side where your heart is not. They were like everything's like going down very quickly.
Speaker 2:So they like leave the room for a second, they're all they joked. Later they were like, because it was a Saturday, so there was no planned C-sections or anything that day, they were like literally the whole nursing team was was watching you know, these monitors for your baby, because we were all so interested of like what was happening. And so the nurse comes back in and she was like okay, so I don't want to scare you guys and I don't want to like speak too soon, but it's looking like baby girl's telling us she needs to come out today. And we were obviously not prepared. We thought we had five more weeks at least, you know, or maybe slightly less than that, if she had decided to come early, but didn't think it'd be this early. So we're looking at each other like, okay, you know, car seat is still in storage, like, or like logistically, like okay, what's happening? But also, you know we we kind of figured if things are are dire in any way, which if you're getting an emergency c-section, you're you're not going to go home that night. So we're like, okay, we'll figure out the logistics. And I think just immediately my initial thought was like, whatever you have to do, I don't care how early she's coming right now, just get her out. You know what I mean. Do what you have to do to save her. So they take us into this other room. Gave me a shot to try and open her lungs. Not sure how that works, but it was like a shot where they were going to give me like one and then the second half. 24 hours later they gave me that shot and I think maybe 25 minutes later they were like nope, we're going in right now because it just it continued to get worse. So, yeah, started prepping me for the C-section and everything. I will say.
Speaker 2:The C-section itself not to romanticize it, but like it went well. It really was not. It certainly was not how I envisioned giving birth. I really was careful throughout my whole pregnancy. You know, have a birth plan but not get too married to it, because I don't know what could happen and I hear things like this happening all the time. So I was very kind of go with the flow in that regard, but certainly could not have prepared for this, obviously. But yeah, I mean that that procedure in general went well.
Speaker 2:They, they got her out. She was breached and transverse, so her head was like up near my right boo, basically. So getting her, you know, turned around in that whole process was a whole thing. But they brought her out and I remember thinking something was probably really not right, because they had said to me like, yeah, if she's looking okay and we we can give you a second with her, we'll, we'll bring her above the curtain and you can, you can hold her, you can say hi to her or whatever.
Speaker 2:And they didn't do that. They took her straight to I couldn't even see what it was, I guess like an incubator of some sort, like in that room, and they were working on her and she was alive, but we didn't hear a cry for several minutes. We finally did. It was like the sweetest little cry I've ever heard in my life. So she was alive but she was not well at all.
Speaker 2:So they kind of gave us an update on that and they were like we're going to take her to the NICU and start working on her. Dad, if you want to come with us, because my husband was up at the top with me, so they were starting to stitch me up and everything and I was like, please go, I want at least one of us with her and I can't be. So please go, go with the baby. So they get me all all figured out into a recovery room. A little while later my husband comes in. He is like white as a ghost, not really saying anything, and I was like what's going on? And I had to recover in this room for like two hours. It was the most gray, miserable room, like it was.
Speaker 2:Probably one of the most traumatizing parts of this whole day was this, and this is when we found out kind of how bad things were. So she ended up needing well, three blood transfusions. So she got two at that hospital but they were just sort of the I'm going to say like the more my way of this is not official the normal blood transfusions, I would say. And then we're in California, we're Northern California, so, for those who may or may not be familiar, there is a really highly regarded children's hospital, thankfully not super far from us in Oakland, ucsf Benioff, and they were like we are going to be transferring her there tonight to get a third transfusion because she needs one with like plasma and other blood matter. Um, so I was like, okay, um, so she thinks that's funny.
Speaker 2:Yeah there's a lot. So basically, come to find out what sort of happened and what needed the transfusions and I actually don't even still, to this day, sort of understand how this percentage works out but 120 of her fetal blood leaked into my blood system and it's really surreal still because we literally we had some of like that. We're very fortunate in that we had some of the best doctors looking at her at all three of these NICUs that she was in. Not one of them. They sent the placenta out for testing when she was born. There was no trauma to the placenta, nothing that would have indicated as to what caused this when it happened, why it happened. It just happened when it happened. Why it happened, it just happened. So we still don't know what caused that. It was like just some freak thing and they were like this is pretty rare. We've kind of never seen this without some obvious again like trauma to the placenta that would have caused this. They think it was like kind of a slow leak in some way, but they have no idea when it started happening or anything like that. But essentially that she was highly, highly anemic when she came out, like she was stark white because she had basically no blood. So so, yeah, so that's what caused all the transfusions to be needed. And really, on top of that, the scariest part was the fact that she had lack of oxygen to her brain and various organs for an unknown amount of time. The scariest part was the fact that she had lack of oxygen to her brain and various organs for an unknown amount of time, really. So that was really the. You know, the first like week or two, of course was like making sure she was recovering, making sure that the transfusions took okay and all of that, but also just monitoring for any side effects, if you will, of this lack of oxygen. And even now we're having a ton of follow-ups just to make sure she's progressing well and that there's not, like, any obvious things that came from that lack of oxygen. And thank God I'm knocking on wood Every follow-up she's had so far has been really great. There's no concerns, she's doing amazing, it's miraculous.
Speaker 2:But she was in the NICU for 18 days. She was in like three or four different NICUs. They transferred her back and forth for various reasons that I won't even get into right now, but it was an interesting experience in general. And then you're you know, you're healing from a C-section on top of it. So I was just on the go faster than I anticipated too.
Speaker 2:So, like I gave birth to her Saturday and then was discharged the following night. Because they were like we know you want to get to your baby and that was, I think, probably the hardest part too, and that 24 hours, obviously not knowing if she was going to not only just be okay but really survive. Because they were like multiple nurses and doctors were like if you hadn't come in when you did, this would be a much sadder situation, and one of them was so blunt to be like if you had come in, even the next day she would have died. So I'm like, okay, that's a lot to process and kind of scary. It's not something I focus on now, but it's still very like wow, what if?
Speaker 1:You know, like this.
Speaker 2:This could have gone a very different way and we're just very, very grateful she's here. But you know, of course, in the moment it was just very touch and go for a while. But yeah, that's the I was going to say. That was I'm trying to make it a long story short, but it's so much.
Speaker 1:There's a little bit more we need to unpack still, but it's still a little bit more. We need to unpack still a lot more than I have questions. That's the gist of it, wow. So I believe I asked you this beforehand and I don't remember where, cause we've talked on multiple platforms in order to get to the point where we're here. Were you? You said RH positive, both of you. So, like you have a positive blood type, she has a positive blood type, right?
Speaker 2:it wasn't the mixture I'm not sure about that. Honestly, I can't remember. I think she might be o positive. I can't actually remember what.
Speaker 1:I think it might be like ab okay or something that those are educated guesses right now, right the positive, negative is what the concern the the first place that my brain goes because and then you would probably know if you were negative, because you would have gotten a Rho gam shot during your pregnancy at about 28 weeks. And that's what we do in case the fetal and maternal blood mix, in order to prevent the immune response that happens, because it's much more pronounced in extreme when it's the negative and positive immune response, because the negative is not used to seeing the positive and so it will try to attack those cells and then the response to that is what causes risk for mom and baby. But I've honestly never heard of, like your doctors were saying, aside from any kind of trauma, the fetal blood leaking into the maternal blood. And I'm like trying to wrap my head around what that even means, like how it's possible for that to have happened.
Speaker 1:I know I feel like everyone is trying to wrap their head around it. I don't think we're going to have answers from this podcast, so I'm not even going to try for that. I don't even think I'll get answers if I talk to somebody that knows, and I'm going to be bugging some of my maternal-final specialists about this and see if there's anything that we can find out about it, yeah, but I really can't even wrap my head around her losing that much of her blood supply. How that math and how like did she even have any blood in her body when she came out? Like, how do you lose 120%?
Speaker 2:I'm almost, I know and I'm like but she had to have. Yeah, she had to have right, Right you?
Speaker 1:need to have, but she had to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she had to have Right, right, like you need to have, you know, heart, heartbeat. There's got to be some Right. So but I'm almost wondering if it was like came out of her, but then the placenta too. I don't know. I mean, obviously I'm certainly not a doctor yeah, I'm not a nurse or a nurse on any of this, this but that 120 is what they gave us. And then we were like, how is that? How does that work? That's that way the moral of the story. She was highly lacking in blood, meant for the oxygen and was there like a term, like a medical term for it?
Speaker 1:did they give you like a diagnosis? Or it was just like we don't know what happened. There's all like we measured somehow and the blood came out and yeah, okay. Yeah, I don't understand that at all, but that's okay. That's the point is of the moral of this story is that you felt like something was wrong. It wasn't just a feeling. There were changes, changes in movement.
Speaker 1:The way that you describe it, I think, is very key and amazing. You said that there were kicks and rolling movements that didn't occur anymore, right? Also, having gotten to know your baby while you were pregnant with her, it didn't feel like she was okay and I think about those things is okay and I think about those things. And when you have a child that's outside of the womb, that has been born, parents also describe those feelings. They're not acting right. They're not, they don't look right, something doesn't seem right, even if the symptoms are vague, because babies can't necessarily communicate those symptoms. And I just want to really enforce how it's important to pay attention to those things. Your baby's not acting right, even if you're pregnant with that baby. If that baby's not acting right, it's important to sit down and figure out what that not acting right means. If you sit down and you're doing your kick counts which, when we say kick counts, those are movements and you see, if your baby's not moving the way that they used to and there is some degree of as your baby runs out of space, the movements will feel different. It's usually not one day to the next. It's usually not very abrupt. So if there's definitely an abrupt change in movement, what will happen is you'll call your doctor. You'll say you know what? Something doesn't feel right. They will put you on the monitor. We can tell from your baby's heart rate and the pattern of your baby's heart rate. If there's something concerning and while I recognize that it's not 100% accurate, we can put you on the monitor. For if we can get 20 minutes of what we call a reactive strip, if your baby's got nice squiggly lines in the heart rate and the heart rate goes up and down and up and down, enough, per our measurements, that we can see that your baby is what we call neurologically intact or that your baby's metabolic state is right now status quo, that usually tells us within this 24-hour period, everything is fine. You may need to do another one tomorrow if things don't feel right or if things get worse. So we can't guarantee. But if your baby looks textbook perfect right now in that 20-minute period, most of the time that means that things are okay.
Speaker 1:If there's other extenuating circumstances or if the baby's heart rate doesn't look right, then we'll do other tests, like the fetal monitoring. We'll do a BPP, which is like where we check the baby's movements, we check the fluid, we check certain parameters that aren't necessarily important right now, but we look at the big picture, including the heart rate, and decide if there's more that we need to consider. And sometimes you'll just stay at the hospital, we'll watch, or sometimes we'll move to delivery or sometimes we'll just say everything's great, you can go home, we'll follow up in this many days. So I just want to encourage parents to call your doctor. You don't need to call the hospital. You call your doctor or midwife if you are in midwifery care and they will decide whether you need to be seen.
Speaker 1:And because I want to be inclusive of midwifery care and low-risk birth, if you're planning a home birth or you're planning a birth center birth or a low-risk hospital birth, your midwife can decide if you're still within the low-risk category or if they want to decide to check you out to see if you can stay within the low risk category. So it doesn't necessarily mean that anything's going to change. We just want it up and that's perfectly okay. And I know that there's a lot of doubt surrounding the whole calling the doctor and feeling like you're being an alarmist. But it's very, very important to trust your instinct, to trust the evidence and to remember that if you would take your baby to the doctor, if they were outside of the womb, for the way that they're acting inside of the womb right now, then they probably it's necessary to take. It's very easy to find out if we need to proceed. It just is a matter of going in and checking you out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what was great about the nurse team that checked me. They were amazing. We got really lucky and they were like you know what, Especially when we first got in there and nothing super obvious seemed wrong. Yet they were like no, it better be safe than sorry. It's great you came in sorry, you know, they were just like. It's like why not get checked?
Speaker 1:out. You know what I?
Speaker 2:mean and you're not being an alarmist mom's no best. And it could have been so easy to listen to my husband in that moment and been like you know, because he's loved my husband dearly. All respect to the, the partners who are not caring, but you know it's sometimes easy for them to just be like, oh no, it's probably fine, don't worry. You know, depending on the person and right so I, we could have done that and you know I don't want to think about the, the alternative so well, there's value in not freaking out and also getting it checked out?
Speaker 1:yeah, does it mean you're like happy medium of both.
Speaker 2:That morning I was kind of just like this would just make me feel better. I'm not freaking out. Yeah, right, because I'm just like I. I felt like I heard, I felt like a little bit of movement, like ever so slightly. So I was just like, okay, I feel she's alive, like I think she's in there, but like I'm not, I'm not waiting another four or five weeks until she's supposed to be born to know for sure. Yeah, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's important and, like I said, really it's so easy to find out. It's so easy to put your baby on the monitor and decide does this baby look good right now? If the baby looks good right now yeah then sure cool, we're good and from the perspective of a labor and delivery nurse, it's not hard from our end and I never think not another decreased fetal movement. I think come in, let's make sure your baby's okay.
Speaker 1:It's not something that we're ever thinking, not another alarmist. There's definitely other things that might be more alarmist, but not that. That's the one thing where we're like, yeah, please, let's find out.
Speaker 2:Yeah we don't want to know later as a mom in that position. We really appreciate that, because I'm sure there are people in the health field that are just. You know, they don't always. I've heard of some moms that are just having more negative experiences with that or people that were not as empathetic or they you know they didn't treat them with that. Let's just make sure it's okay. You know what I mean. Like I just didn't have that compassion really for what the mom was feeling.
Speaker 2:So I was very I just felt very well supported that day so that yeah, and from a mom perspective that really means a lot when yeah, we get that.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about the c-section and like was it an emergency C-section? Was it? Did you, did they run you back to the OR real fast, or was it? Was it kind of like a calm but brisk stroll?
Speaker 2:How did that look for you? It was, yeah, good question, I guess it was. It was a, it was a brisk process. They were, I wouldn't say, running around but there was urgency to it?
Speaker 2:for sure we had. I mean, I remember, yeah, like I said, being in that room and then it was like my husband and I, just for a moment, they went out to kind of like do whatever the nurses were doing. They were all watching the monitors from a different room. And then I remember again, I think it was either whatever side I was on, even he and I saw on the monitor that her heart rate had dropped significantly within seconds. They were in there. They were like all right, this is going to go ahead and happen right now, because we're not waiting. So because the plan was either they were kind of like, well, depending on what baby girl tells us, you know it'll either be today or tomorrow because I think they were trying to see if that shot was going to help. You know what I mean. So that's, we were kind of like all right, it might be 24 hours from now, we'll see.
Speaker 2:But then, yeah, they all rushed in and they were like okay, we're going to go ahead and get OR set up for you. And they were pretty quick about it, but they weren't immediately like all right, get on the gurney right now, let's go, go, go. Or it was rapid but still calm-ish in a way. The anesthesiologist came in and talked to me about like what was all going to happen, the shot I was going to get, how I needed to sort of, what position I needed to be in to take that and all of all that good stuff. And then, and then they walk yeah, they walked me, walk me into the OR quickly, but not like, okay, you know, this is a serious, serious emergency. But yeah, I mean, I think what shocked me too, you know, I've never had an operation of any kind on in my life, so it really does look, not look like an operating room, which I know is so funny saying out loud like it's called an OR, but like I, you know you don't realize like, oh, this is like they're really cutting in there. And you know, I think it also shocked me how many people were in there, like I think I even like to kind of distract myself I was counting at one point and there was at least eight or 10 people and each had their own jobs and I don't know if they were recording. You could probably shed some light on this. I don't know if they were recording themselves saying all this at one point. But they were like saying who they they were and giving like a little update on something. I was like this is fascinating.
Speaker 2:And then they, yeah, sat me on the on the bed and I was still pretty calm at this point, I think, just because I was relieved that they were doing something about it. So, like you know what I mean, like for me, I was just like I don't care about myself, like just get her out. Okay, good, we're taking action. You know, that makes me happy, you know, a little chaotic but somewhat calm. They gave me the shot and that is such a trick to how it numbs you and they were like okay, you're going to need to lie on your back real quick, and it is crazy how fast that works. I'm like okay, here we go. They were like okay, good job, good job.
Speaker 2:I also didn't know how much it makes you shake my left arm was completely uncontrollable. I was like I cause and that was the beautiful thing about this anesthesiologist Like he was up my head with me, like, honestly, such an angel, like describing everything that was going on, which is so nice, you know, as, again, you have this curtain, you can't see what's going on down there. So to have someone sort of narrating but also being very calm themselves, he really helped keep myself and my husband, when he was finally let in, very calm, really appreciated that. And yeah, he was like, if you want to try and like stop the shaking a little bit, like put your tongue out, because for some reason that helps. And I was like whoa, this is such a trip.
Speaker 2:So I guess I was just like I don't know if I was just reacting to the shot and everything they gave us, but I was still like fairly calm through that I think. But again, I think my calmness was again number one. I don't tend to stress or freak out too easily just in general, but with how the whole team just communicated with us so well and really put my mind at ease to understand like what was happening and to make sure that if there was something happening, they were like this is normal, don't worry Almost kind of over explaining some things, but like I really appreciated it at the time because of course you know I was worried about her too. So you know there's just a lot going on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the thing at the beginning is it's called the timeout and that's. We've adapted that medical community or the surgical community has adapted that from the FAA. It's like a checklist that they go through when you get on a plane to make sure that all systems are go. It's like a checklist that they go through when you get on a plane to make sure that all systems are go. That's what we've started doing for surgeries, but also so that we can know what each other's role is and so that the patient can know. So, even though you can't see past the curtain, it's probably like someone across the room is like I'm Kelly, the labor and delivery nurse. You're in here somewhere. I don't know which one you are, but it's just so that we're all on the same page. That we don't like for a regular OR, so that we're not doing like a hip replacement for someone that needs a brain surgery or something like that.
Speaker 1:It's a little easier to know what we're doing when we're in the OR for a C-section, because it's pretty straightforward we're getting a baby out. That's our goal. We're not really doing much else. But when you add on things like if you wanted to have a sterilization surgery, making sure that we're all on the same page and have the equipment, for that is pretty important because if you think you're going to come out of this surgery and not be able to have babies anymore and then, oops, you get pregnant, you're going to be pretty pissed. So it's important to know what we're doing. You had mentioned the shot that you got the shot for her lung development, and then the idea was, hopefully, within the next 24 hours, have the C-section, but to be able to give her lungs the time that they needed. First thought on that process is her lungs weren't the problem. Second, first thought on that process is her lungs weren't the problem Second, so I don't think they knew that Correct Hindsight being 20-20.
Speaker 2:Probably wouldn't have mattered. Yeah, no, totally it did not. I think they made the comment to me we want to keep you pregnant as long as possible. And I was like I don't know what 24 hours is going to do, but trust you, yeah. So I think that the lungs thing was, I guess.
Speaker 1:I don't know the details of that decision, but well, it's standard so what it does is I don't remember if you remember from like high school or college, like chemistry, what surfactant is. It helps decrease the surface tension of liquid, so like if you see bugs walking on water, that's for the surface tension of liquid. So if you see bugs walking on water, that's for the surface tension of water. If you throw a rock into the water and you see the breaking of the tension of the top of the water from the force that's the surface tension, because the water molecules will do that. They'll do that in your lungs too, but the surfactant breaks it up.
Speaker 1:Soap does that too, so it'll break up grease. So it's essentially it breaks up the surface tension so that the alveoli of the lungs can open and stay open versus the fluid of lungs keeping them stuck together and closed from the surface tension. And babies don't secrete as much of that until they're full term. So the system that it helps work through is a steroid, usually called. It's either beta methadone or dexamethasone, I think there's maybe one other, I can't remember off the top of my head, but it'll cause that process to occur earlier and it takes about 24 hours for it to work.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I remember they were saying we'll give you this shot now another shot in 24 hours. And then after that we'll get her out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but if there's not any blood in the baby, they're not going to be. That's the main reason the baby can't oxygenate. It has nothing to do with the lungs, which is still blowing my mind that that could even be a possibility. So another thing that okay, so two things that are coming up for me right now is that part of the trauma that I see in the process of moving quickly with delivery is moving so quickly that we haven't figured out what's going on, like our brain can't keep up. It sounds like it was just quick enough that you were able to process and figure out. Okay, this is what's best for me and baby, I'm on board, let's do this. Okay, this is what's best for me and baby, I'm on board, let's do this. And also, they didn't elevate the stress level unnecessarily and we're able to explain things to you so that your brain could keep up with what was going on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean certainly there were some delays, for sure, I mean, I definitely was not, you know, I was. I was hanging on by a thread.
Speaker 2:let's say as far as like the, I had like just enough time to be like okay, I think I got all that. And you know too, they're giving you direction too. So with the anesthesiologist they're like okay, so when you get in there you're gonna need to arch your back a certain way. You gotta sit still. You know, like that type of direction, I'm like okay, let's see how much right there's a lot of talking yourself into like I can do this right now.
Speaker 2:Visualize, seriously visualizing, and I am a person that like to do my visualization exercises and all of that and that's like a big thing for me. So I think that was one of the things I personally did and, honestly, like I, you know, I thought I would give birth vaginally. So one of the things that I'd sort of done in my pregnancy is prep work, if you will, was like I was reading about hypnobirthing and really just the importance of breath work and that being calm in case anything. You know, not so much like preparing for something to go wrong, but just more just with pain management too. I mean, I it's interesting, I've never actually been in labor, so that's that was another thing I realized after this whole experience. I was like, wow, I've literally never experienced labor pains.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fascinating that's okay, you're not yeah, I was thinking that's what I'm hearing for that. So I kind of that I just use that same sort of ideology, so it's in a completely different way, you know, to try and keep myself calm and really just breathing through it as much as I can and sort of keeping my eye on the prize, so to speak, which was getting her out, getting her safe, getting her whatever care she needed, and that sort of, I guess, trumped anything that was, you know, happening to me in that moment. Of course I wanted to come out of it okay and alive and everything.
Speaker 1:But yeah like you know, sort of just do what you got to do Right Well, and I think also I noticed that people that haven't done mindset work that may or may not have prepared in different ways for their delivery, that tends to increase the inability for the brain to keep up and potentially lead to trauma, trauma. So I think it's just interesting that you were able to coach yourself through those moments and I think it's really great and I really want that for all moms because?
Speaker 2:not because I think something's going to go wrong, but the ability to pivot is important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:On multiple levels.
Speaker 1:And even if it goes right, you don't know. You've never done it before, you don't know how you or your body are going to react. And so to be able to have those skills to help coach yourself through it, just even taking the spinal or an epidural, for example, I have moms that aren't able to sit still because they tell themselves that they can't sit still.
Speaker 1:And so then it's like but here's like your option right now. You want pain control. You're telling yourself you can't cope with the pain, which is fine, you don't have to. And also, in order to achieve the pain control, what we're telling you is that you need to sit still in this position through maybe one or two contractions without having big movements in response to them, and for some people they think that's too much for them. And then, having a minimal amount of time and not knowing someone very well to try to convince them that they can do it is A not always optimal and B not always successful. And then I feel like I mean I don't get to see people afterwards because I don't do the follow-up appointments, but I feel like that leads to trauma. It also leads to an ineffective epidural and potential injury because you have a needle in your spine and you're not holding still.
Speaker 1:And so I just think that it's so important to have the ability to calm down your brain and listen to instructions and tell yourself that you can do something, because you can do hard things, and I really cannot stress enough how important it is to do the mindset work before you have a baby.
Speaker 1:I don't care how you plan to have a baby.
Speaker 1:Because even with a C-section which I don't think is a cop-out I don't think it's the easy route at all.
Speaker 1:So anybody that has that in their brain, take that out right away, because there's nothing easy about a C-section.
Speaker 1:There are moments where, like the moment that you feel that you're you, don't feel your body anymore, the moment you walk into the operating room that is actually an operating room, the moment that they say your spouse has to sit outside for a few minutes, the moment they take your baby, if your baby doesn't react the way that they want the baby to react immediately and you can't necessarily see the baby right away those little things that happen are something that your brain has the potential to react to and you need to be able to coach yourself through that. There are other people there that can help you, but if you don't believe what they're saying, it's not going to help. So I can't stress that enough. For moms and dads, I think, or partners anybody that's in that space with a person that is having a baby, it's so important to be able to move forward in a healthy manner, in an emotionally healthy manner, because there's so much unnecessary stress and trauma that happens during delivery.
Speaker 2:Definitely and I can see how moms could react to other people Like I think you touched on this earlier like had nursing team been frantic and chaotic and overly worried and all of this that could have affected me. My husband honestly like he does not like hospitals, he gets he was very worried about me. Obviously he was worried about her. He definitely has some anxiety, more than I do with going into a lot of detail, and I honestly, almost in that moment, was like worried about him too, which I know. I talked to so many people about this and they were like. They were like not that you shouldn't have been worried about your husband, but like you needed to focus on you and the baby. I'm like I know, but he's a part of this equation too and he did the best he could. He really was not freaking out, but I could you know it's like her energy yeah, you can tell that when the energy shifts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Energetics are huge, so you know that was a big part of it too. And that was my other thing was. It's funny, like I said earlier, I I didn't get married to any birth plan, but what's that saying where they're just like if want to make god laugh, tell him your plans. The only thing I had said out loud into myself was I just really hope her entrance into the world is a traumatic and like traumatic for who obviously, um, she was like yanked out of me because of how she was positioned, all the things it was.
Speaker 2:It was pretty dramatic for all of us, especially her and I. Just honestly, I that's what's one of the things I felt the worst about, but there's nobody I could blame for that.
Speaker 2:It was a freak accident, everything that happened. I was really cautious not to blame myself, even though I wanted to, because I was like that was my blood system, that her blood went into, and that's what's tough. I don't know if I did anything to cause that. Maybe I did bump something kind of hard, but not hard enough to make it really traumatic. But I'll never know that. So what does harping on that matter? But also, I have to be very honest If something had happened to her or if she didn't make it, I wouldn't be able to say that right now.
Speaker 2:Probably I mean the fact that she's here and healthy and doing as well as she is. I can look back and say that now, but if the circumstances had gone differently, I might be singing a different tune. So, just having grace with ourselves through the whole process, it's easier said than done, especially, I think, as the mom. But that's been a big thing for me in processing it all and just not harboring any guilt over it was something that I did or what I just I don't know. So how can I live in that headspace? So, yeah, like you said, the mindset work is really, really important yeah, well, and also focusing on what you did do is important.
Speaker 2:It's just as important absolutely a lot of people are very gracious and reminding me of, and I was like you're right, you're right, but you know's, it's just like the motivation that comes from within us to do the breath work, to despite everything going on around us, to be present and all of the things, like everybody around you can be as calm as a cucumber and all the things, but like if we didn't internally do that work. If we're not internal, no one can motivate us to be calm and centered, breathing more than we can. So but I, you know, as I always say, like the people that I'm speaking to in the grief work that I do, or if they're experiencing like grief triggers, I'm like you know, I I don't want that to sound like intimidating, I want that to sound empowering. We have so much power within us to not make our birth go however we want, but we have more control than we think we do.
Speaker 2:I think in some of these situations, at least with how we not to minimize all this but roll with the punches.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, make the choices that are right for you and your family, and do so in the least traumatic way possible.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or avoid unnecessary trauma, I think is a big key.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just wanted to look back and be like you know what I did, everything I could that I needed to do in the moment, with an experience that I had never been through before in my life. And if I can look back and say I did everything I could, then I'll be okay at the end of the day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the tricky thing about birth is you can't really go through it until you go through it. Even if you practice going through the motions, you can't see. You've never had the experience of meeting that tiny human that you created and how that occurs, and you're going to have feelings about it. There's nothing you can do to avoid the fact that you're going to have feelings about it, but you can also emotionally prepare to handle everything that comes up when you go through that process. Definitely, and it was like.
Speaker 2:for me it was the birth process, of course, but then because she was transferred, you know, within hours of being born, I was able to see her a couple times but it was very scary. It was in the NICU. I couldn't get super close to her. She was covered in wires and tubes and everything. I mean she looked not alive sitting in that incubate. It was very, very scary, and so that was highly emotional.
Speaker 2:I didn't get to hold her for like at least a couple of days between me healing and getting being able to get out of the hospital. She was in a different hospital, at least 40 to 50 minutes away from me, and there's that whole sort of other subset of the experience and the emotions that came with it. And my husband drove to the hospital that she was transferred to that night and he had his parents, his sister, his brother, brother, like they all, thank god, were there to meet him and I wanted that to happen, because his dad has a little bit of anxiety. I think he needed his family around him. My parents are dead. I don't have family around here. So I was like sitting in the hospital bed, then I, she, was born while they were all with her as she was getting this other transfusion just by myself and I I was like how is this my life right now?
Speaker 2:It was just a very profound come to Jesus moment. But I do feel like it kind of made me stronger in some ways in that moment. But that process was hard. I wish I had my mom and dad there for me, like it's just a testament you always need your parents, like I don't care how old you are. So that was difficult. Even though he came back to the hospital I was at later that night once we knew the transfusion went well, so he was with me, but that was sort of a trip.
Speaker 2:And then just yeah, not being able to hold her, I kind of I had this whole other sort of fear that I wouldn't feel as connected to her.
Speaker 2:And you know I just I hated it was hard that that experience of being able to like have your baby and immediately hold them and immediately bond with them and get that skin to skin time that I felt I was robbed of that, you know. And so there's a little bit of grief that came along with that process. And when I did get to hold her she was a very sick little baby and hooked up to all these wires and things and I'm just like this is not what I expect. This is like not how I hoped this would go. So I think it doesn't end at the end of your pregnancy. It doesn't end right as you give birth, like especially if there is a more traumatic birth experience that happens. Or I never in a million years thought my baby would have had to be transferred away from me the day she was born and I wouldn't have been able to hold her and all of those things.
Speaker 1:So that's a whole nother set of circumstances and emotions and things that I had to deal with and yeah, that is a grief process, and part of my goal of helping kind of lift the veil on this whole birth experience is helping moms through advocating for preventing some of these things being robbed of them. If it's not necessary In your case, it was absolutely necessary, and there's nothing that we can do other than accept the fact that you are going to grieve the loss of that experience, which, again, it sounds like you have the tools in your toolbox to be able to do that and also people that may not have those tools. That's going to be even harder, even if it's as simple as hospital policy that is still a little outdated, where they don't necessarily put the baby on your chest immediately. There are parents that are grieving that, and I want to validate that first of all, and also continue to advocate for doing the work that you need to do in order to emotionally prepare for anything that comes up like that, because I think that the way that you've been able to process this is so healthy, in spite of everything that you have been through, and I'm so grateful for that for you, but that wasn't something that you just lucked into.
Speaker 1:You did a, and I'm so grateful for that for you, but that wasn't something that you just lucked into.
Speaker 1:You did a lot of work to prepare for that, and so that means that when all this happened, you were able to focus on what was important, and that was making sure that you and your baby were physically healthy, because you had the tools to worry about the other parts, the emotional parts, and you knew the steps you're going to be taking. Not that it was magically fine, but you knew that you're going to be taking steps in the future to work through that grief. You're going to accept that grief and you're going to allow yourself to process and heal from it and know what that process looks like, without judgment and without denial of the necessary steps, and I think that is so valuable. So I'm out here saying do your emotional work, do your mindset work and reach out if you need help with that. And you know, having someone that's like you, that's a grief coach, is super important as well, because grief doesn't just come up for the more common experience. You think grief. You think death, yes right, exactly.
Speaker 1:You can grieve experiences. You can grieve the fact that you didn't get to hold your baby. That's grief, that's heavy. Even if your baby ends up quote unquote fine, there's still grief in having to see your baby go through a lot of these things. I can't even imagine I've seen babies have blood transfusions. I have never seen my baby have a blood transfusion. That is so different. It's very different. So the tools that you need to be able to get through that process are so valuable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, and maybe I had. I have no better way to say this right now, so I'll just bear with me but maybe I had a little bit of a leg up. I guess in a way because I am a grief coach, because I already have these tools in the way that I've had to grieve other things in my life. But that is one of the reasons that.
Speaker 2:yeah, like you said, like having a coach whether it's a grief coach or a life coach, or just be your own coach right, because it's funny coach or a life coach, or just you're you'd be your own coach right, because and it's it's funny I always tell, like some of my clients, I'm just like and they joke, they're like, oh, I always have your head, your, your voice, in the back of my head, tara, I'm just like sure, but like in the moment that you're having a grief trigger or something that comes up for you or you know, whatever it is, I'm not going to be physically there, we're not going to be on the phone and I can't necessarily talk you through that.
Speaker 2:I can equip you, but we are our own sort of coaches in a way at the end of the day. But again, I always want that to feel like empowering, but it's so hard because I say this too you know, the same brain that's trying to process grief and trying to process this traumatic experience as it's happening and then afterward, is the same brain that has to like, get us through it and coach ourselves through it hard like I just want to validate that too, because that that was definitely me in that moment.
Speaker 2:I was like, oh my god, I freaking coach people on this, but like it's physically happening to me right now. So, okay, let me do what I can, let me put my various practices into into here, but it's all easier said than done. But yeah, as much prep work I feel like as we can. You know, like I said, I did prep myself with some breath work and things like as if I were to give I don't know how you kind of properly were this I keep saying like vaginal delivery.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I said what I say.
Speaker 2:In the more classic way that most people anticipate giving birth right, not through a rushed C-section. But I was just like, okay, let me apply what I thought I was prepping for to what I'm prepping for now, and I'm flying into this totally blind. But it was definitely, I think, a mixture of the team the doctors, the nurses and everything being as wonderful as they were and calm and working with a sense of urgency which actually didn't scare me. I appreciated it because to me that they took it seriously.
Speaker 2:That's just my experience, you know other moms might talk about that, but I appreciated that. I think it was a good mixture of that, but then also the work I tried to do for myself like leading up for it kind of kicking in. So between the two I feel like it went as well as it could have gone, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, it's better than your brain either shutting down or you dissociating, or you having big emotional outbursts and not being able to think logically in the space.
Speaker 2:Which is easy to do. It is so easy to do, it's really easy to melt down.
Speaker 1:That's not hard. So something that I ask all parents that I interview is if you could go back and talk to yourself before this process. If you had the opportunity to give yourself a message, what would you want to go back and tell yourself?
Speaker 2:Oh, my God, that is such a good question, man. I hadn't thought about that. I guess I would just say to myself this process, this birth, the weeks after, are not going to look like you think it's going to at all, you. It's tough because a lot of people will try and compare experiences. I have had a lot of people that have been like, oh, my cousin's, sister's baby was in the NICU and they turned out great. And I cannot tell you how many stories like that that I've gotten of people trying to make me feel better when that wasn't what I needed at the time, especially during it, because my experience and her experience and everything is unique to us. No, I'm not unique in that my baby was in the NICU, but the circumstances specifically around her all I wanted it to be was just acknowledged and not compared. So I think almost just kind of warning myself a little bit, as a message I was going to give, like not only is this experience not going to look like you think it will, but the expectations that you might have of how other people talk to you about it and view it and everything is going to be difficult.
Speaker 2:But I know it feels hard right now. I know it feels like she might not be okay right now, but she's going to be and there is going to be an other side of this. I know it doesn't feel like you're going to be out of the NICU anytime soon right now, but she will eventually come out. It's coming sooner than you think. Trust the process, trust her and her body that it's doing what it needs to do. Just be present with it and just show up for her. That's all you can do. Just give her love and kisses and cuddles and all of the things that only parents can give you know, love and kisses and cuddles and all of the things that only parents can give. You know, and she's going to be okay, even though I know it doesn't feel like it right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's really important, was there anything else that we didn't talk about that you wanted to say? I don't think so. I think we hit on a lot of great things today. I think, yeah, I just you know if there's any nurses or doctors or anybody here like listening I think just maybe some of the things we talked about as far as like how not you know, not that my nursing team was absolutely perfect, but I think there's definitely a lot to be said about just a very compassionate, understanding patient team, especially with new moms, like who've never been through it before.
Speaker 2:Like there were some nurses along the way in in various NICUs that she was in. That they're very nice and they were supportive, but they definitely, I think, forgot that we were first-time parents, so some of the bedside manner was a little iffy or they were. It was very like yep, it's this way or that way or whatever. They just kind of were very like blase about things sometimes and we were like this is the biggest situation we've ever been in our lives. So, just being aware, I guess, of that and I know you see this every day, but we don't see this every day.
Speaker 2:So just having understanding about that, I guess, or just keeping it in the back of their heads and then just for anybody else listening that maybe is more of a bystander, like a friend or a family member or whoever somebody that might go through this, just making sure they feel seen and validated and that it's hard and, like I was saying earlier, sometimes it's helpful for people to hear about other situations where it's like, oh well, this baby was even weeks earlier than yours and they're fine.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I don't need the same toxic positivity.
Speaker 2:I just need to be like. I see you and what you are going through. I have no doubt she's going to come out of this absolutely fine. How can I help you? How can I support you? Can I bring you some food?
Speaker 1:Food is always a good alternative.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, unsolicited comparison stories, getting by, it was so moment by moment, day by day, so just having a ton of patience with the parents that are going through it, knowing we might not get back to you very quickly. We're just getting by by the skin of our teeth and so is our baby, and that's very emotional and it's things change so quickly on a dime and everything. And just giving people grace, both from the hospital perspective nurses, doctors, whatever and then just people in our lives that want to be supportive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, tara, thank you so much and I'm so happy to see you with a healthy, beautiful baby who joined us for this podcast.
Speaker 2:Yes, I was like she's passed out now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, even when she was like making noises, I was like she still looks asleep. She's stirring, but she's doing okay. I love the baby noises. They're really cute. When you said that adorable cry I was like, yep, I heard it. It is Objectively cute yeah.
Speaker 2:Thank you for letting her sit in.
